Within the hallways of the U.S. Capitol, there is growing confidence by GOP Senators that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can whip his caucus to block a vote on witnesses Friday.
While returning to the chamber after a short break Thursday, Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) told Cheddar he's "feeling good" about tomorrow's expected vote.
Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told reporters during the break that Republicans have the "momentum" to move to end the trial tomorrow without witnesses. "If we're able to say no [to witnesses] and go right to final judgment, we'd move in that direction and stay here until that work is decided and completed Friday evening. That's where all the momentum is now."
Still up for debate is what, exactly, happens, if the Republicans vote to end the debate on witnesses quickly.
Meanwhile, back in the chamber, lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff said witness depositions could be limited to just one week and said that the trial should not be rushed just because the State of the Union is Tuesday.
After the break, Senators asked two bipartisan questions, both of which were from senators who may still be undecided on the issue of whether to allow witnesses. First, Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) asked the defense team if the president would assure them that private citizens would not be directed to conduct foreign policy unless formally designated by the president and the State Department.
Murkowski and Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) submitted the second bipartisan question, asking if any action a president takes is inherently political and where the line is between permissible political actions and impeachable political actions.
In President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, there was only one bipartisan question asked, which Sen. Collins had signed onto at the time.
As of March 2022, almost 200 Anti-LGBT+ bills have been introduced in state governments across the country — especially directed at the transgender community. Human Rights Campaign State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel Cathryn Oakley joined Cheddar News to discuss the deluge of legislation. "Unfortunately we are seeing these bills come at transgender youth from every conceivable direction," she said. "Every support that a trans kid has, whether that's their parents, whether that's their family, whether that's their teachers or their guidance counselors or their coaches, whether it's their teammates or the librarians and the books that they read, whether it's curriculum, whether it's even just the ability to acknowledge that LGBTQ people have existed throughout history and are important in the fabric of modern American society. The bills that we are seeing filed across the country are targeting all of those pieces."
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week seemed to have put out a video that urged Ukrainians to put down their arms and surrender to Russia. It was later revealed that it was a “deepfake,” a computer-generated video to mimic the Ukrainian leader. Cheddar News speaks with security expert Morgan Wright about how the technology is being used in the war in Ukraine.
After scrutiny over the negative impact on the mental health of children, social media apps have begun adding stricter limitations to parental controls. Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization focusing on recommendations for entertainment platforms, joined Cheddar News to talk about the changes, why they might not be enough, and what parents can do to help. "It's almost that the companies — whether they're Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, or whatever — have to start the process from the beginning of designing the product," he said. "They have to be much more clear about age verification so that a 12-year-old and 11-year-old can't get on there." Steyer also pushed for federal legislation to reign in the issue.
As Big Tech companies from the U.S. like Google and Apple managed to build market dominance overseas, the European Union has decided to curb what it sees as monopolistic growth. Greg Martin, the co-founder of Rainmaker Securities, joined Cheddar News to talk about how the impact of the antitrust regulations being adopted. "I think there's a lot of great outcomes here, but those will be far down the road [because] I do think there's some interoperability things that need to be worked out technologically," he said. "But it's going to be really good ultimately for the consumer in my opinion."
Tenicka Boyd is a digital creator making content that reflects her two passions: activism and style. The TikTok star joined Cheddar News to talk about her platform and new looks this Spring. Boyd admitted that at first she wanted to remain anonymous on the social media platform before finding her passion. "I just joined TikTok hoping that no one would find me, and I started creating colorful content," she said. "I didn't know that you could monetize this and really do it full time, and I just followed my passion because I realized that you can have multiple different lives and do multiple different things."
Catching you up on what you need to know on March 25, 2022, with Ukrainian forces retaking Kyiv, 300 deaths reported from the bombing of a theater used as a shelter in Mariupol, U.S. regulators ditch a climate review of natural gas projects, the 94th Academy Awards, and more.
North Korea says it test-fired its biggest intercontinental ballistic missile under the orders of leader Kim Jong Un, who vowed to continue expanding his nuclear arsenal while preparing for a “long-standing confrontation” with the United States.
Ukrainian authorities in the besieged ruins of Mariupol say that about 300 people died when a Russian airstrike blew up a theater where hundreds of civilians were sheltering.
