Tuesday, at the weekly House Republican Leadership press conference, Speaker Mike Johnson discussed House Republicans’ efforts to deliver maximum transparency regarding the Epstein files and ensure justice for victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.
Speaker Johnson also addressed what he called Democrats’ newfound interest in the Epstein files, despite the information being in the government’s possession throughout the Biden Administration.
“The truth is, the biggest proponents of this discharge petition were never actually interested in transparency or ensuring justice or protecting victims of this unspeakable tragedy, the Epstein evils. And how do we know that? Because the Democrats had every one of the Epstein files in their possession for the four long years of the Biden Administration,” Speaker Johnson
“For four long years under the previous administration of the Biden-Harris Administration, Democrats insisted there was no border crisis. Remember, they told you that that wasn’t a problem at all. They dismissed inflation as transitory. That’s what they told us. They told the American people not to believe what we could all see with our own eyes, that there was an obvious mental and physical decline on the part of President Biden individually,” Johnson said. “And now, seemingly overnight, these same cast of characters, they’ve taken a sudden and urgent interest in the Epstein investigation.”
“None of them held press conferences. None of them demanded the release of the documents. And under Biden’s DOJ, when they prosecuted just Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, not a single one of these Democrats or any of the proponents of the discharge ever made any noise about that at all,” he said. “So, it’s fair for the American people to ask the question, why now? Why suddenly are they so interested?”
“This was an unspeakable tragedy, and we have great compassion for the victims,” Johnson said. “They deserve justice. It has been too long delayed.”
Dozens of Democratic candidates running for U.S. House seats nationwide told Axios they either would not support House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) for party leader or were not prepared to commit to voting for him.
The responses suggest growing unease within some parts of the Democratic Party about its current leadership as the 2026 election cycle approaches, the outlet reported this week.
Since assuming the role of Democratic leader in 2022, Hakeem Jeffries has maintained unanimous support within his caucus. That unity, however, may be tested in the next Congress amid rising frustration from grassroots activists, particularly on the party’s left flank.
While Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has drawn much of the criticism from progressive circles this year, Jeffries is increasingly becoming a focal point of dissatisfaction as well, Axios noted.
Axios contacted nearly every Democrat running for a U.S. House seat considered potentially winnable for the party in 2026, receiving responses from 113 candidates through phone interviews or written statements.
Of those surveyed, 20 said they would not vote for Hakeem Jeffries as speaker or minority leader, while another five indicated they were likely to oppose him. Fifty-seven candidates declined to commit to supporting Jeffries, describing it as too early to decide or citing concerns over ideology, strategy, messaging, or leadership style.
Only 24 respondents said they would definitely back Jeffries, and seven more said they were likely to do so, the outlet said.
However, his office pushed back on the narrative that he’s lost support.
“Leader Jeffries is focused on battling Donald Trump, ending the Republican shutdown of the federal government and addressing the crushing GOP health care crisis,” Jeffries spokesperson Justin Chermol told Axios.
Many of the Democrats expressing skepticism toward Hakeem Jeffries are political outsiders or long-shot candidates, while several front-runners in key battleground races declined to respond to Axios’ inquiries. Still, a number of Jeffries’ critics and noncommittal candidates have credible paths to winning seats in Congress.
Among them are Daniel Biss and Kat Abughazaleh, two leading contenders in the Democratic primary to replace retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), both of whom stopped short of pledging to support Jeffries.
Other prominent challengers — including Luke Bronin, Donavan McKinney, Mai Vang, Saikat Chakrabarti, and Patrick Roath — have also withheld their support. Each is running well-funded campaigns aimed at unseating long-serving Democratic incumbents.
Heath Howard, a New Hampshire state representative running for an open U.S. House seat, told Axios regarding the Democratic leader: “I think we need to have a new type of leadership that’s … going to fight back significantly harder against the Trump administration.”
Abughazaleh, meanwhile, told Axios she will support a leader who is “taking actual action against this administration” and that the left should use “our leverage to demand progressive change.”
“We’ve got to see improvement, without question,” Amanda Edwards, who was a member of the Houston city council and is now running in a Texas special election, told the outlet.
Harry Jarin, a firefighter mounting a primary challenge to former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), told Axios: “The anger of the base right now is not being matched by Democratic leadership … and that is going to have to change one way or another.”
A recurring theme among candidates who declined to back Jeffries was his refusal to endorse socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani — a decision that has also become a source of frustration among left-wing members of Congress.
“His refusal to endorse Zohran makes me nervous that, if I were to become the nominee in my race, he and the party would not support me,” noted Jacob Lawrence, who is set to challenged Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.).
Chakrabarti, when asked whether he would support for Jeffries, quipped: “What is it that Hakeem said about endorsing Zohran? ‘I’ll have conversations with him and see where it goes.\’”
Paul Alexander lived a life unlike many others. For the majority of his life, he’s was inside an iron lung, and he was one of the last people in the world still using the respirator which dates back to the 1928.Despite his unusual circumstances, he’s lived an incredibly full life and he’s never accepted anything less.“I am not going to accept from anybody their limitations on my life. Not gonna do it. My life is incredible.”
When Paul was just six years old he ran into his family’s home in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, and told his mother he wasn’t feeling well. Since his birth in 1946, Paul had been a normal, vibrant, and active child – but now something was clearly wrong.“Oh my God, not my son,” Paul recalled his mother saying.Following doctor’s orders, he spent the next several days in bed recovering, but the boy clearly had polio, and he was not getting better. Less than a week after he started feeling sick he couldn’t hold anything nor could he swallow or breathe.His parents finally rushed to the hospital where he joined countless other children experiencing similar symptoms.Before vaccines were available for polio, more than 15,000 people were paralyzed from the virus. Polio, an incredibly contagious infection, can spread even when an infected person has no symptoms. The symptoms of polio include fatigue, fever, stiffness, muscle pain, and vomiting. In rarer cases, polio can also cause paralysis and death.
Paul was examined by a doctor and pronounced dead, but then another doctor took a look at him and gave him another chance at life.The second doctor performed an emergency tracheotomy, and following the surgery, Paul was placed inside an iron lung.When he eventually woke up, three days later, he was among several rows of children also encased in iron lungs.”I didn’t know what had happened. I had all kinds of imaginings, like I’d died. I kept asking myself: Is this what death is? Is this a coffin? Or have I gone to some undesirable place?” the Texas native told As It Happens host Carol Off in 2017.
Paul, who also had a tracheotomy, couldn’t speak, making the whole event even more terrifying.“I tried to move, but I couldn’t move. Not even a finger. I tried to touch something to figure it out, but I never could. So it was pretty strange.”The machine, invented in the late 1920s, was the first to ventilate a human being. It was often referred to in the early days as the “Drinker respirator” the device is hermetically sealed from the neck down and creates a negative pressure in the chamber that draws air into the patient’s lungs. If it generates overpressure, the air is forced out of the lungs again, and the patient exhales.
Paul spent 18 months inside the metal canister recovering from the initial infection. And he wasn’t alone. The year Paul was infected by the virus, 1952, was a very dark year looking at the statistics.Almost 58,000 people, primarily children, contracted the virus in the U.S in 1952. Sadly, 3,145 of them died.“As far as you can see, rows and rows of iron lungs. Full of children,” he said, according to The Guardian.While some may have given up their will to live, it only fueled Paul’s will.He would hear doctors say, ”He’s going to die today” or “He shouldn’t be alive” whenever they passed by him, and he wanted to prove them wrong.
“Iron Lung” victims at Baltimore’s Children’s Hospital have a television set now, thanks to the generosity of the Baltimore Rotary Club. This is probably the first set used to relieve the tedium of polio victims. Mirrors on the lungs permit the patients to see daily broadcasts.And that’s exactly what he did!In 1954 he was discharged from the hospital, but he quickly learned his life was drastically different than before.“People didn’t like me very much back then,” he said during a video interview in 2021. “I felt like they were uncomfortable around me.”But with the help of a therapist named Mrs. Sullivan, who visited him twice a week, little by little his life began to improve. His therapist made a deal with him that if he could “frog-breathe,” a technique where you trap air in your mouth by flattening your tongue and opening your throat, without the iron lung for three minutes she’d get him a puppy.
It was hard work, but within a year Paul was able to spend more and more time outside of the iron lung.When he was 21 he became the first person to graduate a Dallas high school – with honors! – without ever physically attending class. He then set his sights on college, and after several rejections, he was accepted to Southern Methodist University.“They said I was too crippled and did not have the vaccination,” he recalled. “Two years of tormenting them, they accepted me on two conditions. One, that I take the polio vaccine, and two that a fraternity would be responsible for me.”He went on to graduate from Southern Methodist University and then attended law school at the University of Texas at Austin. He passed the bar and became a lawyer in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.“And I was a pretty damn good one too!”
Even after a 30-year long career in the courtroom, he continued to keep busy by writing a book, which he typed all by himself using a pen attached to a stick.According to a Gizmodo, Paul is believed to be one of the last people who lived in the near-obsolete machine. He was confined to his old iron lung around the clock and spent much of his life in a can.”I have travelled with it — put it in a truck, took it with me. I’ve gone to college with it, lived in a dorm. That freaked everybody out,” he said.Paul’s type of iron lung hasn’t been manufactured for half a century because – ventilators are now much more advanced and sophisticated.But the polio survivor preferred his metal chamber, even though new technology was available for him.But the Dallas attorney had to make a desperate YouTube announcement when the metal lung almost broke down seven years ago. Fortunately, there were still abandoned machines all over the country, so many spare parts are still out there. Paul has also had help from enthusiasts who love approaching old technology.”A lot of people who had polio and they’re dead. What did they do with the iron lung? I’ve found them in barns. I found them in garages. I’ve found them in junk shops. Not much, but enough to scrounge [for] parts,” he says.Paul once said he’s been able to live such a fulfilling life because he “never gave up.”“I wanted to accomplish the things I was told I couldn’t accomplish,” he said, “and to achieve the dreams I dreamed.”Polio has effectively been wiped out of the United States since 1979. However, vaccine-derived cases of polio crop up every now and then which are still a cause for concern.Paul Alexander cause of deathPaul Alexander, famously known as “The Man in the Iron Lung,” sadly passed away in March 2024. Despite living most of his life inside the metal machine that helped him breathe, those closest to him remember him not for his condition—but for his warmth and vibrant spirit.His brother, Philip Alexander, shared heartfelt memories of their bond, describing Paul as a “welcoming, warm person” whose “big smile” could immediately make anyone feel at home.“To me, he was just a normal brother,” Philip told the BBC. “We fought, we played, we loved, we partied, we went to concerts together – he was just a normal brother, I never thought about it.”Philip also spoke of Paul’s strength and independence, even in the face of overwhelming physical limitations. “He was the master of his domain, helping people to help him,” he said, admiring how Paul managed to maintain control over his life despite needing assistance with basic tasks like eating.