A Hostile Work Environment On The Hill

This article is part of The D. C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. At times, the conversation sounded an awful lot like hostages recounting their monthslong trauma. Their opinions were unlikely to be heeded, and rarely solicited. There was little they could do to change the conditions, so they made the best of the moment.

Georgia Republican Congressman Richard McCormick was called out on C-SPAN's Washington Journal when he repeatedly lied claiming the accusations against Pete Hegseth only came from anonymous sources that even the Hegseth doesn't know who they are from. The lies are coming out fast and furious from MAGAts and Republicans on Hegseth's nomination.

At a Tuesday Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Trump’s mass deportation plans, Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy got snotty with a witness and appeared to glitch out. Kennedy tried to put Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, on the spot over a 2020 post on the Bad App, where he rightfully wrote, "Both Texas and Louisiana have their knives out for Black immigrants," adding, "Once Haitians stopped crossing irregularly, it’s so telling that the plaintiffs once again demand that a federal court wield Title 42 against Haitians to stop them from entering at ports of entry too.” "Who are you talking to about who in Texas had their knives out for black immigrants?" Kennedy said. "Guessing the context, but my suspicion is to do the Attorney General Ken Paxton," Reichlin-Melnick said. "You don't have a name, do you?" Kennedy bizarrely asked. "I just said Ken Paxton," the witness said. "You don't have a name, do you?" Kennedy said again. "I just said Ken Paxton," Reichlin-Melnick said. He said Ken Paxton's name three times.

After Newsmax host Greg Kelly tore into Trump's SecDef nominee Pete Hegseth, word came down from network execs to be positive about his nomination or face elimination. On Tuesday, Kelly waxed poetically about Matt Gaetz, but then trashed Pete Hegseth. It was a rare case of honesty coming from a Newsmax host.

On his Truth Social platform earlier, Demented Don put the country up for sale. Money talks, democracy walks. A government of oligarchs that will exist to solely serve the interests of oligarchs while distracting working people with culture wars. And people can complain all they want about a Trump screenshot. I almost never post any here and this is important so just block me instead of whining. — Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) 2024-12-10T19:36:51.430Z If you got enough money then permits and approvals are guaranteed without any scrutiny, and it'll happen faster if it fucks over climate change under the new regime.

Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez denied the motion approving the sale of Infowars' assets to Global Tetrahedron, a new firm that owns The Onion. Says the auction process was "doomed" when it was sealed, lacked transparency, and lacked clarity about what was even purchased and money was "left on the table, according to Mother Jones journalist Anna Merlan. This motion, however, prolongs the agony of the Sandy Hook families, who the ghoulish rat-fucking conspiracy theorist owes $1.4 billion from a 2022 defamation lawsuit for making the families' lives absolute hell after the children were slaughtered, calling the devastating mass shooting "a hoax." The Associated Press reports: Lopez cited problems — but no wrongdoing — with the auction process.