by tyler | Sep 27, 2023 | CNN, politics
Sarah Morgan was looking forward to enrolling her 1-year-old son Lucas at the Skagit Valley Family YMCA’s early learning center in Anacortes, Washington, this fall.
Her older son Jameson, 5, had a wonderful experience there, learning his letters, numbers and colors, as well as social skills – all of which smoothed his transition to kindergarten this year.
But in late August, Morgan found out that the YMCA was closing the Anacortes center.
Like many child care providers across the nation, the YMCA has had to rethink its operations with the looming expiration of a $24 billion federal Covid-19 pandemic support program that kept many centers afloat over the past two years. The nonprofit, which received $271,000 for its early learning programs, opted to close the Anacortes location, which served 21 families, so it could funnel its resources into its three remaining centers, said its CEO Dean Snider.
That decision has left the Morgan family scrambling to find alternate arrangements for Lucas. Child care is limited on Anacortes, an island in the northwest part of the state. The YMCA’s closest remaining centers are a 40-minute drive away, which doesn’t fit the work schedules of either her or her husband, Travus. And the nannies they interviewed asked for hourly rates that are close to what Morgan earns.
So Morgan plans to place Lucas with an in-home provider, though she worries he won’t have the same educational opportunities that his older brother had at the YMCA.
“It’s really sad that my next one won’t have that type of experience,” said Morgan, a social worker employed by the state. “It’s just really been devastating.”
Nationwide, more than 70,000 child care programs are projected to close, and about 3.2 million children could lose their spots due to the end of the child care stabilization grant program on September 30, according to an analysis by The Century Foundation.
The historic federal investment, which was part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act that Democrats passed in March 2021, supported more than 220,000 child care programs, affecting as many as 9.6 million children, according to the federal Administration for Children & Families. It reached more than 8 in 10 licensed child care centers, helping them hold onto workers by offering bonuses and raising wages, cover their rent, mortgage and utilities, buy personal protective equipment and other supplies, and provide mental health support.
“We have not spent that much money on child care previously in the US,” said Julie Kashen, women’s economic justice director at The Century Foundation. “What we learned was that it worked. It kept programs open. It helped address the staffing shortages. It kept children safe and nurtured. It kept parents working.”
Child care in America has long had issues: The costs are steep for both providers and parents, leaving it both in short supply and unaffordable for many families. Last year, the average annual price nationwide was nearly $11,000, according to Child Care Aware of America, though the rates can be much higher depending on the location.
At the same time, the pay is low, making it hard for workers to commit to the industry and for centers to hold onto their staff. Child care workers typically earned $13.71 an hour, or $28,520 a year, in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment remains lower than it was prior to the pandemic.
For Carla Smith, the stabilization grants were a “miracle.”
Smith, who founded Cornerstone Academy in Arlington, Texas, 17 years ago while nursing her newborn son, used $1.1 million in stabilization grants and other federal relief funding to rebuild after enrollment plunged in the first year of the pandemic. She was able to hire more employees and boost the wages of her teachers and administrative staff to as much as $25 an hour. That’s about double what most were earning before and enticed them to stay at the academy.
“It kept the day care open. It kept day care workers employed, and it kept families employed,” said Smith, who now cares for 50 children ages 6 weeks to 5 years.
Now that she won’t receive any additional federal stabilization funds, Smith is worried she might have to close her doors next summer if the church that houses the center doesn’t step in to help. She just raised tuition by up to $200 a month for most children and $600 a month for infants, prompting one family to leave and several others to pull out of the after-school program. She and the assistant director have taken five-figure pay cuts, she laid off one worker and she reduced the hours of the others.
“The next layoff will be myself,” she said, noting that she’s already looking for other jobs so she can keep the academy operating.
Without the stabilization grants, the Chinese-American Planning Council in New York City will have a tougher time hiring and retaining staffers who care for 180 children at six sites, said Mary Cheng, the director of childhood development services. The nearly $600,000 in funding allowed her to provide bonuses of up to $2,500 every six months between July 2021 and this summer, as well as temporarily increase the pay of the after-school staff by a dollar or two. In addition, she used the funds to buy air purifiers and cleaning supplies, as well as provide mental health support for the children and staff.
Now, she’s looking for several teachers and assistant teachers, as well as an education director for one of the sites. But it’s hard to attract candidates when the pay she’s offering – even for the director role – is less than an entry-level public school teacher.
Already, because of the staffing shortage, she’s had to close one classroom in a public housing development, turning away the parents of 12 children.
But the council may have to undertake some more fundamental changes to its child care program, which has been funded by the city since it started in the 1970s. Cheng is looking to raise $500,000 in donations and grants for its preschool and after-school programs this year to cover the shortfall in federal support, far more than the $15,000 it has raised annually in the past.
And it may have to start accepting children whose parents can pay tuition for the first time.
“Now I have to think about ‘How do I make a profit?,” said Cheng, who attended the child care program when she was little. “You have to sustain the programming that has to happen for these families. You have to think about a profit in that way because when things hit the fan like this, you’ve got to figure out ‘What can I do to make ends meet?’”
A group of Democratic and independent senators and representatives are pushing to extend federal assistance for child care beyond September 30. They introduced the Child Care Stabilization Act, which would provide $16 billion each year for the next five years.
“There was a child care crisis even before the pandemic – and failing to extend these critical investments from the American Rescue Plan will push child care even further out of reach for millions of families and jeopardize our strong economic recovery,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a statement. “This is an urgent economic priority at every level: Child care is what allows parents to go to work, businesses to hire workers, and it’s an investment in our kids’ futures. The child care industry holds up every sector of our economy – and Congress must act now.”
Meanwhile, a bipartisan bill introduced in the House would enhance three existing tax credits – the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, the Employer-Provided Child Care Credit and the Dependent Care Assistance Program – to help make child care more affordable for families and to support employers in sharing the cost of care.
However, getting any additional funding through Congress will be difficult. House GOP hardliners are determined to cut spending in the fiscal 2024 government funding bill, making it more likely the government could shut down on October 1.
Vanessa Quarles is among the many child care providers who hope that Congress renews its support for the industry.
Quarles, who runs Bridges Transitional Preschool & Childcare in Evansville, Indiana, cannot take in more children until she can find more workers. But she can only afford to pay up to $14 an hour, which is barely a livable wage in the area, she said. Quarles raised tuition in February and stopped offering lunch, but she fears she’ll drive away parents if she asks them to shell out any more.
If she received federal funding, she would be able to provide raises and bonuses to attract more employees.
“A lot of people are having a hard time accepting the pay range of child care workers,” said Quarles, who did not receive any stabilization grants. “That’s one reason why we are not fully functioning.”
At least 17 states invested their own money into child care this year, according to a tally by Child Care Aware. These include historic investments by Alabama, Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Vermont and Washington.
Washington funneled more than $400 million this year into early learning, the largest investment in state history, according to Child Care Aware. It builds on the Fair Start for Kids Act, which state lawmakers passed in 2021. The effort increased the number of households eligible for assistance by raising income eligibility limits – a family of four earning as much as $5,600 a month in 2023 qualifies for monthly copays of only $165. It also bumped up the rates paid to providers for serving state-subsidized families.
But more needs to be done to keep providers afloat, said Ryan Pricco, director of policy and advocacy at Child Care Aware of Washington. Currently, reimbursement rates are determined by a market survey, but that reflects what parents can afford, not the true cost of care.
“Until we switch our subsidy system, and really our whole financing system, over to a cost of care model and reimburse programs that way, they’re going to continue to struggle to keep up with competitors and other low-income industries,” he said.
While the Skagit Valley Family YMCA needed the stabilization grants to bolster its child care workforce, those infusions alone are not enough to solve its financial imbalance, Snider said. Revenue from families paying full price and subsidized rates only cover the cost of staffing, not rent, food for the children and other expenses. The agency has racked up six-figure losses across its early learning centers so far this year, which is “obviously unsustainable,” Snider said.
“Early learning is not a viable proposition right now,” he continued. “Everyone calls it necessary, but no one’s willing to put the resources in yet to make it possible.”
by tyler | Sep 27, 2023 | CNN, politics
Amid a flurry of calls by fellow Senate Democrats to resign, Sen. Bob Menendez pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges relating to an alleged bribery conspiracy involving payments in gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, a luxury car and passing sensitive information to the Egyptian government.
Menendez has been charged with three counts for allegedly taking bribes to use his political power and connections to help the government of Egypt obtain military aid as well as pressure a state prosecutor investigating New Jersey businessmen and attempt to influence the federal prosecution of a co-defendant.
The senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, and co-defendants Jose Uribe and Fred Daibe, entered not guilty pleas as well. A fifth co-defendant, Wael Hana, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.
More than 20 Democratic senators, including his fellow New Jersey senator Cory Booker, have called for Menendez, to resign. Menendez, who is up for reelection next year, has already stepped down from his post as the Foreign Relations Committee chairman.
Asked Tuesday why he wouldn’t resign, Menendez told reporters: “Because I’m innocent. What’s wrong with you guys?”
In a statement Monday, Menendez was adamant that he will be exonerated “when all the facts are presented” and said that over the course of three decades he had been withdrawing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from his savings, which he said he kept for emergencies.
Federal agents found nearly $500,000 in cash after searching Menendez’s home – including stacks of cash inside jackets emblazoned with his name.
According to the indictment, Menendez – through his girlfriend and now-wife Nadine Menendez – struck up a relationship with Hana, who allegedly maintained closed relationships with Egyptian officials.
Hana and Nadine allegedly arranged meetings with Menendez and Egyptian officials requesting military sales and financing, which, as Foreign Relations chairman, Menendez held a significant amount of influence over.
According to the indictment, Menendez and his wife promised to use the senator’s position to help facilitate the sales and aid in exchange for a “low-or-no-show job” for Nadine.
The indictment alleges that Menendez used his political power to pass along highly sensitive information to Egyptian officials, helped ghost-write a letter from the Egyptian government requesting US aid and signed off on military sales to Egypt.
Menendez is also accused of taking bribes in the form of a luxury car for his wife in order to put pressure on a senior prosecutor in New Jersey supervising an investigation into two New Jersey businessmen connected to one of Menendez’s co-defendants.
In 2015, Menendez was indicted on corruption and bribery charges unrelated to the recent allegations. The case ended in a mistrial two years later after the jury said it was in a deadlock. Later, the judge overseeing the case acquitted of Menendez on some counts and the Justice Department declined to retry him on the others.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
by tyler | Sep 27, 2023 | CNN, politics
With just four days before government funding expires, there is still no clear path to avert a shutdown.
The House and Senate are on a collision course with no resolution in sight as the two chambers have diverged over strategy for dealing with the looming deadline when government funding runs out on Saturday at midnight.
The Senate has taken a bipartisan approach – unveiling a stopgap bill on Tuesday negotiated between the two parties to keep the government open through November 17, but there’s no guarantee the measure will pass in the House.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy has thrown cold water on the prospect of bringing up the Senate bill up for a vote and has instead outlined a different course of action – saying that the House will consider a separate conservative stopgap bill with border provisions.
McCarthy indicated this will happen regardless of whether GOP leadership is confident the votes are there to pass it, daring hardliners within his own party to vote against it.
House Republicans have been riven by internal divisions and demands from hardline conservatives have taken center stage as the possibility of a shutdown looms.
“We’re going to need more time. So we will pass a continuing resolution, bring that up hopefully on Friday that would keep government open, but at the same time, deal with the border,” McCarthy said on Wednesday.
A number of hardline conservatives, however, have voiced opposition to any kind of short-term funding bill.
Tennessee Republican Rep. Andy Ogles said he remains a “no” on a short-term spending bill despite the fact leadership implored members in conference to work as a team.
“Buckle up. There’s turbulence ahead,” Ogles said.
McCarthy signaled on Wednesday there is not sufficient support in the House for the Senate stopgap bill after meeting behind closed doors with GOP conference members railing against the bill.
“I don’t see the support in the House,” McCarthy told reporters when asked if it is a non-starter.
As each chamber takes its own path, the odds of a shutdown grow by the day.
House Rules Chairman Tom Cole said that he is not confident that the American people won’t wake up to a shutdown Monday morning.
“Obviously, we’ve got our challenges here as well and the two chambers are a long way apart. So again, I am not at all confident we won’t end up in a shutdown,” said Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma.
Schumer praised the Senate for taking a bipartisan approach and criticized House Republicans for focusing on a party-line strategy.
“Every bill House Republicans have pushed has been partisan … every path they have pursued to date will inevitably lead to a shutdown,” he said.
In addition to extending government funding into November, the Senate’s bipartisan bill includes $6.2 billion in Ukraine aid and $6 billion for natural disasters. The Ukraine provisions set up another clash with the House as many conservatives do not want to approve more assistance to the war-torn country.
The Senate has its own challenges to face as GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has said he will slow walk any bill with additional Ukraine funding. Without the consent of all 100 members to speed up the time it takes to consider the bill, it’s not clear whether the chamber could pass the measure before the shutdown deadline.
Schumer on Wednesday warned against members trying “last-minute delay tactics” over passage of the bipartisan stopgap bill, which he said could risk a shutdown.
“There’s still much more work to do,” he said in remarks on the Senate floor. “Now that we’re on the bill, it will require consent and cooperation to move it swiftly through the chamber. We cannot have members trying last-minute delay tactics and risk a shutdown”
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.
by tyler | Sep 27, 2023 | CNN, politics
President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Louisiana, the White House announced Wednesday, as the state battles saltwater intrusion along the Mississippi River that is contaminating drinking water and threatening water infrastructure.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards requested the declaration on Monday for four parishes: Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Jefferson and Orleans.
Extreme drought spread across parts of the Mississippi River Basin this summer and pushed water levels to near-record lows. As the river’s flow rate weakened, a surge of saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico pushed upstream, polluting drinking water for thousands of residents south of New Orleans.
With little prospect of rain in the future, officials are working to find solutions before the saltwater infiltrates treatment plants that thousands of more people, including New Orleans.
The president’s approval of the emergency declaration authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency “to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency,” according to a news release from the White House.
FEMA’s depleted disaster relief fund had $2.4 billion left as of September 19, a FEMA official told CNN, and is on track to lose even more money by the end of the month unless Congress passes a bill to replenish it.
Amid a record-breaking year for billion-dollar disasters, the agency has asked Congress for $16 billion in additional money to boost the fund. That money has been delayed amid a funding fight between Republicans in the House and a looming government shutdown. If Congress takes no action, FEMA is on track to have just $556 million left in the fund by the end of the month, according to its monthly report to Congress.
It was not immediately clear how FEMA intends to fund relief in Louisiana and how the looming government shutdown would affect its operations there. CNN has reached out to FEMA for those details.
During a similar crisis last year in Jackson, Mississippi, in which residents were left without safe drinking water, FEMA reimbursed the state for public assistance and covered the cost of contracted water deliveries that provided bottled water to impacted communities.
But a shutdown would not delay the US Army Corps of Engineers’ response to the saltwater intrusion. The federal agency has access to funds that are already allocated for emergencies like the one Louisiana is experiencing, said Ricky Boyett, an Army Corps spokesperson.
The Corps is working on several big-ticket solutions to the saltwater intrusion. It’s making an underwater sill, or levee, located about 10 miles downstream from Belle Chasse around 25 feet taller to slow the saltwater’s advance. It also announced last week that it plans to barge and distribute up to 36 million gallons of freshwater a day to treatment facilities downstream that have been overwhelmed with salt.
“With regards to the sill construction, the dredging contract has been awarded and those funds are obligated,” Boyett told CNN, and the water barging is being funded with disaster funds that are already obligated to the Corps.
“From our perspective, our district — we’re a civil works district — and the majority of our projects are funded by project, we get appropriations for it,” Boyett said. “So we’re not seeing impacts immediately.”
by tyler | Sep 27, 2023 | CNN, politics
The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum has moved up planned festivities for the former president’s 99th birthday amid the possibility of a government shutdown by the end of the week.
Some events will now be held on Saturday instead of Sunday, the Carter library said. Although activities remain scheduled for Sunday, absent a breakthrough in negotiations in the House of Representatives, government funding is set to expire at the end of the day on Saturday, September 30 – a day before Jimmy Carter’s birthday. A shutdown could affect some of the country’s most beloved treasures such as museums and national parks and some presidential libraries would close, according to the National Archives and Records Administration’s plans.
Tony Clark, the director of public affairs at The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, told CNN that although some aspects of the Carter library share spaces with the nonprofit Carter Center, some of it would be closed in the event of a shutdown.
“We are starting early to make sure we have a celebration,” Clark said.
“Some libraries have a non-governmental foundation that operates their museum rather than NARA. Those are able to stay open. The Carter Library works closely with The Carter Center and share some spaces, but the museum is not one of those. So while we anticipate Congressional funding to resume October 1, if it doesn’t, the government side of the Presidential Center will be closed,” Clark said.
The George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush presidential libraries are among the libraries expected to remain open.
To celebrate the former president’s birthday, The Carter Center asked the public to share birthday messages, memories and tributes to be featured in a digital and physical mosaic of Jimmy Carter that will be displayed across the country ahead of his birthday on October 1.
Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, made a public appearance last week when they took a ride through the Plains Peanut Festival in Plains, Georgia.
“Beautiful day for President & Mrs. Carter to enjoy a ride through the Plains Peanut Festival! And just a week before he turns 99. We’re betting peanut butter ice cream is on the menu for lunch! #JimmyCarter99,” the Carter Center said Saturday in a post on X.
In an interview with People published last month, the Carters’ grandson said, “It’s clear we’re in the final chapter.” Family and caregivers had been the only recent visitors to the Carters’ Plains home, Josh Carter told People.
Jimmy Carter entered hospice care in February. The former president beat brain cancer in 2015 but faced a series of health scares in 2019, and consequentially underwent surgery to remove pressure on his brain.
In his post-presidency years, Carter founded The Carter Center along with his wife, Rosalynn, in hopes of advancing world peace and health. Jimmy Carter has been a longtime volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. He also received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to push for peace across the globe.
A peanut farmer and US Navy lieutenant before going into politics, Carter, a Democrat, eventually served one term as governor of Georgia and was president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.
by tyler | Sep 27, 2023 | CNN, politics
In her new book “Enough,” former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson paints the closing days of the Trump White House as even more chaotic and lawless than she previously disclosed in her shocking televised testimony last summer. President Donald Trump lashes out unpredictably and makes wild demands. Chief of staff Mark Meadows leaks classified documents to friendly right-wing media figures and burns documents. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani gropes Hutchinson inappropriately the day of the Capitol insurrection.
She also depicts major Republican figures, including Speaker Kevin McCarthy, stating clearly behind the scenes what they refrained from telling the American people: that Joe Biden won the presidential election and Trump lost.
Hints that integrity wasn’t exactly the word of the day were there from the beginning, of course. “Cass, if I can get through this job and manage to keep (Trump) out of jail, I’ll have done a good job,” Meadows told Hutchinson in June 2020.
Hutchinson’s book describes her meteoric rise from idealistic Capitol Hill intern at the beginning of the Trump administration to the indispensable aide to the White House chief of staff in the president’s final year. Hutchinson, whose testimony before the January 6 committee provided the most damning inside account of Trump’s actions – and lack of action – on January 6, describes her internal struggle about what transpired at the end of the Trump administration and how she ultimately chose to come forward and testify fully about what she saw in the West Wing.
“I think that Donald Trump is the most grave threat we will face to our democracy in our lifetime, and potentially in American history,” Hutchinson told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview Tuesday.
To hear Hutchinson tell it, the Trump world felt almost like a criminal organization where loyalty was prized above everything. After one 2020 campaign rally, Meadows asked her, “Would you take a bullet for him?” – meaning Trump.
“Could it be to the leg?” Hutchinson tried to joke back.
Meadows responded that he would “do anything” to get Trump reelected.
After Trump’s indoor, mask-free rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the height of the Covid pandemic, attendee and former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain contracted the virus and died.
“We killed Herman Cain,” Meadows told Hutchinson and asked for his wife’s phone number.
A spokesman for Meadows disputed Hutchinson’s account in a statement to CNN. The spokesperson said it was offensive to suggest this was Meadows’ initial reaction to Cain’s death. “In the days after he was expressing exasperation that the media would blame the President for Mr. Cain’s death. Very different,” the spokesperson said.
That did little to change the White House’s attitude about masking. In fact, at one visit to an N-95 plant, Hutchinson advised Trump to remove his mask before facing the cameras because his bronzer is smearing on its elastic straps. In another instance in the frenzy after the election, visitors to the White House who tested positive for Covid were admitted regardless because Trump insisted on meeting with them.
These ethical mores or – or the lack thereof – were taken to the campaign trail where, Hutchinson writes, Meadows met furtively with former Hunter Biden business associate Tony Bobulinski while being shielded from public view by Secret Service agents.
Hutchinson didn’t start truly questioning the men she worked alongside until after the election, but even then, it was late coming. As Trump watched Giuliani’s notorious hair-dye-leaking press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters, he shouted, according to Hutchinson, “Somebody make this stop! Get him off! Make him stop!”
But even then, she says, she “didn’t blame the president for any of it yet. I didn’t want to blame him. I felt strongly that he should concede the election, and I worried that we were surrounding him with people who fueled his most impulsive behaviors. I knew things could get out of hand, and fast.”
Meadows emerges in the book as not only duplicitous but as a fall guy for folks who don’t want to admit that Trump had lost grip with reality. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe expressed concern about the president’s unpredictability, noting that one minute “he acknowledges he lost… Then he’ll immediately backpedal.”
McCarthy told Hutchinson the same thing. They both blamed Meadows. After the US Supreme Court declined to hear the bizarre lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, full of lies and false claims about the election, Trump pushed Meadows, “Why didn’t we make more calls? We needed to do more. … We can’t let this stand.”
Trump continued, “I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out.” Even then, when Meadows assured Trump he would work on it, Hutchinson’s irritation is with Meadows for giving Trump false hope, not with Trump for demanding that his delusions become reality.
Hutchinson’s claim that Trump admitted to Meadows that he lost is the latest in a series of eye-witness accounts of Trump periodically admitting in private to having lost the election. Hutchinson testified to both federal investigators and the Fulton County grand jury, she writes, though she was not referenced in any of the indictments of Trump.
Hutchinson describes a White House that in its final weeks had turned to utter lawlessness, with Meadows regularly burning documents in the fireplace of the chief of staff’s office. After Meadows’ office became smoky before a meeting, former GOP Rep. Devin Nunes asked Hutchinson, “How often is he burning papers?” When Meadows’ wife came to help pack his office in January 2021, she pleaded to Hutchinson, “Mark doesn’t need to burn anything else. All of his suits smell like a bonfire.”
The Meadows spokesperson said that Hutchinson’s telling was an “absurd mischaracterization.”
“Mrs. Meadows was referencing how the wood fireplace made the office smell smoky — and we often started it using old newspaper. It had nothing to do with documents,” the spokesperson said.
On that wild day of December 18, 2020, when Trump considered proposals in the Oval Office to seize voting machines, White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato told Hutchinson he “heard the president talk about the Insurrection Act or martial law,” she writes.
Hutchinson writes that at one point during the Oval Office meeting, she heard Trump screaming, “I don’t care how you do it just get it fucking done!” It’s unclear what the ‘it’ referred to however.
As senior staffers tried to get Meadows to return to the White House to get the likes of his onetime national security adviser Mike Flynn, former Trump attorney Sidney Powell, and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne to leave the Oval Office, White House staff secretary Derek Lyons asked, “Does the chief really need more of a reason to come back? Here it is. Martial law.”
Those plans, of course, did not come to fruition, and Trump looked for other avenues to overturn his election loss, pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes to flip the Peach State from Biden to Trump.
“That call was not good,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone told Meadows, according to Hutchinson, who writes that Cipollone was listening in on the call. Testifying under oath to the January 6 committee last year, Cipollone said he had no memory of knowing about the call until he read about it in the press.
In a statement to CNN, a spokesman for Cipollone denied he was on the Georgia call, noting that Cipollone was not among those Meadows introduced at the start of the call.
In the weeks after the election, January 6 remained the fail-safe, and Hutchinson writes that Trump visiting Capitol Hill was part of the plan until the very end. “On New Year’s Eve, (Meadows) asked me to talk to Tony (Ornato) about a potential motorcade movement to Capitol Hill following the president’s rally.”
“I think the Sixth is going to go well,” Trump said. “Do you think it’s going to go well, Chief?”
“Yes, sir,” Meadows replied. “I think it’s going to go well.”
Many of the stories Hutchinson tells about that day were parts of her testimony. Trump knew about the weapons his supporters were carrying – “Big guy knows,” Ornato said, and at this point in the narrative, Hutchinson still found that news reassuring, as if it meant Trump would do something to stop it. She recounts the tell-tale moment at the Ellipse when she heard the president roaring: “Take the fucking mags (metal detectors) down … Look at all those people in the trees. They want to come in. Let them. Let my people in. Take the fucking mags away. They’re not here to hurt me.”
Soon after, backstage at the rally, Giuliani slipped his hand up Hutchinson’s skirt and up her thigh, Hutchinson alleges in the book. (Giuliani denied her allegation to Newsmax, calling it “absurd.”) She stormed away, filled with rage. But it was nothing compared with the rage she later felt after the Capitol was attacked and people died, Hutchinson writes.
As the attack on the Capitol unfolded, Hutchinson said thoughts raced through her mind about what she needed to do – and she worried it could be the beginning of a coup.
“We have to have a plan in place in case the worst happens. In case this is the beginning of a coup,” she writes.
Even this was not enough yet. Hutchinson remained part of Team Trump. Unlike White House communications director Alyssa Farah, who resigned on December 3, 2020, or deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews, who left on January 6, 2021, Hutchinson remained.
Part of Hutchinson’s rationale was that she saw herself as someone who could help maintain protocols during the final days of the Trump presidency, particularly as Meadows scrambled to get hold of a binder containing highly classified documents related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
She was shocked when Meadows gave the classified documents to two right-wing media personalities who regularly toe the MAGA line.
The Meadows spokesman said that Hutchinson’s account was false, and that the documents had already been declassified by Trump. The White House counsel’s office asked for the documents back, the spokesperson said, because they contained elements of personal information that needed to be redacted.
“It was not an issue of classification – it was about procedural redactions,” the spokesperson said.
Hutchinson, however, writes that Cipollone told her the documents were still full of classified information, and he demanded their return. Before she could leave to call Meadows, Cipollone added: “Hey Cass, while you’re on the phone with him, can you tell him we cannot pardon Kimberly Guilfoyle’s gynecologist?”
“My jaw was hanging as I turned around to look at Pat. I knew by the look on his face that he was dead serious,” she writes.
According to Guilfoyle’s testimony to the January 6 committee, she was seeking to help the son of her former gynecologist, a well-respected California doctor.
The book is a journey, with Hutchinson judging herself to have been “complicit” in the decisions that led to January 6. After telling the story of her troubled upbringing – with a largely absent and ultimately abusive father – Hutchinson’s story is mostly about her time working for a president she once “adored.”
Initially, Hutchinson says, she was “transfixed” by Trump and how he electrified the crowds at his rallies. Working in the White House, first in the Office of Legislative Affairs and then under Meadows, she focused on her mission of helping the president and being a “loyal foot soldier,” she writes.
Numerous examples of Trump’s questionable behavior are glossed over as Hutchinson, ever the loyal aide, saw them as normal at the time. That includes Trump’s 2019 phone call with Zelensky that ultimately led to his first impeachment and the 2020 Atlantic story about Trump referring to American soldiers killed during World War I as “losers” and “suckers” – which a former senior administration official with firsthand knowledge confirmed to CNN.
In the summer of 2017, Trump’s first year in office, Hutchinson was an intern in Sen. Ted Cruz’s office. By 2020, she was dressing down the Texas Republican senator for showing up uninvited to Trump’s arrival on a Texas tarmac, warning him that if he didn’t leave it would be the “last presidential event you ever receive an invitation to.”
Trump loyalists attack Hutchinson to this day as having tried to work for the 45th president in Florida well past January 6, 2021, and Hutchinson fully owns up to that, making clear that her break with the president and his team didn’t come until Meadows fully made clear she wouldn’t be part of the post-presidency – a move that didn’t happen until her final three days in the White House.
Much of what Trump loyalists throw at her to discredit her – for instance, her pleading for help in getting a lawyer – she admits in “Enough.”
The House January 6 committee made much of Hutchinson changing lawyers because of suggestions that her first, Stefan Passantino, was encouraging her to be less than truthful under oath. Hutchinson writes that Passantino discouraged her from fully cooperating. “No, no, no. We want to get you in and get you out,” he told her.
“We were to downplay my role, he explained, as strictly administrative. I was an assistant, nothing more,” she writes. “Stefan never told me to lie to the committee. ‘I don’t want you to perjure yourself,’ he insisted. ‘But “I don’t recall” isn’t perjury.’” At another time he told her, “We just want to protect the president,” she writes.
The book also explains one of the mysteries of the January 6 inquiry: With so many uncooperative witnesses, how did the committee know what to ask Hutchinson to get her to disclose her damning testimony while she was still represented by the attorney paid for by Trump world? It turns out, Hutchinson writes, that she coordinated with Farah, who is now a CNN political commentator, telling her everything she knew. Farah spoke with committee vice chair Liz Cheney, who then knew what to ask Hutchinson during the committee’s third closed-door deposition with her.
Jobs are dangled and then withdrawn from Hutchinson as she begins to cooperate with the committee. Soon, she is shut out and then demonized by Trump world. She leaves open the question as to what might have happened historically if Trump and Meadows had trusted her and invited her to Mar-a-Lago.
But Hutchinson’s courageous testimony did occur, so perhaps more important to the republic today is the question of how many more witnesses with Trump-world-funded attorneys involved in current prosecutions and investigations are experiencing the same situation.
This story has been updated with quotes from Hutchinson’s interview with Jake Tapper
