Month: January 2023

Six takeaways from House committee assignments so far

Posted on (Updated by Julia Shapero

As members of the House continue to receive committee assignments for the new Congress, Republicans are shaking up several panels with their newly obtained majority.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has doubled down on promises to block certain Democrats from top panels, while several Republicans who played key roles in his long, drawn-out fight for Speaker have found their way onto prominent committees.

More committee assignments remain to be handed out, but here are the six main takeaways so far:

Greene, Gosar back on committees

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., joined at left by Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) were placed back on committees on Tuesday, after having their committee assignments stripped in 2021.

Both Greene and Gosar were selected to sit on the Oversight and Accountability Committee, while Greene was also chosen to serve on the Homeland Security Committee and Gosar was picked to sit on the Natural Resources Committee.

Greene, who had reportedly lobbied for the spot on the Oversight committee, was a key supporter of McCarthy throughout his bid for Speaker. She was stripped of her committee assignments in February 2021, just one month after joining Congress, for espousing conspiracy theories and encouraging violence against Democratic officials on social media.

Gosar was censured and removed from his committees in November 2021, after he posted an anime-style video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and engaging in a sword fight with President Biden.

McCarthy sparks fresh anger with vow to keep Omar off Foreign Affairs

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaks to reporters during a break in a House Democratic caucus meeting and leadership election on Wednesday, November 30, 2022 for the 118th session of Congress.

McCarthy has recently doubled down on his previous vows to keep Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) off the Foreign Affairs Committee, sparking fresh anger among Democrats and Muslim advocacy groups.

Omar, one of three Muslim members of Congress, has been critical of the Israeli government and its supporters, leading to accusations of antisemitism.

“Last year, I promised that when I became Speaker, I would remove Rep. Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee based on her repeated anti-semitic and anti-American remarks,” McCarthy said in a tweet in November. “I'm keeping that promise.”

McCarthy reportedly told the GOP conference last week that he still plans to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Robert McCaw, the government affairs department director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called the decision to reinstate Greene and Gosar while threatening to remove Omar “absolute insanity and hypocrisy” in a statement on Wednesday. 

“Racism and Islamophobia would be the only explanation for this hypocritical double-standard,” McCaw said.

While McCarthy has promised to block Omar’s appointment, he cannot do so alone. In order to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, House Republicans would have to bring the matter to a vote on the House floor.

Schiff, Swalwell future on Intel panel still in peril

In this May 28, 2019 file photo, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., left, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., speak with members of the media on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Reps. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) futures on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence also remain in peril, as McCarthy has similarly promised to boot both California Democrats from the powerful panel.

McCarthy has cited accusations that Schiff, the former chair of the Intelligence Committee, lied to the public about the extent of former President Trump’s ties to Russia during his 2016 campaign and exaggerated the central assertion of Trump’s first impeachment.

The first impeachment, which Schiff led, accused Trump of pressuring Ukrainian officials to investigate his political rivals by threatening to withhold aid.

In Swalwell’s case, McCarthy has pointed to his ties to an alleged Chinese spy who helped fundraise for the congressman in 2014. However, Swalwell reportedly cut ties with the individual after the FBI informed him of her identity.

Swalwell was also an impeachment manager for Trump’s second impeachment over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Schiff’s and Swalwell’s positions on the Intelligence Committee are in a particularly precarious state, given that McCarthy can unilaterally reject their appointments without bringing a resolution to the House floor for a vote. 

Santos gets committee assignments

George Santos

Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., departs after attending a House GOP conference meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), the embattled first-term lawmaker who has admitted to lying about his background on the campaign trail, was seated on the Small Business Committee and Science, Space and Technology Committee on Tuesday.

McCarthy had confirmed last week that Santos would be seated on committees, even as several members of the Republican conference called for his resignation.

“I try to stick by the Constitution. The voters elected him to serve. If there is a concern, and he has to go through the Ethics [Committee], let him move through that,” McCarthy told reporters.

Santos is facing investigations on multiple fronts, as his claims about his background continue to unravel. The Nassau County district attorney and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York have both launched probes into the New York Republican, while Brazilian authorities reopened a fraud case against Santos from 2008.

Complaints have also been filed with the House Ethics Committee and Federal Election Commission over allegations that Santos falsified his financial disclosures and violated campaign finance laws.

McCarthy detractors get seats on Financial Services, Appropriations panels

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) addresses reporters after a closed-door House Republican conference meeting on Tuesday, June 14, 2022.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) addresses reporters after a closed-door House Republican conference meeting on Tuesday, June 14, 2022.

Several Republican members who opposed McCarthy’s bid for Speaker, drawing out the fight over a historic four days and 15 ballots, received seats on top House panels last week.

Of the 20 members of the anti-McCarthy group, Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) were both appointed to the Financial Services Committee, while Reps. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) and Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) found their way on to the Appropriations Committee. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) also maintained his spot on the Financial Services Committee.

While GOP leadership has said that no members were promised committee assignments as part of its negotiations during the Speaker fight, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) noted last week that they did agree to ensure that “committees are represented by a whole swath of our membership.”

This has largely translated into providing hard-line conservatives with more spots on prominent committees. 

Foxx gets waiver to lead Education panel

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) at a House Education and Labor Committee hearing examining the policies and priorities of the Department of Labor on Tuesday, June 14, 2022.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) at a House Education and Labor Committee hearing examining the policies and priorities of the Department of Labor on Tuesday, June 14, 2022.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) was selected to chair the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, after receiving a waiver from GOP leadership.

House GOP rules only permit members to serve as the head of a committee for three consecutive terms. As Foxx is beginning her fourth term as the top Republican on the education panel, she required a waiver to serve as chair.

Mayorkas claims border encounters have dropped ‘significantly’ as he faces investigation, possible impeachment

Posted on by Brandon Gillespie
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says border encounters "dropped significantly" since the agency announced new border actions, but he didn't provide details to support the claim.

House Oversight GOP to feature Border Patrol agents in February hearing

Posted on (Updated by Emily Brooks

Republicans will turn their focus to the U.S.-Mexico border with a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing featuring four Border Patrol agents next month.

Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announced the hearing on Thursday, to take place sometime during the week of Feb. 6. Border Patrol agents Jason Owens, Gregory Bovino, Gloria Chavez and Patricia McGurk-Daniel were invited to testify.

“The Biden Administration’s deliberate actions are fueling human smuggling, stimulating drug cartel operations, enabling deadly drugs such as fentanyl to flow into American communities, and encouraging illegal immigrants to flout U.S. immigration laws,” Comer charged in a statement. “Republicans will hold the Biden Administration accountable for this ongoing humanitarian, national security, and public health crisis that has turned every town into a border town.”

Comer separately sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday requesting documents and communications detailing accounting of illegal border crossings, border security plans, changes in certain migration policies, interior enforcement actions and several other matters.

The hearing is the second that the high-profile panel has scheduled. A hearing on waste, fraud and abuse in COVID-19 relief programs is set for Feb. 1.

A focus on the border, which Comer has long said will be a top priority for his committee, comes as several House Republicans are renewing their calls to impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the border. Any impeachment actions would be pursued by the House Judiciary Committee rather than the Oversight panel. 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has called on Mayorkas to resign, but has stopped short of supporting impeachment.

“We can investigate, and then that investigation could lead to an impeachment inquiry. I don't predetermine because I'll never use impeachment for political purposes,” McCarthy told reporters on Monday.

Senate stares down immigration fight

Posted on (Updated by Al Weaver

A bipartisan group of senators attempting to craft an immigration compromise have an arduous task ahead of them: finding a deal that can attract the support of Democrats, moderate Republicans and the hard-line conservatives who have newfound power and influence in the House. 

Ten senators last week visited multiple spots along the border for an up-close look at the issues consuming the immigration system. President Biden also traveled to El Paso, Texas, the epicenter of what members on both sides of the aisle describe as a crisis. 

Despite that agreement, lawmakers must navigate the tricky contours of the politics of immigration — an issue that’s famously difficult to get agreement on while also serving as a key talking point in recent presidential elections.

That’s not deterring talks among those in the Senate, however.

"This is going to take months to potentially get to something that we could get the support in the House. We can't simply, because it’s politically difficult, say we can't touch it this Congress," Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), one of those that made the border trip, told The Hill. 

Tillis and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who was also among those at the border last week, made a last-minute attempt last year to win support for a narrow proposal that would have allocated tens of billions of dollars to border security and processing asylum requests while also handing "Dreamers" — those brought to the U.S. as children without authorization — a long-awaited path to citizenship.

But that push — which consisted of a framework and not a bill — was too little, too late.  

Tillis and Sinema’s attempt at bipartisan compromise may have been the last chance for the foreseeable future for Congress to take action, despite both parties in Congress and the White House acknowledging the problem. 

Any deal that could emerge from the Senate — meaning with the support of at least nine Senate Republicans — would likely earn resistance from far-right members of the GOP-controlled House.

“It's harder because the politics have gotten even harder for Republicans to get to ‘yes,’” said Alex Conant, who served as press secretary for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) during the “Gang of Eight” immigration fight in 2013. “You look at the political fallout for those involved in the 2013 deal, and how a lot of Republicans have been able to use immigration to win nominations since then, it's an issue that Republicans are very wary of getting on the wrong side of.”

Since the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform package failed, the politics of the topic has only hardened on the right and the voices have gotten louder. Adding to the troubles is that members are heading into a presidential election cycle and are hesitant to deliver any wins for Biden, especially on a topic that matters this much to the base. 

Many House Republicans made immigration a central issue and some are already talking about impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed articles of impeachment against the secretary last week. 

And on Wednesday, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) sent a letter pressing Mayorkas for answers about border issues, writing that “administration cannot continue its erosion of the southern border and its mass-parole of migrants into our country.”

“It’s been a steep hill — steep and tall — for 40 years. That’s why nothing’s gotten done. So this is just a different dynamic,” said Tillis, who blamed the “talking heads” in part for scuttling his efforts with Sinema last year. “I don’t think it’s fair to blame this Congress. This Congress could be the first one since leisure suits were popular to do something on immigration.”

Tillis, who has become a key player in bipartisan negotiations on myriad topics in the past two years, said he is expected to discuss a path to passage of immigration reform with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Freedom Caucus members. 

Some political observers believe the impetus for a deal could be simple: The situation at the border now is worse than it was a decade ago as monthly encounters with migrants are near record highs.

One Senate GOP aide added that the road to a bipartisan, bicameral deal is “difficult but not impossible.” 

“Details will really matter, though,” the aide said. “At the very least, it’s good to finally see a substantive bipartisan acknowledgement that there’s actually a problem at the border.”

Legislation that passes muster with both chambers, however, would need to overcome another complicating factor in the House: McCarthy, as part of the deals he struck to become Speaker, empowered a far-right contingent of his party and handed them an easier procedural avenue to oust him, just as they did former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in 2015 — two years after Boehner refused to bring the “Gang of Eight” bill to the floor for a vote. 

“I don't think it's this,” one conservative Senate aide told The Hill about McCarthy’s lack of willingness to complicate his standing as Speaker over a Senate-negotiated immigration bill. 

“What [former President Trump] showed was you can run on a pretty hard-line immigration stance and win on it,” the aide continued. “I don't think they get there without something Democrats can't stomach.”

For now, all eyes are on the Senate to see how it proceeds, though it all comes down to what McCarthy and House conservatives could accept.

“Now we have a gavel,” Tillis said. “And when you have a gavel, you have to govern.”

Kamala Harris is Biden’s ‘shrewd insurance policy’ against impeachment, Boebert says

Posted on by Houston Keene
Colorado GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert told Fox News Digital that she thinks President Biden has a "shrewd insurance policy" against impeachment, citing Vice President Kamala Harris.

Promise Kept: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar Reinstated to House Committees

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

MAGA Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar have been given committee assignments after being stripped of them in 2021 by a Democrat-controlled House.

It’s a promise new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made, and has now kept.

Greene (R-GA) will be sitting on the House Homeland Security and Oversight Committees while Gosar (R-AZ) will take part on the House Natural Resources and Oversight Committees.

Gosar’s assignments are basically a reinstatement to committees he served on before his removal.

Greene’s roles are different, however, as she previously served on the Education and Labor Committee as well as the Budget Committee.

The Georgia lawmaker immediately celebrated her new role and vowed to “investigate the Biden administration’s violations of our laws and fund (and defund) programs to defend our border and American sovereignty.”

RELATED: McCarthy May Give Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar ‘Better’ Committee Assignments If GOP Takes Back Congress

House Committee Shuffle

The move to reinstate Greene and Gosar to House committees comes just days after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy advised he’d be removing Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from key roles.

Schiff and Swalwell both served on the House Intelligence Committee, with the former serving as Chair. Swalwell also had a role on the Homeland Security Committee. Omar served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Think about that for a minute – Marjorie Taylor Greene is essentially replacing Swalwell on the Homeland Security Committee.

What better symbolism for the new Congress: Kicking a man with ties to a Chinese spy off of Homeland Security and replacing him with an America First congresswoman.

Swalwell must be beside himself.

RELATED: Swalwell Lashes Out After Learning McCarthy Will Remove Him, Ilhan Omar, and Adam Schiff from Committees

Greene and Gosar are Back

Some have speculated that the committee assignments for lawmakers further to the right on the political spectrum may have been a concession by McCarthy in order to secure the Speaker’s gavel.

In reality, he’s been suggesting Greene and Gosar would be reinstated for quite some time.

“They’ll have committees,” McCarthy vowed back in November of 2021. “They may have other committee assignments.”

In fact, he added, “They may have better committee assignments.”

It seems in the case of Greene at least, the ‘better’ committee promise came to fruition.

Democrats had taken the unusual step of removing Greene and Gosar over a year ago from their House committee assignments for very specious reasons.

Gosar was removed for posting a parody cartoon showing an anime version of himself attacking President Biden and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. No serious person took it as a profound threat. Because it was a Japanese cartoon. With swords.

But Democrats, along with Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, voted to remove him from committee. Kinzinger now works for CNN and Cheney was defeated in her primary.

Greene was removed from committee assignments over social media posts made prior to her election to office.

Both had engaged in ill-advised behavior, but nothing that warranted discipline. Democrats simply did it out of spite and because they aren’t afraid of using their power. And now they get to sit on their hands and fume over the fact that Greene and Gosar are back.

CNN also notes that Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania have been added to the House Oversight Committee as well, a significant victory for America First lawmakers.

“The addition of the hardliners will give them the ability to shape some of the most aggressive investigations into the Biden administration,” writes CNN.

One can only hope so.

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White House charges GOP with hypocrisy on Trump, Biden 

Posted on (Updated by Amie Parnes

The White House blasted Republicans on Tuesday, accusing them of hypocrisy with how they’ve handled the separate controversies surrounding classified documents found at President Biden’s garage and office and former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.  

In a call with reporters, White House aides accused the GOP of engaging in “political theater” by attacking Biden while giving a free pass to Trump.  

“The president and his team have been fully cooperating, acting responsibly and ensuring that this is handled properly,” said Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel's Office. “You’ve seen something far different emerging among elected Republicans. What are they doing? They’ve decided that it’s time for more political stunts and theater.“  

The call was set up after a difficult week for the White House that found Democrats struggling at times to explain why documents had been taken to Biden’s garage and office, and why the public hadn’t been told about them until Jan. 10 — when the news first broke about the discovery. 

The White House first discovered that classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president had been taken to the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 2 — before the midterm elections and after Biden and other Democrats had blasted Trump over classified documents at Mar-a-Lago found earlier in the year. 

The White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives of the discovery days later and the Archives then notified the Department of Justice. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week appointed a special counsel to look into the issue after Garland had previously appointed a special counsel to look into the Trump classified documents matter. 

On Tuesday, days after House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) asked if the White House had a visitor log for Biden’s Wilmington, Del., residence, Biden’s team sought to go on offense by accusing the GOP overreaching on the issue.  

Comer, in an interview with CNN, also called Biden’s residence a “crime scene” after the classified documents were discovered at Biden’s home.  

Sams and others say the GOP fury over the found Biden documents stands in sharp contrast to the more blasé reaction many Republicans had to the discovery of classified documents at Trump’s home.  

Democrats also have argued the two situations are very different because of the level of cooperation Biden has sought to maintain in alerting the Archives to the discovery. Trump, in contrast, largely stiff-armed the Archives, they say.  

In addition, the documents at Mar-a-Lago were in a Florida estate where hundreds of guests come and go for social occasions.  

“They’re faking outrage even though they defended the former president’s actions,” Sams told reporters on Tuesday. 

White House aides and allies pointed to the irony of Comer’s remarks in August when he brushed off Trump’s possession of classified materials.  

“What I’ve seen that the National Archives was concerned about Trump having in his possession didn’t amount to a hill of beans,” Comer told Newsmax at the time.  

In November, Comer also told CNN that a House investigation into Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents would “not be a priority.”  

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who served as the chief investigator in the first impeachment of Trump, told The Hill it’s “just the latest example of House Republicans abusing their oversight authority and demanding things they have argued against in the past.  

“The American people are tired of Republican hypocrisy and Chairman Comer is not off to a good start, he said. 

Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist and the director of the public policy program at Hunter College, said Republicans like Comer were “willing to shield Trump from any public of governmental scrutiny while he was president but are hypocritically intent upon using all available congressional power at their disposal to unpack Biden’s life, shame him and discredit Democrats.”  

In many ways, White House officials and their allies are happy to have this fight with Republicans, allies say because they are taking the bet that Trump’s baggage on this issue is worse than their own and has the potential of backfiring.  

White House allies say Republicans will have a tough time explaining why Trump held on to the documents and then resisted the FBI. Biden, on the other hand has fully cooperated with the Department of Justice and the appointed special counsel.  

“It’s ludicrous,” one Democratic strategist close to the White House said of the GOP. 

“Do they really want to go there?" said one Democratic strategist close to the White House. "Didn't their guy have many more documents at his home? Didn't he try and stop people from taking them back?” 

Republicans have used the controversy to blunt Biden’s trajectory weeks ahead of his expected announcement for reelection. They’ve sought to use the episode to paint Biden as corrupt. 

“The Biden are just a Delaware version of the Sopranos,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote on Twitter.  

Republican strategist Doug Heye said it’s fair game.  

“Congress tends not to deeply investigate a White House of the same party,” Heye said. “That was true of Democrats last Congress and of Republicans under Trump.“ 

And he predicted that the controversy wouldn’t backfire on the GOP.  

“This cuts at Biden’s argument that he and his team of pros won’t make the mistakes Trump and his Addams Family team made — on something Biden specifically criticized. And when Democrats say, but Trump was worse, well, okay but now you’re talking degrees and if you’re explaining you’re losing.” 

Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman says Trump, Biden classified document scandals are ‘apples and oranges’

Posted on by Chris Pandolfo
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., who served as House impeachment counsel against former President Donald Trump, said the Trump and Biden classified documents scandals are "apples and oranges."

The Republican Party has left Mitch McConnell. He just doesn’t know it yet

Posted on (Updated by Kerry Eleveld

“Masterful” tactician Mitch McConnell got a lot things wrong this cycle.

Turns out Donald Trump wasn’t exactly “a fading brand.” Indeed, Trump still had the juice to handpick nearly all the Republican candidates in the cycle’s most important races. 

Turns out Georgia GOP senatorial nominee Herschel Walker wasn’t “the only one who can unite the party, defeat Senator Warnock, and help us take back the Senate.”

And although McConnell was right that “candidate quality” doomed Republicans’ chances of retaking the Senate, he wasn’t exactly honest about his share of the blame for the Senate GOP’s horrific slate. First off, if McConnell had convinced just 17 of his GOP colleagues to convict Trump during his Jan. 6 impeachment trial, Trump wouldn’t have wielded so much power over the GOP’s slate. Second, if McConnell had succeeded in recruiting candidates like former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey or New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, perhaps Republicans’ candidate quality wouldn’t have been so epically dismal. But neither Ducey nor Sununu wanted any part of McConnell’s do-nothing caucus, and that’s not Donald Trump’s fault.

The bottom line here is the fact that the Republican Party has slipped away from McConnell without him even knowing it. Trump’s power is at its lowest point since he first won the general election in 2016, yet he remains far more powerful than McConnell.

The reason is that Trumpism has overtaken the party, accounting for its biggest bump in voters possibly since the GOP tax-cutters formed an unholy alliance with the evangelicals back in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. (That assertion is just a guess, by the way).

At the same time that Trump brought more voters into the GOP field, McConnell’s bread-and-butter suburban voters have slowly migrated toward Democrats. So although McConnell is still a whopper fundraiser, for the foreseeable future he’ll likely have slim-to-none quality candidates on which to spend his war chest.

In essence, McConnell has almost no constituency left except for a loyal cohort of well-heeled donors who haven’t quite realized the once-celebrated tactician has lost his grip.

Just for kicks, let’s take a look at Civiqs tracking of McConnell’s favorability rating among all voters:

Civiqs Results

Just 6%—yikes! 

But what about among Republican voters?

Civiqs Results

Just 12%—yikes! (Even at a very low moment for Trump, some three-quarters of GOP voters still view him favorably.)

So what do independents think of McConnell?

Civiqs Results

Yikes again!

And while we’re at it, here’s the icing on the cake—Nancy Pelosi’s favorability rating among registered voters: 39% favorable, 55% unfavorable.

Civiqs Results

Despite enduring more than a decade of GOP demonization, Pelosi polls better overall than either Trump (34%) or McConnell (6%). She also polls at 81% among Democratic voters versus McConnell’s pitiful 12% showing among Republicans. But we digress.

McConnell may not realize it yet, but the only thing he’s got left is his caucus—and that’s entirely contingent on his ability to continue bringing in gobs of cash. One has to wonder how long before McConnell’s power base collapses entirely. 

Happy New Year! Daily Kos’ Joan McCarter is on the show today to talk about the wild garbage fire that was the Republican speaker of the House vote. Kerry and Markos also break down what this onionskin-thin conservative majority can and cannot do in the coming year, as well as what the Democratic representatives can do to make Kevin McCarthy’s life just that much tougher.

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