‘We’ll Just See How Things Go’
A few days ago, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) told the Washington Post that his family was “split” about whether he, age 85, should run again. He said that he’d like his daughter, Jennifer Clyburn-Reed, to replace him.
But as of Thursday, it’s full steam ahead as Clyburn announced that he’d run for his 18th term. As always when it comes to congressional geriatrics — and especially Civil Rights legends like Clyburn — things get uncomfortable, as political calculus crashes headlong into the pathos of aging, mortality and irrelevance.
“It made me feel necessary,” Clyburn said of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (D-NY) push to get him to run again.
He added that Jeffries had offered him a leadership position should Democrats win the House majority, a particularly jarring detail as the party’s base revolts, pushing for generational change.
Elsewhere, fresh-faced insurgents are trying to force aging incumbents to pass the torch. House institution Rep. Al Green (D-TX), 78, is locked in a runoff with 37-year-old Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX). Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson (D), 31 and one of the Tennessee three, is shooting for 76-year-old Rep. Steve Cohen’s (D-TN) longheld seat. (Not every challenge has been successful: 78-year-old Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who helped lead the Jan. 6 hearings, easily fended off his 34-year-old primary challenger last week.)
“This could very well be my last term and it could very well not be,” Clyburn said Thursday. “We’ll just see how things go.”
As much as Clyburn is a creature of the House, he’s perhaps best known for the part he’s played in shaping Democratic presidential primaries, and is vocal about his role in boosting Joe Biden to the nomination in 2020.
“If you thought Jim Clyburn was gonna retire before a wide-open prez cycle w SC again in early window, w chance to pick the nominee, you didn’t see him make every ’20 contender put on his CLYBURN t-shirts at the 2019 Clyburn Fish Fry,” quipped Politico journalist Jonathan Martin on Twitter.
On this side of his role in Biden’s ascendancy (and commitment to be “ridin’ with Biden” even when much of the party was howling for the then-president to drop out of the 2024 race), that power-brokering looks a bit more suspect.
Cornyn Really Wants You to Know That He Is Right-Wing
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) tweeted Thursday that he is “all in” on Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) attempt to ban the abortion drug mifepristone. Hawley and other anti-abortion activists have grown increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration’s inaction on the issue, with Hawley repeatedly criticizing the FDA’s “investigation” into the drug for being too slow.
As Trump has said publicly with varying degrees of candor, he feels that he already delivered the movement its white whale in Dobbs. He’s also likely wary about triggering an electoral backlash, should the administration abandon its “leave it to the states” pretense and try more forcefully to ban the procedure nationwide.
The Senate — Gasp — Passes a Bipartisan Bill
The Senate passed a bill aimed at bringing down housing costs with 89 votes Thursday. The bill was authored by the exceedingly strange duo of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tim Scott (R-SC).
It will likely need White House backing to pass through the House.
One provision, requiring large institutional investors to sell rental properties after seven years, prompted pushback from the home builders’ union and some Democratic infighting, including the opposition of self-proclaimed YIMBY Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI).
Manchin’s Filibuster Jumpscare
Ahhhh!
“It’s deeply disappointing to see that Senator Cornyn is now willing to scrap the very rule he once praised and personally thanked me for defending,” former Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) lamented in a lengthy Tweet after Cornyn’s flip-flop. “These extreme election-year politics that put party power over everything else are why Americans are sick and tired of the duopoly of the two-party system of Democrats and Republicans.”
In Case You Missed It
Morning Memo: Of Course It Did: Trump Tantrum Led to Reversal on Law Firm Appeals
The Franchise: Resurrecting Arizona’s 2020 Election Denial Lunacy
The Backchannel: Do Global Oil Markets Have Trump Derangement Syndrome?
This week’s podcast: Noem More
The Josh Marshall Podcast featuring Kate Riga heads to Austin: Alright Alright Alright! TPM Is Heading to Austin
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
Photos: 10 Pictures of Pete Hegseth From the ‘Unflattering’ Batch the Pentagon Reportedly Doesn’t Want You to See
What We Are Reading
Kash Patel Confirms UFC Fighters Will Train FBI Agents This Week, Calling It A “Historic Opportunity” — Tom Tapp, Deadline
ICE Tried To Turn This Minneapolis Teacher Into An Informant — Spencer Ackerman, Forever Wars
The X algorithm really is trying to radicalize you—researchers just proved it — Jay Willis, Fast Company
