Rep. Cuellar Charged With Taking Bribes

We’re talking about a period of a number of years. According to the indictment nearly $600,000 in bribes from Azerbaijan A controlled energy company in a bank in Mexico. And yet he said today still running for re election. How how does that play for him? Well he has not been convicted so we he’s under indictment now and he we have seen this play out before Robert Menendez from from New Jersey of course he he is now undergoing yet another indictment which has changed the political calculus there but but but he has won re election previously under indictment. This certainly wouldn’t be the first time this has happened on Capitol Hill. He says he’s running again and he’s going to win. He says now it could be a little bit more difficult because it it does tend to be he remember now he’s in a border district in Texas, tends to be a little bit more conservative than say areas in Dallas or Houston. So you know this does give Republicans an opening and in a in in an election cycle where literally every seat matters in the 535 seat House, this one now could become more up for grabs for Republicans. OK. Megan, I want to ask you about actual business in our capital and that has everything to do with the FAA right now as we are walking up on an important exploration here as senators work to craft legislation to reauthorize the FAA, we asked Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois about the looming deadline. Here’s what she said. I know there’s some amendments, but even the amendments are not too egregious. We have some that are, you know that that are going to be highly contested, but I think they’ll they’ll move along fair fairly quickly. But this is a really good bill we work very hard on in a bipartisan, bicameral way, and it is truly needed for the safety of our aviation system. We’ve seen this clear and important procedural hurdle in the Senate already. Megan, are they going to get this done? It looks like they will get it done. Whether or not they get it done before the deadline, though, remains an open question. Because of all of these amendments, both amendments related to the FAA and extra amendments on the side. This is the last big train leaving the station for several months, certainly before the election anyway. So there have been efforts to attach things like credit card swipe fees or safe banking, the marijuana banking legislation to this bill, Speaker Johnson is is beating back those efforts. But these negotiations are taking place through the weekend into next week, and it could determine whether or not this actually gets enacted by the deadline, which is next Friday. They might need to do an extension. OK, so we know that that’s something we’re going to be having have to be on watch for next week. We also, according to Congressman Marjorie Taylor Green, need to be on watch for her actually doing it, acting upon the motion to vacate. She says she just wants to see everyone go on record, including Democrats, to step up and table it to save the speaker. This really going to happen? According to her it is yes. She she has been pretty adamant about this. At her press conference earlier this week, she said she would take it to the floor. She said, you know, she said Johnson has betrayed his party with dealing with Democrats on spending both domestically been also for Ukraine. So she does seem poised to go forward with it. This lacks some of the drama of the Speaker McCarthy ouster in the fall because Democrats have said they will ride to the rescue. At least enough Democrats will ride to the rescue to prevent his ouster from happening because of the same deal making that has has enraged Marjorie Taylor Green.