“I do not think that he will prevail in his quest. And I question why he is doing it when the courts have unanimously thrown out the suits that the president’s team have filed for lack of credible evidence,” Collins said. “Senator Hawley is a smart attorney who clerked for the Supreme Court, so he clearly understands that. So I don’t understand.”
Asked if she would vote against objections, Collins said “absolutely,” absent “some very unexpected revelation that I cannot imagine that would occur.”
The issue came up during a Senate GOP caucus call on Thursday, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
McConnell has offered a competing measure that would tie an increase in the checks to removing a legal shield for tech companies and creating a commission to examine the 2020 elections. But that proposal is viewed as a non-starter for Democrats, underscoring that the GOP leader’s bill also is unable to pass the Senate.
“There is no other game in town beside the House bill. . The House has recessed for the year. Any modification or addition, the House bill cannot become law before the end of this Congress,” Schumer said.
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If the Senate passes anything besides the exact language of the House bill, the measure would need to bounce back across the Capitol and passed for a second time by the House, where lawmakers have already left town and aren’t expected to return until Sunday for the swearing in of the 117th Congress.
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The president did not speak to the press during his week in Florida, and he did not stop for questions upon landing at Joint Base Andrews or upon returning to the White House, where reporters shouted questions about Iran and Trump s plans for the inauguration.
Shortly after he entered the White House, Trump tweeted out a previously recorded message in which he praised Americans for showing grit, strength, tenacity and resolve throughout 2020 and boasted of his administration s work in developing a coronavirus vaccine. This is one of the most extraordinary scientific, industrial and medical feats in history. Everybody has it at that, Trump said. That s what they re marking it down as, and we can never let people forget where it came from and how it came. We re very proud to be honored, and all of the people that worked so hard on it, we have to be remembered for what s been done.