Tag Archives: Politics from The Hill

Trump's digital cards sell out within a day

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Former President Trump’s digital trading cards have sold out less than 24 hours after he first announced they were available.

As of Friday morning, the site selling the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) says they are sold out, and links to purchase the digital cards are no longer available. 

OpenSea Data, which tracks the sales and markets for NFTs, indicated there were 45,000 of the Trump cards initially made available for purchase for $99 each. The Trump digital cards were the top trending item on the site as of Friday morning.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday that he would be making a “major announcement” without providing any details. Some had speculated the announcement would be related to the Speaker race playing out among House Republicans or Trump’s largely inactive 2024 presidential campaign.

Instead, Trump revealed a line of digital trading cards that could be purchased with cryptocurrency or a credit card. Proceeds from the cards — which, among other looks, depict the former president as an astronaut and a cowboy — will not go to Trump’s campaign but to Trump himself through a licensing deal.

The announcement drew mockery and disbelief from liberals and some conservatives. 

President Biden tweeted that he had some “major announcements” of his own, listing off a series of policy wins in recent weeks. Stephen Bannon, a former Trump White House and campaign official, appeared exasperated by the announcement during his radio show on Thursday and suggested whoever was involved with the effort should be fired.

Trump Organization found guilty of tax fraud

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A New York jury on Tuesday found the Trump Organization guilty of tax fraud following a more than monthlong trial.

Jurors began deliberating on Monday and returned the guilty verdict on Tuesday afternoon, according to The Associated Press.

Former President Trump himself was not on trial, but prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office showed jurors evidence that Trump had signed off on bonus checks and memos that helped top executives skirt reporting on taxable income.

Following the verdict, the Trump Organization could be fined up to $1.6 million.

The outcome in the trial, which began in late October, is considered a victory for the Manhattan district attorney’s office. It followed a three-year probe by the office into whether top executives at the company engaged in tax fraud from 2005 to June 2021.

Prosecutors rested their case in late November after just eight days of arguments. 

Much of the prosecution’s case had centered on the testimony of Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer, and Jeffrey McConney, a senior vice president and controller.

Weisselberg was charged with 15 counts of tax evasion last year and pleaded guilty in August. Prosecutors said he evaded $1.76 million in taxes by receiving luxury perks such as rent-free apartments and cars.

Weisselberg, who earned a reduced sentence for testifying, said he worked with McConney to conceal about a decade’s worth of those perks from his taxable income.

And McConney said he helped hide those perks by issuing false tax documents or reducing salaries.

Trump and his two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, signed off on bonus checks made out to independent contractors, Weisselberg testified, which he claimed helped him conceal taxable income.

Trump also signed off on a lease for a company-paid apartment awarded to Weisselberg, prosecutors said.

“Mr. Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud,” Joshua Steinglass told jurors in closing arguments, according to the AP.

In its defense, the Trump Organization had argued that Weisselberg was the sole actor in the scheme and that he had betrayed the company’s trust. 

On the witness stand, Weisselberg had teared up and expressed remorse for his actions. 

“It was my own personal greed that led to this,” he said.

Prosecutors had also called up three other witnesses, an accounts payable supervisor for the company and outside experts, including a forensic accountant and a state tax auditor.

Updated at 4:35 p.m.

Lawmakers agree to repeal military vaccine mandate in defense bill over Pentagon objections

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Congress is poised to use the annual defense policy bill to eliminate the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.  

In a compromise with Republicans, House Democrats are allowing language into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that repeals the coronavirus vaccine mandate for U.S. service members a year after it was enacted, House Armed Services Committee ranking member Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday.  

The bill, which lays out how a $847 billion Defense Department (DOD) top line will be allocated in fiscal 2023, is tentatively set to be released late Tuesday or early Wednesday and voted on by the House on Thursday, Rogers said.  

Asked if he believes the language will stick amid all the last-minute jostling over the bill, Rogers replied, “Yes.” 

Republican lawmakers for months have pushed back on the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin first instituted in August 2021.  

Since then, thousands of active-duty service members have been discharged for refusing the shots, according to the latest Pentagon numbers.  

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is vying for the Speaker’s gavel in the next Congress, said on Sunday that the NDAA “will not move” unless the mandate for the military is lifted through the bill. 

The compromise is effectively a loss for the White House and Pentagon, which have both opposed using the NDAA to repeal the vaccine mandate.  

“We lost a million people to this virus,” Austin told reporters traveling with him Saturday, as reported by The Associated Press. “A million people died in the United States of America. We lost hundreds in DOD. So this mandate has kept people healthy.” 

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday strongly supported the Pentagon’s mandate but also emphasized that the art of compromise means that no side gets everything it wants. For Democrats, he said, that might mean they have to give up the mandate to pass the bigger package. 

“It’s a question of how can you get something done,” he told reporter in the Capitol. “We have a very close vote in the Senate [and] a very close vote in the House. And you don’t just get everything you want.”

One thing not expected in the bill, however, is language to reinstate troops, sailors and airmen who were discharged or received penalties for declining the vaccine, a provision GOP lawmakers hoped to insert in the legislation.  

Instead, lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees are planning report language for the bill that allows the DOD to evaluate service members affected by the mandate, Rogers said.  

“There’s no statutory language, but there’s report language that tells the [Defense Department] to ascertain everybody that’s been adversely affected by the vaccine mandate and what it would take to make them whole and get that to us next year, and then we can decide if we want to try to do that or not,” he said.  

“Some people aren’t going to want to come back to the military, but if they do, what would that look like? How many people are we talking about?” he said.

CDC director urges vaccination amid record high reports of flu, RSV

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Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), warned of extremely high levels of respiratory illness in the U.S. on Monday, particularly flu hospitalizations, and made another call for people to stay up to date on their vaccinations.

In a briefing, Walensky said the U.S. is seeing elevated levels of COVID-19, the flu and RSV. The CDC director noted higher levels of the latter two viruses compared to last year.

“Levels of flu-like illness, which includes people going to doctors with a fever and a cough or sore throat, are either high or very high level in 47 jurisdictions, and that is up from 36 jurisdictions just last week,” Walensky said.

According to Walensky, the CDC estimates that since the start of October, there have been at least 8.7 million cases of flu, 78,000 related hospitalizations and 4,500 deaths detected.

Two more pediatric deaths due to flu were reported last week, bringing the total for this season to 14.

“Flu hospital admissions reported through HHS’s hospital surveillance system, which were already high for this time of year, have nearly doubled during the last reporting period compared to the week prior,” said Walensky. “Hospitalizations for flu continue to be the highest we have seen at this time of year in a decade, demonstrating the significantly earlier flu season we are experiencing.”

According to CDC data, about 26 percent of U.S. adults have received a flu vaccine, slightly higher than the vaccine coverage at this time last year. However, Walensky noted vaccination rates are lower among some high-risk groups, including children, adults over 65 and pregnant people.

Flu vaccination rates for pregnant people were significantly lower across all ethnicities. Among non-Hispanic white pregnant people, vaccine uptake was 14 percent lower. This drop was even greater among non-Hispanic Asian pregnant people, with 15 percent fewer getting the shot compared to last year.

Sandra Fryhofer, board chair of the American Medical Association, said during the briefing that it was particularly important for pregnant people to get vaccinated against the flu because this protection would in turn be conferred to their infants, who are not eligible for vaccination for the first six months of their lives.

“I want to emphasize that flu vaccine can be life-saving and importantly there is still time to get vaccinated to be protected against flu this season,” Walensky said.

The CDC director also noted an “unfortunate and expected” rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations across the country following the Thanksgiving holiday.

She urged people to get the updated COVID-19 booster if they have not done so already, stating that those who received their first two shots are still considered fully vaccinated but are not considered fully protected against the coronavirus.

“Both the updated COVID-19 vaccines and this year’s flu vaccines were formulated to protect against the viruses that are currently circulating right now,” Walensky said. “And recent data from CDC show updated COVID-19 vaccines help protect against COVID-19 illness and COVID-19-associated deaths. Early surveillance shows that people who receive their updated COVID-19 vaccine this year were nearly 15 times less likely to die from COVID-19 compared to people who are not vaccinated.”

Biden signs bill to avert rail shutdown

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President Biden on Friday signed a bill that will avert a rail strike, just days before the deadline for an agreement to have been reached and amid fears that such a halt in railroad operations would cripple the U.S. economy.

The bill implements the labor agreement between freight rail carriers and unionized workers that Biden backed in September. His administration at the time was largely praised for helping broker a deal.

Senators voted 80-15 on Thursday on the House-passed bill, with several Democrats voting against the measure because it didn’t include a sick leave provision. Biden, who touts himself as the most pro-labor president in U.S. history, has said that he supports increasing paid leave accommodations for rail workers, but that it should be addressed separately from the bill.

“I know this was a tough vote for members of both parties. It was tough for me, but it was the right thing to do at the moment. To save jobs, to protect millions of working families from harm and disruption, and to keep supply chains stable around the holidays,” Biden said on Friday. 

He called the pay increase in the bill “historic,” but vowed to keep working for increased sick leave.  

“That fight isn’t over. I didn’t commit we would stop just because we couldn’t get it in this bill,” he said. 

Biden also said after the bill passed on Thursday that he shares in the reluctance by unions and some Democrats to override the union ratification process, but reiterated that the impacts of a rail strike on the U.S. economy would be too severe.

“Congress’s decisive action ensures that we will avoid the impending, devastating economic consequences for workers, families, and communities across the country,” he said in a statement, adding that lawmakers “spared this country a Christmas catastrophe in our grocery stores, in our workplaces, and in our communities.”

Biden on Monday called on Congress to immediately adopt the tentative agreement, without any modifications, with the Dec. 9 deadline to reach an agreement looming.

The deal provides rail workers with 24 percent raises over five years and makes it easier for workers to miss time for medical appointments, but a sticking point was that the deal did not include more than one day of paid leave.

The Senate rejected a proposal to provide rail workers sick leave on Thursday, after the House narrowly passed the proposal on Wednesday.

Since the deal was struck in September, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had been in regular touch with labor leaders and management but saw no path to resolve the dispute at the bargaining table. The secretaries recommended that the administration seek congressional action to solve the issue.

Walsh and Buttigieg went to Capitol Hill on Thursday to brief Democrats before the bill was passed.

Drivers told to park older Dodge and Chrysler models after air bag deaths

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Stellantis, the company formerly known as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, instructed drivers of about 276,000 vehicles to park their cars following two incidents in which people died from exploding air bags.

In a release with the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA), Stellantis warned drivers against taking out 2005 to 2010 Dodge Magnums, Chargers, Challengers and Chrysler 300s.

Two people died this year after Takata air bags blew apart in two separate incidents involving a 2010 Dodge Charger. Stellantis has confirmed the exploding air bags killed the drivers in both incidents.

The NHTSA warned that older model year vehicles can be dangerous even in minor accidents if the air bag is a safety risk.

“Left unrepaired, recalled Takata air bags are increasingly dangerous as the risk of an explosion rises as vehicles age,” NHTSA acting Administrator Ann Carlson said in a statement. “Every day that passes when you don’t get a recalled airbag replaced, puts you and your family at greater risk of injury or death.”

“An exploding Takata air bag can send metal fragments toward the driver or passengers, and this shrapnel can kill,” Carlson added.

The death toll from exploding Takata air bags has reached 32 worldwide, including 23 in the U.S.

Tens of millions of vehicles with Takata air bags are being recalled. The ammonium nitrate in the air bags can be volatile and explode when deployed if exposed to prolonged heat.

Takata Corp., a company based in Japan, filed for bankruptcy in 2017 because of the air bag issues, which led to the auto industry’s largest ever recall.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.