While most of the country was riveted by recaps of Donald Trump's sordid hush-money trial on Tuesday, something amazing was happening in Washington: the Senate debated and then passed the national security package that's been consuming the Capitol for the last six months. With a lopsided vote of 79-18, the bills with aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan among some other things will soon be signed by the president and behind us. Notably, there is no increased funding for the border because Donald Trump ordered the Republicans to reject it so that he could keep demagoguing the issue during the campaign. Nevertheless, Tuesday's vote is a big win for President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
The GOP infighting has escalated in the wake of the House's months-long tantrum led by the far-right extremists who seemed to truly believe that they could hold their breath until they turned blue and they would eventually get everything they wanted. Leading MAGA rebel Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., left town without calling for Speaker Mike Johnson to vacate the chair, demanding instead that he resign, which isn't going to happen. Podcaster Steve Bannon and a couple of fellow right-wing sad sacks — Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Paul Gosar, R-Az. — joined the call but it's clear that however frustrated some of them might be there is no appetite in the House GOP for any more internecine fights, at least for the moment. And the rest of the party is obviously sick of the kooks.
