Press: GOP House agenda is MAGA on steroids 

It’s no accident that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) became the longest-serving party leader in Senate history. Whatever you think of how he votes, you must admit that he’s one savvy political operative. So, it was not surprising when McConnell gave the best assessment of why, despite expectations of a “red wave,” Republicans failed so miserably in the midterms, falling one seat behind in the Senate and only narrowly winning the House. 

“We underperformed among independents and moderates because their impression of many of the people in our party, and leadership roles, is that they’re dogged in chaos, negativity, excessive attacks,” he told reporters on Nov. 14, 2022. “And it frightened independent and moderate Republican voters.” 

Nobody summed it up better. Nobody showed a clearer path forward for Republicans: Stop the negative attacks and put forward a positive agenda for the American people. Unfortunately, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Republicans weren’t listening. Instead, they’ve announced an agenda that promises nothing but more “chaos, negativity, and excessive attacks.”  

As announced by McCarthy and his acolytes, here are the highlights: refusing to raise the debt ceiling and threatening to shut down the government without massive cuts in domestic spending, and maybe even the military; impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; congressional investigation of Hunter Biden; and a new subcommittee to investigate the Department of Justice and the FBI for “weaponizing” the federal government. 

In their first week in power, Republicans delivered on two other previously announced goals: cutting funding for the IRS to hire new agents to chase down tax cheats, a clear payback to GOP millionaire donors; and passing two new anti-abortion measures, even though the Supreme Court had already overruled the federal right to abortion — generally believed to be a major factor in the disappointing performance of Republicans in the midterms. 

Overall, no doubt about it, the House GOP agenda will gladden the hearts of Donald Trump and the party’s MAGA base. It’s MAGA on steroids. But it’s also an agenda that will, as McConnell warned, only further frighten independent and moderate Republican voters. What are McCarthy and company thinking? Is this really what the American people want out of the 118th Congress? Is this even what most Republicans want?

It does make you wonder: Don’t Republicans have any new ideas? Refusing to raise the debt ceiling and shutting down the government is so old. It’s been tried many times before and, as a political stunt, it’s always failed — most spectacularly under then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), when GOP demands to cut Social Security and Medicare guaranteed Bill Clinton’s reelection. And it seems especially hollow today, after Republicans uttered not a peep when the debt ceiling was raised twice under Donald Trump. 

Investigating Hunter Biden is hardly a new idea, either. Been there, done that. In 2020, after conducting its own lengthy investigation, the Republican-led Senate Homeland Security Committee, under Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), concluded that Biden’s ill-advised business dealings amounted to a “conflict of interest” but had no impact on U.S. policy nor showed any evidence of criminal activity.  

There is, admittedly one new idea in the House GOP playbook: accusing the DOJ and the Pentagon of having their own, liberal, political agenda and thereby “weaponizing” government agencies against Republican officials, starting with Donald Trump. But it’s hard to imagine how the so-called pro-military, law-and-order Republican Party stands to gain by attacking the FBI and the military. 

Nevertheless, driven by their most politically extreme members, House Republicans are proceeding full-bore with their MAGA agenda. McCarthy must believe it’s good politics. Privately, McConnell must believe it’s political malpractice. 

Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”