A Standoff on the House Floor Typifies Trump’s Grip on Congress
Plus: A visit to John McCain’s grave.
Business in the House of Representatives has come to a chaotic halt on multiple occasions during the 118th Congress. The sabotage of procedural votes has forced the House to shutter for days a handful of times. Most notoriously, the entire chamber stopped working for three straight weeks when hardliners ousted Kevin McCarthy and couldn’t figure out who should be offered up as the next Republican leader hecatomb.
House business stopped once again for just under an hour on Wednesday afternoon. The reason this time was a standoff over a procedural matter, one that exemplifies the Republican majority’s continuing thrall to Donald Trump.
It started when Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) wandered a bit off topic during a floor debate on the cryptocurrency legislation. McGovern brought up the growing number of Republican lawmakers who have been traveling to New York to bloviate about their perceived unfairness of Trump’s trial there, to circumvent the former president’s gag order by attacking witnesses testifying against him, and to even occasionally miss votes—that is, neglect their actual jobs—in the process.
McGovern noted the GOP absences from regular business, saying they appear to have “no time to work with Democrats but plenty of time to put on weird matching cult1 uniforms and stand behind President Trump with their bright red ties like pathetic props,” adding:
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