Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) said she did not "take the easy vote" when she broke with the majority of her party on Wednesday and voted "present" on two articles of impeachment against President Trump. She felt her vote "was in the best interest of our country," the congresswoman told NBC.
The big picture: Gabbard is the only 2020 presidential candidate who had a chance to vote on impeachment, and she has criticized the process as partisan, the New York Times reports. She favors a measure to censure Trump rather than impeaching him.
The billionaire couple who hosted a December fundraising event for South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg in a California wine cave expressed their frustration with how they are being depicted, saying they are just political "pawns," The New York Times reports.
Why it matters: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday used the fundraising event to slam Buttigieg for taking campaign contributions from wealthy donors. Warren claimed politicians shouldn't be corrupted by money at the latest Democratic debate. Several 2020 hopefuls have shunned donations from wealthy individuals, PACs and lobbyists.
The RNC goes into the presidential election year with more than seven times as much cash on hand as the DNC — $63 million vs. $8.3 million, according to the parties' FEC filings.
Why it matters: Far from putting Republicans back on their heels, impeachment is energizing Trump's base just as the 2020 march to Election Day kicks off.
Jeff Flake urged his former GOP colleagues to "put country over party," as the chamber prepares for President Trump's impeachment trial, the ex-Arizona senator wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.
What he's saying: Flake writes that some Republicans may conclude that Trump's action warrant removal from office, while others will believe the president's misdeeds don't rise to the level of impeachment. "But what is indefensible is echoing House Republicans who say that the president has not done anything wrong. He has."
2019 started as the year of The Squad, and is ending as the year of the speaker.
The big picture: House Speaker Pelosi ushered in 2019 with a new Democratic majority that is the most diverse in the history of Congress, Axios' Alayna Treene notes.
"For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable. Christianity Today failed to acknowledge that not one single Republican voted with the Democrats to impeach the President. I know a number of Republicans in Congress, and many of them are strong Christians. If the President were guilty of what the Democrats claimed, these Republicans would have joined with the Democrats to impeach him. But the Democrats were not even unanimous—two voted against impeachment and one voted present."
The White House accepted Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Friday invitation to deliver the State of the Union address to Congress on Feb. 4.
Why it matters: President Trump will be speaking before the jurors of his Senate trial — as well as multiple potential 2020 general election opponents — in the chamber where he was impeached earlier this week.
President Trump has responded to an influential evangelical magazine's call for his removal from office with a tweet claiming "No President has done more for the Evangelical community."
Why it matters: Christianity Today is an influential mainstream founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham. Trump has had strong support from evangelical Christians, and Graham's son Franklin previously has stood by the the president, saying Trump "defends the faith."
With the debate stage narrowed to less than ten candidates for the first time, tensions flared as the top Democrats went toe-to-toe 46 days from the Iowa caucuses.
The big picture: Following the House's historic vote Wednesday night, the debate predictably opened with a question about impeaching President Trump — a moment that was quickly overshadowed as the candidates moved on to campaign finance, electability and experience, health care and more.
