Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) hit her party’s own vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), for what she called “offensive” comments about “childless cat ladies.”

“If the Republican Party is trying to trying to improve its image with women, I don’t think that this is working,” Murkowski told POLITICO, calling Vance’s comments unfortunate, unnecessary and “offensive to many women.”

“To be so derogatory in this way is offensive to me as a woman,” she added.

Democrats have excoriated Vance over 2021 remarks, when he said the Democratic Party was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

As for Senate Republicans, they have mostly stuck by Vance after his tough week, but advised him to choose his words more carefully.

Murkowski often breaks with her party and has said she won’t vote for Republican nominee Donald Trump. Other Senate Republicans criticized Vance’s choice of words as a mistake, but largely moved past them.

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said on Tuesday that there was “no doubt” that former President Donald Trump was struck in the ear with a bullet during an assassination attempt at his July 13 rally.

“There is absolutely no doubt in the FBI’s mind whether former President Trump was hit with a bullet and wounded in the ear. No doubt, there never has been,” Abbate said when Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked if Trump was hit with a bullet.

FBI Director Christopher Wray sparked GOP fury last week when he said that there were “some” questions about whether Trump was hit in the ear by a bullet or shrapnel. Wray did not question whether July 13 was an assassination attempt, and he did not dispute that Trump was injured. But Trump lashed out at Wray on Truth Social after the comments, and some of the former president’s congressional allies publicly called on Wray to “correct” his remarks, accusing him of sowing confusion.

The FBI, in a subsequent statement on Friday, said that “what struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces.” That statement seemed to allay GOP anger, given Kennedy was the first Republican senator to bring it up more than two hours into the hearing.

Kennedy also asked Abbate on Tuesday to confirm that Trump wasn’t struck by a “space laser,” a “murder hornet” or “Sasquatch.”

Tensions boiled over Tuesday as Sen. Josh Hawley pressed acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe to fire officials involved in critical decisions ahead of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

“What more do you need to know?” Hawley asked Rowe.

“What I need to know is exactly what happened, and I need my investigators to do their job,” Rowe said. “You’re asking me, senator, to completely make a rush to judgment about somebody failing.”

Hawley said it was clear that fireable offenses occurred given that Trump was shot and a rallygoer was killed.

Rowe replied, ”I have lost sleep over that for the past 17 days.”

“Then fire somebody!” Hawley responded.

“I will tell you, senator, that I will not rush to judgment, that people will be held accountable and I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and [make] people unfairly persecuted,” Rowe responded.

“Unfairly persecuted?” Hawley replied. “People are dead!”

It was the most hostile exchange on a tense day, as Rowe acknowledged agency-wide failures but declined to say which individual officials were responsible for those failures. He acknowledged and confirmed widely reported stories that local law enforcement in Butler, Pa. had offered drones to the Secret Service that the agency turned down.

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe angrily suggested at a Senate hearing Tuesday that local law enforcement was primarily to blame for a shooter getting access to a building where he attempted to assassinate Donald Trump.

“We were told that building was going to be covered. There had been a face-to-face that afternoon. … Our team leads met,” Rowe said at a joint Senate committee hearing. He added he had personally laid on the roof to assess what the shooter could have seen. “I cannot understand why there was not better coverage or at least somebody looking at that roofline when that’s where they were posted.”

“Why was the assailant not seen?” Rowe added, displaying photos of the roof, which were taken from where police should have been posted and from the position of the countersniper who eventually shot the shooter.

Rowe seemed to be walking a tightrope between blaming local law enforcement for abandoning the post while also trying not to alienate state and local police that are essential to securing events.

“Our state and local law enforcement partners are the best. So, this this belief that somehow they are less than federal law enforcement or they’re less than the Secret Service — they’re out there patrolling communities every day,” Rowe said. “We need them and we need them to be partners with us. And I think we need to be very clear to them and that may have contributed to this situation.”

Later though, Rowe was more blunt: “We assumed the state and locals had it.”

The acting secret service director also referred to a series of technical and communications shortcomings that may have impacted security on the day of the shooting. That included officials relying on text messages to communicate the threat Crooks posed rather than using a radio channel, as well as difficulty with cellular service at the site.

Rowe acknowledged that the agency’s radio communications from the rally on the day of the shooting were not recorded, and he revealed Tuesday that he had ordered the Secret Service to begin retaining those recordings in the future.

“We will have them moving forward,” Rowe said.

Senior officials from the Secret Service and FBI head to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a rare joint hearing examining the security lapses leading up to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

Ronald Rowe Jr., acting director of the Secret Service, and Paul Abbate, deputy director of the FBI, will appear before the Judiciary and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees beginning at 10 a.m.

Up to 32 different senators will have the chance to ask questions between the two panels. Four senators — Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) — are members of both committees.

“The basic question is, how did he get the gun on the premises?” Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said to reporters Monday, adding he’d also like to know what security changes will be implemented ahead of the August DNC in Chicago.

He noted: “There are half a dozen kids like [the shooter] in every high school in America. This kid didn’t appear — the 20-year-old — did not appear to have a specific political agenda. He had a gun. He used it. Sadly, a person died.”

The leaders of the Homeland Security panel made a sweeping request for records related to the attempted assassination as part of the committee’s bipartisan investigation last week.

Expect plenty of questions about FBI Director Christoper Wray’s remark last week that there was “some question” as to whether a bullet or shrapnel caused the injury to Trump’s ear during the attack. The agency later clarified it was indeed a bullet that hurt the former president.

An FBI official said Monday that Trump agreed to sit for an interview about the incident.

Rowe and Abbate will hope to improve on the performance of then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who infuriated members from both parties during House testimony by offering vague answers about the assassination attempt. She later resigned following the Hill appearance.

Senate Republicans are publicly sticking by JD Vance after his tough week, but they have some advice for their first-term colleague: Choose your words more carefully.

Democrats have excoriated Vance over his remarks in a 2021 interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The Ohio Republican said the Democratic Party was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

He specifically listed likely Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris as an example of a politician without children, as he tried to paint the party as anti-family.

“It was an inappropriate comment,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said of Vance’s remarks. Still, the senator insisted his colleague is a “very smart guy” and that “his intelligence and his wit probably just got the better of him.”

Other Republicans made clear they thought the comments were a mistake. Still, they’re brushing past it, publicly sticking with Donald Trump’s selected running mate despite behind-the-scenes doubts about Vance within the party. It’s a sign that Republicans are still closely aligned behind Trump and, at the very least, want to project unity as they grapple with the campaign pivot to Harris.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said it was “not a great choice of words” but that the campaign should stay on offense. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) warned that while Democrats likely won’t have new material to use to define Trump, but “JD, he’s new on the scene, you’ve got to be careful.” He added that while the current backlash wouldn’t “rule the day,” saying Vance was being taken too literally, it would be “painful” to get through in the short term.

“I think he just needs to be incredibly circumspect as to what he says, with the understanding that it will be filtered in the way most negative,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) echoed: “With increased scrutiny, people are going to ask about previous statements” but that “obviously, this is a huge distraction away from the problems Kamala Harris has.”

Other Republicans largely responded to questions about Vance’s comments with a collective shrug — arguing that the vice presidential pick is ultimately up to Trump and that there are no signs that the GOP nominee is prepared to walk back his choice. Vance himself has said that his comments are being taken out of context, and that he was trying to sarcastically make a larger point about Democratic policies.

“The president makes the nomination,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said. “I think there are always going to be people who are naysayers or people that are second guessing. That’s part of the process.” When he was pressed on what voting bloc Vance adds to the presidential ticket, he sidestepped, saying the former president wanted a “teammate.”

The widespread GOP defense of Vance is a flip from just a few months ago, when some senators openly questioned why Trump would pick the MAGA-favored Ohioan. Instead, they said Trump should pick someone who appealed more to the center.

Other vice presidential candidates like Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) or North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) best fit that order. Some suggested considering former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who ran a long primary bid against the former president.

Those calls quieted as it became more obvious that Trump was favoring Vance. Now, GOP senators insist that Trump made the right choice.

“I think [Vance] appeals geographically and demographically to blocks of voters that obviously we want to have in our coalition,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.).

Speaker Mike Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries rolled out members of a bipartisan task force Monday to investigate the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

“We have the utmost confidence in this bipartisan group of steady, highly qualified, and capable Members of Congress to move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability, and help make certain such failures never happen again,” Johnson and Jeffries said in a joint statement.

The task force will be led by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), who represents Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the shooting at a campaign rally.

The rollout of the members comes after the House voted unanimously last week to form the task force, which will need to release its final report by mid-December. Johnson and Jeffries spent days talking behind the scenes as they tried to land on a bipartisan way forward for the group.

The formation of the task force is meant to wrangle the House’s various ongoing investigations into the assassination attempt, with the House Oversight, Homeland Security and Judiciary committees already standing up their own probes in the wake of the shooting.

The new group will have control and jurisdiction over any other House investigations. Beyond congressional investigations, the administration is conducting several probes, including through the FBI, an independent panel ordered by President Joe Biden and the Department of Homeland Security inspector general.

In addition to Kelly, the Republicans on the task force will be: Reps. Mark Green (Tenn.), David Joyce (Ohio), Laurel Lee (Fla.), Michael Waltz (Fla.), Clay Higgins (La.) and Pat Fallon (Texas).

Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) will be the top Democrat on the task force. Democratic Reps. Lou Correa (Calif.), Madeleine Dean (Pa.), Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.), Glenn Ivey (Md.) and Jared Moskowitz (Fla.) will also be on the panel.

House Democrats’ largest super PAC is adding to its already massive fall ad campaign, including targeting three new Republican incumbents as it tries to capitalize on a surge of enthusiasm surrounding Vice President Kamala Harris’ rise.

House Majority PAC is adding $24 million to its initial $186 million in TV and digital reservations in April, according to plans shared first with POLITICO. Most of that new money will bolster the original buy.

But the group, which has close ties to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, has also identified three new offensive targets:

Iowa’s 1st District: HMP is reserving $350,000 worth of ads to boost Democrat Christina Bohannan in a southeast Iowa seat held by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks. 

Wisconsin’s 1st District: The super PAC is booking $725,000 in Milwaukee, where former Democratic Rep. Peter Barca is challenging Rep. Bryan Steil.

Wisconsin’s 3rd District: The group is placing nearly $4 million across three markets in western Wisconsin, where Democrats hope to unseat GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden.

The decision to go after three additional Republicans is a sign of renewed Democratic confidence after a period of deep malaise.
Democrats need to flip only a handful of seats to retake the House, and they have been basking in a groundswell of optimism and grassroots fundraising after President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside. Democrats had for months feared that Biden would impede their ability to win control of Congress. And after Biden’s flailing debate performance they spent weeks panicking he would tank their chances entirely. Those concerns are now subsiding.

“Over the last several weeks, House Democrats have seen an unprecedented level of support with renewed excitement and momentum,” House Majority PAC President Mike Smith said in a statement. “Our additional reservations are not only expanding the battleground, but also doubling down on offense.”

In Minneapolis, the group is reserving $1.7 million to help Democratic Rep. Angie Craig, who was the first battleground Democrat to call for Biden to bow out of the race. That’s an earmarked donation from a group of donors who sought to reward her for doing so.

The rest of the reservations will re-up existing ones placed in the spring. That includes more than $3 million more in the Los Angeles media market, where Democrats are now dropping a whopping $22.4 million to target GOP-held seats; $6.3 million more in the Philadelphia area, where the party is protecting Rep. Susan Wild and targeting Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick; and $2.2 million more in Flint, Michigan, where Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee is retiring.

On offense, the additional money will up the pressure on Reps. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) and John Duarte (R-Calif.).

And as HMP looks to defend vulnerable Democrats, the additional money will bolster Reps. Don Davis (D-N.C.), Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.), Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio), Yadira Caraveo (D-Colo.); Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio). Additional money is also helping Democrat Curtis Hertel Jr., who is running for an open seat in Michigan.