Star Tribune
After debt deal success, Rep. Tom Emmer faces obstacles
WASHINGTON — House majority whip Tom Emmer’s window to celebrate avoiding a potentially calamitous debt default was short lived.
The Minnesotan and third-highest ranking House Republican declared during a Tuesday news conference that, “Republicans have been succeeding since the beginning of the year.”
“Do not underestimate [Speaker] Kevin McCarthy and the House Republicans,” Emmer said.
Hours later, Emmer was on the House floor navigating an animated scene in the back of the chamber.
The GOP suffered an embarrassing setback when a small group of Republicans turned on House leadership and helped sink a procedural vote on what’s known as a rule, something that according to congressional data hadn’t happened in about 20 years.
in retaliation for the bipartisan debt ceiling deal McCarthy brokered with Democratic President Joe Biden and other intraparty tensions.
“We’ve got some trust issues and we’ve got to get those resolved,” Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett, one of the GOP lawmakers going against leadership, said.
Their move prevented any other major votes on Tuesday and the day after, and leadership called off plans for Thursday’s floor action. The House is not set to return until early next week.
“The extremists in the House Republican Conference have once again taken control of the House floor,” Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a news conference.
The debt limit bill was signed into law last weekend just before a critical June 5 deadline to avert the threat of a default. Dealing with the debt ceiling had loomed as a challenge for the GOP for months after officially taking control of the House earlier this year.
“This was a real tough vote,” said Texas GOP Rep. Troy Nehls, who voted for the bipartisan agreement. “You look at the first five months, it was somewhat of a honeymoon.”
The move by a vocal sliver of the party to reject leadership in such a public way by stalling the House this week underlined the difficult task for top Republicans. But McCarthy dismissed any concerns about Emmer’s leadership, as the whip tasked with counting votes and building Republican support for legislation in the narrow majority.
“He does a great job,” McCarthy told the Star Tribune.
Unease within the GOP was clear when 71 House Republicans, including Minnesota Reps. Michelle Fischbach and Brad Finstad, voted against the temporary suspension of the debt ceiling last week. And while two-thirds of the GOP lawmakers in the chamber voted for the agreement, more Democrats ended up voting for the bill than Republicans.
Emmer claimed during his Tuesday news conference that “the debt limit fight last week displayed just how far House Republicans have come as a team.”
But that team struggled this week. While some conservatives criticized McCarthy and GOP Majority Leader Steve Scalise to reporters, Emmer didn’t appear to be getting similar pushback.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who also went against leadership on the procedural vote, said on Monday night before the logjam began that Emmer has “that Midwestern crankiness that’s so endearing.” People respect Emmer as a “truth teller,” Gaetz said, and “even when we don’t like what he has to say, we know he’s being honest with us.”
But that didn’t mean Gaetz saw the debt ceiling vote passing as a victory for Emmer.
“I don’t know if it’s a win for any particular politician,” said Gaetz, who opposed the bill. “I think it’s a loss for the country.”
Emmer has charged that Democrats got nothing out of the deal and House Republicans forced Biden to negotiate.
“Our only concession by the way was averting an economic disaster that would have hurt American families and small businesses,” Emmer said Tuesday.
Democrats don’t view the agreement that way.
“Our goal was to not default and try to preserve the progress that we made when we were in the majority,” said Michigan Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee. “We didn’t default and we preserved that progress.”
The legislation suspended the debt ceiling into early 2025, moving the issue past what is likely to be a contentious presidential election. The new law also has spending limits and other changes, with the Congressional Budget Office estimating it would shrink projected budget deficits by about $1.5 trillion over roughly a decade.
The House GOP narrowly passed a conservative debt ceiling increase in April filled with other Republican goals. It never had a realistic chance of passing the Democrat-held Senate, which meant some sort of compromise was needed that was likely to rankle the edges of both parties.
Emmer’s office did not respond to requests from the Star Tribune this week for comment or an interview.
In an interview with the Daily Mail website, Emmer was asked about more Democrats voting for the final debt ceiling agreement than Republicans.
“I was very upset. We should have had 218 Republicans vote for that bill,” Emmer said, adding that while the new law didn’t solve the problem, “it’s the beginning of the solution.”
Emmer also said in the interview the GOP holdup on the floor Tuesday was spontaneous. He predicted, however, that Republicans would end up stronger than before.
“This team was extremely successful and has been for the first five months doing things that people never thought possible,” Emmer said.
“I said for the last five months … do not expect us to be successful always,” he added. “There will be a day where we run into adversity, there will be a day where we have a disagreement. That’s what teams do. We’re going through that period right now.”
The Tuesday setback meant that lawmakers lingered around Capitol Hill earlier this week waiting to see when the House could get back to passing bills.
“This is a family working out its differences and that’s what you’ll see,” Tennessee GOP Rep. Andy Ogles said. “It’s not the first time and it’s not going to be the last time this happens.”
A 20-year-old St. Paul man is now facing three murder charges in separate killings in Minneapolis in recent years.
Albert Jerome Lucas was charged Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court in connection with the killing of 20-year-old Antonio Vernon Harper, of Minneapolis, on Nov. 6, 2023, in Minneapolis in the 3300 block of Dupont Avenue N.
Lucas, who has been jailed since May and remains held in lieu of $2 million bail, is scheduled to appear in court early Thursday afternoon. He does not yet have an attorney listed in court records for this latest charge.
According to Wednesday’s criminal complaint, which charges Lucas with one count of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder:
Officers arrived to the scene and saw Harper on the ground suffering from a fatal gunshot wound to the chest.
A witness told police that she saw three males “hugging” the side of home and looking toward Harper and two of his friends. Gunfire from Lucas erupted, hitting Harper, and the suspects fled in a car. One of Harper’s friends shared with officers that the shooting was gang-related.
Officers saw the vehicle two days later and determined it had been stolen in St. Paul. The driver fled police, but officers soon found the vehicle. DNA on a cigar wrapper inside the vehicle was tested and came back as a match for Lucas.
Star Tribune
Palestinian officials say an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza killed 15
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on a school sheltering the displaced in northern Gaza on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said the strike targeted dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had gathered at the Abu Hussein school in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza where Israel has been waging a major air and ground operation for more than a week.
Fares Abu Hamza, head of the ministry’s emergency unit in northern Gaza, confirmed the toll and said dozens of people were wounded. He said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.
“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said.
The Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by both militant groups inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.
Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.
Hamas-led militants triggered the war when they stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.
Twin Amur tigers born at Como Zoo in August now have names — Marisa and Maks.
Two long-time volunteers who have worked with zookeepers to care for and teach the public about the zoo’s big cats came up with the names, the first to be born at the St. Paul zoo in more than 40 years.
Marisa, a name that the volunteers found to mean “spirited and tenacious,” call that a perfect reflection of her personality. The name also carries special significance for the Como Zoo community, as it honors a retired zookeeper of the same name who was instrumental in the care of large cats during her 43 years at the zoo, Como Zoo and Conservatory Director Michelle Furrer said.
The male cub has been named Maks, which is associated with meanings like “the greatest” or “strength and leadership.” The volunteers felt this was an apt description of the male cub’s confident demeanor and growing sense of leadership, Furrer said.
“Marisa and Maks aren’t just names; they’re a fun reminder of the passion and care that keep us committed to protecting wildlife every day,” Furrer said.
The newborns and their first-time mother, 7-year-old Bernadette, remain off view to allow for more bonding time, zoo officials said. The cubs’ father, 11-year-old Tsar, has been a Como resident since February 2019 and remains on view.
Fewer than 500 Amur tigers — also known as Siberian tigers — remain in the wild as they face critical threats from habitat loss, poaching and human-wildlife conflict, the zoo said.
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