WASHINGTON — If it’s Tuesday ... The brand-new 118th Congress begins, as GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy faces an uncertain vote for House Speaker. ... Newly elected and re-elected senators get sworn into office (and won’t return to DC until Jan. 23), per NBC’s Frank Thorp. ... 2023 features three key gubernatorial contests. ... Trump blames others for GOP’s 2022 losses. ... And Happy New Year!
But first: The start to the 118th Congress puts the political spotlight on all of the problems afflicting today’s Republican Party.
A small band of House conservatives — from the wing of the party most responsible for the GOP’s 2022 losses — is holding Kevin McCarthy’s speakership hostage to demonstrate their strength. (The party’s 2022 performance, and subsequent razor-thin House majority, means even a handful of lawmakers can have an outsized impact.)
As a result, the new House GOP majority’s is demonstrating its difficulty to govern.
“If Republicans are unable to muster the votes for a speaker, it will make very clear from the outset they cannot be counted on to fulfill the body’s basic responsibilities, such as funding the government and preventing a credit default by lifting the debt ceiling, both of which will be required this year,” Brendan Buck, who worked for the last two GOP speakers, writes in the New York Times.
And to top it all off, a new GOP member who clearly lied and grifted his way to Congress — George Santos — is about to get sworn in (as soon as the vote for speaker concludes).
Hostage-taking. A difficulty (or even inability) to govern. Grifters winning office.
They’re all on display today.
Photo of the day
Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin remained in critical condition early Tuesday morning, according to a team statement. He collapsed during Monday night’s NFL game and received CPR before being transported to a hospital — the team’s statement adds he went into cardiac arrest but “his heartbeat was restored on the field.”
Data Download: The number of the day is … 3
That’s how many gubernatorial races will be on the ballot this fall — in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi — races that will likely be among the most important of the off-year.
While all three contests take place in states that former President Donald Trump won in 2020, Louisiana and Kentucky have incumbent Democratic governors. Louisiana Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards is term-limited, giving Republicans a great opening to flip the seat, while a crowded field of Republicans has already emerged in the battle for the right to face Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who is running again.
Read more about these races, as well as others that we’re watching in 2023, on the Meet the Press Blog.
Other numbers to know:
At least 76: How many fatalities linked to the winter storm late last month have been confirmed by NBC News.
149: How many women will serve in the 118th Congress (106 Democrats, 42 Republicans and one independent), with 124 of those women serving in the House. Both are new records, according to the Center for American Women and Politics, which is part of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.
3: The number of states where Mark Meadows, Trump’s final White House chief of staff, was simultaneously registered to vote. After an investigation, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said last week that Meadows wouldn’t be charged for voter fraud for those registrations.
280 votes: The margin that newly minted Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes won her election by, after a recount finalized late last month confirmed her victory.
6: The number of people who President Joe Biden pardoned at the end of the year.
95: How old Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was when he died on New Year’s Eve.
Eyes on 2024: Trump’s blame game
Former President Donald Trump kicked off the new year by insisting that it “wasn’t my fault” that Republicans fell short of expectations in the 2022 midterms, even though several candidates he endorsed lost high-profile races.
“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,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday.
His assertion sparked pushback from the anti-abortion rights group, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which said in a statement that the winning approach is to “state clearly the ambitious consensus pro-life position and contrast that with the extreme view of Democrat opponents … There was ALSO a profound midterm lesson for future federal candidates: those who adopted the Ostrich Strategy on abortion lose.”
The exchange suggests that abortion may be a key dividing line between Trump and other GOP presidential contenders, despite how social conservatives previously celebrated Trump for nominating the justices who ultimately voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, quoted the SBA statement and tweeted, “Well Said @sbaprolife!”
Meanwhile, other Republicans are blaming Trump for their 2022 losses. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told NBC News’ Sahil Kapur late last month, “We lost support that we needed among independents and moderate Republicans, primarily related to the view they had of us as a party — largely made by the former president — that we were sort of nasty and tended toward chaos.”
In other 2024 news:
Biden his time: President Joe Biden is starting the year with an event with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, NBC News’ Mike Memoli reports. This comes as Biden weighs another run for president, and Politico reports that an announcement “could potentially come earlier than had been expected, possibly as soon as mid-February, around the expected date of the State of the Union.”
But Biden’s 2023 agenda could face a key obstacle in the conservative Supreme Court, NBC News’ Lawrence Hurley reports.
Sanders weighs another run: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders “did not rule out another presidential bid of his own,” the Associated Press reports. Sanders told the AP, “I’ll make a decision at the appropriate time. People need to breathe.”
Santos saga: Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., is set to take office today after admitting to “embellishing” his resume, including claims that he graduated from college, worked for two financial firms, and said he was “Jew-ish.” Santos is facing multiple investigations, including from Federal prosecutors, a New York prosecutor, and authorities in Brazil, per the New York Times.
Trump’s tax tribulations: Shortly before Democrats are set to relinquish control of the House to the GOP, the House Ways and Means Committee released six years of Trump’s tax returns to the public. Among the revelations: millions made in foreign income as well as that the IRS didn’t finish an audit of his 2016 returns by the time Trump left office.
History in Virginia: Democrat Jennifer McClellan is poised to be the first Black woman to represent Virginia in Congress following her primary win to fill a vacant seat to represent Virginia’s 4th District. Former Democratic Rep. Donald McEachin died last month from cancer and McClellan is favored to win February’s special general election over Republican Leon Benjamin.
ICYMI: What else is happening in the world
After a string of successful state ballot measures protecting abortion rights, conservative groups are aiming to curtail the ability for voters to place ballot initiatives to a statewide vote, NBC News’ Adam Edelman reports.
The Supreme Court halted the end of Title 42, a Trump-era immigration policy that makes it easier to turn away migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Transcripts of interviews with law enforcement officials released by the Jan. 6 committee show that numerous security concerns related to the event had emerged in the days leading up to the riot at the Capitol.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., shared that he’d been diagnosed with cancer but plans to undergo treatment while continuing to serve in Congress.
