The Senate on Tuesday passed a bill to codify the right to same-sex and interracial marriage, with 12 Republicans joining Democrats to send the legislation to the House.
Why it matters: The Senate, with its 60-vote threshold, was the main obstacle to the bill’s passage, but it passed with a 61-36 vote. The House is expected to easily pass it before sending it to President Biden’s desk.
A jury on Tuesday found Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right militia group Oath Keepers, guilty of seditious conspiracy for his actions in the lead-up to and day of the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, AP reports.
Why it matters: Rhodes, a prominent figure within far-right American politics, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison from the conviction, though the jury also found him guilty on other charges.
The South Carolina Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling ordering former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify before a Georgia grand jury investigating efforts to overturn 2020 election results.
Why it matters: Meadows, a close ally to former President Trump, could be a key witness in the investigation. He and other Trump allies sought to avoid testifying after the grand jury issued subpoenas.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday appeared to criticize former President Donald Trump's recent dinner with a white nationalist, saying that anyone who meets with antisemites or white supremacists is "highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States."
Driving the news: "There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy," McConnell said during his weekly news conference on Capitol Hill.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) gave starkly contrasting responses Tuesday to former President Trump's dinner with antisemitic rapper Ye and white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
Driving the news: Although they both denounced him, McCarthy falsely claimed Trump condemned Fuentes, who often promotes racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories, after they met at Mar-a-Lago.
Federal election regulators are scaling back a major digital ad transparency measure after an effort to speed it through the regulatory process drew intense internal and external pushback, records show.
Why it matters: A little-noticed, two-word change to a proposed Federal Election Commission regulation could exempt wide swaths of digital ads from new rules designed to step up disclosure in a fast-growing segment of political advertising.
An employee who survived a shooting last week that left six dead and four people injured at a Walmart store in Chesapeake, Virginia, filed a $50 million lawsuit against the company on Tuesday.
The big picture: The plaintiff, Donya Prioleau, alleges that the company continued to employ the suspected gunman even though he "had known propensities for violence, threats and strange behavior" toward other employees.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams directed city officials Tuesday to begin hospitalizing more mentally ill people from the city's streets.
Why it matters: The move will include hospitalizing people from the subways and streets even if they aren't posing a risk to others, with the hope of finding hospitalized patients ongoing care before discharging them.
The Supreme Court in a letter Monday defended Justice Samuel Alito regarding the alleged leak of a 2014 Supreme Court ruling in a landmark religious liberty case.
The big picture: Rev. Rob Schenck, a former anti-abortion leader, previously told the New York Times that he learned of court's 2014 decision on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby weeks in advance, prompting a review from the Senate Judiciary Committee.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) warned that Democrats could "end up picking" the next House speaker if his GOP colleagues fail to coalesce around him.
Why it matters: Time is ticking before the Jan. 3 House speaker vote — and McCarthy is at risk offalling short of the218 votes necessary to secure the post amid a far-right revolt.
David McCormick — former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, and U.S. Senate candidate in Pennsylvania — plans a return to the national conversation in March with a governing agenda, "Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America."
Why it matters: McCormick, 57, is weighing a host of options, from top corporate roles to a possible run in Pennsylvania in '24 to a possible Cabinet seat in a future Republican administration.
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) offered this closing argument against his Republican rival in a news conference Monday as both sides begin a final week of campaigning ahead of the Dec. 6 runoff: "If you think you're tired now, imagine having Herschel Walker represent you for six years."
Why it matters: As he works to target Republican crossover voters and GOP-leaning independents, Warnock is highlighting not just Walker's personal and campaign trail controversies, but also moments that portray his opponent as nonsensical, superficial or unqualified.
What they're saying: "I know that there are partisan differences, and they are real, but when you consider my opponent, this is not about Democrat and Republican," Warnock said Monday. "This is about right and wrong. And Herschel Walker is wrong for Georgia."
Sarafina Chitika, a spokesperson for the Warnock campaign, said the runoff "is about these two people on the ballot and who's fit to represent Georgia."
This strategy is "drastically different" from his last runoff, said 2021 runoffs senior advisor Jeremy Halbert-Harris. Warnock hardly mentioned his opponent then. Now, “It's an ‘in his own words’ series,” he told Axios.
By the numbers: Warnock recently reported three times the campaign cash on hand as Walker to get his message across, at nearly $30 million to Walker's nearly $10 million.
The other side: Walker and Republicans have continued to try to make the race about Warnock’s ties to President Biden, whose favorability sits at 40% in Georgia.
Walker's campaign also is trying to elevate critical stories by the conservative news outlet Free Beacon about attempted evictions at a public housing complex that is mostly owned by Ebenezer Baptist Church, the church where Warnock is pastor.
What's next: Axios Atlanta will report on Walker's closing message this week.
As Biden weighs a final decision on whether to run for a second term, White House officials are showing how the powers of the presidency can be harnessed for a re-election campaign.
Driving the news: The emerging strategy is on full display this week. Biden is traveling to Michigan to talk domestic manufacturing and semiconductors, addressing tribal nations at the Interior Department, and hosting a glitzy state dinner for French President Emmanuel Macron.
Former Vice President Mike Pence's recent support for fertility treatments like IVF as well as a national abortion ban surfaced what could become a dilemma for 2024 Republican hopefuls staking out reproductive health platforms.
The big picture: Republicans have largely insisted that fertility treatments aren't at risk from the proliferation of new state abortion restrictions. But anti-abortion groups remain deeply concerned with the use of embryos in IVF and back tighter regulations on providers.
Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) died Monday from complications due to colorectal cancer, his office said. He was 61.
Driving the news: McEachin's chief of staff Tara Rountree said in a statement,"Valiantly, for years now, we have watched him fight and triumph over the secondary effects of his colorectal cancer from 2013. Tonight, he lost that battle."
Senators on Monday reached an agreement to speed up passage of legislation to codify the right to gay and interracial marriage, setting up a final vote on Tuesday.
Why it matters: The vote on the Respect for Marriage Act is the result of months of bipartisan negotiation and puts the landmark bill one step closer to being signed into law.
Some Republican senators on Monday criticized former President Trump's dinner with antisemitic rapper Ye and white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
Driving the news: As senators returned to the Capitol on Monday evening, some Trump-critical Republicans offered condemnations of the dinner, while even some allies pushed back by questioning the former president's judgment – and that of his staffers.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said former President Trump demonstrated "profoundly poor judgment" in having dinner with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye but maintained that he is not an antisemite in a Monday appearance on NewsNation's "On Balance with Leland Vittert."
Why it matters: Fuentes has been labeled a "white supremacist" by the Justice Department and frequently promotes racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories, but Axios' Jonathan Swan reports that Trump "seemed very taken" and impressed with Fuentes at the dinner, which occurred one week after he declared his 2024 candidacy.
With just 36 days until the House majority changes hands, the 117th Congress still has a sprawling laundry list of legislative priorities to get done before the new year.
State of play: The December agenda includes landmark legislation to codify the rights to gay and interracial marriage and to reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887. Both are awaiting Senate passage and are likely to be green-lit by the Democrat-controlled House — with potentially limited GOP support.
A stream of Republicans has now forcefully condemned Donald Trump's dinner with antisemitic rapper Ye and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, twisting the knife at the most perilous moment in the former president's political career since Jan. 6.
Why it matters: The guardrails that Trump ditched in the final days of his presidency — when conspiracy theorists descended on the Oval Office to feed him lies about the 2020 election — haven't returned.
