The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah), was rejected in a 205-229 vote. The House is expected to vote on final passage of the bill — which reauthorizes the FAA for five years — on Thursday.

Owens’s amendment called for adding seven new roundtrip flights both inside and beyond the perimeter at DCA, with one for each of the major airlines that operate at the hub. The airport does not offer non-stop service outside a 1,250-mile radius — the so-called “DCA Perimeter Rule” — per a federal regulation, though there are some exceptions, including flights to and from Austin, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and San Francisco.

Owens and a coalition of lawmakers initially sought to add 28 additional daily flights at DCA, but ultimately settled on seven as a compromise.

The amendment adding flights to and from DCA was subject to much debate among lawmakers in the lead up to Wednesday’s vote, dividing members not by political party, but rather by geographic location.

During debate on the House floor Wednesday, lawmakers who spoke in support of the measure hailed from Utah, Texas and Georgia, while opponents were based in Virginia, D.C. and Illinois.

Proponents of the amendment argued that the measure would increase convenience for travelers by providing more flight options.

“It’s about empowering American consumers by providing more options and greater convenience for people traveling to and from Washington, D.C.,” Owens said Wednesday.

Lawmakers located near the nation’s capital, however, argued that the measure would make an already congested airport more crowded.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) claimed that the amendment would “increase safety risks, delays, cancellations, diversions and noise at National Airport, all for the personal convenience of some members of Congress.”

Airlines also got involved in the discourse over adding more flights at DCA. Delta Air Lines advocated for adding flights to the D.C.-area airport, while United was opposed.

Republicans and Democrats sparred over the significance of the tax crimes investigation into Hunter Biden at a House Oversight Committee hearing that featured two IRS whistleblowers, with the GOP arguing the president's son was spared from true justice while Democrats argued he was thoroughly investigated by a team formed under the former president and led by a Trump-appointed attorney.

IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler and his supervisor Gary Shapley, who investigated Biden, expressed frustration over how U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss and other prosecutors handled the investigation, alleging authorities slow-walked the case and showed preferential treatment to the president’s son. 

The House Ways and Means Committee had first privately interviewed the two whistleblowers, releasing transcripts just days after prosecutors reached an agreement with Biden to plead guilty to two charges of willful failure to pay taxes.

The nearly six-hour hearing relayed little information not already covered in the nearly 400 pages of testimony from the two men, with the whistleblowers saying they could not answer questions outside the scope of that testimony.

But the hearing was revelatory about how both sides of the aisle could use that testimony.

Here are five takeaways from the hearing.

Democrats say testimony shows common disagreements

Democrats largely sought to cast the whistleblowers' complaints as common disagreements between investigative staff and prosecutors, who often have reservations about scoring convictions on evidence discovered by staff.

Ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said the testimony showed a “traditional tug-of-war” between investigators and prosecutors, using as an example the recent indictment of former President Trump on charges of mishandling classified documents, with prosecutors focusing on a small number of alleged crimes although investigators said they found more violations.

Shapley, though, pushed back on that assertion, saying that assistant U.S. attorneys and attorneys in the Department of Justice (DOJ) tax division had agreed with a number of recommended charges, though not all were ultimately pursued.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) similarly argued that investigators and attorneys often view a case differently.

“I never met an agent who didn't want to charge every possible case. But what I noticed in five hours of testimony today is that neither one of you has ever mentioned a portion of the case that may not be so strong, or may be suspect or may have a defense,”Goldman said, referencing his work as a prosecutor.

“And that's because that's what the prosecutor has to think about before charging a case.”

Ziegler testified that Weiss offered a rationale for not pursuing charges for some tax years, worried that testimony about Biden’s personal life at that time could sour the changes of conviction.

Democrats also argued that, contrary to the whistleblowers’ assertion, it sounded like Biden’s tax history was subject to a rigorous review by investigators and prosecutors.

“It sounds like Hunter Biden's taxes were subject to a great deal of scrutiny and rigorous review by a large team of expert investigators who had experience working complex cases.…The time, personnel and all the resources devoted to this investigation make it abundantly clear that this investigation was taken seriously by both the IRS and DOJ,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

“While our witnesses here today may disagree with the U.S. attorney's decisions, it is undeniable that Hunter Biden was subject to a thorough and rigorous investigation.” 

Jordan accuses Weiss of changing his story

Republicans' recent interest in impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland centers on a key detail from Shapley’s testimony: Weiss, he said, sought and was denied special counsel status as a way to bring charges outside Delaware afterU.S. attorneys in other jurisdictions allegedly opposed bringing charges on their turf.

Weiss has said he never asked for special counsel status, instead being assured he would be granted special attorney status, governed under another statute, if he wished to file charges outside his district.

Weiss has outlined in both a June 7 letter and a July 10 letter that he has “never been denied the authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction.” 

But House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who also sits on the Oversight Committee, mischaracterized the letters, arguing that Weiss “change[d] his story.”

“What happened in between those two events?” Jordan said of the letters. “Your testimony went public. He goes, ‘Oh, my goodness, I gotta change my story, because now the truth is coming out.’”

Weiss’s second letter includes more detail about his dealingswith DOJ leaders, saying he was assured he would be granted special attorney status if needed well in advance of the meeting where Shapley asserts he said otherwise.

“When you look at the letters he actually sent, he didn't change his tune at all. He said the exact same thing every time, and he even expanded the answer to be perfectly clear," Raskin said.

Whether Weiss had interest in either of the two statuses is largely of interest to Republicans as a way to forward a potential impeachment inquiry into Garland, as he assured lawmakers that Weiss had “full authority…to bring cases in other districts if he needs to do that.”

Shapley undercuts Garland impeachment effort

Shapley also undercut another key factor fueling the GOP’s interest in impeaching Garland, saying he has no evidence that Garland intentionally misled Congress about Weiss’s authority.

“Let me be clear, although these facts contradict the attorney general's testimony and raise serious questions for you to investigate, I have never claimed evidence that Attorney General Garland knowingly lied to Congress,” Shapley said Wednesday.

“This for others to investigate and determine whether those letters contain knowingly false statements….I don't claim to be privy to United States Attorney Weiss’s or Attorney General Garland’s communications.”

Democrats suggested that the whistleblowers may have been confused over two statuses prosecutors can attain – appointment as a special counsel, versus the special attorney status Weiss was assured he could receive if desired.

Ziegler in his testimony asserted he still believes a more independent status is needed by those handling the investigation.

“I still think that a special counsel is necessary for this investigation,” he said.

Greene overshadows hearing with ‘parental discretion advised’ moment

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the hearing came when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) brought sexually explicit – but censored – posters of Hunter Biden in to make her point.

“Before we begin, I would like to let the committee and everyone watching at home that parental discretion is advised,” Greene said.

Greene’s questioning included her holding up small posters featuring graphic sexual photos from the laptop hard drive that purportedly belonged to Hunter Biden, which were censored with black boxes.

The faces of other involved in the sexual acts were censored with black boxes, but Biden’s face is visible in the photos.

Her focus on the explicit and salacious history of Biden, who has been public about his struggles with addiction, stands in contrast to Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) indicating in the past that the focus of the committee’s investigation of the Biden family’s business dealings would not focus on his personal actions.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said that Greene's move to show "pornographic images" marked "a new low" for the committee. 

"Frankly, I don't care who you are in this country, no one deserves that. It is abuse. It is abusive," she said.

Democrats argue GOP distracts from injustice for Black and brown individuals 

Several Black lawmakers directly challenged Republican claims that the Biden plea deal shows a two-tiered system of justice, saying the argument minimizes the experiences of Black and brown Americans disproportionately impacted by the justice system.

“I'd like to address the way my Republican colleagues are attempting to co-opt the phrase ‘two-tiered justice system’ to make it sound like Trump and his cronies are somehow the victims here,” Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said.

“The reality is that the term two-tiered system of justice is meant to refer to the very real system that exists in the United States, and which affects black and brown folks, not powerful former presidents and their political allies.”

Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) listed off a number of statistics on disparities in the criminal justice system, including within IRS, asserting that Black taxpayers are audited at least three times more often than non-Black taxpayers.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) also said Republicans were using the term improperly.

“Republicans and Trump complain about a two-tiered justice system, co-opting the language of the decades long civil rights movement for black lives and black freedom, a movement that they actually are actively looking to eliminate. There is a two-tiered justice system, but it's not about Democrats versus Republican,” he said, before listing off a number of recent and historical examples, including those killed by police.

“It's Black, brown and poor people versus everyone else. And I won't accept when Republican politicians look to appropriate the language of the movement for black lives and civil rights, to fit a political agenda to defend Donald Trump.” 

The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday heard from two IRS whistleblowers who allege the government’s investigation into President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was mishandled.

Republicans sought to use the testimony of the two whistleblowers — one of whom had remained anonymous until today’s hearing — to make their case of unequal justice for Democrats and Republicans and further their broader investigations into the Biden family’s business dealings.

The hearing has concluded. Catch up on updates below.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is defending former President Trump for his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, saying Trump had encouraged a peaceful protest that day — but did nothing to merit the criminal charges the Justice Department (DOJ) is said to be weighing. 

“I don’t see how he could be found criminally responsible,” McCarthy told reporters Wednesday in the Capitol. “What criminal activity did he do? He told people to be peaceful.”

The Speaker’s comments came a day after Trump revealed he is a target of the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the Capitol rampage, which was conducted by supporters of the former president who were attempting to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The so-called target letter is typically an indication that a formal indictment is forthcoming. 

McCarthy’s defense of Trump marks a contrast to remarks he made shortly after the Capitol attack, when he took to the House floor to declare that Trump “bears responsibility” for the actions of the “mob rioters.” 

McCarthy said he spoke to Trump Tuesday after the former president placed a call to him, and that the conversation “wasn’t anything different than the time before.” He noted that they “talk on a regular basis” but also suggested Trump was frustrated with the arrival of the target letter. 

“Wouldn’t you feel frustrated?” McCarthy said.

McCarthy disputed reports that the call was a “strategy session” designed to unite Republicans behind a response to potential indictments, instead accusing the Biden administration of conducting such sessions for the purpose of targeting the president’s political adversaries.

“I think the strategy sessions happen in the Democrats’ Department of Justice, where they go after anybody who’s running against the president,” McCarthy said. “It seems as though — and if you go up in the polls you’re more likely to get indicted.”

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), one of Trump’s fiercest supporters on Capitol Hill, also said she spoke to the former president Tuesday following news of the target letter, before tearing into the development as “yet another example of the illegal weaponization of the Department of Justice to go after Joe Biden’s top political opponent.”

The comments came on the same day that House Republicans staged a high-profile hearing with a pair of IRS whistleblowers who accused DOJ prosecutors of slow-walking an investigation into Hunter Biden. Both McCarthy and Stefanik said the real criminal conspiracy lies there, not with anything Trump did surrounding Jan. 6.  

“I would move to an impeachment inquiry if I found that the attorney general has not only lied to the Congress and the Senate, but to America,” McCarthy said, referring to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

McCarthy’s full-throated defense sets up a stark contrast with his GOP counterpart in the Senate, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who declined to comment on the Trump news when asked about it at a press conference Wednesday, citing the former president’s reelection campaign.

“I’ve said every week out here that I’m not going to comment on the various candidates for the presidency,” McConnell told reporters. “How I felt about that I expressed at the time, but I’m not going to start getting into sort of critiquing the various candidates for president.”

After the Senate concluded its impeachment trial into Trump following the Jan. 6 riot, McConnell tore into the former president in remarks on the floor, declaring, “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.”

“The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” he added.

Since then, McConnell has remained relatively silent when it comes to matters involving Trump, picking and choosing when to weigh in on politically charged matters linked to the former president.

Santos was charged with 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and lying to the U.S. House of Representatives in May. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

The Republican lawmaker was released from custody ahead of trial on a $500,000 bond, but was directed to notify the government if he planned to travel anywhere in the continental U.S. outside of New York City, Long Island or Washington, D.C.

To prevent "unnecessary notifications" of Santos's travels, his lawyer Joseph Murray asked the court Wednesday morning to allow Santos to travel up to 30 miles outside D.C.

"In light of the small geographical area of the District of Columbia, there is a frequent
need to travel outside the District of Columbia for usual and customary functions of someone
who lives and works in the District of Columbia, such as dining, shopping, meetings, events, and
even use of the local airports," Murray wrote.

"This has resulted in unnecessary notifications which can easily be remedied by extending the geographical area in which my client can freely move about without providing prior notice, to include a thirty-mile radius around the District of Columbia," he continued.

Neither prosecutors nor pretrial services took issue with Santos's request. Magistrate Judge Anne Shields, who is overseeing Santos's case, agreed to allow the Republican lawmaker to travel farther without notifying the court Wednesday afternoon.

New York prosecutors allege that Santos misled donors and misrepresented his finances to the public and government agencies.

“This indictment seeks to hold Santos accountable for various alleged fraudulent schemes and brazen misrepresentations,” Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a May statement announcing Santos's indictment. “Taken together, the allegations in the indictment charge Santos with relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to the halls of Congress and enrich himself." 

A month before his arrest, Santos announced his reelection bid for New York's 3rd congressional district despite his implication in several state and federal investigations, plus an inquiry from the House Ethics Committee.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called for his resignation from Congress, which Santos has rebuffed.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) leaned in on some of the more salacious issues concerning Hunter Biden in her questioning of IRS whistleblowers who investigated Biden at a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday — and brought sexually explicit posters to make her point.

“Before we begin, I would like to let the committee and everyone watching at home know that parental discretion is advised,” Greene said.

Greene’s questioning included her holding up small posters featuring graphic sexual photos from the laptop hard drive that purportedly belonged to Hunter Biden, which were censored with black boxes.

The faces of others involved in the sexual acts were censored with black boxes, but Biden’s face is visible in the photos.

Staffers react as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., holds up sexually explicit images that she says are of Hunter Biden during her questioning of IRS whistleblowers during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing with IRS whistleblowers, Wednesday, July 19, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

“Should we be displaying this, Mr. Chairman?” ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) asked Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) near the end of Greene’s testimony.

Photos of Greene holding up the graphic images promptly filled up social media feeds.

Greene alleged that Hunter Biden had improperly used his company to write off payments to prostitutes, which IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler would not confirm. 

He did say that there were deductions for what he believed to be escorts, and that a payment reported to be for a golf club membership was actually for a “sex club.”

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Greene also asked questions about the Mann Act, which criminalizes transportation of women across state lines for the purposes of prostitution. Ziegler said that he could not speak specifically about the Mann Act, but could turn over the information he was compiling on Mann Act violations to the House Ways and Means Committee, which Greene could then request.

Ziegler and another IRS whistleblower at the hearing, Gary Shapley, had testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that they were displeased with how prosecutors handled the tax crimes case against Hunter Biden, accusing them of slow-walking the investigation.

Greene's focus on explicit and salacious history of Hunter Biden, who has been public about his struggles with addiction, stands in contrast to Comer indicating in the past that the focus of the committee's investigations of the Biden family's business dealings would not focus on his personal actions.

Rep. Robert Garcia later in the hearing used Greene’s move to take a jab at the House GOP majority.

“Today’s hearing is like most of the majority’s investigations and hearings: A lot of allegations, zero proof, no receipts – but apparently, some dick pics,” Garcia said.

This story was updated at 4:57 p.m.

In a speech to a joint meeting of Congress marking Israel’s 75th anniversary, Herzog called Israeli protests against Netanyahu and his government “painful, and deeply unnerving, because it highlights the cracks within the whole.” 

President Biden has urged Netanyahu to work with Herzog to reach an agreement with the political opposition to abandon some of the most controversial measures of the government’s judicial overhaul plan, which critics say would neuter the country’s Supreme Court and undermine its democracy. 

“As head of state, I will continue doing everything to reach a broad public consensus, and to preserve, protect and defend the state of Israel’s democracy,” Herzog said to lawmakers.

Herzog’s visit to Washington, and his address to Congress, served as an attempt by the Biden administration to bridge the divides in his party — reinforcing Democratic support for Israel without legitimizing Netanyahu’s controversial government. 

Biden spoke with Netanyahu Monday as the Israeli president arrived in Washington and agreed to meet in the fall in the United States, but has not yet extended an explicit invitation to the White House.

Democratic divisions were apparent Wednesday, when at least seven progressives skipped the Israeli president’s speech. They included Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.) and Pramila Jayapal (Wash.). 

Some of those lawmakers have denounced Israel as an apartheid state and condemned Netanyahu’s government as racist — critical of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, its settlement activity in the West Bank and saying that the judicial overhaul will worsen the situation. 

Herzog addressed those statements head-on.

“I am not oblivious to criticism among friends, including some expressed by respected members of this House,” he said, adding that while he respects the criticism, “One does not always have to accept it,” which elicited laughs and claps in the chamber.

His remarks came one day after the House overwhelmingly approved a resolution affirming that Israel “is not a racist or apartheid state” and that the U.S. “will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel,” while also condemning xenophobia and antisemitism.

The final vote was 412-9-1, with all opposition coming from progressive Democrats — some of whom boycotted Wednesday’s speech.

The resolution was drawn up in reaction to remarks by Jayapal, the chair of the Progressive Caucus, who, during a progressive conference in Chicago over the weekend, said that “Israel is a racist state.” 

The comment drew vocal bipartisan criticism, and Jayapal later apologized, walked back her remarks and focused her criticism on the Netanyahu government.

Jayapal did not attend Herzog’s speech, with a Democratic aide saying in a statement that her absence was due to “scheduling conflicts.” She did, however, support the resolution Tuesday.

One of the loudest applause lines came when Herzog warned that criticism of Israel should not “cross the line into negation of the state of Israel’s right to exist.”

“Questioning the Jewish people’s right to self-determination is not legitimate diplomacy, it is antisemitism,” he added.

While Herzog’s roughly 40-minute remarks were overwhelmingly celebrated by both sides of the chamber, some Republicans stayed seated while other lawmakers stood to applaud the Israeli president describing Israel as hosting “the largest and most impressive LGBTQ pride parades.” 

Still, the chamber was filled with lawmakers proclaiming support for Israel — with the U.S. and Israel working closely together to counter threats from Iran and its nuclear ambitions and to advance efforts to establish ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. 

“Israel thanks the United States for working towards establishing peaceful relations between Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a leading nation in the region and in the Muslim world,” Herzog said.

“We pray for this moment to come. This would be a huge sea change in the course of history in the Middle East and the world at large.”

The remark received an overwhelming bipartisan standing ovation. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the ranking member on the Judiciary committee who is Jewish, held up Israel’s flag during the Israeli president’s remarks.

Herzog said that his deepest “yearning … is for Israel to one day make peace with our Palestinian neighbors” — comments that drew a bipartisan standing ovation — but called out Palestinian attacks against Israelis as undermining possibilities for a future peace. 

“Notwithstanding the deep political differences, and the numerous challenges that surround Israeli-Palestinian relations — and I do not ignore them — but it should be clear that one cannot talk about peace while condoning or legitimizing terror, implicitly or explicitly. True peace cannot be anchored in violence,” he said. 

Herzog thanked the U.S. for its “commitment to Israel’s security,” but noted that the relationship is a “two-way alliance, in which Israel has been making critical contributions to the national security and interests of the United States in numerous ways.” 

To date, the U.S. has provided $158 billion in bilateral assistance and missile defense, according to the Congressional Research Service, although that number is not adjusted for inflation. 

The Obama administration negotiated two 10-year agreements that provided Israel $30 billion through 2018, and $33.8 billion between 2019 and 2028. 

In 2021, Congress appropriated an additional $1 billion to restock Israel’s missile defense system, Iron Dome, but that was largely delayed over opposition from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)

Herzog is only the second Israeli president to address Congress. His father, Chaim Herzog, marked Israel’s 40th anniversary with a joint speech to Congress in 1987. 

He called it “the honor of a lifetime” to follow in his father’s footsteps, and he paid notice to his other deep family roots in his speech, referencing how his grandfather, the chief rabbi of the newly established state of Israel, met with then-President Truman in the White House in 1949. 

The president’s brother, Michael Herzog, is Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S.

“To us, it is clear that America is irreplaceable to Israel, and Israel is irreplaceable to America. It is time to design the next stage of our evolving friendship and our growing partnership together,” Herzog said in his speech. 

“Israel and the United States will inevitably disagree on many matters. But we will always remain family.”

Twitter owner Elon Musk pushed back at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-N.Y.) criticism of the platform’s safety measures with a nod to a popular line from William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” 

Twitter Safety claimed Tuesday that over 99 percent of the content users and advertisers see on the social media platform is “healthy,” adding that “the reach of hate speech on Twitter continues to represent an extreme small fraction of the overall conversation.” 

Ocasio-Cortez responded to the tweet, writing she has “never experienced more harassment on this platform than I do now.” She argued people are paying to give their own harassment more visibility. 

“The de-verification of journalists, civic orgs, and figures has made it impossible to follow conversations," she continued. "I wish it could be usable again."

Musk clapped back at the lawmaker, tweeting Tuesday night, “Methinks somebody doth protest too much..."

According to Twitter Safety, they partnered with Sprinklr, a unified customer experience management platform, to assess and reduce hate speech on the the social media platform using Sprinklr’s artificial intelligence (AI) model.

“Sprinklr’s independent model continues to show the reach of daily English-language hate speech impressions is even lower than Twitter’s own model represents,” Twitter Safety wrote in its update Tuesday, estimating hate speech impressions are 30 percent lower on average compared with impressions before Musk acquired Twitter last fall. 

Ocasio-Cortez has publicly criticized the platform on multiple occasions since Musk’s takeover, from blasting the billionaire over suspending several journalists from the social media platform to accusing Musk of boosting a fake Twitter account impersonating her. 

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Shortly after Musk purchased Twitter in a $44 billion deal last fall, Ocasio scoffed at another user’s comparison between Twitter charging users a monthly fee and large media outlets' subscription services. She later claimed her Twitter mentions and notifications "conveniently" weren’t working.

“So I was informed via text that I seem to have gotten under a certain billionaire’s skin,” the progressive lawmaker tweeted at the time. 

Musk has received backlash for some of his controversial choices since purchasing Twitter, including a new approach to content moderation measures and the Twitter Blue program, which charges users to verify their account.

In a letter sent on Tuesday, representatives from the NFL, the MLB, NASCAR, and NCAA expressed their concern about section 813 of the House version of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act, saying the proposal “would establish a broad and complex waiver program that would permit countless aircraft to fly near and over stadiums during games.” 

League officials said that the proposed measure would put millions of sports fans at risk, and that the current ban provides necessary safety and security protections against potential threats. 

“The FAA first established flight restrictions over large stadium sporting events immediately following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in response to concerns about terrorists using aircraft as weapons,” the sporting league officials wrote in their letter, obtained and published by Punchbowl News. 

“Congress subsequently twice codified and strengthened these restrictions, providing specific criteria for aircraft operations permitted within the flight restricted area,” the letter reads, with officials also noting that lawmakers turned down a similar waiver program proposal in 2003. “Section 813 would effectively eliminate the specific criteria and replace it with an openended waiver program.”

The House is set to take up its version of the must-pass bill on Wednesday.

League officials said in their letter that the current rules enhance the safety and security of large stadium events and minimize disruption of the National Airspace System (NAS). They noted that airspace over stadiums with a seating capacity of 30,000 people or more is closed to all aircraft from one hour before until one hour after a major sporting event.

“Having devoted substantial resources to secure our stadiums on the ground, we regard the stadium flight restriction as essential to safeguarding the airspace overhead,” the letter reads. “We believe section 813 complicates the airspace over stadiums, compromises public safety and security, and courts potential disaster.”

“We, therefore, urge you to uphold current law and maintain existing flight restrictions that protect the safety and security of millions of fans who attend large stadium sporting events every year,” the letter concluded. 

“I will not let a fiscal year go by without having our budget that our committee has worked hard on, and that we have worked with every member, every faction, every caucus of our conference, to get to a good place,” Arrington said Wednesday morning.

“That's all reflected in our resolution, our draft resolution, and my plan is to make sure that that resolution is marked up and passed out of committee by the end of the fiscal year,” he said. 

The current fiscal year is set to end on Sept. 30.

Arrington said more details about the scope of the plan would come “when we're ready to put it on the committee table for discussion and debate and markup.”

“But I think it's a responsible budget. It's a path to balance,” he said, “and our country desperately needs a fiscally responsible plan to and a path to balance because the current fiscal path is unsustainable, and our debt is going to implode on this country.”

His comments as efforts to release the committee’s budget blueprint seemed to be put on the backburner months ago as the bipartisan negotiations over the nation’s debt limit dominated focus on Capitol Hill.

But Arrington said on Wednesday that the budget panel has consensus on not getting through “this fiscal year without at least marking up a budget in committee and passing it."

“We’ve been working with the broader conference to get close to 218,” he added.

A new program aims to take “one small step” toward bridging the partisan divide in Congress, simply by having lawmakers talk to each other.  

For 20 years, the nonprofit StoryCorps has been documenting the stories of some 700,000 ordinary Americans, with a copy of the audio recordings going to both the participant and the Library of Congress as part of a nationwide oral history effort.  

“People think of it as, ‘If I had 40 minutes left to live, what would I say to this person who means so much to me?’ We're kind of collecting the wisdom of humanity,” Dave Isay, StoryCorps’s founder and president, told ITK.  

Another initiative, called One Small Step, emerged from the nonprofit in 2017 when, Isay said, “Things really began fracturing in the country.”  

“We started experimenting with putting people or strangers across the divide together, not to talk about politics, but just to get to know each other as human beings under the premise that it's hard to get up close,” said Isay.  

Now, StoryCorps’s One Small Step, in partnership with The Hill, is going a step further, by facilitating conversations in Congress. The new project pairs up lawmakers, along with senior staff members at the Capitol, for chats with their political opposites.   

The political odd couples engage in 30-minute talks with each other, either in-person or virtually.  

Isay, a Peabody Award winner, admitted he was at first “very resistant” to trying to take One Small Step to the halls of Congress: “I think that we all have our own biases. [Mine] was that members of Congress couldn't and wouldn't do this and wouldn't be able to get off their script.”  

Larry Kramer, the president of the Hewlett Foundation, funded the project and ultimately was able to convince Isay to give the congressional sit-downs a go.  

One of the first conversations, which debuted at an event hosted by StoryCorps and The Hill earlier this month, happened between Reps. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Dean Phillips (D-Minn.).  

Burchett recalled how polarization has even infiltrated the elevators at the Capitol.  

“I don't know if you've seen this, but I've been in elevators when people will get in and see somebody in there, and then they'll turn around and get out,” Burchett exclaimed to Phillips. “I’m like, ‘Are y'all 12? We got a frickin’ country to run, man.’”  

“Frankly, I think it's a dereliction of duty to avoid conversation in a place that's designed to provoke it and promote it,” responded Phillips.  

“The people unwilling to talk to one another are the problem. Period. Doesn't matter your politics,” Phillips told his GOP colleague. The two even joked about their vast political differences.  

“I'm a conservative. I mean, look at my voting record,” Burchett said.   

“I can't even see your record because it's so far to the right — my peripheral vision,” Phillips quipped.  

“At the end of the interview, the spoiler is, they say, ‘I love you,’ to each other,” Isay said of the conversation between Burchett and Phillips. “I've heard every kind of interview through StoryCorps that you could possibly hear, and this one made me so happy it made me want to cry. You know anything is possible.”  

Right now, StoryCorps is gathering more volunteers in Congress, mostly through word of mouth.   

The majority of Americans, Isay said, want to see elected officials come together and not treating their political opponents as “as enemy to be vanquished.”  

A 2019 Public Agenda-USA Today-Ipsos poll found that 90 percent of respondents said that it was important for Americans to try to seek common ground with their political foes, with another 83 percent calling divisiveness a “big problem.”  

Lawmakers, Isay said, must find a way to “not just respond to the loudest voices and most extreme voices, but regular people who just want us to find a way forward.”  

“Our democracy can't survive in a swamp of mutual contempt,” Isay, 57, said. “So we have to fix this problem or our entire democracy is at risk.”  

One Small Step Congress, Isay said, “is not about centrism at all” or lawmakers singing kumbaya with one another.  

“It's just about treating each other as human beings,” Isay said, “no matter where you are on the political spectrum.”  

Nine House Democrats voted against a resolution Tuesday expressing support for Israel and denouncing antisemitism, a measure that was brought to the floor as a response to comments Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) made over the weekend that were critical of Israel.

The chamber voted 412-9-1 to approve the resolution, which asserts that Israel “is not a racist or apartheid state,” rejects antisemitism and xenophobia in all forms and states that the U.S. “will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel.”

All nine Democrats who opposed the measure are members of the Progressive Caucus, which Jayapal is the chairwoman of: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Andre Carson (Ind.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.). Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) voted “present.”

Jayapal supported the resolution.

Speaking at a conference in Chicago on Saturday, Jayapal said, “Israel is a racist state." The comment came as Palestinian protesters disrupted a panel discussion, which three members of Congress were taking part in.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a Jewish lawmaker who was also on the panel, said the activist group protesting has focused attention on her for years, and told reporters this week that Jayapal was confronting “an attack on me.”

Jayapal walked her comments back one day later, writing in a statement, “I do not believe the idea of Israel as a nation is racist” and apologizing “to those who I have hurt with my words.” She also criticized the conservative government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The congresswoman, however, still faced bipartisan criticism for her initial comments, which included a rare joint statement from House Democratic leadership pushing back on the remarks and a separate statement signed by 43 of her Democratic colleagues in the chamber that said they were “deeply concerned” about her "unacceptable" comments.

Tuesday’s vote, and particularly how it fractured Democrats, highlighted a dynamic that has played out in the party for years: liberals concerned with human rights issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict colliding with party leaders wary of interfering with diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Israel.

Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Bowman, Omar and Bush have all said they plan to skip Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s speech to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, citing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and concerns over human rights.

Israel’s human rights record toward Palestinians drove some of the Democratic opposition to the resolution.

“The United States is an outlier in terms of its refusal to recognize the severity of the human rights crisis that Palestinians face,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters ahead of Tuesday’s vote. “And, you know, at this point, from Amnesty International to U.N. Special Commissions, are recognizing that the denial of rights of Palestinians amounts to apartheid.”

“Our inability to actually be honest about this conversation prevents us from being an ally to advancing human rights, and being a good ally as well,” she added.

Shortly before the vote ended, Ocasio-Cortez was spotted hugging Jayapal on the House floor.

Lee, a first-term lawmaker, sounded a similar note, citing “basic human rights and democratic values” in a statement following the vote.

“I condemn antisemitism and xenophobia in all its forms. Whether we’re talking about India, Israel, or Sri Lanka, we are not true allies if we cannot push our partners to uphold basic human rights and democratic values. I cannot vote for unconditional support of any nation-state,” she wrote.

“That my colleagues would be more concerned with silencing a woman of color for speaking truth to power than ending human rights abuses abroad is a damning commentary on the state of our Congress,” Pressley echoed on Twitter.

Other Democrats claimed that Israel is, indeed, an apartheid state, taking issue with the language in the resolution. Tlaib, the only Palestinian American serving in Congress, made that argument on the House floor during debate Tuesday.

“Israel is an apartheid state,” she said. “The government is deeply problematic in the way that they are proceeding in the structure of oppression.”

In a statement after the vote, Omar pointed to a number of human rights groups that, she said, “have found that the Israeli government’s policies meet the legal definition of apartheid.”

“While the term may be discomforting, I don’t believe it is appropriate for Congress to be explicitly targeting the legal findings of human rights groups in this way,” she added. “We shouldn’t allow for the silencing of voices supporting Palestinian human rights.”

The congresswoman also argued that the resolution “was designed by MAGA Republicans to target and shame” Jayapal for comments that “she apologized [for] and clarified.”

“While I strongly agree with explicitly and affirmatively rejecting xenophobia and antisemitism, conflating antisemitism with criticism of the Israeli government is wrong,” she added.

Bowman and Ramirez expressed support for Jayapal ahead of the vote.

“@RepJayapal is a colleague and a friend. She is a principled Chair who supports the Members of the @USProgressives. She’s a champion for human rights and peace in the U.S. and around the world,” Ramirez wrote in a Twitter thread. “She is also one of a very few Brown, immigrant women in U.S. Congress - an institution that isn’t designed for Black, Brown & immigrant folks. This place often tries to silence us, especially when we speak out for the rights of other black & brown folks around the world.”

“These attempts to silence us only show how badly our voice is needed here,” she added.

Bowman on Twitter said he is “proud to call @RepJayapal a friend and our CPC Chair.”

“She is unwavering in her principles and in support of her members, including this weekend when she had @janschakowsky's back. It's simple. Rep. Jayapal has been a constant advocate for human rights across the globe,” he added.

McCollum — who voted “present” — claimed in a lengthy statement that the resolution “does nothing to advance the goal of a peaceful solution to end the conflict.”

“I vote ‘present’ on this resolution, because Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians deserve genuine steps forward on the goal of peace, not more division and political gamesmanship. I do this because every Palestinian child and Israeli child deserves to go to sleep at night dreaming of a brighter future, not one of violence,” she added.

The congresswoman said she condemns “antisemitism and hate in all its forms,” but noted that, as a supporter of a two-state solution, she is “deeply troubled” by Netanyahu’s record and “actions of the Israeli government that run counter to this stated goal.”

“I am proud to serve in the United States House of Representatives, in the greatest democracy in the world. A cornerstone of a strong democracy is the ability to openly criticize our government when we feel it is doing something against our values,” she continued. “As a Member of Congress, I have often criticized the policies of my own government. That does not make me anti-American. And criticizing the policies of the Israeli government does not make one antisemitic.”

House Republicans voted Tuesday to eliminate funding to three LGBTQ community centers during a contentious House Appropriations subcommittee meeting that one member characterized as “political theater.”

Tensions boiled over Tuesday after Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) introduced an amendment to the annual funding bill covering the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development to eliminate $3.62 million in funding for three LGBTQ community centers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

The amendment, which Cole said Tuesday would crack down on “problematic” spending, also prohibits federal funds from being used to fly LGBTQ Pride flags outside government buildings.

It passed Tuesday in a 32-26 vote along party lines.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus and one of 12 openly LGBTQ members of Congress, called the proposal “an embarrassment.”

“This amendment brings this committee to a new low,” Pocan said Tuesday during a markup of the bill. “The fact that you would take away members' earmarks simply because they refer to the LGBTQ+ community is insane.”

“If you were to take away earmarks because they went to the NAACP or the Urban League, you would rightfully so be called racist bigots,” Pocan said. “But when you do it to the LGBT community, it's another frickin' day in Congress.”

In an emotional moment, Pocan recalled being physically assaulted and threatened early in his career for being an openly gay man in politics. He accused Republicans of inciting similar violence against the community.

“When I wasn’t out yet, [I] left the gay bars and people followed me and beat me with a baseball bat until I was bloodied and unconscious and called me a f-----. This is what you guys do by introducing amendments like this,” he said.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, called Tuesday's amendment “a disgrace” and compared working with some committee Republicans to “negotiating with terrorists.”

Tuesday’s proceedings were formally paused after Republicans asked for DeLauro’s “terrorist” comments to be struck from the markup record.

When the committee reconvened, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) defended Cole’s amendment by claiming the LGBTQ community centers in question have programs in place supporting communism, drag shows and the administration of hormone replacement therapy to young people.

“Appropriation also should be appropriate,” he said.

Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) later introduced an amendment to add the three projects back into the bill. It was rejected in a vote 27-30.

The committee went into recess twice more Tuesday when Republicans asked for comments from Pocan and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who called the amendment "bigoted" and said "the Republican Party doesn’t like gay people,” to be struck from the record.

In a video posted to Twitter Tuesday, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who requested $1.8 million in funding for the William Way LGBT Center in Philadelphia, said Tuesday’s proceedings amounted to “one of the most obvious and disgusting examples of bigotry that I've seen in my career and in my life.”

Funding for two other LGBTQ centers – projects requested by Democratic Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) – were also cut by Tuesday’s amendment.

“This cruel and unjust decision is not rooted in any legitimacy, but instead in bigotry and hatred,” Houlahan wrote Tuesday on Twitter. “An overwhelming majority of Americans support LGBTQ+ rights. We are on the right side of history & we will hold those who wish to discriminate against LGBTQ+ Americans accountable.”

“Israel is an apartheid state. To assert otherwise, Mr. Speaker, in the face of this body of evidence, is an attempt to deny the reality and an attempt to normalize violence of apartheid,” Tlaib said.

“Don’t forget: This body, this Congress, supported the South African apartheid regime, and it was bipartisan as well,” she added.

Tlaib, who is of Palestinian heritage, is one of a slate of progressive members of Congress who plan to skip Herzog’s speech to Congress on Wednesday out of protest against the Israeli government.

The protests come as violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has increased in recent months, and the Israeli government faces internal strife over attempted judicial reforms.

Tlaib pointed out that the United Nations as well as advocacy groups Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B’tselem have labeled Israel an apartheid state.

The resolution supporting Israel passed overwhelmingly, with nine members of Congress — mostly Democratic members of the progressive "Squad" — voting against. It specifically states that Israel is “not a racist or apartheid state.”

On Saturday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said Israel is a “racist state,” vowing to vote against the resolution and skip Herzog’s speech. 

Those comments sparked calls for action from Republicans who believed the remarks were antisemitic.

Democrats have dismissed the outrage as a political squabble, but it has caused some rifts within the party.

“There is a difference between criticizing the right of Israel to exist, which is beyond the pale, and criticizing the conduct of the Israeli government, which I think is horrible,” Rep.  Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish, said Tuesday.

Herzog met with President Biden on Tuesday.

A House hearing on funding for transportation and housing descended into yelling and name-calling Tuesday as Republicans and Democrats went after one another over a proposal related to funding for LGBTQ projects.

The hearing featured several impassioned back-and-forths between lawmakers as Democrats leveled accusations of bigotry against Republicans for an amendment they say would strip funding for projects that would benefit LGBTQ Americans. 

In one of the hearing’s most tense moments, Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Andy Harris (R-Md.) clashed after the Republican targeted projects he claimed promote “hormone replacement therapy and gender-affirming surgery referrals” and “groomed young children.”

He also took aim at funding for “LGBTQ senior housing” and said the “answer to discrimination is not more discrimination in this.”

Pocan retorted soon after: “You know, there's a saying, ‘How do you show you're a bigot without saying you're a bigot?’ I’m just saying, there’s a saying.”

Harris called for Pocan’s words to be stricken shortly after. But the exchange didn’t stop there.

“I know it's a little warm outside, and a snowflake can melt, but this is a little bit ridiculous,” Pocan said to some laughs, before then saying he would take down his earlier comments “because I think it's self-evident.”

Harris then reiterated his request that Pocan’s words be struck, before Pocan countered, “I said I would take down my words. Perhaps his eyes are so tired from reading so many websites that his ears can't hear.”

The back and forth continued until the hearing broke into another recess, after which Pocan asked for some of his earlier comments to be taken down.

The moment came a little while after Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, asked for her words accusing conservatives of being legislative “terrorists” to be withdrawn following pushback from Harris.

DeLauro named several community projects that she said are “being summarily dismissed” under the amendment, which was ultimately adopted along partisan lines. They include, the congresswoman said, for the LGBT Center of Greater Reading in Pennsylvania, funding to expand housing for LGBTQ seniors, and the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia.

In a Tuesday statement, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who sought funding for the Philadelphia center, fired back at Republicans over the legislation.

“Well, just today with no notice, the Republican majority filed an amendment that out of over 3,800 projects from members of Congress, 3,800 that have been approved, they are now voting to strip funding from the only three projects that have LGBTQ in the organization's name,” Boyle said. “This is outrageous.”

During the hearing, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) took aim at what he described as “political theater” while dismissing criticisms from Democrats.

“Appropriation also should be appropriate. This has nothing to do with discrimination over a class of citizens or people or race; it has to do with an ideology and whether or not the taxpayers should have to pay for it,” he said. 

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) said later in the hearing that the projects in question “were all deemed, by both parties, eligible under statutory law and under the rules of the guidance that our friends in the majority presented at the beginning of the process.”

“So, someone thought that they were deserving or at least, were eligible under the law and the rules,” he said. “So these three projects were now singled out, out of 2,680 as suddenly not ones that we want to do.”