The President's Daily Brief - PDB Afternoon Bulletin | February 14th, 2024: House Impeaches Mayorkas & Abbas Calls On Hamas To Make A Deal

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:     Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives successfully voted Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the border crisis. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has called on Hamas to quickly agree to a prisoner deal with Israel, saying he hopes this will spare Palestinian lives from the ongoing war. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin.     Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is sponsored by Blackout Coffee. Get your mornings off to a great start. Pour yourself a fresh cup of American-made Blackout Coffee, and then pour yourself a second cup, and if you're like me, maybe a third. Family-owned, premium coffee, fresh-roasted, and shipped out within 48 hours of roasting. Go to blackout coffee.com, promo code PDB for 20% off your first purchase. It's Wednesday, 14 February. Welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin.

I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. First, House Republicans voted Tuesday evening to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorcas in a historic and, of course, contentious move. Also, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has called on Iran proxy Hamas to quickly agree to a prisoner deal with Israel, saying he hopes this will spare Palestinian lives from the ongoing war. But first, our afternoon spotlight.

We begin in the U.S., specifically Washington, D.C., where Republicans in the House of Representatives successfully voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorcas over his handling of the border crisis. Now, this was the second attempt by the Republican-controlled House to secure an impeachment vote after they suffered an embarrassing defeat on the controversial matter last week. The largely party-line vote on Tuesday evening makes Majorcas the first sitting cabinet official in U.S. history to be impeached. Republican leaders have accused Majorcas of willfully refusing to enforce U.S. immigration laws, which has facilitated the record levels of illegal immigration, now occurring at the U.S. border under the Biden administration. Democrats, on the other hand, have framed the impeachment

attempts as illegitimate political theater, and, frankly, after Democrats spent the United States a few years banging on about the Russia collusion theory, they clearly know a thing or two about political theater. It was a slim 214 to 213 victory for Republicans, and I think slim, as a fair way to describe a one-vote victory, with the key vote in favor coming from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Scalise had been absent from the chamber during last Tuesday's failed impeachment vote, as he was undergoing cancer treatment that left him unable to attend the proceedings. Republicans had vowed to hold another vote when he returned, leading many to wonder why House Speaker Mike Johnson simply didn't wait for Scalise's return in the first place. Well, there's a thought.

Last week's vote unexpectedly failed with 214 votes in favor and 216 opposing. It was set to result in a tie, which would have permanently ended the effort, but Republican Representative Blake Moore switched his vote at the last minute in a calculated procedural move to enable how to House Republicans to bring the impeachment resolution back to the floor. If you're following that, it's archaic House regulations. Following Tuesday's successful effort, Speaker Johnson issued a scathing statement, saying, quote, from his first day in office, Secretary of Mallorca says willfully and consistently refused to comply with federal immigration laws, fueling the worst border catastrophe in American history. He's undermined public trust through multiple false statements to Congress, obstructed lawful

oversight of the Department of Homeland Security and violated his oath of office. Alhandro Mojorkas deserves to be impeached, Johnson said, and Congress has a constitutional obligation to do so. While the Biden White House, meanwhile, as you might imagine, was unimpressed with Republican justifications for the impeachment resolution, President Biden issued a statement saying, quote, history will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that is targeted an honorable public servant in order to play petty political games. End quote.

Honestly, not to sound cynical, but I don't think history is going to care. Majorcas's Department of Homeland Security also issued a statement chastising House Republicans and demanding they, quote, stop wasting time on this pointless unconstitutional impeachment, time that could be spent addressing the issue by advancing bipartisan legislation to fix our broken immigration laws." Oh, now they're worried about that. For all the charged rhetoric being traded, the impeachment still amounts to a largely

symbolic gesture. Leaders of the Democrat-controlled Senate had previously vowed to quickly reject the effort if it came to their chamber. They are not expected to hold a vote to remove Majorcas from office, which would require a two-third Senate majority. It's also largely a symbolic gesture

because Majorcas, as a cabinet secretary, has just been doing what the White House has asked him to do, meaning basically preside over a porous border for the past three years. The administration is only now acting as if they care about the problem they've created because it's an election year, and polls show that the illegal migrant situation is a top issue for voters. Still, the vote will go down in history, again whether history cares or not. The last cabinet member to be impeached was William Belknap, President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of War. However, he resigned prior to the House of voting to approve his impeachment in

1876. He was later acquitted by the Senate. And to prove my point, raise your hand now, if you remember William Belknap. All right, coming up after the break, we'll discuss a recent statement from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas calling on Hamas to quickly agree to a ceasefire deal with Israel. I'll be right back. Welcome back to the afternoon bulletin. As Israel appears to prepare for a ground invasion of the city of Rafa in southern Gaza, pressure is mounting from all sides for a ceasefire that would spare the region from further death and destruction. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is the latest to lend his voice to the discussions,

calling on leaders of the Iranian proxy group Hamas as chief rivals to promptly reach an agreement with Israel for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange. He said it's his hope that such an action could save the population of Gaza from further operations by the Israeli military, according to a report in the Times of Israel. Israel has indicated that they plan to conduct a ground operation in Rafah to root out Hamas fighters, calling the city Hamas's last stronghold. It's estimated that roughly 1.2 million Palestinians have taken refuge in the city. Abbas said, quote, we call on the Hamas movement to quickly complete a prisoner deal to spare our Palestinian people from the calamity of another catastrophic event

with dire consequences, no less dangerous than the Nakaba of 1948, end quote. Abbas was referring to the war that followed the creation of the state of Israel and its impact on the Palestinian population. An anonymous official with Hamas told France's AFP paper that a delegation is currently headed to Cairo to meet with Egyptian and Qatari mediators following meetings that the two countries held with Israeli negotiators on Tuesday. In his statement, Abbas also called on, quote, the U.S. administration and Arab brothers to work diligently to complete a prisoner deal as quickly as possible in order to spare the Palestinian people the scourge of this devastating war. Abbas's Palestinian Authority has not participated in ceasefire negotiations

in Egypt, which aimed to strike a deal that would see the release of all the remaining Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza by Hamas. Now, while the Palestinian Authority under Abbas is unpopular with the broader Palestinian population, the Biden administration has pushed for the creation of a Palestinian state under Abbas's leadership when the current war comes to an end. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said that Abbas has pledged to reform the Palestinian Authority so that it can, quote, effectively take responsibility for Gaza so that Gaza and the West Bank can be reunited under a Palestinian leadership, end quote. And that, my friends, is a the PDB afternoon bulletin for Wednesday, 14 February. If you have any questions or comments,

please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. I'm Mike Baker. I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.