TV News LIES

The US House of Representatives passed a $1.15tn defense policy bill in a near-party-line vote on Wednesday, after Democrats refused to back the measure amid the war with Iran and Donald Trump’s push to impose new restrictions on voting nationwide.

A key plank of the president’s plan to spend $1.5tn on the military in the 2027 fiscal year, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed the Republican-controlled chamber by a 216-212 vote, with all but six Democrats opposing its passage. Seven House Republicans broke ranks to oppose the measure, which now goes to the Senate.

The NDAA is a mammoth bill with effects across the armed services, and Congress passes it each year with bipartisan margins. This year’s version includes pay raises of 5-7% for the military, as well as the codification of the name “Department of War” for the Pentagon. The bill’s large overall cost is itself a key feature, which top House Republicans say is necessary to make generational investments in the armed forces.

“For the first time in 40 years, we’ve been presented a budget that accounts for the true cost of American deterrence. This topline begins to reverse the damage caused by decades of underinvestment in the US military,” Mike Rogers, the House armed services committee chair, said before the vote.

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Liz Oyer, a former pardon attorney, condemned Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, over his Wednesday testimony to the Senate judiciary committee. Blanche fired Oyer after she refused to recommend restoring firearms rights to the actor and Trump ally Mel Gibson, who was previously convicted of domestic violence.

“I declined to rubber-stamp a political favor for a friend of the president, and it cost me my job,” the former US pardon attorney told the committee on the second day of Blanche’s confirmation hearing.

Blanche said on Wednesday that Oyer’s recommendation last year did not lead to her termination. “The decisions that she had made as pardon attorney in the weeks and months leading up to the end of President Biden’s term were completely inconsistent with President Trump’s authority,” Blanche said.

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A survivor of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking operation said that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche behaved in a "condescending" manner during his meeting with her and other survivors.

The meeting came as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) made meeting with Epstein survivors a prerequisite for his vote to confirm Blanche, the deputy attorney general and President Donald Trump's former personal attorney.

Lara Blume McGee described the meeting to The Independent in a text message on Thursday evening.

"Today, Epstein survivors confronted Todd Blanche — and he treated it like a perfunctory audition for votes, not accountability," Blume McGee said.

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A plurality of House Democrats voted to discontinue sending military aid to Israel in a symbolic vote on Wednesday, showcasing how thoroughly much of the party has turned against the country since its brutal assault on Gaza began nearly three years ago.

The House ultimately rejected the amendment to discontinue aid by a vote of 314–104, with 103 Democrats in favor, 98 against and 10 voting “present.” Even if the measure had passed the House, it would have stood little chance of approval by the Senate.

Still, the vote is a rebuke of Israel’s government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a signal support for the country may no longer be an unquestioned bipartisan proposition. Israel’s assault on Gaza in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel has killed more than 81,000 people and been labeled a genocide by most major human rights organizations.

The vote was on an amendment by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) that would bar aid to Israel, including nonmilitary aid, meaning it went farther than some past proposals to bar only weapons. Massie was the only Republican who voted yes.

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Senate Democrats today blocked the fiscal 2027 defense authorization act from moving to the Senate floor, impeding the trajectory of the typically bipartisan measure, due to opposition to the war in Iran and concerns about the growth in defense spending.

Senators voted 50-46 on party lines, failing to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to bring it to the floor.

Today’s vote marks the second time in two weeks that lawmakers have held up progress on the National Defense Authorization Act, which would greenlight about $1.14 trillion in funding for the Defense Department and make policy changes with implications for troop pay, drone operations and defense contractor earnings.

Another key concern is the high price tag of the FY27 budget request, which — if coupled with a further $350 billion in reconciliation spending requested by the Pentagon — would bring defense spending to a historic height of $1.5 trillion at the same time the Trump administration has made sweeping cuts to other government agencies.

Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said both the war and the budget influenced his vote against proceeding with the NDAA, noting that Congress has yet to come up with a bipartisan deal that sets an agreed upon topline for defense and nondefense spending.

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Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says he is “concerned” about acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s role in crafting a settlement between President Trump, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Justice Department to shield Trump and his family from IRS audits for years to come.

Cornyn said he was disturbed by a federal judge’s scathing order criticizing Blanche’s role in crafting the settlement between Trump and the IRS.

“I’m concerned about that,” Cornyn said on Tuesday, one day before Blanche appears before the Judiciary Committee for a confirmation hearing to serve as attorney general.

“We’ll be prepared to ask him some questions about not just the weaponization fund but the tax audit issue [and] also whether or not the lawsuit that was brought was a real lawsuit or whether it was, in the words of the federal judge, collusive,” he said.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams questioned on Monday whether Trump filed his lawsuit against the IRS “in bad faith with the improper purpose of dishonestly advancing a political narrative.”

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