Congress’s Most Dysfunctional Committee Gets (Mostly) Serious

Harris is sitting on a mountain of cash.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

On Monday, an unusual thing happened in the 118th Congress: Top Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight Committee came together to aggressively question Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle about the security failures that made it possible for an assassin to fire multiple bullets at Donald Trump. Those shots, which came during a rally on July 13, grazed the former president while killing one person in the audience and injuring two others. 

Soon after the hearing, Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) published a letter demanding Cheatle’s resignation. They wrote:

Today, you failed to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures. In the middle of a presidential election, the Committee and the American people demand serious institutional accountability and transparency that you are not providing. We call on you to resign as Director as a first step to allowing new leadership to swiftly address this crisis and rebuild the trust of a truly concerned Congress and the American people.

Cheatle resigned this morning.

The unexpected spirit of collaboration hasn’t dissipated yet. Congress will vote this week to establish a bipartisan task force consisting of six Democrats and seven Republicans to investigate the assassination attempt. Members will be announced later this week.

Despite being conducted by the Oversight Committee, which has a reputation for chaotic grandstanding, the hearing remained mostly serious. It wasn’t without its moments, though, because this is still the 118th Congress.

During the time she was allotted, a torqued-up Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) shouted “you’re full of shit today” at Cheatle. Mace’s various social media accounts parlayed the scripted moment into numerous clips, including one where the South Carolinian compared herself to Joe Pesci’s character in My Cousin Vinny. Mace has posted about Cheatle dozens of times on her campaign and official House social accounts.

After the hearing concluded, Mace announced she had filed a privileged resolution to impeach Cheatle, irrespective of the bipartisan calls on the Secret Service chief to resign, or the fact that Cheatle did not appear to commit an impeachable offense. But Mace seemed intent on going her own way. And Cheatle resigned anyways.

Texas Rep. Pat Fallon’s questioning of Cheatle yielded a particularly telling moment when it comes to his advocacy of gun rights. Fallon, a Republican who has received top marks from the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America, may have disclosed more than he meant to when he discussed his fact-finding activities this past weekend:

I have never had any long-gun training in my life. I own an AR-15, and the last time I shot it—I shot it one time my whole life—was six years ago. That is, until Saturday, where we recreated the events in Savoy, Texas. We recreated what happened in Butler. I was lying prone on a slope roof at 130 yards at 6:30 at night. And I knew he had a scope but I didn’t know what kind—red dot or magnified—so I shot eight rounds from both. You know what the result was? Fifteen out of sixteen kill shots! And the one that I missed would’ve hit the president’s ear. That’s a 94 percent success rate.

To summarize, Fallon admitted that he:

1. has “never had any long-gun training”;

2. owns an AR-15;

3. has only shot it once; and

4. re-enacted the Trump assassination attempt as the shooter and made repeated kill shots with near-perfect accuracy.

Fallon meant to highlight the poor planning by the Secret Service and emphasize just how little prevented the shooter from hitting his intended target. It was a sentiment the entire committee shared. But it also revealed just how easy it is for an untrained, inexperienced person to kill with the kind of gun used in the assassination attempt. Fallon didn’t mention that in 2022, he voted against the Protecting Our Kids Act, which would have introduced new restrictions on the sale and storage of just this sort of weapon. However, even these sorts of restrictions would not have stopped the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, who got permission to borrow the rifle from his father and purchased the ammunition on his own.

Despite Mace’s overcooked belligerence and other distracting moments characteristic of Oversight, the assassination attempt is being treated with the seriousness an investigation like this deserves. Prior to the hearing, some lawmakers and staff were quite concerned that it could play out the way so many engineered spectacles have under the current House majority. That this hearing and investigation have so far broken the pattern of unseriousness should come as a relief, even if elsewhere in the House, Republicans are still pulling funding bills and workshopping political messaging resolutions.

Take the money and run

Vice President Kamala Harris locked up the Democratic nomination for president in a matter of hours, thanks to the cascade of endorsements she immediately received from party elites, state parties, governors, and influential caucuses. Harris had the added bonus of not receiving a credible challenger from either the left or the right (Joe Manchin’s afternoon-long flirtation with running notwithstanding). By Monday evening, Harris had the backing of more than enough delegates to cruise to the nomination, whether it’s decided virtually in a couple weeks or at the Democratic convention at the end of August. 

For the record, the Associated Press is not declaring Harris the “presumptive” nominee yet because while her delegates are very publicly committed to her, they are still free to make their own decisions when the roll call happens. But you can pretty much treat her as presumptive if you want: As of around noon today, the Associated Press said Harris has 2,887 delegates, exceeding the 1,976 needed to clinch the nomination. Just 47 remained undecided. 

Harris is also currently swimming in Scrooge-McDuck levels of campaign cash. According to the most recent announcement, she has raised more than $100 million since Biden bowed out of the race, with 62 percent of the more than 1.1 million unique donors being brand new this cycle. In addition, Harris will have access to a sizeable war chest of about $240 million. This total includes money from the erstwhile Biden for President campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and joint-fundraising PACs. It’s unclear how much of that $240 million reported at the end of June they have already burned through while Biden was waffling about running and bleeding support across the country.

Harris still faces a significant polling gap against Trump, but she has at least alleviated her party’s recent problems with both finances and enthusiasm. It’s a best-case scenario for the party following a bleak couple of months.

Baja blasé

J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president, held a rally in Ohio Monday afternoon, during which he joked that Democrats might accuse him of being racist for drinking Diet Mountain Dew. 

“Democrats say that it’s racist to believe—well they say it’s racist to do anything,” Vance said. “I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today—I’m sure they’re gonna call that racist too, but it’s good.”

After a somewhat flustered, almost Rex Banner-esque laugh, Vance continued with his stump speech.

Now, it is obviously not racist to Do the Dew. Quaffing the highlighter-yellow drink is actually quite popular among Vance’s fellow elected officials. Diet Mountain Dew is the preferred choice among lawmakers in the upper chamber. Regular drinkers include Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). In the House, James Comer has been spotted slamming a can on the floor, while former Rep. Jim Bridenstine drank a bottled Dew during a hearing while serving as NASA administrator.

Of course, we also can’t forget the time Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) speculated that Biden might be energizing with Mountain Dew ahead of his debate with Trump in June. Perhaps Biden should have taken the advice. Who knows—if he’d followed the lead of members of Congress then, maybe he wouldn’t have been forced to follow their lead in a very different direction several weeks later. 

While members of the congressional press corps love their Celsius energy drinks and espresso shots, the subjects they cover are pretty firmly in the Mountain Dew column. Unless, of course, they’re sitting through an NDAA markup.

Golden oldie

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) will resign effective August 20, the New Jersey Globe reported this afternoon. Menendez faced calls from Democrats to relinquish his long held Senate seat after a jury convicted him last week on charges involving corruption and bribery.

According to the Globe:

Three sources with knowledge of his plans said that a letter of resignation could come as early as today.

Gov. Phil Murphy must appoint a replacement to fill the remainder of Menendez’s term, which ends on January 3, 2025. He has said he would appoint a caretaker. Possible candidates include First Lady Tammy Murphy, Lt. Governor Tahesha Way, former Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells, and U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas; there are likely to be others on the list as well.

Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), the Democratic nominee for Menendez’s seat in the fall general election, has said he would accept a Senate appointment if asked.

Menendez resigned because of the pressure from within his own party. He faced virtually no pressure to resign from Republicans. If you recall last week’s Press Pass, Republicans at their national convention in Milwaukee were hesitant to call for his ouster after actively backing a convicted felon for president.