Mike Johnson says Minneapolis shooting appears to be ‘self-defense’ |
Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Friday there needs to be “a full investigation” into the shooting death of a woman in Minneapolis by an ICE agent while asserting that the officer was “operating in self-defense.”
Johnson said he understood many people on social media, including “elected officials,” are commenting on the video of the shooting. “But we all understand there has to be a full investigation,” he added. “That’s the appropriate thing. That will happen.”
Johnson quickly added it “appears to us that the officer involved was operating in self-defense” and “he made a snap judgment, as they do.”
He also mentioned reports that the ICE officer responsible for the shooting had been involved an incident last year where he had been dragged by a car and injured and thus had reason to think his life “was in danger.”
“We’ll have to see,” Johnson said, referring to the investigation.
The conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity says it’s pulling support for Republicans who vote in favor of reviving the expired Obamacare subsidies, adding new strain on the GOP as it scrambles to preserve its majority in the upcoming midterm elections.
First on the group’s blacklist are the 17 House Republicans who broke from the party Thursday to join Democrats in passing legislation that would revive and extend the Obamacare subsidies for three years. While the measure is expected to die in the Senate, a bipartisan group of senators is also working on a framework that would allow for an extension of the subsidies.
In a statement to POLITICO, AFP said it was pausing current and future grassroots activity in those 17 districts, as well as advertisements in them promoting the domestic policy package that Republicans enacted in July and that is their foremost legislative achievement.
“This was a gut punch to every grassroots activist who gave up their nights and weekends to support each of these lawmakers. Trust is going to need to be rebuilt before AFP considers committing any more resources on their behalf,” an AFP spokesperson wrote in a statement referencing the Republicans who defected on Thursday’s vote.
The AFP, which has links to the wealthy industrialists Charles and David Koch, is a staunch opponent of Obamacare and spent almost $70 million supporting Republicans in the last midterm election, according to OpenSecrets, a group that tracks money in politics. According to AFP, it has spent more than $4 million since its passage to support the July legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that cut taxes and Medicaid funding, in advertisements and conducted more than 215,000 phone calls and door knocks in the districts of the 17 members who sided with Democrats since July.
The AFP’s decision to pull its support comes as interest groups on the left plan to leverage the expiration of the Obamacare subsidies and the cuts to Medicaid against Republicans in their campaigns this year. The enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which a Democratic Congress and then-President Joe Biden created in 2021, expired in December. They drove enrollment to record highs and extending them was Democrats’ demand during the record-long government shutdown last year. Democrats had set the expiration date in a 2022 law to keep costs down.
Trump has criticized insurance companies for profiting from the Obamacare subsidies and proposed sending money directly to consumers, a plan that AFP has also supported. AFP launched a six-figure ad campaign in September urging Congress to let the subsidies expire and commissioned a poll last month showing voter support for direct payments.
“President Trump has been clear: doubling down on Obamacare is the wrong direction. He’s right — and Republicans should listen. Voters did not send Republicans to Washington to expand [Obamacare], but to address the broken health care system,” the AFP wrote Thursday in response to the House vote.
McALLEN, Texas — Shortly after five Republican senators broke with Donald Trump and voted Thursday to advance a measure constraining his military options in Venezuela, the president lashed out and called for them to lose their seats.
Before he turned to Truth Social, however, he connected with John Thune and gave him a piece of his mind.
The Senate majority leader acknowledged the “very spirited” conversation with the angry president in an interview Friday after appearing with several Republican senators and candidates along the U.S.-Mexico border to promote last year’s GOP megabill.
“There’s a level of frustration at the White House — and with us, too, on a vote like that,” he said.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The war-powers fight is hardly over — the Senate still needs to debate and pass the resolution that was advanced Thursday, and even if the House passes it, which is unlikely, Trump could still veto it. But the surprising procedural vote contributed to a narrative that Trump is losing his grip on congressional Republicans after running roughshod over potential GOP renegades in 2025.
Two of the five senators — Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — supported a previous effort to rein Trump in on Venezuela. Three others — Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana — were more surprising.
Thune declined to predict whether he would be able to flip at least two to block the resolution’s passage next week, but he signaled a lobbying effort is underway.
“Obviously we’d love to have some of our colleagues come back around on that issue,” he said. “The constitutional questions, the legal questions, are being more sufficiently answered as people have probed into it.”
But he added that, for his part, no grudges would be held — no matter the outcome.
“The most important vote isn’t the last vote, it’s the next vote,” he said. “At the end of the day, there are going to be a lot more votes coming, and........