#deb fischer

A video showing the husband of a Republican senator refusing to shake Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' hand took off online Monday, after the awkward moment in the Senate on Friday.

The clip, showing Senator Deb Fischer's husband Bruce turning down Harris' offer, was shared on X, formerly Twitter, by political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen, who said it showed "the level of class you can expect from MAGA".

Newsweek reached out to Senator Fischer's office via voicemail and the White House via email for comment Monday afternoon.

Why It Matters

Bruce Fischer accompanied his wife, first elected as a Senator for Nebraska in 2012, to the ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Friday and his refusal to shake hands with the vice president clearly surprised her as she oversaw the event, marking the beginning of the 119th Congress.

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

Republican lawmakers love to run on a promise to serve only a handful of terms, railing on members of Congress who serve too long and saying that limiting the number of years members can spend on Capitol Hill would solve what ails the federal government.

But just as much as Republicans love to extoll the virtues of term limits and make pledges about their own tenure, those same GOP lawmakers often go on to break those promises when their self-imposed timelines come to an end. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott became the latest Republican to break their pledge, announcing on Wednesday that he will run in 2028 for a third term, despite a past promise to serve only two. [...]

That's an about-face from his comments ahead of his 2022 reelection bid, when he told the same South Carolina newspaper, “I plan to run for reelection, but that will be my last one, if I run." Scott joins a long list of Senate Republicans who once ran on a promise of a self-imposed term limit but later broke those commitments after getting drunk on power. Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, might be the worst offender. In 1996, when she first ran for Senate, she vowed to stay for only two terms.  Thirty years later, Collins is now running for a sixth term, hoping she can overcome a blue wave in a blue-leaning state so she can continue to be "concerned" about her own party's actions but do nothing to actually stop them. But wait, there's more! Conspiratorial lunatic and Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson also said he would serve only two terms when he first ran in 2010. But he broke that pledge in 2022, when he ran for and unfortunately won a third term. And he's not ruling out running for a fourth when he's up again in 2028.

“So I learned in my second run, when I absolutely meant second and final, you can’t say, you know, never, never," Johnson said last May, adding that he doesn't think he wants to run again but won't rule out the possibility of changing his mind. "I don’t want to.” Then there's the real hypocrites like the odious Sen. Ted Cruz. In 2017, during his first term, the Texas Republican submitted legislation to limit senators to two terms. It didn’t pass, so he reintroduced that legislation in 2024—as he ran for a third term.

[...] Other Republicans who have broken term-limit pledges include Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who is now hoping to overcome his anger-management issues to win confirmation as President Donald Trump's head of the Department of Homeland Security. Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska and a number of House Republicans have also broken their pledges.

He also, in my opinion, waited too long to promote vaccination as protection against measles and children have died from it.

Alex Samuels at Daily Kos:

A Republican senator’s husband is getting flamed on social media after he appeared to swerve Vice President Kamala Harris’ handshake during Friday’s swearing-in ceremony. A video reposted to social media shows Sen. Deb Fischer’s husband, Bruce Fischer, refusing to shake Harris’ hand after the outgoing vice president swore in the senator for her third term. The exchange began with Harris leading the senator to recite the oath of office. The two women then shook hands. When Harris turned to Fischer’s husband, however, he only nodded in return. They then posed for an—er—awkward photo op in which it’s clear that neither Harris nor Fischer’s husband wants to be there. [...] Her husband’s grandstanding is remarkable, in part, because his wife wasn’t even hardcore MAGA until recently. Like some other Republicans, Fischer called on Trump to step down from the Republican nomination in 2016 after a video of Trump making very lewd remarks about women surfaced.  However, Fischer changed her tune days later and endorsed him for the presidency that same year. Fischer also publicly backed Trump over Harris in last year’s race. Trump, for his part, seems to be a fan of Fischer, but it’s possible that his endorsement of her reelection bid had less to do with his affinities for the senator and more to do with his being worried Republicans might lose a seat in the upper chamber.  But whatever the reason for Bruce Fischer’s actions, the viral moment came under a wide specter of irony. 

Kos at Daily Kos:

Democrats currently have a 51-49 majority in the United States Senate, meaning that Republicans need just a two-seat pickup to retake the chamber in a year in which the terrain heavily favors them.  Democrats have a guaranteed loss in West Virginia, where Sen. Joe Manchin, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, has called it quits. There is little high-quality polling in Montana’s Senate race, but 538’s polling average shows Democratic incumbent Jon Tester down nearly 4 percentage points.

As such, Democrats need to pick up at least one Republican-held seat to hold a 50-50 majority in a potential Kamala Harris administration. And when the two best Democratic opportunities are Florida and Texas, things look dark.  But there could be a third option, and one that no one saw coming.  Nebraska.  Donald Trump won the deep-red Cornhusker State by 19 points in 2020, but the Senate race is strange this cycle. There is no Democrat in the race. Instead, Sen. Deb Fischer is facing independent Dan Osborn, a union leader in Omaha. And the polling has been bizarre. A new poll by SurveyUSA for Osborn’s campaign gives him a narrow 1-point lead over Fischer. That’s slightly up from a month ago, when a SurveyUSA poll for the election site Split Ticket gave Fischer a 1-point lead. Both results are well within the polls’ margins of error, but the fact that the race is remotely close is unexpected, to say the least. 

SurveyUSA’s polls aren’t the only ones that show a close race, either. While a July poll from Torchlight Strategies for Fischer’s campaign gave her a 26-point lead, all four of the polls since then show the candidates in basically a statistical tie. Three of the polls were funded by Osborn or a PAC that supports him—but each poll is from a firm that 538 lists as among the top 15 best pollsters.  Even more odd, though? All four recent polls show Fischer’s support between 39% and 44%. And given that Osborn is getting similar numbers, it means there’s a strangely large amount of undecided voters in this race.  So what the heck is going on?  Put a “D” next to Osborn’s name, and all the polling would surely look like Fischer’s internal poll. But Osborn is running as an labor-focused independent and hasn’t clarified which party he’d caucus with, if elected.