Who’s in charge in the 118th Congress?
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2023
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
The new Republican House majority is off to a shaky start. We’ll unpack the drama over committee assignments, the debt ceiling fight and a House speaker who has a very precarious hold on power.
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The 118th Congress started with a long and contentious vote for House speaker. After 15 rounds of voting, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) won that fight, but he’s still struggling to seize control of an unruly party with a slim House majority.
McCarthy is now negotiating committee assignments with input from a small but vocal far-right contingent. And he’s reeling from controversy surrounding a freshman member of the House, George Santos (R-N.Y.).
On top of all that, Democrats and Republicans are in a fight over the debt limit, with no easy path forward.
Reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell joins us to walk us through this chaotic Congress.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So, Leanne, it's a new year. There's a new speaker in the house. Would you say there's |
| 0:06.8 | a new vibe on Capitol Hill this year? |
| 0:09.8 | Absolutely. Everything's different on Capitol Hill this year. Of course, the attention is |
| 0:19.6 | now on House Republicans. They have not had the majority for two Congresses. So four |
| 0:25.5 | years. Leanne called well covers Congress for the post. And she says the 118th Congress |
| 0:32.6 | has gotten off to a chaotic start. |
| 0:35.9 | So the Congress started with a very contentious vote for, or I should say votes for Kevin McCarty |
| 0:43.0 | to become speaker of the House said took 15 rounds, four days of voting, intense negotiations, |
| 0:50.9 | and then after he finally got it, it rolled right into drama over committee assignments |
| 0:57.8 | who's going to sit on committees who is going to be kicked off their committees. |
| 1:03.0 | If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn't have swallowing any committee. |
| 1:07.5 | This is some Bakersville BS. |
| 1:10.0 | And then of course we have the debate over lifting the debt limit and Republicans making |
| 1:17.7 | demands because they want to reduce what they say is runaway government spending. |
| 1:27.4 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Arjun Singh. I'm your |
| 1:33.4 | guest host today. It's Thursday, February 2nd. Today we're unpacking what's going on with |
| 1:40.6 | committee assignments, the debt ceiling fight, and a House speaker who has a very precarious |
| 1:46.6 | hold on power. |
| 1:53.9 | I want to go back to what happened earlier in the year. Speaker Kevin McCarty had to go |
| 1:58.9 | through this marathon 15 round voting process just to become speaker. And my understanding |
| 2:05.8 | was that some of the holdouts on the far right who initially didn't vote for him were |
| 2:11.0 | demanding a series of concessions. Can you talk a little bit about what those concessions |
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