| | | | |  | | By Charlie Mahtesian and Calder McHugh | | 
Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) leave the House Chamber during the second day of elections for Speaker of the House. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images | KEVIN CAN WAIT — Expletives were flying on the second day of stalemate over the next Speaker of the House, as Kevin McCarthy 's backers got fed up with the gang of 20 Republican holdouts who refused to vote for the congressman from California three more times. After a 6th unsuccessful ballot today, the House adjourned until 8 p.m., though the full Republican conference had no plans to meet. "These f**king people," Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) told a reporter earlier in the day. "Now they're just being clowns." Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) offered an equally evocative description of the state of play. "This is like OJ and the white Bronco," he said. "Everybody's watching…waiting for something to happen at 40 mph." By now, the portrait of the "Never Kevin" crew is nearly fleshed out. Most, though not all, represent solidly Republican districts. Nearly all of them were endorsed by former President Donald Trump and are members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. Like the Republican Conference itself, many are from the Sun Belt — just one, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), is from north of the Mason-Dixon line (and his district is almost right on the line). Nearly half of the group hails from just three states — Arizona, Florida and Texas. Five are newly elected. "The 20 members — with 19 of them opposing McCarthy from the start, and one who switched in the third ballot — are a mix of veterans of the Tea Party class, newly elected members and perennial thorns in the side of leadership," wrote POLITICO's Anthony Adragna and Nancy Vu. So far, much of the focus has been concentrated on what it will take to get these holdouts — dubbed the "Taliban 19" by some of their own colleagues — to vote for McCarthy. But that misses a key point about the group: for many of them, their brand is chaos. They're not in it for the horse-trading. There are no institutionalists here — the group is largely composed of bomb-throwers and lightning-rod lawmakers who revel in their outlier status, whether it's back in their home states or in Washington. They are accustomed to taking on the party establishment — two of them, Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Bob Good (R-Va.), won their seats by taking down Republican incumbents. Before he won his seat on a second try, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) also knocked off a GOP House incumbent in a primary. One of the renegade Republicans, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), has almost never found a GOP speaker he could live with. In 2015, he was one of 25 House Republicans who voted for someone other than John Boehner as speaker. After Boehner later resigned, Gosar was one of nine House Republicans who voted against Paul Ryan. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who launched a symbolic challenge to McCarthy during the first conference-wide vote for GOP leader and captured 10 votes for speaker on the first ballot Tuesday, made his intentions clear in early December — the goal was not to stop the wheel, but to break it. "I'm running for Speaker to break the establishment," he tweeted. "Kevin McCarthy was created by, elevated by, and maintained by the establishment." Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Contact tonight's authors at cmahtesian@politico.com and cmchugh@politico.com or on Twitter at @PoliticoCharlie and @calder_mchugh.
| | | — New Covid strain is the most transmissible yet, WHO says: The coronavirus Omicron strain XBB.1.5, which has become the dominant strain in the U.S. in just a matter of weeks, could drive a new wave of cases, a World Health Organization official told reporters today. In the U.S., the sub-variant went from being present in 4 percent of sequenced cases to 40 percent in just a few weeks, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha tweeted. But the WHO doesn't yet know whether XBB.1.5. is more severe than other circulating sub-variants. — Biden: 'My intention' is to visit the southern border: President Joe Biden intends to visit the southern U.S. border, he said today, following months of insistence from his political opponents that he make the trip. The president is scheduled to visit Mexico City next week for a summit with other North American leaders. Republicans have long insisted that Biden see the border with Mexico firsthand — one of many criticisms they've maintained over the administration's border policy. GOP leaders, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), have held press conferences criticizing Biden from the border itself, highlighting what they've labeled as an immigration crisis. — College scam mastermind Rick Singer gets 3.5 years in prison: The mastermind of the nationwide college admissions bribery scheme that ensnared celebrities, prominent businesspeople and other parents who used their wealth and privilege to buy their kids' way into top-tier schools was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison today. The punishment for Singer, 62, is the longest sentence handed down in the sprawling scandal that embarrassed some of the nation's most prestigious universities and put a spotlight on the secretive admissions system already seen as rigged in favor of the rich.
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A Ukrainian soldier walks through the partially destroyed town of Borodianka on Jan. 2, 2023. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images | DEADLY STRIKE — Ukraine is seizing upon its deadliest strike against Russian soldiers so far in the war to warn the enemy they are not safe in bases behind the front lines, while Russians are turning on their commanders over the scale of the rocket attack against a building in Makiivka in eastern Ukraine, writes Veronika Melkozerova. On January 1, Ukraine struck a base in Makiivka in the Donetsk region. Given the devastating extent of the blast, Britain's ministry of defense speculated ammunition was stored near troop accommodation in the vocational school building, some 12.5 kilometers behind the front line. Late on the night of January 1, Ukraine's armed forces Strategic Communications Center claimed the strike killed 400 and wounded 300 newly mobilized Russian soldiers. The next day, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces confirmed the strike on the Makiivka base. "Up to 10 units of enemy military equipment of various types were destroyed and damaged in the concentration area in Makiivka. The exact number of military personnel losses is still being verified," General Staff spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun said in a video statement. Today, the Russian defense ministry put the number of Russian dead at 89 — the first time the Russian ministry has officially acknowledged the death of so many soldiers in one attack since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The Ukrainian armed forces have not made any further official comments. Instead, Ukraine's Strategic Communications Center of the Armed Forces has been intimidating Russians, with messages about other military bases of Russian soldiers supposedly targeted in occupied parts of the region of Zaporizhzhia. The armed forces' Strategic Communications Center has reposted a video from an anonymous channel called Capitan Himars. In a video, a soldier stands not far from a HIMARS rocket battery as it fires and proposes that Russian soldiers who want to go back home alive should send him coordinates of Russian military vehicles, arms warehouses and command posts. "If you give that to me, I won't target soldiers' bases, I will destroy only artillery, weapons and fuel. Then nobody will send you on the offensive. You will save your own life and the lives of your friends," the soldier says, blanketed in dust from the rocket fire.
| | | | | | | | | 'GLIMPSES OF HUMANITY' — Some read like poetry, some are absurdist, rambling or cruel and others can deliver insight into the human experience. Google Reviews, the simple tool created to streamline communication between buyer and business has evolved into something much more human. The sprawling, open-source online community functions as a digital guestbook. The diversity of interpretation as shared in reviews for every product, location and person underscores the full breath of the human experience. Will McCarthy reports on the human side of online reviews for Longreads.
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President Joe Biden appears on stage with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, former Ohio Senator Rob Portman, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, and Senator Mitch McConnell today in Covington, Kentucky. | Michael Swensen/Getty Images | BRIDGING THE DIVIDE — Joe Biden's first public appearance of 2023 came alongside a top Republican reviled by progressives, someone opposed to much of the White House agenda and who once pledged to make the last Democratic president a one-termer. But today, a smiling Biden feted Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell as a friend, colleague and a "man of his word," write Adam Cancryn, Marianne LeVine and Hailey Fuchs. The rare joint appearance in Covington, Ky., represented an early effort to signal the White House's eagerness for cooperation ahead of a politically combative next two years. The White House specifically invited McConnell along with other senators and governors from Kentucky and Ohio, and used the event as a chance for Biden to highlight the $1.6 billion slated to rebuild a bridge between the two states as a bipartisan success story. Biden aides and allies say they're counting on the minority leader to remain something of a bulwark against the GOP's riskier impulses — hammered home this week by chaos on the House floor over the election of a new speaker. The White House recognizes the need to avoid a government shutdown, keep aid to Ukraine flowing and stave off a catastrophic breach of the debt ceiling. They see McConnell as key to all those items. "There's still going to be strong partisan differences on a large majority of issues," said an adviser to the White House. "But they both understand that when you can agree, you should if it's in the best interest of the country and it serves your political purpose." Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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