MMR Weekend October 27-29 2023: Muh Feelings Hurt!

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) exploded at a Newsmax reporter during a bipartisan visit to Israel, telling him off for trying to goad attendees into criticizing Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who is of Palestinian descent, for her remarks condemning Israel over the al-Ahli Arab hospital attack.



The spat, at a press briefing held by senators in Tel Aviv, escalated to the point where Graham got into a screaming match with journalist Daniel Cohen, eventually yelling, “Get this guy out of here!”



But Israeli security ignored Graham’s demand.





Cohen, the Jerusalem correspondent for the right-wing news outlet, introduced himself as an American who had made aliyah, or immigration from the diaspora to Israel, with his family two years ago.



He thanked the senators on stage for their support but then requested to hear from any of the Democrat senators about Tlaib’s post on X, formerly Twitter, from Oct. 17 in which she blamed Israel for the Gaza hospital bombing. She left the post up despite President Joe Biden and other U.S. officials later saying that intelligence suggested Israel was not to blame.



Graham immediately told Cohen to stop, despite repeated protestations from Cohen that it was “a fair question.”



“No, stop!” Graham shot back. “We are here together, not to talk about the problems at home, which are many. I’ve got my own view of what to say. You’re not going to screw this up. Get this guy out of here.”



Graham further explained himself, stating that although he doesn’t support “The Squad,” the unofficial group of progressive House members that includes Tlaib, but he believed in free speech, and believed that the Democrat and Republican senators on stage had come together to support Israel.



After finally settling down, he apologized, saying, “And I’m sorry, my friend. I probably shouldn't have said it, but my nerves are raw right now.”



Speaking on Newsmax after the heated interaction, Cohen voiced his disappointment that most senators were unwilling to condemn Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who had posted a similar stance on social media.





Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told the outlet that it was hard for her to understand “why a member of Congress or anyone would not condemn what Hamas has done,” mentioning the Oct. 7 attack that killed over 1,400 Israelis.



Graham spoke at the press conference alongside Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Katie Britt (R-AL), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Chris Coons (D-DE), Jack Reed (D-RI), Dan Sullivan (D-AK), and John Thune (R-SD).

Following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, Omar condemned the attack and Tlaib said she "grieve[d] the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost." Both called for a ceasefire.

Joy Behar, a co-host of ABC’s “The View,” compared Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) to former President Trump as she criticized the congresswoman’s rhetoric on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.



“And it’s right, left, center. I’ve called it out when it’s on the right. So I’m going to call it out when it’s on the left, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar. They have dabbled in dangerous antisemitism at a time where, I think of the young people,” Alyssa Farah Griffin, another host of the popular daytime table talk program, said on Wednesday.



Before Griffin could finish, Behar interrupted and called out Tlaib specifically.



“She, Rashida, will not admit that that attack on the hospital came from Hamas. They have video showing it,” Behar said. “But she goes out there and lies … like Trump.”

WASHINGTON — Newly minted Speaker Mike Johnson has pitched House Republicans on a short-term funding bill to prevent a government shutdown next month while they hammer out a longer-term solution.



Even ultraconservative lawmakers who firmly oppose stopgap bills said after he won the speakership that they're willing to give him the space to pursue his plan, explaining that they trust him and that he inherited a tough situation. It's a sign that Johnson, R-La., will have a honeymoon period with the fractious and narrow House majority.



Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., indicated he's open to a “bridge” to prevent a shutdown after Johnson laid out his plan to Republicans on Wednesday to pass individual funding bills. It's a significant shift from a few weeks ago when Gaetz triggered the motion to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker after he passed a stopgap funding bill with Democratic support.



“I don’t like governing by continuing resolution. But Kevin McCarthy wanted to govern by continuing resolution to get us to the next continuing resolution,” Gaetz told NBC News. “I think Mike Johnson has a lot more credibility that a bridge would be a bridge to single-subject spending bills, not a bridge to just the old ways of Washington that empowered McCarthy’s lobbyist donors.”

The family of Robert Card—who is suspected of killing 18 people in two mass shootings in Maine on Wednesday night—say the Army reservist had previously claimed he was hearing voices at the two locations he allegedly attacked.



In the aftermath of the carnage, Katie Card, who is married to Card’s brother, told The Daily Beast that their family has been messaging her brother-in-law and urging him to surrender to authorities.



“I have known Rob my whole life,” Card said on Thursday. “He is quiet but the most loving, hardworking, and kind person that I know. But in the past year, he had an acute episode of mental health, and it’s been a struggle.”



She said that Robert Card recently began wearing powerful hearing aids to combat hearing loss. Since then, Card said her brother-in-law has been insisting to his family that he can hear people bashing him—including at Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar and Grill, where he’s accused of gunning down 18 people on Wednesday night.



“He truly believed he was hearing people say things,” she added. “This all just happened within the last few months.”

President Joe Biden announced in April that he is running for re-election. His campaign and its fundraising entities have a combined $91 million in the bank, and he has hired key political staffers to help helm his 2024 re-election campaign.



He has no serious opposition that threatens to kick him off his party's ballot.



So he will obviously be the Democratic nominee for president, right? Right?



Though no incumbent president has declined to seek a second term since Lyndon Johnson in 1969, there is an unfounded conversation among a faction on the political right that goes something like this: Democratic power brokers will intervene at the last minute to replace a weakened 80-year-old Biden with someone else as the party’s nominee.



“So here’s the scenario that I think is perhaps the most likely and most dangerous,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on his podcast last month. “In August of 2024, the Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama.”



“I view this as a very serious danger,” he said.

In the past, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) has had a lot to say about the issue of LGBTQ+ rights. While working for the Alliance Defending Freedom, Johnson went on record as saying that “inherently unnatural” same-sex relationships mark “the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy” and could lead to people marrying their pets. Now, however, he’s having trouble recalling those same strong feelings. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, the newly elected House Speaker made a valiant attempt to smooth over any feathers he might have ruffled. “Some of these comments were 15 years ago,” he said. “I don’t even remember some of them.” Though acting in his capacity as a “religious liberty defense lawyer” for the ADF at the time of the remarks, Johnson insisted that today he’s both a “Bible-believing Christian” and “a rule of law guy” who “[respects] the rule of law.” What’s more, he added, “I genuinely love all people, regardless of their lifestyle choices.”