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WASHINGTON – Rep. Dean Phillips, who once said younger Democrats should challenge President Biden, plans to meet with Democratic donors in New York next week to help determine if he should be among them.
Exactly one year ago, Phillips, 54, was the first Democrat to publicly question whether Biden was the best candidate Democrats could field, saying he did not think the president should run for reelection in 2024, preferring instead a younger, more “dynamic” Democrat be at the top of the presidential ticket.
Phillips’ ambitions were first reported by Politico , who said the lawmaker is highly unlikely to mount a primary challenge unless Biden’s health worsens or his political standing drops precipitously. Phillips’ re-election campaign confirmed that the lawmaker will meet with Democratic donors in New York City next week.
A moderate, active member of the bipartisan Problems Solvers Caucus, Phillips has represented Minnesota’s 3rd congressional district since 2019. The district encompasses the western suburbs of the Twin Cities, including Bloomington, Minnetonka, Edina, and Eden Prairie. We reached out to Phillips’ office for comment following the Politico story but we were unable to get immediate comment.
Possible shutdown?
A fight among House Republicans over the spending bills that would fund the federal government consumed Congress this week and raised the specter of a government shutdown on Sept. 30, the end of the 2023 fiscal year when the government’s current spending authority will end.
The conflict has occurred because a group Freedom Caucus members – the most conservative Republicans in the House – have insisted on a number of riders on the spending bills that have plunged the culture wars into an already contentious debate about government spending. Controversial riders include measures that would block all federal funds for gender affirming care, prevent the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from proposing a rule to reduce nicotine in cigarettes to make them less addictive, eliminate funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program and ban federal workers’ health insurance from covering abortion.
“We made a commitment to the American people we would reduce spending, we would freeze the spending levels and we were going to remove all of the woke spending programs that the Biden administration has put out over the last couple of years,” said Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., at a Freedom Caucus press conference on Wednesday.
Perhaps the most contentious rider is in the bill that would fund the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. It would overturn FDA guidance that would allow the drug mifepristone, which is used in medical abortions, to be sold through the mail and at retail pharmacies.
The abortion pill rider provoked a group of moderate Republicans in swing districts to signal they would not vote for the spending bill – which is, like most of the GOP appropriations bills – opposed by all House Democrats. Yet House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., cannot afford to lose more than five votes.
To make matters worse for House GOP leaders, some farm state Republicans have voiced concerns over the deep spending cuts to the USDA/FDA bill that Freedom Caucus members have demanded.
On Thursday, House GOP leaders threw in the towel, pulling consideration of the bill until September, when the House returns from a six-week recess. That narrows the amount of time lawmakers will have to approve the bills that would avoid a shutdown.
The issue is further complicated by the Freedom Caucus’ insistence that the government not be funded by a continuing resolution. That’s a way Congress has often used to fund the government temporarily at last year’s spending levels. Nor does the Freedom Caucus support funding the government through a huge omnibus bill composed of most of the 12 spending bills.
And the agreement to lift the debt ceiling mandates tighter caps on spending if all 12 individual spending bills are not approved by Congress.
The Senate, meanwhile, is moving forward on all 12 spending bills on a largely bipartisan basis and with little drama.
House Democrats are watching the conflict among House GOP lawmakers on the sidelines.
“It’s Kevin (McCarthy’s) problem,” said Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd District.
It’s also House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer’s problem as he must try again to coral enough votes to get the spending bills approved.
“This is not what my constituents want,” Craig said of the impasse. “The House majority is off the rails with the Freedom Caucus.”
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-4th District, a senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the process of moving the 12 appropriations bills that fund the federal government through the House has been chaotic and unprecedented. She called the social riders on the spending bills “very hateful and very discriminatory” against women, people of color and the LGTBQ community.
“I don’t want a shutdown, I just want to get my work done,” McCollum said.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-5th District, is hoping McCarthy compromises – with Democrats.
“I hope McCarthy makes the same agreement as he did with the debt ceiling and we can avoid (a shutdown.)” Omar said.
Too hot
With record temperatures across the nation dozens of Democratic lawmakers – including Reps. Omar, and McCollum – have asked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to take action to prevent heat-related deaths.
“This year has already brought record high temperatures that have led to preventable deaths in the workplace,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to top OSHA officials. “In Dallas, Texas, a USPS employee of over 40 years died while on his route in 115- degree heat. In Harrison County, Texas, a 35-year-old lineman working to restore power died, likely from heat exhaustion. We know extreme weather events such as heat waves are becoming more frequent and more dangerous due to climate change. Urgent action is needed to prevent more deaths.”
The letter criticized Texas for its rollback of worker protections and praised California, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington for taking “a proactive approach to protecting workers from extreme heat by implementing statewide heat rules.”
In Minnesota, for instance, indoor workers may not be required to perform heavy work when the indoor heat index is too high. In California, when temperature rise above 80 degrees, employers are required to allow workers to take preventative cooldown rests in a shaded area at any time they feel at risk of overheating.
The lawmakers said the federal government should step up its worker protection and draft a new heat standard “incorporating the best practices from these state rules by using them as the baseline for the federal standard.”
Omar said heat waves have been common overseas – more than 61,000 people died of heat-related deaths during Europe’s record-breaking heat wave last year – and now they are bedeviling the United States, including cool weather, northern states like Minnesota.
“It feels too close for comfort,” Omar said.
Biden nominates the first Latino to Minnesota’s federal bench
President Joe Biden on Thursday nominated Minnesota Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey Bryan to the federal bench.
If confirmed by the Senate, Bryan would serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota and would be the first Latino to serve on that court, the White House said.
Born in El Paso, Texas, Bryan is of Mexican descent.
Besides serving on the Minnesota Court of Appeals, Bryan has worked as a judge on the Ramsey County District Court, where he presided over both civil and criminal cases. He also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis for six years where he prosecuted white collar defendants, violent gangs, drug trafficking organizations and career criminals.
He received graduated summa cum laude, from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998 and his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2002. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Paul Magnuson on the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota from 2002 to 2003.
Based on the findings of a judicial selection committee in the state, Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith recommended Bryan to the White House.
“Jeff Bryan is a widely respected member of the legal community and has dedicated his career to serving Minnesotans. As a former federal prosecutor and a current appellate judge with over two decades of legal experience, he is unquestionably qualified to serve as a U.S. District Court Judge,” said Klobuchar in a statement.
Smith called Bryan’s nomination “a testament to his considerable experience and commitment to the rule of law.”
With Bryan’s nomination and those of three others Thursday, Biden has nominated 180 candidates for the federal bench.
Sure, why not.
If you think Biden is running I’d suggest you change your bong water.
I would love to hear a debate between RFK Jr, Harris, Newsome and Phillips.
That is, if they will debate.
The Kennedy boy isn’t actually a Dem, so he’d be disqualified. The others would largely approve Biden’s ongoing policies.
The “Kennedy boy” actually has the true progressive values of his uncle and father, unlike the senile, mendacious twit who makes Watergate and the Harding administration look like petty crime.
Why am I not surprised by this comment?
That anyone could think JFK would not have worked assiduously to oppose a Russian fascist invasion of a democracy is almost beyond belief.
As is the idea that RFK would have openly pandered to antisemites and fascists. Or that either of them would have been virulent anti-vaxxers in a global pandemic.Jesus.
To call Ukraine a democracy is laughable. The puppet comedian of NATO has banned opposition political parties and jailed many, canceled elections, seized young teens, elderly, and disabled off the streets for cannon fodder, and allowed the hateful ideology of Biletsky and Bandera to function in his government and military.
The bumbling, demented Biden has allowed what other presidents prevented, strong economic and military ties between China and Russia. Also, his policies have resulted in BRICS expanding and becoming more influential than the G7, and the decline of the U.S. dollar as the world’s currency.
To become more versed in government, especially foreign affairs, you should read submissions from Ray McGovern, Douglas MacGregor, Jeffrey Sachs, John Mearsheimer, Tony Shaffer, Michael Hudson, and some other experts who critically analyze our domestic and foreign policies. Brennan and Clapper lied to Congress under oath, a felony, but not only were they not prosecuted, but received positions at MSNBC and CNN, which shows the extent that the mainstream media is a farce.
While Russia’s incursion into Ukraine is illegal, so were the U.S. incursions into Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and other areas. The USA has over 800 military bases around the globe of which we are aware, while the Chinese and Russians do not have ten between them. It’s obvious why a Princeton/PEW survey taken during the Obama administration some years ago showed the USA to be the largest threat to world peace.
That’s mostly biased nonsense, and simply betrays an intellect that is going out of its way to confirm its priors that the US (and NATO?) is the real threat to the globe. Whatever militarist illegalities the US has perpetrated over the decades (and they are many) it surely doesn’t excuse Putin and his criminal army’s invasion and destruction of a sovereign state (assuming you grant that status to Ukraine.) All while committing a hundred obvious war crimes a day. Nor does it mean that the US (and the EU) should appease Putinist Imperialism in 2022, and fail to aid the Ukrainian people, even if they had the worst government in the world. Obviously.
But sure, spend your time reading Putin apologists, informing us that the US “goaded” (over a 20 year period) the wonderful Russian dictator into launching a full scale military invasion of the supposedly beloved Ukraine, since that’s what most of this tankie criticism boils down to.
Look up Myrotvorets.
Since when is claiming that the coronavirus was designed to spare Asians and Ashkenazi Jews a “progressive value?”
You’re just jealous that none of them are felons.
You somehow think Biden is not running and WE’RE the ones who should be changing the bong water?
As usual, up is down in Conserva-land…
RFK Jr is a conservative, on a “look at me, look at me” tour. That’s all.
I’m sure RFK will dazzle with his quackery.
This failson trading on his name is being funded by rightwing interests to break off uninformed independents from the Biden coalition. He is being pushed forward into prominence by Repubs, not Dems.
He is an amoral and profoundly ignorant crank, trading in half-truths and lies, but he is doing his part to aid the “conservative” movement in wrecking the country and electing a Trumpite. A less sincere Nader.
“Conservative” Repubs are much more comfortable engineering gub’mint shutdowns than national defaults. They have instigated pointless and fruitless shutdowns over “wasteful spending!” several times already, starting in the Speaker Gingrich Era, 30 years ago. That was the start of this feature of rightwing insanity.
Shutdowns ultimately tend to be unpopular with the dumber voters who think it makes sense to give control of Congress to the unserious Party of Chaos. But such political concerns almost certainly won’t prevent another shutdown this time around in McCarthy’s House of Chaos. Too many gerrymandered Repub seats, too many Repubs who know they aren’t really accountable to voters.
And when the planes can’t fly around any longer, Repubs will cave. But theater and performance art is why most of them ran in the first place, certainly not legislating!
Quick thoughts: 1) Dean Phillips wouldn’t even win the MN primary; 2) I agree with Rep. Eric Swalwell’s recent assessment of Rep. McCarthy, and because of that I think we will avoid a shutdown; 3) If Biden is able to win in 2024, I hope he declares a climate emergency. We need to get real about climate change and we cannot afford to be reactive versus proactive. However, I am also a pragmatist and think declaring a climate emergency prior to the elections would potentially put his reelection at risk. After 2024, though, if he wins, he has nothing to lose and so, so very much to gain.
Typical democrat election strategy. Don’t be honest with the voting public then do whatever you want. That’s what we did in Minnesota by raising taxes by $10 billion with a $19 billion surplus.
How exactly do you see a climate emergency working ? I’m sure the average American taxpayer will come out ahead on that plan.
Why would anyone give the government that much power and control again.
Declaring a climate emergency would allow the Biden administration to take proactive measures to deal with climate change, like allocating resources to the development, production, and deployment of clean energy technologies and away from destructive things like subsidizing fossil fuels. This could be done without waiting on Congress to act, which is unlikely to happen any time soon because powerful corporate interests will stifle any significant progress towards combatting climate change. It will be more expensive for the average taxpayer if we wait to tackle climate change instead of paying the upfront costs to make our society and economy more resilient.
The problem is that even deploying all the emergency powers of the executive branch is not adequate to address the (now obvious) climate emergency, with the world experiencing the hottest temperatures in human history (not to mention the past 120,000 years), according to our climate scientists. What is needed is a Congress that has the will to act to save the earth’s climate, since the Congress can do far more than the more limited emergency powers of the president.
It also might give the illegitimate Repub Supreme Court pause before thinking to declare such critical legislation somehow “unconstitutional” under the latest made-up “conservative” theory-du-jour.
Unfortunately, it means that to save the climate, the Repub party must suffer a catastrophic defeat in 2024. And anyone who doesn’t work to cause that defeat is enabling the destruction of the earth’s now perilously threatened biodiversity.
It would be risky to usher in a totalitarian/authoritarian Federal government before the election? Talk about an understatement. The Constitution is so pesky.
Well, it would be declared under the National Emergencies Act, an existing and duly authorized statute. You know, the one Trumpolini used to declare an “emergency at the border” to fund his ineffective “Wall”. Did you think that declaration was totalitarian? This one is an actual national emergency.
So declaring such a climate emergency wouldn’t be unconstitutional, at least under long-standing, sensible precedents. But based on the recent decisions of the democratically-illegitimate Repub Supreme Court, any national emergency declared by a Dem president will almost certainly be declared “unconstitutional”. Because Dem presidents are not allowed to use existing statutes to govern.
And Biden is reportedly considering it now, not after the election. “Conservatives” are the ones who usually do not inform the electorate of their actual plans…
This is funny. And, as a liberal Democrat, when I say funny, I mean terrifying. Trump would stomp Phillips into the ground even as he’s fighting off four separate criminal prosecutions. And Phillips knows it. So, what’s his game?
He’s a member of the Problem Solver’s caucus which I believe is closely aligned with No Labels. Maybe he wants to throw away his political career and be Joe Mansion’s running mate on the No Labels ticket.
I too hope Biden puts a “Climate Emergency”, similar to the Covid Emergency, before the 2024 elections.
4 years in the House and Phillips thinks he’s ready for the White House? Gimme a break.
He definitely needs a couple seasons on ‘reality’ tv to get more relevant experience.
I am a strong supporter of Dean Phillips, who strives to find common ground and solve problems. It is interesting to hear him talking about running, because Joe Biden’s approach to the Presidency has been very similar. Biden has had more success than might be expected because he has unified Democrats and made selected deals with Republicans.
Is his primary objection that Biden is too old? Did he feel the same way about Pelosi. Biden is the chief executive. He has picked an excellent team, particularly compared to the bunch of rich almost all white males Trump assembled. This is the election for the crazy and incompetent Republican Party to self destruct.
Don’t do it, Dean. We need you in the U.S. House.
I guess Phillips is channeling John Quincy Adams, the last House member to win the Presidency.
If he were to do this, I would attribute it entirely to a need to flee the insanity of serving with the like of MTG and Lauren Boebert.
“I used to have a pretty good life as a rich guy business person and now I’m a peer with 36 year old grandmothers with GEDs who think they know everything”
…Snobby and true…
“I guess Phillips is channeling John Quincy Adams, the last House member to win the Presidency.”
Thanks for digging that up. I couldn’t think of anyone off the top of my head.
Dean is not an electable candidate. Most Minnesotans would not vote for him. He’s only in his position now because he’s rich and his predecessor was such a forgettable dud (anyone remember him? I didn’t think so.)
Knocking off a sitting 3 term (phony moderate) Repub Congressman like Eric Paulsen is not as easy as you breezily assert. Nor is representing a district like the 3rd. And why in the world do you think “most Minnesotans would not vote for” Phillips if he were the Dem nominee for president? Simply because he’s rich? Yeah, that’s rare in American politics…
Of course they would; he’s a perfectly fine Dem. But this is all meaningless political pantomime.
No Dean, definitly not. We do not need any more reasons for Netanyahu to get closer to our country.
You want an alternative to Biden ? Then work on getting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan to run.
She is experienced at different levels of government, she has turned Michigan’s political climate around, she has weathered various ‘storms’, and she is a logical, sensible, yet progressive woman.
NIce dog whistle
I would love to see President Whitmer! However, she’s made it very clear in television interviews her only interest right now is Michigan.
Personally, I like the guy, and I like his attitude! But then again,, common sense, fair play, rationale thinking, deductive reasoning, reasonableness, etc. are not the values many voters are looking for!
Even the MN dumb for life are incapable of supporting phillips. He has his seat now because he bought and paid for it out of his own and his familys pocket. Just like Marx dayton did and it didn’t cost the mn dfl a penny. They love all that personal money regardless what name it comes in under. Only in the MN dfl, you can’t fix stupid.
Yes, it is indeed a shame that the “conservative” movement is so adamant that politically-directed money is “speech” and cannot be effectively regulated in the electoral arena. There oughta be a law!
Also, Biden administration pressured Facebook to censor posts about Covid it didn’t like. Seems important.
Well, that’s the rightwing narrative blatted out by the Noise Machine, anyway.
The radical “conservative” movement naturally demands the constitutional “right” to misinform and deceive ignorant rubes, even if it might cost them them their lives. How else could the conservative “message” survive?
Never mind the annoying first amendment and that quite a bit of the suppressed information turned out to be accurate.
Well, we’ll see exactly how “coerced” the private platform was to ensure that it wasn’t spreading absurd nonsense about Covid and the vaccines, thus endangering cretinous fools during a global pandemic and national emergency.
And I think you mean “accurate”…
Never mind that the First Amendment allows Facebook to decide what it wants to allow on its platform. Never mind that they probably had a legal team that would tell them they could resist any such “pressure” from anyone.
One can’t help but wonder why the right-wing is so protective of the right to post misinformation and lies. And by “one can’t help but wonder,” I mean “it should be apparent to anyone with a bit of common sense.”
Leftist definition of misinformation= any facts that don’t fit our narrative. Can’t imagine why trust in government or mainstream media is low.
The possibility that the facts that fit the leftist “narrative” could be correct is something to be dismissed. It doesn’t fit the rightist “narrative,” I guess.
Well, it’s unfortunately the case for “conservatives” that reality has a well-known lib’rul bias.
Very disappointing. I liked Phillips until now. His call to have new leadership was self-serving and just a smokescreen for his own ambitions.
The writer: “The conflict has occurred because a group Freedom Caucus members – the most conservative Republicans in the House – have insisted on a number of riders on the spending bills.”
It’s bad enough when ordinary folks make honest political discourse impossible by unthinkingly regurgitating the administered nomenclature. It’s even worse when political journalists do so. The above sentence is unforgivable.
For how long will we continue to refer to the Right as “conservative”? The Freedom Caucus is – literally – the precise opposite of conservative. It is the radical edge of a political party of grifters whose undeniable effect, if not its explicit platform, is to destroy civic norms such as honesty, sincerity and mutuality; destroy the rule of law; and destroy all of the forms of social capital that allow a society to cohere, all so that ordinary people are disabled from a self-governance that is able to retard the progress of a globalist autocratic force that seeks to rule our ruins. The most obvious result of this nihilism-in-action is the permanent (for practical purposes) breaking, in real time, of the ecosystem without which human society won’t continue. No one writing in good faith can refer to these folks as “conservatives.” I’m a conservative, and I’m on the far left end of the conventional political spectrum.
If there were a Conservative party, we could call such folks “Conservatives” with a capital “C,” much as we can call members of the Soviet Union’s ruling class “Communists” even though they bore no relation to little-“c” communism. But there isn’t, so they are Republicans, and they are nihilists, and anyone who actually cares about coherent civic discourse, as a necessary step toward actually rescuing ourselves, should refer to them that way.
Phillips has been imbibing in too much of his family’s products. He’s Amy Klobuchar with a good temper and a better haircut.
I’m sure Dean is quite popular among the leftist inheritance class. Just shows how little donors think of Biden I suppose. Biden’s polling so poorly he finally acknowledged his seventh grandchild….
Given the acknowledged leader of today’s Repub party, it is rather ironic to hear rightwingers railing about a “leftist inheritance class”…
Both parties have many of their wealthy “elites” in office. The question is: who does the particular “elite” work to help while in office? Other elites, or working people?
I remember Phillips claiming Biden is too old while ignoring that everyone ages differently and especially the issue that under Biden, he accomplished more for the American people and country than any president since LBJ.
Why would Phillips choose to undermine that?
We loved Clinton and Obama, but neither did as much for the people and country in 8 years as Biden did in 2?
That alone makes me wonder…and not positively…about Phillips.
Amusing how Phillips is trying to save the democrats from themselves but they’re having no part of it. Eventually, the corporate press is going to have to report on what’s going on in the real world regarding the exposure of the Biden Crime Family. Based on the comments here, a lot of democrats are going to be shocked.
Phillips isn’t even saying he’s running, so he’s not “saving” anyone.
And the “real world”? You mean McCarthy’s House of Chaos? Or the Rightwing Noise Machine?
Impeach! IMPEACH!
“Biden Crime Family” …honestly, the irony of this is actually painful.
And I’m sure it’s a massive coincidence President Biden wrote a college recommendation letter for the son of Hunter’s Chinese business partner. I mean, all this proves is a President’s love for his son. Even if Joe profited from the Biden influence racket, Orange Man Bad.
That compelling bit of damning evidence surely proves the case is closed! Whatever the “case” is; it seems to change rather quickly…
Impeach!
“And the 2023 award for Most Pathetic Attempt at a Political Scandal goes to . . .”
Proving my point. It’s gone from “Biden never discussed Hunter’s business dealings” to “of course he made millions peddling an influence racket to China! We’ve always know that!” in less than four years. The attempted gaslighting is pathetic.
I though Dean was part of the “get the big money out of politics crowd” and the first people he visits are big donors.
Yes indeed, if only we knew which party virulently opposes campaign finance reform! I’ll await the reform bill from the Drain-the-Swamp House Repubs. Gotta be coming soon!