Congress is having an epic summer meltdown. Rather than passing critical bipartisan legislation, including a slew of spending bills needed to keep the government operating, lawmakers spent last week battling viciously over the political direction of the nation and whether to impeach Donald Trump.
By the end of the week, fighting on the House floor had escalated so wildly that the House chaplain, Rev. Patrick Conroy, felt the need to offer a morning prayer aimed at ridding the chamber of evil spirits, akin to an exorcism.
“In your most holy name, I now cast out all spirits of darkness from this chamber, spirits not from you,” Conroy prayed from the dais.
Lawmakers in both parties admitted it was a “difficult” week marked by ugly partisan bickering, name-calling, and finger-pointing, all aired live on C-SPAN, which at one point Wednesday showed an angry Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, dropping the gavel and storming off the House floor he was supposed to preside over.
“I was frustrated,” Cleaver said later. “We had this whole day and we haven’t done anything for the American public. We murdered a day.”
The partisan fight centered largely around the president and his weekend tweets targeting four liberal freshman Democrats, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
Trump, in a July 14 series of tweets called for “‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe,” to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done.”
Lawmakers in both parties denounced the tweets but Democrats were especially livid.
They immediately authored a resolution to condemn the tweets and Trump’s subsequent remarks refusing to back down, which they labeled racist.
The fight shifted to the House floor, where Republicans attacked the Democratic agenda, which they labeled socialist.
Rep. Sean Duffy of Wisconsin called the four liberal freshmen “anti-American.”
The fighting shut down the House floor after Republicans used a parliamentary tactic to try to punish Speaker Nancy Pelosi for using the term “racist” to describe the president.
It continued Wednesday when House Democrats led the chamber in passing a resolution to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents related to the decision to try to include a citizenship question on the census.
Then came a motion to bring articles of impeachment against the president, offered by Rep. Al Green of Texas, who said Trump, with his words and tweets, “has sown seeds of discord against the people of the United States and has shown he is not fit to be president of the United States.”
Lawmakers killed the measure, but 95 Democrats voted in favor of it — about 40% of the Democratic caucus.
Republicans signaled they were fed up with floor time dedicated to what they believe is harassment of the president.
“It’s like Groundhog Day all over again,” Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, complained Wednesday. “I go home and I tell my constituents, they had another resolution to attack Trump or the administration.”
A few hour later, Trump took to the stage at a rally in Greenville, N.C. An enthusiastic crowd shouted “Send her back!” referring to Omar, a Muslim-American who was a Somali refugee and is a frequent critic of Trump and his policies.
The chants caused the partisan uproar to begin anew on Capitol Hill Thursday morning.
“The president put millions of Americans in danger last night,” Ocasio-Cortez declared. “His rhetoric is endangering lots of people. This is not just about threats to individual members of Congress, but it is about creating a volatile environment in this country through violent rhetoric.”
Democrats called for increasing security for the four liberal lawmakers.
Across the Capitol, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York compared Trump’s rally to “what happens in a dictatorship” and questioned whether the GOP’s “silence … is out of embarrassment or agreement.”
Trump denounced the “Send her back” chant on Thursday, as did many Republicans.
Lawmakers in both parties tried to smooth over the raw anger ahead of a critical vote this week on a potential budget deal.
Cleaver said he hopes lawmakers will return civility to the House floor.
“People feel like they have to go in and defend their side,” he told reporters. “We don’t have to do it in a way where we are engaged in World War III.”
