GOP Rep. Gallagher to quit early, in further cut to House majority
WASHINGTON — Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who has spearheaded House pushback against the Chinese government, said Friday that he would resign from the House, leaving House Republicans with the thinnest of majorities.
Gallagher, 40, announced he would resign his position April 19. It will leave Republicans with a 217213 majority in the House, meaning that they cannot afford to lose more than one vote on a party-line vote.
The thin majority has already proved to be a challenge for Republican leadership and forced House Speaker Mike Johnson to work with Democrats to pass practically any legislation.
Gallagher had already announced he would not seek reelection.
A former Marine who grew up in Green Bay, he has represented northeastern Wisconsin in Congress since 2017. He spent last year leading a new House committee dedicated to countering China. During the committee’s first hearing, he framed the competition between the U.S. and China as “an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century.”
For a time, Gallagher was seen as a rising star in the GOP and was one of the highest-profile Republicans considering a run for U.S. Senate this year. But he abandoned the idea in June. He said then that he wanted to focus on countering China through the committee and that he planned to run for a fifth term in the House.
Gallagher led the successful push this month to pass in the House a bill that would lead to a nationwide ban of the popular video app Tiktok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake. He, along with a wide bipartisan contingent, argued that the company’s current ownership represented a national security threat.
But Gallagher found himself at odds both with former President Donald Trump and his supporters. He also angered fellow Republicans last month by refusing to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Texas abortion ban: A Texas medical panel Friday rebuffed calls to list specific exceptions to one of the most restrictive abortions bans in the U.S., which physicians say is dangerously unclear and has forced women with serious pregnancy complications to leave the state.
The head of the Texas Medical Board also said that wider issues surrounding the law — such as the lack of exceptions in cases of rape or incest — were beyond the authority of the 16-member panel, 12 of whom are men. Only one member of the board is an obstetrician and gynecologist.
“We can only do so much,” said Dr. Sherif Zaafran, the board’s president.
The public meeting dealt new discouragement and anger to opponents who have urged courts and Texas
Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Friday that he won’t fight drug cartels on U.S. orders, as part of what he called a “Mexico First” policy.
“We are not going to act as policemen for any foreign government,” López Obrador said at his daily news briefing. “Mexico First. Our home comes first.”
López Obrador basically argued that drugs were a U.S. problem.
He offered to help limit the flow of drugs into the United States, but only, he said, on humanitarian grounds.
López Obrador has imposed strict limits on U.S. agents operating in Mexico, and how much contact Mexican law enforcement can have with them.
While Mexico has detained a few high-profile gang members, the government’s policy no longer matches what Mexican drug cartels have become: extortion machines that make much of their money, not from trafficking drugs, but extorting protection payments from businessmen, farmers, shop owners and street vendors, killing anyone who doesn’t pay.