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working families party
'Abominable': Trump and GOP Float Tying Los Angeles Wildfire Aid to Debt Ceiling
"It's outrageous that Trump and House Republicans are threatening to withhold recovery aid if their conditions aren't met," said a leader in the Working Families Party.
Jan 13, 2025
The deputy national director of the Working Families Party had sharp words for a group of House Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump, who, according to Politicoreporting published Monday, discussed tying fire relief for California to the politically charged issue of increasing the debt ceiling.
The reporting comes as California continues to battle fires in the Los Angeles area that have consumed tens of thousands of acres and left over 20 people dead. The scale of the destruction could make them, collectively, the costliest wildfire disaster in U.S. history, a climate scientist told the Los Angeles Times last week.
"The Palisades wildfires have destroyed homes, schools, and businesses and left thousands of families without a roof over their heads. It's outrageous that Trump and House Republicans are threatening to withhold recovery aid if their conditions aren't met," said Working Families Party deputy national director Joe Dinkin in a statement Monday.
"Every Republican should be on the record denouncing this abominable plan," he added.
Per Politico, nearly two dozen House Republicans attended a dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club over the weekend where the option was discussed.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Fla.), who was not a part of the conversation but did later confirm the conversation, must deal with the looming debt cliff, which is set to be reached sometime in mid-January, and he faces obstacles within his own party. In December, fractures appeared in the GOP when fiscal hawks refused to back legislation that Trump supported that would have raised the debt limit.
Johnson has also said he would try to lift the debt limit by including it in a reconciliation bill full of President-elect Donald Trump's legislative priorities, though this could run afoul with those same fiscal hawks. Some House Republicans reportedly brought up the pitfalls of this option during discussions at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend.
Of the potential move to link fire relief to the debt ceiling, Politico reported: "The Sunday night discussions prove Republicans are desperately looking for a plan before the nation is due to exhaust its borrowing authority—though Democrats and some Republicans are sure to balk at the prospect of linking disaster relief dollars to a politically charged exercise like extending the debt limit."
Congress recently passed a spending bill that included funding for natural disaster relief, but scope of the destruction in California has some officials wondering if more may be needed, Politico reports.
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'Today, It's All on the Line': Progressives Mobilize Nationwide to Defeat Trump
"The right to an abortion is on the ballot. Healthcare is on the ballot. Social Security and Medicare are on the ballot," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren. "Our very democracy is on the ballot. Your vote doesn't just affect who becomes president—it affects every aspect of our lives."
Nov 05, 2024
Progressive activists, labor unions, and lawmakers who have organized for months against Republican nominee Donald Trump emphasized the enormous stakes of Tuesday's election for abortion rights, healthcare, the future of Gaza, the climate, and democracy itself as Americans cast their ballots in what's likely to be one of the highest-turnout elections in modern U.S. history.
"Today, it's all on the line," Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said Tuesday morning, urging a vote for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. "We can make history and elect a president committed to making our lives easier and protecting our freedom and humanity. So vote for yourself, for your neighbor, and for our democracy."
"Vote for Kamala Harris like lives depend on it," Pressley added, "because they do."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has also endorsed Harris, similarly emphasized the election's potentially seismic impacts on major aspects of U.S. society, from reproductive freedom to the future of Social Security.
"The right to an abortion is on the ballot," Warren wrote on social media. "Healthcare is on the ballot. Social Security and Medicare are on the ballot. Our very democracy is on the ballot. Your vote doesn't just affect who becomes president—it affects every aspect of our lives. Please vote accordingly."
"All our work in this election has come down to one question, 'Which side are you on?'"
In the weeks leading up to Election Day, progressive organizations and labor unions such as the United Auto Workers and AFL-CIO phone-banked and knocked doors across the country in an effort to defeat Trump, a former president who has threatened to prosecute his political opponents, gut regulations for the benefit of planet-destroying fossil fuel companies, give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu free rein in the Middle East, allow states to implement the most draconian abortion bans, and deliver another round of tax cuts to the rich and large corporations.
The UAW said Tuesday that its members knocked on 250,000 doors in Michigan alone during the final stretch of the 2024 campaign in an effort to defeat the Republican nominee.
"When members hear directly from other members about what’s at stake, we break through and change minds," said UAW president Shawn Fain. "By engaging our members and highlighting the issues that matter—their paychecks, their families, and their futures—our union has been critical to defeating Trump and making sure working-class issues are at the forefront of this election."
"All our work in this election has come down to one question, 'Which side are you on?'" Fain added. "In this election, we made sure our members had the information they needed to cast their vote based on each candidate’s own words and action. For our union, the choice is clear: Harris stands with us and Trump is a scab."
Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party (WFP), wrote in a memo released on the eve of Election Day that his group's members knocked on 1.6 million voters' doors across Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, and other battleground states where Harris and Trump are polling neck-and-neck.
"Working people in this nation cannot afford another Trump presidency," Mitchell wrote, alluding to the Republican nominee's anti-worker policy record. "That's why the WFP ran the biggest national campaign we've ever built to defeat Trump and elect Harris, and we left everything on the field."
Abbas Alawieh, co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement, said in an appearance on MSNBC Tuesday that he personally decided to vote for Harris despite his group's decision not to endorse her, pointing to the grave threat Trump poses to Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim communities.
A message from @AZAlawieh on Election Day. pic.twitter.com/enoJNZ8oCv
— Uncommitted National Movement 🌺 (@uncommittedmvmt) November 5, 2024
"He has never espoused a pro-peace policy," Alawieh said of Trump during Tuesday's interview. "He has been a purveyor of militarized violence against our communities."
"We're under no illusion that there's a president who's going to come in and wave a magic wand and change the policy," added Alawieh, referring to U.S. military support for Israel. "I'm looking at what are the conditions that are going to exist for our anti-war movement after this. Donald Trump intends on making it a lot harder for us to advocate for Palestinian human rights and against war."
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'Humanitarian Calamity' Looms as US-Armed Israeli Forces Prepare to Invade Lebanon
"Despite the Israeli government's serious escalation in Lebanon and indiscriminate bombings in Gaza and the West Bank, President Biden continues to funnel billions in lethal military aid."
Sep 30, 2024
Israeli forces appear poised to launch a ground invasion of Lebanon within days following a sustained bombing campaign that has killed more than a thousand people—including dozens of children—and displaced more than a million, heightening fears of a large-scale humanitarian disaster and a wider war that could consumer the entire region.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has already carried out what were described as "limited ground incursions" across the Lebanese border, but a larger invasion could be imminent given the positioning of Israeli troops and rhetoric from top Israeli officials.
"We will use all the means that may be required—your forces, other forces, from the air, from the sea, and on land," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Israeli troops on Monday.
The mayor of a Christian-majority Lebanese village located roughly six miles from the Lebanon-Israel border toldReuters that locals "had received calls apparently from the Israeli army telling them to evacuate the area as soon as possible."
Humanitarian groups have warned that a full-scale ground invasion would be a disaster for the Lebanese people, many of whom have seen their lives upended by Israeli attacks over the past two weeks.
"We are gravely concerned about the possibility of an Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon," said Julie Mehigan, Christian Aid's head of Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. "The patterns we're seeing from the attacks of the last few days are reminiscent of what we've seen in Gaza these last few months. Massive displacement and killing of civilians, whole families killed in their homes, and schools converted into shelters. All the while Gaza is continually being bombed from land, air, and sea."
"We are on the precipice of yet another humanitarian calamity in the region," Mehigan added.
"Not only is this administration sending more bombs aimed at them and other civilians, they're also helping Netanyahu cover up his crimes. It's despicable."
The Biden administration, which provided the 2,000-pound bombs that Israel used to kill Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and dozens of civilians in an attack on Beirut late Friday, is reportedly prepared to give Israel approval to move troops into Lebanon as long as the invasion is "limited."
But the Israeli government, headed by far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly disregarded the Biden administration's stated conditions. As The New York Timesobserved Monday, the administration wanted the Israeli military to "eschew major combat operations" in the southern Gaza city of Rafah earlier this year. The IDF went on to launch a massive assault on the city, rendering it uninhabitable.
Akbar Shahid Ahmed, HuffPost's senior diplomatic correspondent, reported Monday that the Biden administration is unlikely to "veto" Israeli plans for a ground invasion of Lebanon and noted he is hearing a "growing sense" that "an Israeli invasion of Lebanon with U.S. backing (based on the idea it will be limited) is coming."
The possibility of an imminent Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon has heightened concerns of a full-blown regional war with potentially devastating global implications. Hezbollah has pledged to retaliate against Israel for the assassination of Nasrallah, and Iran—which has thus far acted with restraint—could also decide to intervene as Lebanon's government works to prevent the military conflict from spiraling.
Craig Mokhiber, a human rights attorney and former director of the New York office of the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, wrote on social media Monday that "as Israel continues its genocide in Palestine, expands its murderous rampage into Lebanon (perhaps even launching a ground invasion to ethnically cleanse the south) the West cheers and arms them, Arab governments sleep, the U.N. looks the other way, the [International Criminal Court] stalls, the Global South offers only symbolic objections, and the world is dragged passively toward WWIII."
Israel's intensifying assault on Lebanon has sparked fresh calls for a halt to U.S. arms transfers to the Israeli military, which relies heavily on American-made weaponry.
Maurice Mitchell, national director of the U.S.-based Working Families Party, said in a statement Monday that Israel's ongoing attacks on Lebanon "mark an extreme escalation that further threatens the stability of the region" and expressed support for an effort led by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to block recently approved arms sales.
"Despite the Israeli government's serious escalation in Lebanon and indiscriminate bombings in Gaza and the West Bank, President Biden continues to funnel billions in lethal military aid to the Israeli government without conditions, including $8.7 billion last week," said Mitchell. "This coupled with new reports that the Israeli government violated international law by deliberately blocking humanitarian aid to families in Gaza underscores the urgent need to stop the flow of offensive weapons to the Israeli government.”
Abbas Alawieh, a Lebanese American from Michigan and a co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement, said Monday that "every hour, I get messages from my family in Lebanon, asking when the American-funded bombs will stop."
"Not only is this administration sending more bombs aimed at them and other civilians, they're also helping Netanyahu cover up his crimes," said Alawieh. "It's despicable."
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