House speaker removed intelligence committee chair Mike Turner, whose stances have run afoul with Trump
House Democrats are expressing concerns about Republican speaker Mike Johnson’s decision yesterday to remove the head of the chamber’s intelligence committee, whose stances had run afoul of Donald Trump.
Johnson yesterday fired the committee’s chair, Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican who was a vocal supporter of security assistance to Ukraine. According to the Associated Press, Johnson justified Turner’s firing by saying, the “intelligence community and everything related to [the committee] needs a fresh start”.
But CBS News reports that Johnson cited “concerns from Mar a Lago” in removing Turner as leader of the committee overseeing US intelligence agencies such as the CIA. In a statement, the Democratic minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, called his replacement “unjustified”:
Mike Turner is a serious, thoughtful and highly principled leader, whose work as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee has been extremely impactful. Throughout his time in the House of Representatives, Chairman Turner has upheld his oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies and championed our national security interests. Mike Turner has robustly promoted the safety of the American people and the Free World and his unjustified ouster is likely being applauded by our adversaries in Russia and China. Shameful.
Jim Himes, the committee’s Democratic ranking member, echoed those concerns:
Mike Turner is dedicated to national security and thoughtful oversight of the IC. His removal makes our nation less secure and is a terrible portent for what’s to come. The Constitution demands Congress function as a check on the Executive Branch, not cater to its demands.
Turner is a Russia hawk, who has accused some of his colleagues of bringing Moscow’s propaganda into Congress. Here’s more:
Republican congressman Mike Turner shared some parting thoughts about his chairmanship of the House intelligence committee, which speaker Mike Johnson ordered him removed from yesterday.
Turner wrote on X:
I’m very proud to have served on the House Intelligence Committee and as its chairman. There are great members on the Committee, and I’m honored to have served with them.
Under my leadership, we restored the integrity of the Committee and returned its mission to its core focus of national security. The threat from our adversaries is real and requires serious deliberations.
As a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, I have been and will continue to be a strong advocate for the military and our national defense. My work to expand missions and capabilities at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base continues. Furthermore, I look forward to welcoming the NATO Parliamentary Assembly to Dayton in the coming months.
The Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has named the state’s attorney general, Ashley Moody, to the Senate seat being vacated by Marco Rubio.
Donald Trump has nominated Rubio to serve as secretary of state, and he likely has the support he needs to win Senate confirmation. Moody has served as Florida’s attorney general since 2019, and will serve until at least 2026, when her Senate seat will be on the general election ballot.
The appointment of Moody, a Republican, does not alter the balance of power in the Senate, where the GOP has a 53-seat majority.
Bloomberg News reports that Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, has denied that Donald Trump had anything to do with his decision to remove Mike Turner as chair of the House intelligence committee.
Johnson said he will “shortly” name his replacement for Turner as committee chair.
House Democrats are expressing concerns about Republican speaker Mike Johnson’s decision yesterday to remove the head of the chamber’s intelligence committee, whose stances had run afoul of Donald Trump.
Johnson yesterday fired the committee’s chair, Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican who was a vocal supporter of security assistance to Ukraine. According to the Associated Press, Johnson justified Turner’s firing by saying, the “intelligence community and everything related to [the committee] needs a fresh start”.
But CBS News reports that Johnson cited “concerns from Mar a Lago” in removing Turner as leader of the committee overseeing US intelligence agencies such as the CIA. In a statement, the Democratic minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, called his replacement “unjustified”:
Mike Turner is a serious, thoughtful and highly principled leader, whose work as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee has been extremely impactful. Throughout his time in the House of Representatives, Chairman Turner has upheld his oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies and championed our national security interests. Mike Turner has robustly promoted the safety of the American people and the Free World and his unjustified ouster is likely being applauded by our adversaries in Russia and China. Shameful.
Jim Himes, the committee’s Democratic ranking member, echoed those concerns:
Mike Turner is dedicated to national security and thoughtful oversight of the IC. His removal makes our nation less secure and is a terrible portent for what’s to come. The Constitution demands Congress function as a check on the Executive Branch, not cater to its demands.
Turner is a Russia hawk, who has accused some of his colleagues of bringing Moscow’s propaganda into Congress. Here’s more:
In his final days in office, Joe Biden is expected to outline steps to better protect the United States from hackers linked to rivals such as Russia and China, the Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon reports:
The Biden administration is making a final push to fortify America’s cyber defenses against mounting threats from China and Russia, issuing a sweeping cybersecurity executive order just days before leaving office that aims to tackle vulnerabilities from outer space to consumer electronics.
The wide-ranging directive is likely to be the administration’s last big policy push before handing the keys over to Donald Trump, who heads to the White House next week and inherits a new world of cyber-attacks that have cost the nation billions of dollars and punctured government offices.
“The goal is to make it costlier and harder for China, Russia, Iran and ransomware criminals to hack and to signal that America means business when it comes to protecting our businesses and our citizens,” a senior administration official told reporters on Wednesday.
The order arrives in the wake of devastating Chinese-linked cyber-attacks, including recent breaches of the US treasury department and telecommunications systems that reportedly compromised communications of incoming president Donald Trump and vice-president-elect JD Vance.
Among its most striking provisions is a mandate for federal agencies to implement end-to-end encryption for email and video communications, alongside new requirements for artificial intelligence-powered cyber defence systems and quantum computing safeguards.
The head of TikTok is expected to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, after being offered a prominent seat on the dais, the New York Times reports.
The president-elect will take office one day after a legally imposed deadline passes for TikTok’s China-based owner, ByteDance, to sell the company’s US operations or face a ban. The supreme court heard arguments last week over the law passed last year to force the sale, and appeared inclined to uphold it.
However, Trump has said he wants to keep TikTok available in the US, and is considering issuing an executive order to delay enforcement of the ban:
Donald Trump’s pledge to expand oil and gas drilling was one of several campaign promises he made that could undermine the fight against the climate crisis. In October, the Guardian’s Oliver Milman took a closer look at how Trump’s proposals could have consequences that reverberate for millions of years:
The climate crisis may appear peripheral in the US presidential election but a victory for Donald Trump will, more than any other issue, have profound consequences for people around a rapidly heating world, experts have warned.
During his push for the White House, Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and “one of the great scams of all time” while vowing to delete spending on clean energy, abolish “insane” incentives for Americans to drive electric cars, scrap various environmental rules and unleash a “drill, baby, drill” wave of new oil and gas.
Such an agenda would be carried out over a four-year period that nearly rounds out a crucial decade in which scientists say the US, and the world, must slash planet-heating pollution in half to avoid disastrous climate breakdown.
Already, major emitters such as the US are lagging badly in commitments to cut emissions enough to avoid a 1.5C (2.7F) rise in global temperature above the preindustrial era. With just over 1C in average warming so far, the world already has record heatwaves, a rash of wildfires, turbocharged hurricanes, plunging wildlife losses, a crumbling and increasingly green Antarctica, the looming collapse of the oceans, and a faltering ability of forests, plants and soil to absorb carbon.
Doug Burgum, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the interior department, will tell senators at his confirmation hearing today that he supports expanding oil and gas drilling on public lands, Reuters reports.
That will mark a reversal from Joe Biden’s attempts to stop petroleum exploration on public lands as part of his administration’s strategy to reduce the US’s carbon emissions. Here’s more on what Burgum will promise, from Reuters:
The comments signal a coming sharp turn in policy after President Joe Biden attempted for years to restrict oil and gas drilling by reducing federal lease auctions and banning future development in vast areas of federal offshore waters as part of a strategy to fight climate change.
“Today, America produces energy cleaner, smarter and safer than anywhere in the world. When energy production is restricted in America, it doesn’t reduce demand, it just shifts production to countries like Russia, Venezuela, and Iran – whose autocratic leaders don’t care about the environment,” Burgum will tell lawmakers, according to his prepared remarks.
He will say maximizing energy output can lower consumer prices, and can be done while ensuring clean air and water.
The Interior Department oversees millions of acres of lands and offshore waters stretching from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, and leases out parcels for drilling operations that now produce around a quarter of the nation’s oil and gas output.
The United States is already the world’s top oil and gas producer thanks to a years-long drilling boom mainly on private lands in Texas and New Mexico fueled by improved technology and strong world demand since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Four more of Donald Trump’s nominees will have their confirmation hearings today, after senators over the past two days questioned Pam Bondi, his pick for attorney general, and Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary nominee, among others. Today, hearings are scheduled for Scott Turner, who has been nominated to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development; Lee Zeldin, Trump’s pick as Environmental Protection Agency administrator; interior secretary nominee Doug Burgum; and treasury secretary nominee Scott Bessent. Expect lots of questions from Democrats to Bessent regarding his views on Trump’s vows to impose tariffs on a host of countries, friend and foe alike. We can also expect Burgum to face scrutiny about his views on expanding oil and gas drilling on public lands, a Trump campaign pledge.
Here’s what else is going on today:
Joe Biden is continuing his presidential farewell, with a ceremony for defense department staff at 2pm. He delivered a goodbye address to the nation yesterday evening.
The House of Representatives will vote on the Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act, another Republican-authored bill aimed at undocumented immigrants. This one is targeted at migrants convicted of domestic violence, sexual abuse and related crimes.
The Gaza ceasefire deal requires approval by Israel’s cabinet, but a last-minute dispute is holding that up. Follow our live blog for more.
