U.S. Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride (D-DE) says she will “follow the rules” after Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson issued a ban on transgender women using women’s restrooms in the U.S. Capitol, a direct reaction to McBride becoming the first transgender member of Congress.

“I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families,” McBride (photo, center), 34, a member of the Delaware state Senate, said in a statement. “Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them.”

“This effort to distract from the real issues facing this country hasn’t distracted me over the last several days, as l’ve remained hard at work preparing to represent the greatest state in the union come January. Serving in the 119th Congress will be the honor of a lifetime – and I continue to look forward to getting to know my future colleagues on both sides of the aisle.”

“Each of us were sent here because voters saw something in us that they value. I have loved getting to see those qualities in the future colleagues that I’ve met and I look forward to seeing those qualities in every member come January. I hope all of my colleagues will seek to
do the same with me.”

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McBride’s comments followed a wave of targeted attacks on social media and in the news by U.S. Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC). Reports indicate that Mace posted over 260 messages on social media within 36 hours, specifically targeting McBride and transgender women more broadly.

Among them, a video in which Mace declared she will file legislation to make the ban on transgender women using women’s restrooms a national ban for all federal properties.

I don’t care. I’m doubling down, and won’t be quiet because some man tells me to. pic.twitter.com/aKwmBF510Q

— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) November 20, 2024

Speaker Johnson on Tuesday had insisted he was not interested in implementing any new rules, and was “not going to engage in this.”

“We don’t look down upon anyone,” he proudly told reporters, before adding, “a man is a man and a woman is a woman, and a man cannot become a woman.”

Twenty-four hours later Johnson issued his ban.

“All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings – such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms – are reserved for individuals of that biological sex,” Johnson’s statement reads. “It is important to note that each Member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol.”

“Women deserve women’s only spaces,” he concluded, not offering the same claim for men.

While Mace led the attacks against McBride and transgender people in general, Huffpost reports, “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) even suggested she would physically fight McBride for using the ladies’ room.”

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Mace also waged her campaign against McBride in the news media, telling Forbes that the Congresswoman-elect was “absolutely” a “threat” to her personally. She claimed, “any man who wants to force his junk into the bathroom stall next to me or in a dressing room watching me, that is an assault on women.”

Forbes also notes, “McBride has never been accused of sexual misconduct or any kind of threatening behavior.”

The South Carolina Republican’s baseless allegations against McBride come just a few years after Mace began her congressional career by claiming to be pro-LGBTQ.

“I strongly support LGBTQ rights and equality,” Mace said in 2021. “No one should be discriminated against.”

“I have friends and family that identify as LGBTQ,” she added. “Understanding how they feel and how they’ve been treated is important. Having been around gay, lesbian, and transgender people has informed my opinion over my lifetime.”

Mace, as Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman reports, is also fundraising off her attacks.

Nancy Mace fundraising off her bathroom bill. pic.twitter.com/qZjhVVnzrM

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) November 20, 2024

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Key GOP Senators Start Paving the Way for Gaetz’s Attorney General Confirmation

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President-elect Donald Trump has surprised and even alarmed many across the country, and “puzzled” and “baffled” some within his own party, with his Cabinet and other top White House nominations. Critics on the left have denounced his picks for their apparent lack of experience or qualifications for the roles they are expected to take on, noting some hold controversial or even false positions in the fields they may soon direct policy on. Meanwhile, experts in the fields of government, fascism, and democracy, are raising serious concerns about the potential “danger” some nominees represent, drawing comparisons to the “professional propagandists” often found in authoritarian regimes.

Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an NYU professor of history and a recognized expert on fascism and authoritarianism, on Wednesday pointed to this report on one of Trump’s most-recent nominations, Linda McMahon:

Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick for Education secretary, resigned from a state education board shortly after a newspaper asked her about her false claim that she had an education degree. pic.twitter.com/kqKgdZQxYE

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 20, 2024

McMahon was Trump’s former administrator of the Small Business Administration, and is a former CEO of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), a major GOP donor, and has recently been the chair of a pro-Trump Super PAC, the board chair of a pro-Trump think tank, and the co-chair of Trump’s second transition team.

“Trump’s cabinet picks are a declaration of war on expertise and facts (that’s why there are several Fox hosts in the mix). The con artists, fraudsters, and professional propagandists that populate authoritarian governments see facts and laws as impediments to their goals,” Dr. Ben-Ghiat wrote.

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Trump, announcing McMahon’s nomination, claimed, “Linda will use her decades of Leadership experience, and deep understanding of both Education and Business, to empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers, and make America Number One in Education in the World.”

McMahon’s only brush with the field of education came about 15 years ago, when she served on the Connecticut State Board of Education. She resigned after 15 months. At the time, her appointment was controversial, with one lawmaker lamenting, “her depth of knowledge regarding education is lacking.”

Donald Trump picked an unqualified, billionaire wrestling mogul to lead the Department of Education.

This is an insult to our teachers and to every kid in America who relies on a good public school education. https://t.co/f258KZbmjD

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) November 20, 2024

McMahon is far from the only controversial nominee.

On Tuesday, the vice chair of the powerful House Rules Committee Jim McGovern (D-MA) blasted Trump’s nominees as “beyond insane.”

“Someone who is credibly accused of having sex with an underage girl. Someone who sucks up to foreign dictators and has attracted major concern that they can’t be trusted to protect America’s secrets from our adversaries. Someone who paid hush money to cover up a sexual assault accusation, you know, to lead our military, he’s picked because Donald Trump likes him on Fox News? Someone who says that tap water turns kids gay? I mean, this is the dream team? This is the dream team? Really?”

He appeared to be referring to Attorney General presumptive nominee Matt Gaetz, Director of National Intelligence presumptive nominee Tulsi Gabbard, Defense Secretary presumptive nominee Pete Hegseth, and HHS Secretary presumptive nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State posted video calling Trump’s nominees “a trainwreck.”

READ MORE: Key GOP Senators Start Paving the Way for Gaetz’s Attorney General Confirmation

“Gaetz, Gabbard, RFK – none of them have the experience or qualifications for the positions they’re seeking, in addition to the fact they’re all dangerous MAGA zealots,” the organization declared. They posted a video clip (below) from MSNBC with a chyron that noted opposition from the right to Trump’s Attorney General nominee, Matt Gaetz.

MSNBC’s justice and legal affairs analyst Anthony Coley told viewers that Gaetz, the recently resigned U.S. Congressman, “has no national security experience—not anything meaningful—little anti-trust experience, and he certainly has no experience with criminal law, except for being the target of a federal criminal investigation looking into inappropriate sexual contact, allegedly, with a minor.”

Trump’s appointments are a trainwreck.

Gaetz, Gabbard, RFK – none of them have the experience or qualifications for the positions they’re seeking, in addition to the fact they’re all dangerous MAGA zealots.

Full video: https://t.co/XM07WMcuQ1 pic.twitter.com/yJg54oWWNQ

— DASS (@DemsOfState) November 19, 2024

Trump has also just appointed his former acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, a strong Trump loyalist, to be the U.S. Ambassador to NATO.

“Whitaker has little evident foreign policy or national security experience, making him an unknown to many in U.S. security circles,” The Associated Press reports. “Previous ambassadors to NATO have generally had years of diplomatic, political or military experience.”

“Before serving Trump,” Mother Jones notes, “he helped a company hawk bizarre products like a ‘masculine toilet’ to help ‘well-endowed men’ avoid unwanted contact with water.”

But The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a former U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia and nuclear weapons, served up this warning: “This is just hilarious, but the danger here is that it makes him Senate-confirmed and available for other stuff later.”

In other words, assuming Whitaker is confirmed, Trump could nominate him to another, even more critical role, declaring he’s qualified because he’s already been Senate-confirmed.

Last week, Nichols declared that Trump’s “nominations for intelligence, defense, and justice were revenge on people he thinks are his enemies. This is just endangering millions of innocent people.”

On Monday on MSNBC, Nichols went much further, delivered a scathing analysis of Trump’s nominees, calling them “an all-fronts assault on American democracy,” in another warning.

Trump, he said, is “trying to break the institutions of American government and American society, and what you’ve been seeing for the past few weeks is an all-fronts assault on American democracy, especially with these nominations.”

“I think the most dangerous of these nominations is actually [Pete] Hegseth,” Nichols explained. “And I’m kind of startled that we’re not sitting here talking more about taking a morning Fox [News] host and sticking him in the nuclear chain of command, to lead the largest—one of the largest—bureaucracies in the United States, in the world, including the person that’s supposed to look after the most powerful fighting force on the planet.”

And he concluded, “it’s also important to recognize that we could be in the first phases of a major constitutional crisis, even before Trump is sworn in.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Damaging’: Unredacted Sealed Sworn Testimony in Gaetz Case Accessed by Alleged Hacker

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In an apparent display of frustration and anger, Vice President-elect JD Vance has revealed that the incoming Trump administration is considering replacing FBI Director Christopher Wray. Wray, appointed by Trump during his first term, following his dismissal of Jim Comey, now faces potential removal himself. If Trump proceeds with firing Wray, instead of Wray resigning, it would mark the unprecedented termination of two FBI directors, and each before completing their congressionally-mandated ten-year terms.

Vance on Tuesday had lashed out at a member of far-right podcaster Steve Bannon’s ultra-MAGA team, Grace Chong, after she criticized him for not showing up for a Senate vote on confirming a judge nominated by President Joe Biden.

“Grace Chong is a mouth breathing imbecile who attacks those of us in the fight rather than make herself useful,” Vance reportedly wrote in a post that has since been deleted. “If I had shown up to the vote in question, the nominee would have succeeded 49-46 rather than 49-45. If every Republican had showed up, Fetterman would have come in and the Democrats still would have gotten their nominee across. When this 11th Circuit vote happened, I was meeting with President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI Director.”

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In those last few words, Vance makes clear the Trump administration is at least considering replacing Director Wray, with whom Trump has a personal vendetta. Wray would likely have had to authorize the FBI’s execution of a legal search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence, an effort to retrieve classified and top secret documents Trump removed from the White House during his first term and refused to return.

“Within an hour, both Chong and Vance had deleted their posts—but it was too late,” The New Republic reported on Tuesday, calling Vance’s tweet a “childish temper tantrum.”

“The vice president-elect had already demonstrated that while he may understand how math works, he doesn’t have the slightest idea how to lead his party. By Vance’s own logic, it makes no difference whether any of his Republican colleagues do their jobs and show up to vote either.”

Director Wray’s ten-year term ends in August of 2027.

READ MORE: ‘Someone Who Says Tap Water Turns Kids Gay’: House Dem Slams ‘Insane’ Trump Cabinet Picks

Talking Points Memo on Tuesday evening, after the Vance’s tweet, reported, “it would be a massive break from precedent for Donald Trump to come into office with plans to replace the FBI director, a position that’s given a 10-year term specifically to inoculate against partisan politics seeping into the bureau’s operations.”

“But it is increasingly looking like Trump will do just that,” TPM wrote, adding: “Trump’s initial beef with Wray actually dates back to 2018. Not long after Wray was appointed and confirmed as FBI director, House Republicans (led by none other than then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)) planned to publish a memo that condemned the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation.”

Wray opposed the memo, and in doing so, sided against both House Republicans and the Trump White House.

JD Vance responds to Steve Bannon’s War Room CFO’s criticism of him for missing a vote on a crucial judicial appointment last night, calling her “a mouth breathing imbecile.” pic.twitter.com/PYJiSmL1Pe

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) November 19, 2024

READ MORE: ‘Damaging’: Unredacted Sealed Sworn Testimony in Gaetz Case Accessed by Alleged Hacker

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