FBI Warns of Possible Antifa Attack at Saturday’s Let’s Go WA Event

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FBI Warns of Possible Antifa Attack at Saturday’s Let’s Go WA Event

(, The Center Square) The Federal Bureau of Investigation has notified Let’s Go Washington that Antifa-affiliated individuals and groups are calling for acts of violence and intimidation against volunteers and supporters during a signature gathering event in Tumwater Saturday.

LGW is gathering signatures for two initiatives: one to ban transgender girls/women from female sports and another to establish a strong parents’ bill of rights regarding education.

Spokesperson Hallie Balch told The Center Square that LGW was contacted by the Tumwater Police Department after the FBI notified the department of the threats.

“The FBI let them know that they had received information that Antifa would be coming, and they’ve been promoting violent acts against our rally and people that’ll be there,” she said. “They’re planning to come out and cause a ruckus essentially, so Tumwater PD told us that they have it on their radar, and they’ll be in the area, but they said we should also look into getting our own security measures.”

According to Balch, LGW brought its own security teams to every signing event following dozens of attacks on signature gatherers outside storefronts and at previous rallies in recent months.

“We just added a few more people to that list,” she said.

LGW leadership is determined to continue gathering signatures.

“Antifa’s goal is to threaten and intimidate Washington citizens into silence,” LGW founder Brian Heywood said in a Friday news release. “It won’t work. We have already endured unprecedented political violence throughout this campaign – including more than 50 documented physical assaults and even a hit-and-run by a thief trying to make off with stolen signatures – yet Washingtonians continue to stand up for fairness in girls’ sports, the restoration of parental rights, and common-sense reforms.”

President Donald Trump designated Antifa a domestic terror organization in September, one week after The Center Square asked him if he would consider doing so in an Oval Office news conference.

In October, Trump also designated Antifa a foreign terror organization, again after The Center Square asked if he would do so.

“But they did say that they’ve never had the FBI call on behalf of Let’s Go Washington because of one of our events, so that tells us that it must be serious,” she said.

As reported by TCS, LGW released new signature count totals for both initiatives this week.

As of Tuesday, LGW had collected 315,979 signatures for IL26-638 to protect girls in sports, and 298,571 signatures for IL26-001 to restore the parental rights initiative.

Approximately 309,000 valid voter signatures are required by 5 p.m. on Jan. 2, 2026, to have each measure certified by the Office of the Secretary of State. That number is based on the percentage of registered voters who participated in the last general election.

“We will not be silenced by intimidation or even violence,” Heywood said in the news release. “Girls deserve fairness in sports, and parents have a right to know what’s going on in their child’s classroom. We are proud to continue fighting for those rights.”

Thomas Massie Introduces Bill to Withdraw from NATO

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Thomas Massie Introduces Bill to Withdraw from NATO

(Kyle Anzalone, Libertarian Institute) Representative Thomas Massie has introduced legislation that will end US membership in the North Atlantic Alliance.

“NATO is a Cold War relic. The United States should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our country, not socialist countries,” the Republican Congressman wrote. “Today, I introduced HR 6508 to end our NATO membership.”

In a statement, Massie argued NATO is a relic of the Cold War and an outdated pact. “NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union, which collapsed over thirty years ago. Since then, U.S. participation has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk US involvement in foreign wars,” he said. “Our Constitution did not authorize permanent foreign entanglements, something our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against. America should not be the world’s security blanket—especially when wealthy countries refuse to pay for their own defense.”

Massie’s bill has companion legislation in the Senate, introduced by Mike Lee. “America’s withdrawal from NATO is long overdue. NATO has run its course – the threats that existed at its inception are no longer relevant 76 years later.” The Utah Senator continued, “If they were, Europe would be paying their fair share instead of making American taxpayers pick up the check for decades. My legislation will put America first by withdrawing us from the raw deal NATO has become.”

NATO was formed in 1949 to protect Western Europe from the Soviet Union. After the fall of the USSR, NATO has expanded to 32 states, including former Soviet states and Warsaw Pact members.

The US attempted to make Kiev a member of the alliance, provoking Russia to invade Ukraine in 2022. Russia has demanded that Ukraine agree to never join NATO as a condition for ending the war.

This article originally appeared at The Libertarian Institute.

Two US Soldiers and One US Civilian Killed in ISIS Attack in Syria’s Palmyra

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Two US Soldiers and One US Civilian Killed in ISIS Attack in Syria’s Palmyra

(Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com) An apparently insider attack in the ancient Syrian city of Palmya has left a number of US casualties, after an apparent ISIS infiltrator to the local security forces attacked a joint US-Syrian patrol that was conducting a “field tour” of the area.

The gunmen opened fire on the patrol, and killed two US soldiers and one US civilian. Three additional US soldiers and two Syrian troops were also reported wounded in the incident. The gunmen, who has not been publicly identified, was reportedly killed in the exchange. The attacker has been widely reported as a member of local security forces, without detail, though the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights initially reported him as a member of the security forces. Subsequent Reuters reports also cited officials saying he was a security force member, but not a high-ranking one.

The joint delegation fled to the US base in al-Tanf, along the southern Syrian border, and took the wounded with them for treatment there. In the course of the movement, the main Syrian highway connecting the capital of Damascus to the eastern Deir Ezzor Governorate was blocked to all traffic and the area was placed under high alert.

A second attack by ISIS was reported further east, in the town of al-Takihi, where an ISIS cell attempted to assassinate a commander of the Kurdish SDF. One ISIS gunman was killed there, and the commander and one of his escorts were reported wounded.

US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack was quoted as condemning the “cowardly terrorist attack” and reaffirmed the US partnership with the Islamist Syrian government to continue to fight terrorism in the country. President Trump vowed “very serious retaliation.”

ISIS has long sought to reassert itself after losing materially all of the territory they once held in both Syria and Iraq. The group retains capability to operate in eastern Syria, and as evidenced today, continue to try to conduct high-profile attacks when the opportunity presents itself.

Historically, US-backed Kurdish forces have been on the front lines against ISIS in that part of Syria, though US efforts to get the SDF to integrate outright into the Syrian military have complicated matters, and the sometimes tense relationship on the ground between the Syrian Army and the Kurds may be giving ISIS more leeway to operate in that region.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.



Bennie Thompson, Who Headed J6 Persecutions, Calls Nat’l Guard Ambush an ‘Accident’

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Bennie Thompson, Who Headed J6 Persecutions, Calls Nat’l Guard Ambush an ‘Accident’

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., downplayed the terrorist ambush of National Guardsmen Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe as an “unfortunate accident” during a hearing Thursday with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Thompson, who chaired the House’s controversial Jan. 6 commission during the first two years of the Biden administration, spent months trying to push a false narrative about the mostly peaceful Jan. 6 uprising—at a cost of some $17.4 million to taxpayers.

Yet, he seemed far less concerned by political violence after the actual murder of a law-enforcement officer that occurred near the White House the day before Thanksgiving.

While interrogating Noem at a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, Thompson first dismissed the targeted ambush as an “unfortunate accident” and then doubled down.

“You think that was an unfortunate accident?” Noem replied. “It was terrorist attack. He shot our National Guardsmen in the head!”

Thompson then pivoted to attacking Noem over her criticism of the Biden administration for allowing unvetted Afghan refugees into the country.

“It was an unfortunate situation, but you blamed it solely on Joe Biden … Who approved the asylum application for this same person?”

Thompson regularly demanded accountability for those who assaulted police officers during the mostly peaceful 2021 melee at the U.S. Capitol.

He also has routinely pushed the false claim that law-enforcement officers died as a direct result of the J6 protest.

“I was moved by the courageous testimony of four brave police officers who came to the defense of the Capitol and American democracy on January 6, 2021,” Thompson said in a 2023 statement. “Those heroes asked us for something in that hearing: Hold those responsible for that deadly attack accountable.”

As recently as July, Thompson condemned the appointment of a pardoned J6 convict to a spot at the Justice Department.

“News that a disgraced FBI agent and right-wing extremist charged with encouraging the murder of police officers on January 6 is now working at the Department of Justice is not only an insult to every honorable law enforcement officer across the country — it is an insult to our democracy and all those that have fought to preserve it,” Thompson wrote. “It also makes it clear that political violence won’t just be excused under this administration, it will be celebrated and awarded.”

Thompson ultimately accepted a “preemptive pardon” from the Biden administration for his work on the Jan. 6 committee, suggesting there may have been some criminal wrongdoing involved.

Committee members, including former Rep. Liz Cheney and now-Sen. Adam Schiff, have been accused of several crimes, including witness tampering and the deletion of investigative files.

President Donald Trump has declared all pardons and acts signed by autopen during the Biden presidency to be null and void, meaning the DOJ may pursue prosecution and let the courts sort it out.

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

Report: Trump To Appoint US General To Lead Gaza ‘International Stabilization Force’

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Report: Trump To Appoint US General To Lead Gaza ‘International Stabilization Force’

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Trump is planning to appoint a two-star US general to lead the international force that may be deployed to Gaza under the US ceasefire deal, Axios reported on Thursday, a step that would mark a significant escalation of US involvement in the Palestinian territory, which has been destroyed by Israel.

Trump’s plan calls for the establishment of what’s being called an “International Stabilization Force,” and the idea is for the ISF to replace IDF troops who are currently occupying more than 50% of Gaza and continuing to kill Palestinians. But it’s unclear if the force will materialize as countries initially willing to participate are hesitant over concerns that their troops could end up fighting Hamas on behalf of Israel.

Playing into those fears, US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said on Wednesday, while visiting Israel, that the ISF will be tasked with disarming Hamas. “The stabilization force in the Security Council resolution is authorized to [disarm Hamas]. We specifically put language in there that said, ‘by all means necessary.’ That’ll be a conversation with each country,” Waltz told Israel’s Channel 12.

“[Conversations on the] rules of engagement [for the ISF] are ongoing… President Trump has repeatedly said, Hamas will disarm one way or another — the easy way or the hard way,” he added.

The Axios report said that during his trip to Israel, Waltz informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US would be in charge of the ISF and would appoint a general to lead it. “Waltz even said he knows the general personally and stressed he is a very serious guy,” an Israeli official told the outlet.

Waltz told Channel 12 that Azerbaijan was willing to participate in the ISF, but an Azerbaijani official told The Times of Israel over the weekend that Baku is far from making a decision. Turkey has said that it’s willing to contribute troops, but Israel has rejected the idea of a Turkish role.

In another sign that the US plan is stalled, President Trump said on Wednesday that he would announce the members of the so-called “Board of Peace,” a US-led body that will oversee Gaza, early next year. US officials initially said they wanted the board to be formed and to announce “phase two” of the ceasefire deal by Christmas.

The UN Security Council resolution that backed the US plan for Gaza places the Palestinian territory under the governance of the US for at least two years, partially fulfilling President Trump’s earlier calls for the US to “take over” Gaza. The US has already established a military base in southern Israel where it is “overseeing” the ceasefire, though Israel continues to launch attacks against Palestinians and impose restrictions on aid in violation of the deal.

The Axios report said that Trump’s Gaza plan is “turning into the biggest US political-civilian-military project in the Middle East in more than two decades.”

DOT Threatens New York for Issuing Commercial Driver’s Licenses to Illegals

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DOT Threatens New York for Issuing Commercial Driver’s Licenses to Illegals

(Headline USA) New York is the eighth state found to routinely issue commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants that are valid long after they are no longer legally authorized to be in the country, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday, threatening to withhold $73 million in highway funds unless the system is fixed and any flawed licenses are revoked.

New York was the fourth state run by a Democratic governor called out publicly by Duffy in his effort to make sure truck and bus drivers are qualified to either haul passengers or 80,000 pounds of cargo down the highway. He previously questioned similar practices in California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota.

Letters have gone out to other states, including Republican-run Texas and South Dakota.

In addition to finding licenses that remained valid longer than they should have, these federal audits have also discovered instances where the states may not have even checked a driver’s immigration status before issuing a license. Investigators check a small sample of licenses in each state.

Duffy launched the review this summer, but it became more prominent after a truck driver who was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people in August. The rules on these licenses the Transportation Department is enforcing have been in place for years.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration sent letters to Texas, South Dakota, Colorado, and Washington during the government shutdown in October.

Most of the states that have been the focus of the investigation so far have defended their practices and said they were following the federal rules. But Duffy has said the high percentage of problems in some states, combined with the defensive responses from officials, suggests a systematic problem, and he insisted Friday this effort is about safety — not politics.

“When more than half of the licenses reviewed were issued illegally, it isn’t just a mistake — it is a dereliction of duty by state leadership,” Duffy said about New York on Friday.

Investigators also found that nearly half of the 123 licenses reviewed in Texas were flawed. Some of the other states involved small numbers, but most of the problems were similar. Since Duffy pressed the issue in California, the state has revoked some 21,000 commercial driver’s licenses that were issued improperly.

The Transportation Department has threatened to withhold federal highway funding from these states — including $182 million in Texas and $160 million in California — if they don’t reform their licensing programs and invalidate any flawed licenses.

So far, no state has lost money because they complied or because they have more time to respond. But as part of a separate review, California lost $40 million for failing to enforce English language requirements for truckers that the Trump administration began enforcing this summer.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

 

China Reaffirms Tight Grip on Gold Market, Ushering in a New Monetary Era

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China Reaffirms Tight Grip on Gold Market, Ushering in a New Monetary Era

(Jan Nieuwenhuijs, Money Metals News Service) Without a doubt, the Chinese central bank (PBoC) is still the leading single entity that is driving up the gold price to record highs, year-to-date by more than 55 percent.

In the third quarter of 2025, the PBoC’s gold purchases (reported and unreported) accounted for 118 tonnes, up 39% MoM and 55% YoY, according to my long-time methodology1 (now copied by Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg, MarketWatch, The Washington Post, TIME magazine, Financial Times, Financiele Dagblad, and El País, to name a few).

Chart 1. Reported central bank gold buying versus estimates by the World Gold Council on central bank gold buying based on field research (reported and unreported buying). The majority of unreported buying must be ascribed to China.
Chart 1. Reported central bank gold buying versus estimates by the World Gold Council on central bank gold buying based on field research (reported and unreported buying). The majority of unreported buying must be ascribed to China.

My estimated total for Chinese monetary gold reserves stands at 5,411 tonnes in Q3, versus 2,304 tonnes reported by the central bank of China to the IMF.

Why is China buying so much gold?

It’s because China is the second-largest economy globally, and due to the weaponization of the dollar since the Ukraine war in 2022, the vast, covert buying spree by China and countries like Saudi Arabia should not be viewed as a hedge against the dollar but as a replacement for the dollar.

The mBridge Gold Standard

For the better part of the past 80 years, the U.S. dollar has functioned as the world’s trade and reserve currency. This setup gave the United States the exorbitant privilege of being able to print money to pay for imports, even though America’s manufacturing base has been eroded as a consequence.

China aims to establish an alternative to the U.S. dollar while seeking to avoid the risks associated with issuing its own reserve currency.

On November 19, 2025, the chairman of the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates completed a landmark digital currency transaction during a meeting with the governor of the People’s Bank of China, formally inaugurating project mBridge.

The platform allows participating countries with established digital currencies to conduct bilateral trade in their own currencies, bypassing the U.S. dollar.

For the “mBridge gold standard” to be fulfilled, any surplus of local currency accumulated through trade must be directly exchangeable in a liquid gold market. Furthermore, it requires a new international gold vaulting and clearinghouse network.

Chart 2. In a historical shift, Eastern countries that before 2022 were price sensitive are now driving gold higher.
Chart 2. In a historical shift, Eastern countries that before 2022 were price sensitive are now driving gold higher.

China will be the largest, or one of the largest, trading partners of countries participating in mBridge, and so the renminbi will be a dominant trade currency in the arrangement. This is why the Chinese are developing the Shanghai International Gold Exchange (SGEI).

The SGEI was launched in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in 2014 and recently opened its first offshore vault in Hong Kong. The idea is to open additional vaults abroad.

The international vaulting system will likely be developed in accordance with the extensive network of repositories that constitute the SGEI system within the Chinese domestic market.

In the last SGEI Annual Report, it states that the SGEI adopts a “centralization, netting, and multi-tiered” clearing model with 18 certified margin custodian banks offering 70 certified vaults in 36 cities throughout the mainland.

Gold Is Shifting the Distribution of Global Reserves

As central banks aggressively load up on gold and move the price to new all-time highs, global gold reserves are rising to the detriment of the dollar. By Q3, my estimated total of central banks’ monetary gold reserves accounted for 40,225 tonnes, 49 percent of which is owned by countries outside the West. In the 1990s, this percentage was 25 percent.

Chart 3. The West comprises the US, UK, Western Europe, and Australia.
Chart 3. The West comprises the US, UK, Western Europe, and Australia.

Due to the actions of the PBoC in increasing prices, monetary gold now accounts for almost 28 percent of global international reserves. This is a truly monumental increase from 21 percent in 2024.

Chart 4. Because gold has appreciated against all reserve currencies since Q3, gold’s “live” share of reserves is actually closer to 30 percent.
Chart 4. Because gold has appreciated against all reserve currencies since Q3, gold’s “live” share of reserves is actually closer to 30 percent.

In my next article, we will zoom in on gold versus the dollar’s share in international reserves.

Notes

Originally a sound engineer in the Dutch movie industry, Jan Nieuwenhuijs has devoted the last decade to in-depth gold market research. His commentary and analysis has earned him international recognition as a top expert on the Chinese gold market, the COMEX futures market, the London Bullion Market, and the Turkish gold market. At Money Metals, he writes about the international monetary system, central bank gold policies, the mechanics of the global gold market, the gold price, and economics in general.

House Explodes in San Francisco

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House Explodes in San Francisco

(Headline USA) A gas explosion set off a major fire in a San Francisco Bay Area neighborhood on Thursday after obliterating at least one home, blowing out windows and shaking nearby houses. Six people were taken to hospitals for injuries, fire officials said.

Dramatic video footage showed a home in the Hayward area sitting under a blue sky when it suddenly exploded, spewing jagged wood and other debris into the air as smoke billowed.

Brittany Maldonado, who lives across the street from the home, was in her bedroom with her husband when she heard the blast.

“Boxes fell over and everything shook. We thought someone had just flown off the freeway and their car was in our living room,” she said. “It was like someone had just launched a bomb.”

Then they looked at the Nest doorbell cam footage and saw their neighbor’s home blowing up.

Alameda County Deputy Fire Chief Ryan Nishimoto said he did not know if those injured were workers or residents, but he said three people were immediately sent to a hospital due to their injuries and three others who were sent had more minor injuries.

Three structures on two separate lots were severely damaged, said Alameda County Deputy Fire Chief Ryan Nishimoto. Some of the 75 firefighters who responded had to back off momentarily when they felt electric shocks from power lines that had fallen on the site.

The neighborhood of single-level homes with tidy small lawns and some businesses near two freeways had been undergoing construction work for wider sidewalks and bike lanes.

The explosion occurred in the unincorporated community of Ashland, near the city of Hayward. The city is home to about 160,000 residents in the East Bay, 15 miles south of Oakland.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it is sending a team to investigate.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. was alerted around 7:35 a.m. that a construction crew — not with the utility — had damaged an underground gas line. Utility workers arrived to isolate the damaged line, but gas was leaking from various locations.

Workers stopped the flow of gas at 9:25 a.m., and the explosion followed shortly afterward.

Gas was flowing for two hours but the explosion happened 10 minutes after the line was shut off, PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian confirmed. She said it took time to isolate the line and stop the flow of gas.

The doorbell video showed a large excavator being used to dig in front of the home that exploded as a worker stood nearby.

Within moments, an explosion and flames blew out the walls and the roof of the home. People nearby appeared to be dazed for a few seconds, before running toward the home to search for any victims. Several workers lifted a large piece of debris from where it landed near the excavator.

Sirens could be heard in the distance as police arrived at the scene as flames began to spread at the site of the demolished building.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

 

GOP Chairman Threatens Clintons w/ Contempt of Congress in Epstein Inquiry

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GOP Chairman Threatens Clintons w/ Contempt of Congress in Epstein Inquiry

(Headline USA) The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee threatened Friday to begin contempt of Congress proceedings against former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton if they refuse to appear for depositions as part of the committee’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said in a statement late Friday that the Clintons had “delayed, obstructed, and largely ignored the Committee staff’s efforts to schedule their testimony” for several months and said the committee would begin proceedings to try to force them to testify if they don’t appear next week or schedule an appearance in January.

Comer’s statement came just hours after Democrats on the committee had released dozens of photos they had received from Epstein’s estate, including images of Clinton and President Donald Trump.

Contempt is one of U.S. lawmakers’ politically messiest and, until recent years, least-used powers. But the way Congress has handled demands for disclosure in the investigation into Epstein has taken on new political significance as the Trump administration faces a deadline next week to release the Department of Justice’s case files on the late financier.

Bill Clinton was among a number of high-powered people connected to Epstein, a wealthy financier, before the criminal investigation against him in Florida became public two decades ago. Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing by any of the women who say Epstein abused them.

One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, once gave a newspaper interview in which she described riding in a helicopter with Clinton and flirting with Trump, but she later said in a deposition that those things hadn’t actually happened and were mistakes by the reporter. Clinton has previously said through a spokesperson that while he traveled on Epstein’s jet, he never visited his homes and had no knowledge of his crimes.

Multiple former presidents have voluntarily testified before Congress, but none has been compelled to do so.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

 

MTG May Try to Oust Mike Johnson Before Leaving Office, Lefty Outlet Claims

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MTG May Try to Oust Mike Johnson Before Leaving Office, Lefty Outlet Claims

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Outgoing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is reportedly weighing a plot to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson before leaving office, according to a report from a liberal news outlet. 

Three anonymous sources told MS Now (formerly MSNBC) on Friday that Greene has been surveying colleagues to determine whether there is enough appetite to remove Johnson through a motion to vacate the chair. 

Nine Republicans would be required to trigger such a motion, a much higher threshold than the single vote required during the last Congress, which resulted in the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. 

According to MS Now, most Republicans have dismissed the idea of threatening Johnson’s leadership. 

Greene denied the report, calling the claim “not true,” adding, “I’m not interested in participating in your story.” 

Despite this, MS Now published a quote from one of the anonymous sources, saying, “Marjorie is approaching members to get to nine who will oust the speaker. And if we don’t get to work on codifying Trump’s agenda, anything can happen.” 

The report comes as Greene has publicly rebuked Johnson in recent interviews with legacy media outlets following her turn against President Donald Trump. 

“You’re seeing Republican women lash out directly at the speaker because he sidelines us and doesn’t take us seriously,” Green told CNN. 

Other Republicans have also criticized Johnson, with Rep. Elise Stefanik telling The Wall Street Journal, “I believe that the majority of Republicans would vote for new leadership. It’s that widespread.” 

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