Principals

Imagine the misery Kevin McCarthy must be experiencing this moment. The new congressional term kicks off Tuesday, and he’s still busy begging a clique of hardline conservatives in his caucus not to tank his bid for speaker. Will he succeed? Sure, maybe. But on Sunday, nine members of his party sent him a letter declaring that they weren’t satisfied with the concessions he’d offered them on the House’s rules.

The biggest point of contention still surrounds the all-important motion to vacate the chair, the process for calling a no-confidence vote to boot the speaker. Currently, more than half the GOP caucus would have to agree on bringing up such a vote. The anti-McCarthy faction wants to restore an older version of the rule that would allow any single member to call for a referendum, because that would make it easier to intimidate leadership. In a rules package he released Sunday, McCarthy offered a compromise where it would only take 5 members to call a vote. Not good enough, the conservatives say — if KMac wants to end the torture of trying to become speaker, then he has to accept the most torturous possible version of actually being speaker.

Meanwhile, Republicans are set to end Capitol Hill’s short-lived experiment with allowing staffers to unionize. Last year, House Democrats voted to let congressional offices organize and collectively bargain for the first time, despite some nagging logistical questions about how it’d all work. But that measure will be revoked under that rules package the GOP is getting ready to introduce when it takes over this week; none of the offices that voted to unionize last year will be recognized in the new House.

Biden will begin 2023 with a nod to — what else? — bipartisanship. The president is making a rare trip to a red state by visiting Kentucky later this week, where he’ll appear alongside Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to discuss infrastructure. It promises to yield quite the split screen: Biden joining forces with the top Senate Republican as the House GOP plows forward with investigations into the president, his administration, and his family. (Under the new rules package offered by McCarthy, there would also be a new House Judiciary subcommittee on “Weaponization of the Federal Government” to further probe the DOJ under Biden.)

Russia has intensified drone attacks on Ukrainian cities over the past few days, targeting the capital city of Kyiv with Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones. Ukraine said Monday it had shot down all 39 drones in the fresh wave of attacks.

— Kadia Goba, Jordan Weissmann, and Morgan Chalfant

Punchbowl News: One Republican member, Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., told colleagues on a Sunday conference call that he hears concerns from constituents at church about the battle over McCarthy’s speaker bid preventing Republicans from organizing the new Congress.

Playbook: One anonymous GOP lawmaker on the fence about a McCarthy speakership told Politico that some undecided members won’t end up supporting McCarthy even if he caves to conservatives’ demands because they don’t trust him.

Trump rings in the new year with a fight over abortion

Donald Trump celebrated New Year’s eve more or less the same way he had spent much of 2022’s final months — comfortably ensconced at Mar-a-Lago. He marked New Year’s Day in a somewhat more surprising fashion, picking a fight with his own party over abortion.

The former president, and current 2024 contender, hosted a black-tie gala at his Florida resort Saturday night with a guest list heavy on club members and short on recognizable names, save for political loyalists like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Rudy Giuliani, and country music star Jason Aldean. Attendees walked down a red carpet to the ballroom, where the night’s entertainment was an act called Matt Mauser and the Pete Jacobs Big Band.

Trump arrived promptly at 9pm with wife Melania at his side, and took a few minutes to speak with the small group of reporters waiting for his arrival.

“Hello everybody. Happy new year. Hopefully it’ll be a great year for everybody, including yourselves, and I hope you enjoy yourselves at Mar-a-Lago,” Trump first told the press, who had been penned outside the ballroom. (Mercifully, it was a warm night.)

The ex-president then took just a few questions, notably ignoring one about Jan. 6 as well as two from Semafor: Whether he’d back a national abortion ban and his thoughts on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s push to investigate the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.

“Who else?” Trump scoffed, looking around for a different question as he heard DeSantis’s name. He then gave brief answers about the economy, his “fantastic” poll numbers, and Russia’s war in Ukraine before heading into the party to cap off a year in which he was widely blamed for Republicans’ poor midterm showing, and much of the GOP finally began to edge away from him as a consequence.

By New Year’s Day, he was busy litigating those election results on Truth Social, where he blamed anti-abortion hardliners for the outcome, without mentioning that he’d backed many of them in Republican primaries.

“It wasn’t my fault that Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms,” Trump wrote. “It was the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on NO Exceptions even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother that lost large numbers of Voters.”

He then added a dig at Republican voters who’d “pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court, & just plain disappeared, not to be seen again.” The comments drew rebukes from conservatives like journalist Ben Domenech, who tweeted that, “Trump betraying the pro-life cause on Dobbs has been telegraphed for a long time.”

Others noted the oddity of Trump attacking Republicans — not to mention his own loyal evangelical base — for what many in the party consider to be his most important accomplishment. “Fascinating strategy when one thing that united R’s across the spectrum was Trump’s SCOTUS picks,” tweeted Matt Whitlock, a former Republican comms staffer. “Now he’s blaming the midterm loss on accomplishing Conservatives’ 50-year goal of overturning Roe.”

The upshot? Cocooned at his estate and now feuding with his party’s base, Trump woke up in 2023 with a killer political hangover.

— Shelby Talcott

Photo: Flickr/Matt Johnson

Will Donald Trump get his mojo back?

It doesn’t feel like Donald Trump is the GOP’s 2024 frontrunner. Not after the blame he’s absorbed for the party’s subpar midterms, his low-wattage campaign launch, the indefensible dinner with Ye, and the polls showing him trailing by double-digits in a head-to-head match against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But it’s early days yet. Trump still has plenty of support among the Republican rank-and-file, and polls show him leading in a more divided primary field that splits the vote against him. Can he get back his old spark? Maybe not, but it’d be silly to count him out yet.

What will Ron DeSantis do on abortion?

It doesn’t appear that DeSantis is planning to announce an official presidential run any time soon. Instead, the most interesting man in GOP politics is focused on burnishing his conservative resume down in Florida. The number one topic to watch this year? That would be abortion, an issue that dragged down national Republicans during the midterms. In April, DeSantis signed a ban on the procedure after 15-weeks of pregnancy. But post-Dobbs, some conservatives want a stricter, 6-week ban, and the governor has at least hinted he would sign it. He might not have a choice, if he wants evangelicals to back him over Trump in 2024. But the move could turn out to be toxic with swing voters.

Which other Republicans will run? 

So far, it’s a two-man race between Trump and DeSantis. But a lot of Republicans are eying a run for GOP nomination, and the weaker Trump seems, the more will be tempted to take their shot at the crown.

When will Biden announce he’s running?

Barack Obama did it in April 2011. Donald Trump did it the week he was sworn in as president. Democrats currently expect the president to launch his campaign for a second term in the first months of 2023, even as polling suggests most voters want a new, younger nominee. Watch who and who doesn’t endorse him right away, and whether anyone besides Marianne Williamson wants to be an alternative.

Can House Republicans govern?

Even Republicans seem a little nervous about their new House majority. The party will have a narrow edge in the chamber, potentially putting implacable hardline conservatives in a position to gum up everyday business like keeping the government running or avoiding a debt default. In December, Senate GOP leaders decided to cut a giant spending deal with Democrats before the year ran out, in part because they worried that their fractious House colleagues simply wouldn’t be able to work out an agreement of their own. So far those fears seem justified. With just a day to go before the new Congress kicks off, Rep. Kevin McCarthy has yet to nail down the votes for speaker. Whoever ends up with the gavel, it’s an open question how effectively they’ll be able to run the place.

Are we walking into a debt ceiling crisis?

Speaking of basic governance: Once again, the U.S. is headed for a potential debt ceiling standoff. Republicans have said they want to use the upcoming vote to increase the government’s borrowing limit as leverage to demand spending cuts, possibly to programs like Social Security, that Democrats find unacceptable. Will this staring match turn out like the last go-round, where after a bit of posturing Sens. Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell found a face saving agreement to hike the limit and move on? Or will Biden finally be forced to ponder minting a trillion-dollar coin?

Is there any more room for bipartisanship?

Nobody expects Congress to pile up as many bipartisan accomplishments as it did in Biden’s first two years, now that Republicans control the House. But Sen. Todd Young, a key GOP dealmaker, recently told Semafor he thinks there might still be room to work across the aisle on issues around China, where a hawkish bipartisan consensus has formed.

What will become of George Santos?

For now, it looks like the fabulist from Long Island will be sworn in like any other congressman. But prosecutors may have other ideas about his future.

— Jordan Weissmann

One Good Text ... with Sen. Debbie Stabenow

Stories that are being shared less widely across left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, according to data from our partners at Ground News.

WHAT THE LEFT ISN’T READING: The 93-year-old co-founder of Home Depot said credited “socialism” with eroding people’s motivation to work. “Nobody works. Nobody gives a damn. ‘Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid,’” Bernie Marcos told the Financial Times.

WHAT THE RIGHT ISN’T READING: Kris Kobach, Kansas’ incoming Republican attorney general, was fined $30,000 by the FEC for illegally accepting an in-kind campaign contribution from the Steve Bannon-linked organization, We Build the Wall, during his failed 2020 Senate bid.

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— Steve Clemons