Author: Politico

“I earned this job. We earned this majority, and God dammit we are going to win it today,” McCarthy said to a standing ovation, according to lawmakers in the room.

After weeks of intense, down-to-the-wire negotiations, McCarthy is out of time to lock down the needed 218 votes. With his yearslong effort to claim the speakership trapped in limbo, the conference meeting Tuesday morning is a sign of the chaos still to come in during votes on the House floor. And after having his speakership aspirations ripped away from him in 2015, his allies say this time he’s prepared to fight until the potentially bitter end.

It wasn’t just the California Republican calling out the conservative hardliners at the conference meeting. Many of McCarthy’s frustrated supporters, too, unloaded on the band of detractors. At one point, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, pushed the idea that any Republican who opposes McCarthy should be stripped of committee assignments.

One of McCarthy’s chief antagonists, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), spoke up to defend his position — and lashed out against Roger’s remarks about keeping fellow Republicans off committees, shouting profanities at his colleague. Rogers said after the meeting that his warning that the Steering Committee will block McCarthy opponents from getting committee assignments wasn’t just a threat: “I promised it.”

And McCarthy shot back at Roy’s defense of his opposition: “You’re not voting against me, it’s against the conference and the country.”

Roy wasn’t the only Republican vowing to vote against McCarthy to speak up. Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) both reiterated their stances to the conference. The GOP leader responded to Perry: “What’s left? What do you want?”

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), another anti-McCarthy Republican, told members as he left the room: “Nothing’s changed.”

Other anti-McCarthy members, including Perry and Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), publicly railed against McCarthy after the closed-door meeting, arguing that his allies were resorting to political threats instead of making a deal. Boebert had just announced her public opposition Tuesday morning, along with Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.).

“This [meeting] was about a beat down and a simulated unity in the room that really doesn’t exist,” Perry said.

Republicans left the raucous huddle with deep concerns about the fate of their floor vote, unsure how long or how many speaker ballots to expect.

“Obviously, I think it will go to more than one ballot,” said Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala), one of the most senior members of the House.

McCarthy supporters say they expect him to keep Republicans on the House floor, instead of trying to adjourn for off-the-floor strategy sessions between ballots, as he hopes to grind down his opponents. And while a speakership vote has gone past the first ballot only once since the Civil War, Republicans are mentally preparing not just for multiple ballots, but also multiple days of voting.

“He’s steadfast. He’s in this until hell freezes,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a McCarthy backer.

McCarthy appeared unbowed Tuesday morning after what he described as an “intense conference.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I have the record for the longest speech ever on the floor, I don’t have a problem getting the record for the most votes for speaker, too.”

Even before the explosive meeting, early signs Tuesday didn’t point in McCarthy’s favor. Perry offered blistering criticism of McCarthy just before the meeting, saying conservatives had asked for several concessions like commitments on committee seats that, in turn, would get him to 218 votes, but that the California Republican declined.

“Kevin McCarthy had an opportunity to be Speaker of the House. He rejected it,” said Perry, the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

McCarthy has worked fervently to lock down support, releasing a long list of concessions he’s prepared to make on rules changes, including making it easier to depose a speaker. But seven conservatives — Good, Norman, Gaetz, Boebert, Bishop and Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Matt Rosendale of Montana — have vowed to oppose the Republican leader, and other members remain publicly undecided.

In a significant win for conservatives, McCarthy set the number of Republican backers needed to force a vote on deposing the speaker at five, to the dismay of some rank-and-file members. It’s an about-face from just weeks ago, when the conference set the threshold to prompt such a vote, known as the motion to vacate, at a majority of its members. And some conservatives argue that’s not good enough — they want one member to be able to force such a motion.

“I still think that, at the end of the day, Kevin gets it. And the people that [stand] to lose are the hardliners that have negotiated in bad faith,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), the current chief deputy whip.

McCarthy and allies like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) say the latest rules package release has moved votes his way. But other members signaled otherwise.

Nine on-the-fence Republicans issued a letter after the rules package was released to say the proposed changes aren’t yet enough to win them over. More ominously, they warned that his recent commitments come “almost impossibly late to address continued deficiencies ahead of the opening of the 118th Congress on January 3rd.”

It sparked frustration from McCarthy’s supporters, who questioned what else he’d have to offer his opponents in order to secure their votes.

“We’ve gone really, really far on a lot of fronts. … People can’t ask any more from him. He’s done everything he possibly can,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), the co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, said about McCarthy, whom he characterized as “not giving up.”

Still, some Republicans say there are members who have kept quiet but will publicly announce they oppose McCarthy the day of the vote, limiting his opportunities to win their support. Others have questioned whether the anti-McCarthy coalition is arranging to have more members vote against him on a second ballot, in an attempt to make the Californian look weaker.

And there’s speculation that other names besides Biggs, who has acted as a McCarthy opposition figurehead but is not mounting a real bid for the gavel, will emerge to challenge McCarthy.

Democratic leaders, meanwhile, aren’t looking to make it any easier on McCarthy. They’ve told their members not to miss any ballots, which would have lowered the number of votes the GOP leader needed, and to vote for the incoming minority leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Some Republicans say McCarthy should make a deal to persuade about a dozen Democrats to leave the floor after several ballots, allowing him to skate through despite a handful of opponents among his own conference. Others, like Bacon, have floated that if conservatives block McCarthy, they could work with a band of centrist Democrats to elect a more moderate Republican instead.

But after weeks of behind-the-scenes drama, Republicans say they are ready to take the fight to the floor.

“We’re negotiating with Jell-O,” Armstrong said. ”It’s just time to start voting and keep voting.”

But building a “super-app” like WeChat is a far more complicated challenge than Twitter, with far more points of conflict with regulators in Washington, California, Brussels and elsewhere. Nothing like it exists yet in the West, and it could create a “regulatory nightmare,” said Caitriona Fitzgerald, the deputy director for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit that advocates for privacy reform.

For all its influence on media and politics, Twitter is a far smaller social platform than Facebook or TikTok, with relatively little exposure to government oversight. Anything that involves payments, health information or deeper uses of consumer data would be a whole different beast. And that’s all without integrating some of Musk’s wider and more futuristic interests, like his brain-computer interface company, his space-launch business, or his network of satellites, all of which draw their own kind of scrutiny.

If Musk tried to launch it, he’d be doing it in a moment when regulators and politicians are increasingly worried about Big Tech’s appetite for data, its impact on consumers’ lives and its unique ability to build monopolies — to say nothing of the political storm Musk has brought down on his own head with his increasingly partisan forays into politics. (Twitter did not reply to a request for comment about Musk’s app plans or regulatory strategy.)

There are plenty of business-world obstacles to the X App, and Musk has had his hands more than full just keeping Twitter afloat. But he’s also seen as ambitious enough to try anyway.

“Twitter is just one end of this future conglomerate app,” said Michael Sayman, a developer who helped create Instagram Stories, speculating that the X App could include finance, commerce, communication, news, entertainment, dating, music — and, of course, transportation, Musk’s chief business interest.

What could a Musk-owned super-app look like, and how would it collide with Washington? There’s no one authoritative answer — and a Twitter collapse would bring a quick end to the vision for now — but from observers and analysts, it’s possible to engineer a kind of preview of the maximal version of what he wants to do, and project just how many corners of Washington could find themselves facing off against one of the wealthiest men on earth.

Financial Services

The first and biggest question hanging over an “everything app” is money — specifically, payments and even banking.

Musk pitched investors on building Twitter into a digital payments behemoth that could generate as much as $1.8 billion by 2028 when he was getting financing for the buyout earlier this year. He hasn’t dropped that ambition: “It’s kind of a no-brainer for Twitter to have payments — in terms of both currency and crypto — and make that simple for people to use,” Musk said in the December Twitter Spaces.

Musk is publicly floating the concept of Twitter offering high-yield money market accounts, debit cards and checks. He has reportedly already filed paperwork to process payments. This clearly takes a page from WeChat’s playbook: The Chinese app created new ways for consumers and businesses to transact without cards or hardware, making money through merchant and withdrawal fees.

He’s not the first tech mogul to dream of an American version. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg tried to launch his own digital currency, the Libra, and failed — but still considers it a missed opportunity. Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey also co-founded the payments company Block (formerly known as Square) and pursued a payments strategy that let Twitter users incorporate their handles for CashApp. The company also partnered with Stripe to let users pay businesses and creative outlets they discover on the social network. Those efforts haven’t transformed Twitter into a payments powerhouse, however.

Musk wouldn’t be coming to this cold: The Tesla CEO has an extensive background at payment-focused fintech startups — he co-founded the online bank X.com, which later merged with a Peter Thiel-led business to form PayPal. And his backers in the buyout include Binance, the global crypto exchange, as well as Sequoia Capital, a Silicon Valley venture firm that’s invested heavily in digital asset startups.

“I think it would make sense to integrate payments into Twitter so that it’s easy to send money back and forth,” Musk said at a Twitter all-hands meeting earlier this year. “Currency as well as crypto.”

But if he tries, he’ll be entering one of the most tightly regulated spaces in American business. Unlike social-media platforms, which only hit Washington’s radar recently, banking and payment companies have been under the microscope for decades, with multiple agencies and vast regulatory requirements to meet — a task that Musk has struggled with, even disdained, as an entrepreneur.

If the X App developed digital wallets for users or a crypto-friendly token for payments, Musk could face opposition from banking regulators like the Federal Reserve and Treasury as well as top lawmakers on the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would likely weigh in on how the social network handled instances of fraud and abuse. And Musk could invite even more scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission if he were to bring crypto trading to the platform.

Zuckerberg’s experience in trying to launch Libra — later rebranded as Diem — in 2019 is a sobering precedent: Despite an aggressive international lobbying campaign, policymakers from both parties — and on the other side of the Atlantic — blasted his far-reaching proposal for being a potential threat to global finance and commerce.

Consumer groups that opposed Meta’s efforts are already bracing for a similar fight if Musk tries to get into the game — possibly even more intense, given Musk’s newly contentious political brand, highly impulsive management style and propensity to tweak Congress and regulators.

“A big part of what really led to the downfall of Diem was the bad press around Mark Zuckerberg and Meta specifically,” said Cheyenne Hunt-Majer, a big tech policy advocate at Public Citizen. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Elon Musk is looking at this and saying, ‘Okay, well, I can do this differently.’”

Privacy

Any successful X App would bring in a massive new haul of consumer data – and would require the company to navigate a complicated, evolving new patchwork of U.S. and EU data-privacy rules.

Musk has already suggested Twitter’s immediate future would include advertisements carefully tailored to individual users — which could mean more sophisticated use of customer data. This data collection would likely only increase with an X App that touched more parts of people’s lives.

Even before Musk took over, however, Twitter struggled to meet basic privacy and data-handling requirements.

The company has been under a consent decree with FTC since 2011 for previously mishandling user data and paid a $150 million fine in May 2022 for breaking its commitment to protect user data again. The FTC is currently investigating allegations made by former Twitter security chief Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko, who claims the company intentionally misled the agency and violated the terms of the 2011 settlement, according to a person familiar with the probe who is not authorized to speak publicly.

At Twitter, Musk’s abrupt staff cuts, and the exodus of its top privacy, cybersecurity and compliance executives, have already drawn a rare warning shot from the Federal Trade Commission: The FTC said in a statement in mid-November, “We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” adding, “no CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees.”

And Democrats on Capitol Hill are paying attention too — calling on the FTC to enforce its consent decree — which could mean large fines and penalties for Musk’s Twitter if it is found to have violated the settlement terms.

His ambition also arrives amid growing concerns about U.S. consumer data security and privacy protections. Though Congress hasn’t managed to pass a comprehensive data privacy bill, several states are already plowing ahead with their own rules, including California, Virginia and Colorado, creating a complicated patchwork for tech companies to navigate. And any company with a global presence also needs to worry about Europe’s data privacy law — the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — which gives consumers the right to opt out of data collection. Some aspects of the X App would also be subject to sectoral federal privacy laws, like in finance and health care.

Musk would also immediately draw a spotlight from privacy advocates, who worry that he’d potentially have access to millions of Americans’ data without any federal law to ensure it’s properly protected.

“As a society, we really have kind of started getting to a point where we feel uncomfortable with the loss of privacy,” said Karan Lala, a software engineer who previously worked at Facebook. “Maybe folks are not fully comfortable with having one person having access to all of that information.”

Health care

In China, people can look up doctors, book them, conduct a telehealth appointment and even manage their medical records inside of WeChat. In other countries, patients can use WhatsApp to book their doctor appointments over text.

In the U.S., that kind of user-friendly approach to health care is largely blocked by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the 1996 patient-protection law setting strict rules around how health care providers share and store data.

So an X App could track your fitness, scrape your data and log your steps, but hit a wall when it comes to the highly regulated world of the American medical system. It doesn’t mean Musk wouldn’t try — but he’d need to find partners willing to test the edges of what’s possible under the law.

Musk does have his own medical venture, though, and that raises another question. Neuralink is a brain-computer interface that allows a person to navigate a computer directly from their brain with an implantable device. Musk says the company has submitted “most” of the paperwork needed to get the FDA go ahead for a clinical trial in 2023 in order to bring that invention to market.

Right now, brain-computer interfaces are being trialed to help people with paralysis, but Neuralink’s website tantalizingly promises a “non-medical application” and says the technology could someday “expand how we interact with each other and experience the world around us.”

If a person used a Neuralink chip to interact with the X App, would the app literally be reading that person’s mind? And what happens to the data? Brain data isn’t necessarily protected by HIPAA, and the issue is not yet on Washington’s radar, but it’s a real concern among policy thinkers; Chile recently became the first country to protect “neurorights.”

At this point, the idea of a neural connection to any app is purely speculative. However, it’s not as sci-fi as it might sound: Synchron, a competing BCI company, which launched an FDA clinical trial earlier this year, already allowed one patient to Tweet directly from their brain.

Transportation

Though Musk is often lumped in with pure tech moguls like Zuckerberg, he’s primarily a transportation mogul — a maker of cars and rockets, with some interest in tunnels.

Musk hasn’t talked specifically about the transportation side of an X App. But WeChat also offers a ride-hailing service, and the X app has a range of potential applications for ride-hailing, transit and more.

Ian Adams, a specialist in the automotive technology practice at the Orrick law firm, envisions an app that offers a “hub of information” for easy access to “hopping on transit, hopping in a rideshare, hailing an automated system — who knows what that will look like, at what point.”

Putting Musk at the center of an identity-verification app with security implications could be problematic, though. Adams said government regulators might be skeptical of the arrangement — to say nothing of any connection to Tesla, whose cars are already software-intensive products that constantly track user behavior. “The big question mark right now is, we’ve got an FTC and a DOJ that takes a really dim view of all kinds of data-sharing arrangements and particularly of consolidation,” Adams said. The FTC is “going to take a fine-tooth comb through everything that they attempt to do.”

Antitrust

Both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice are looking more and more closely at big tech companies’ anti-competitive behavior. And While Musk’s businesses don’t currently run afoul of monopoly review by either agency, that could easily change if he were to buy a lot of other apps, said Charlotte Slaiman, the competition policy director at nonprofit Public Knowledge.

She said antitrust regulators may be concerned about a vertical relationship wherein Musk incentivizes his X App offering over competitors. And antitrust regulators may weigh in if Musk purchases another app that competes directly on his platform.

“From a competitive climate, now might not be the best time to even put up the fact that you want an app that does everything,” former Facebook engineer Lala said. “I don’t think Congress is going to take lightly to that, so that might be victim number one.”

There’s a counterargument, though, based on the fact that the X App would be the first of its kind. Graham DuFault, a senior director of public policy at ACT | The App Association, a trade group representing app developers, says that U.S. policies tend to be conducive to new market entrants — at least to start.

“One of the striking things about the U.S. competition, law and policy landscape is that it’s pretty permissive in that it treats a new company’s entry as something that is a benefit to competition and a benefit to consumers unless there really is evidence that is going to harm competition, and then therefore harm consumers,” DuFault said in an interview.

The network in the sky

When it comes to other competitors, Musk has an offering that many others still don’t have — Starlink, the world’s satellite internet constellation company. Operated by his firm SpaceX, it provides service to at least 36 countries, with plans to offer mobile phone service with T-Mobile in 2023.

Depending on how he links up the satellites and the X App, Musk could start to collide with California’s net neutrality law — which says internet service providers are not allowed to slow down or limit services online, especially efforts to advantage their products over competitors. Ever since the Trump administration rescinded the FCC’s net neutrality policy — and Congress has failed to enact it into law — California’s law is the de facto law of the land.

Using Starlink internet, Musk would be able to streamline faster and more efficient access to the X App services — and potentially throttle access to competing mega-apps, Sayman said. This preference of service could potentially run afoul of California’s rules.

It could be worth him testing the waters on that, even if it’s risky: “The level of fundamental dominance that could be achieved — if he’s able to do that well — I think positions his ‘X’ company to be able to do all the rest of this stuff,” Sayman said.

Politics

For the average big tech giant, politics is a third-tier risk at best: The companies and moguls strategically spread out their political donations, and only occasionally do executives run afoul of elected officials, or get hauled in front of Congress.

Musk is different. After being out of the political wind for years, he has jumped full-bore into the American culture wars, attacking Democrats by name, re-platforming Donald Trump and hosting elaborate Twitter threads suggesting collusion between the FBI and his own company. He’s also aligned himself with Republicans, encouraging votes for the GOP in the 2022 midterms and backing a Ron DeSantis run for president in 2024, earning him the kind of support from the GOP that other tech billionaires can only dream of.

However, Congress has failed to pass bipartisan tech legislation — and is unlikely to next year under a split House and Senate — so the action is expected to continue in state capitals where legislatures have passed the most aggressive laws regulating tech platforms to date.

So far, there has been more smoke than fire on the political front. But a bigger consumer platform could easily change that, as activists, think tanks, elected officials and voters increasingly see Musk as a player in American political life – either for better or worse.

Meanwhile, Russia deployed multiple exploding drones in another nighttime attack on Ukraine, officials said Monday, as the Kremlin signaled no letup in its strategy of using bombardments to target the country’s energy infrastructure and wear down Ukrainian resistance to its invasion.

The barrage was the latest in a series of relentless year-end attacks, including one that killed three civilians on New Year’s Eve.

On Monday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 40 drones “headed for Kyiv” overnight. All of them were destroyed, according to air defense forces.

Klitschko said 22 drones were destroyed over Kyiv, three in the outlying Kyiv region and 15 over neighboring provinces.

Energy infrastructure facilities were damaged as the result of the attack and an explosion occurred in one city district, the mayor said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that was caused by drones or other munitions. A wounded 19-year-old man was hospitalized, Klitschko added, and emergency power outages were underway in the capital.

In the outlying Kyiv region a “critical infrastructure object” and residential buildings were hit, Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said.

Russia has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of “energy terrorism” as the aerial bombardments have left many people without heat amid freezing temperatures. Ukrainian officials say Moscow is “weaponizing winter” in its effort to demoralize the Ukrainian resistance.

Ukraine is using sophisticated Western-supplied weapons to help shoot down Russia’s missiles and drones, as well as send artillery fire into Russian-held areas of the country.

Moscow’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 has gone awry, putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin as his ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance. He said in his New Year’s address to the nation that 2022 was “a year of difficult, necessary decisions.”

Putin insists he had no choice but to send troops into Ukraine because it threatened Russia’s security — an assertion condemned by the West, which says Moscow bears full responsibility for the war.

Russia is currently observing public holidays through Jan. 8.

Drones, missiles and artillery shells launched by Russian forces also struck areas across Ukraine.

Five people were wounded in the Monday morning shelling of a Ukraine-controlled area of the southern Kherson region, its Ukrainian Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevich said on Telegram.

The Russian forces attacked the city of Beryslav, the official said, firing at a local market, likely from a tank. Three of the wounded are in serious condition and are being evacuated to Kherson, Yanushevich said.

Seven drones were shot down over the southern Mykolaiv region, according to Gov. Vitali Kim, and three more were shot down in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a missile was also destroyed, according to Reznichenko. He said that energy infrastructure in the region was being targeted.

Ukraine’s Air Force Command reported Monday that 39 Iranian-made exploding Shahed drones were shot down overnight, as well as two Russian-made Orlan drones and a X-59 missile.

“We are staying strong,” the Ukrainian defense ministry tweeted.

A blistering New Year’s Eve assault killed at least four civilians across the country, Ukrainian authorities reported, and wounded dozens. The fourth victim, a 46-year-old resident of Kyiv, died in a hospital on Monday morning, Klitschko said.

Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night. The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks Russia launched Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities, and the unusually quick follow-up alarmed Ukrainian officials.

In Russia, a Ukrainian drone hit an energy facility in the Bryansk region that borders with Ukraine, Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz reported on Monday morning. A village was left without power as a result, he said.

There are challenges still on the horizon, from an economy threatening to slow down, to the war in Europe, to an incoming Republican House majority threatening gridlock and investigations. But those in the president’s circle believe there is a strong and growing likelihood that he will run again and 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, according to those people.

That potentially accelerated time is owed, in part, to a sense inside the White House and among Biden allies, that the new year dawns on a note of revival, one marked by an unlikely comeback that has reassured fellow Democrats.

Revamping the primary calendar to put Biden-friendly South Carolina first was another sign of intention to run again. First Lady Jill Biden has signaled that she is onboard with another bid, even as some close Biden worry about the toll of a campaign on the 80-year-old president. Advisors privately acknowledge that Biden benefitted in 2020 by being spared the full rigors of a campaign due to the pandemic and some close to him harbor anxieties as to how he will handle a punishing, full-blown itinerary this time around.

Though some Democrats still express worry about Biden’s age, their public doubts were largely silenced by the party’s strong November showing, in which Democrats grew their Senate lead and prevented a red wave in the House. There are still worries, chief among them, per White House aides, is the economy.

Though inflation has somewhat cooled, it remains high in most sectors and there are fears that gas prices could rise again next year. Moreover, there is a quiet concern in the West Wing that the nation’s economy will slow for at least the first quarter of 2023, according to administration officials, even if the United States manages to technically avoid a recession.

Europe, meanwhile, seems poised for a possibly significant setback, having been battered by inflation and an energy crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. That could cause residual effects in the U.S. as could a lingering Covid crisis in China, which has sparked worries in Washington about supply line challenges as well as the possible birth of a new virus variant that could spread throughout the globe.

China looms as another concern for other reasons. Though Biden’s November summit with Xi Jinping in Bali helped cool some tensions between the two superpowers, Beijing has continued to send menacing signals toward Taiwan and has not fully abandoned its Russian allies. And while Kyiv has shown remarkable resilience in repelling Russia’s forces, Moscow has shown no signs of abandoning its invasion and has resorted to terror strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure to plunge much of the nation into darkness during a cold winter.

Closer to home, while the Republicans’ majority in the House will be slim and unruly, the newly empowered GOP lawmakers will be able to exact a price on the West Wing. After two years of unified Democratic control, Biden will now see much of his agenda stall. And armed with the power of subpoena, Republicans are vowing to open a slew of investigations into the president’s policies and family. Already, there are frictions between the two sides over document production and records requests.

But the Biden White House points to its success in 2022 as proof that its strategy has been working. Rewarded by voters, the West Wing sees no reason to change course.

The president’s aides believe that the Republican agenda on many issues — from entitlements to abortion — is out of step with a majority of the public. Biden took office promising an alternative to the extremist elements in the Republican Party and pledged to work across the aisle. He managed to achieve some bipartisan victories in 2022, including on a semiconductor chips bill and a modest gun control package.

“The American people were clear in the best midterms for a new President in 60 years that they want leaders to focus on improving their lives — not partisan divisiveness — and President Biden’s hand is outstretched to his Republican colleagues in an offer to make bipartisan progress for the country,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates.

While many GOP election deniers were defeated in November, the extreme right will wield power in the new Congress and has all but pledged obstruction. Biden has steadfastly promised to find areas of compromise, and his aides believe that he’ll be cheered by voters for the effort even if the results are scarce. The West Wing also believes the planned congressional investigations could backfire on the new GOP House majority, considering some of the likely areas of inquiry.

Republicans have vowed to look into the administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal and the migrant crisis at the border. But they’ve also pledged to investigate the business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter Biden. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), expected to be a loud voice in the new Congress, recently declared “We are going to make it very clear that this is now an investigation of President Biden.”

While a newly empowered GOP majority in the House will block most chances of significant policy action, White House aides believe that some previous legislative wins will more fully take effect next year and prove popular with voters, furthering their momentum. Biden’s inflation reduction act will lock in key priorities on climate funding and prescription drug prices. The transportation law will continue to fund projects across the country. And his final piece of legislation for the year, a $1.7 trillion bipartisan spending package, includes an overhaul of the law his predecessor cited in the lead up to the January 6 riot.

“There were questions about whether or not Biden would run again but not only are those questions muted, there is more energy and enthusiasm to run again,” said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist. “He got elected to bring the pendulum back to the middle, to create some sort of normalcy, and he’s done that. He’s also cast a light on Republicans to make their candidates less desirable.”

But 2023 will also be a year of war. Perhaps Biden’s signature accomplishment over the past 12 months was his ability to hold an alliance together to support Ukraine in its rebellion against Russia, framing the fight as one for democracies around the globe. The conflict appears nowhere close to abating: neither side will entertain peace negotiations, and there are worries about how long European solidarity will last in the face of a growing economic crisis.

The war has become a vital test of Biden’s governing principle: that this century would be a battle between democracies and autocracies and the free world would win if it proved it could deliver for its people. So far, Biden believes it has.

“The American people know that if we stand by in the face of such blatant attacks on liberty and democracy and the core principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, the world would surely face worse consequences,” said Biden as he stood alongside Ukraine’s president at the White House. “American people are prepared to have us stand up to bullies, stand up for freedom. That’s who we are as Americans. And that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

I spoke with Meijer as he ducked in and out of the House chamber to vote on a series of rule changes. Meijer and I spoke about whether he could ever again support Trump, the wayward direction of the Republican Party and whether he could envision a return to Washington.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Adam Wren: How do you feel as your time in Congress comes to an end?

Peter Meijer: Obviously bittersweet. There’s a lot of work that we were able to get done; but a lot more that we had hoped to be able to do. Being a freshman in the minority, you’re kind of fighting and running uphill. You’re trying to convince the majority to bring something to the floor.

A lot of other folks gauge their metrics by just bill introductions. Our goal was, if we’re going to be working on something, it should be toward the end of having it signed into law at the end of the day, rather than doing something only for messaging. I’m proud that the prior record for the number of bills signed into law by a freshman in the minority was at two, and now we’re at least four — I would argue five.

Wren: As a veteran who served in the U.S. Army Reserves in Iraq, and as an NGO operative in Afghanistan, one of your key goals was to reform the War Powers Act. How would you evaluate your progress on that?

Meijer: I think we substantively advanced the issue in the National Security Performance and Accountability Act of 2021 that we introduced in the spring of last year. It was the most bipartisan, most thoroughly fleshed-out approach, including bicameral conversations and conversations with the White House. Obviously, we weren’t able to get that signed into law. But that’s also the type of long-term reform where you have to have an understanding and an expectation it will be probably chunked out with an idea of giving folks more comfortable, very substantive change.

Wren: What do you think your biggest accomplishment was in Congress?

Meijer: Being part of the team that passed the Veterans Burn Pits Exposure Recognition Act of 2021. Folks who are suffering the consequences of that exposure can be diagnosed and treated and have better outcomes.

Wren: You said your departure from Washington and Congress is “bittersweet.” I take that to mean there is part of you that is happy to be leaving here.

Meijer: Definitely not on the policy side. I think one of the challenges on the politics side is you just have to spend a lot of time reacting in some areas where there may be valid concerns, but where the factual basis of those concerns is lacking.

Wren: Such as?

Meijer: There was this big hubbub about these amendments to the World Health Organization’s pandemic preparedness. Everyone is worried that “our sovereignty is going to be stripped away; don’t do anything.” And half the time, you don’t really have any authority over that. But our sovereignty is not going to be infringed on by the World Health Organization.

Wren: You’re talking about a one-world government kind of conspiracy?

Meijer: There were initially amendments that were proposed by the Trump administration because of China’s lack of transparency. And then that led to a delay in the international response. It reminded me of the time my mom thought she saw a UFO in California; it took her 30 seconds: “I saw a UFO.” But it took me 45 minutes to figure out that it was a B-2 stealth bomber. It ends up not being the most productive exercise.

Wren: As the scion of the Meijer supermarket franchise, you could be next in line to take it over. Has there been recent talk about a succession plan?

Meijer: I obviously have a deep love and a vested interest in the long-term success of our family business. But I think in the short term, my focus is much more policy.

Wren: You’re worth more than $50 million. What’s the biggest splurge you’ve made?

Meijer: I don’t know if my Chevy Colorado counts. I also have a boat that I bought for $5,000 on Craigslist.

Wren: Will you go back to Michigan?

Meijer: Oh, yeah. Michigan is home. I don’t have a visceral hatred of Washington that some do. It’s a place like any other. But it’s not home.

Wren: How would you describe the state of the Michigan Republican Party today, post-midterms?

Meijer: Highly uncertain. The midterm elections were a bloodbath in the state. We lost control of the state house and the state senate for the first time in 40 years. We don’t have any prominent statewide elected offices at all. All the Democratic incumbents swept, obviously. West Michigan will have its first Democratic representation in Congress since Watergate. It’s a pretty bleak outcome. In a moment that should force a lot of introspection, I’ve seen a lot of folks who are responsible for the debacle only rising in stature.

Wren: Who? Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon?

Meijer: I think Tudor did the best with what she had. She was in a very unenviable position. And I think it was really unfair that the state party threw her under the bus. She was the only statewide candidate who was actually elected in a primary.

At the end of the day, there’s been such an echo chamber on the right. It doesn’t help [Michigan held] very late primaries. So everybody was just being forced to walk the tightrope, increasingly away from where the persuadable voters they needed were [ideologically]. And then incumbents don’t have that disadvantage.

Wren: Do you have a 2024 Republican presidential candidate in mind who you’d like to win?

Meijer: My strong bias is for a Republican nominee who could win.

Wren: Would you support Donald Trump if he were the nominee in 2024 after voting to impeach him last year?

Meijer: I have no idea how I would do that.

Wren: No idea?

Meijer: Yeah. I want someone to demonstrate a track record of being able to win. Hillary Clinton was probably the worst Democratic nominee of my lifetime. If he was outlining a positive agenda and speaking of the things that were started and hoping to be completed, if his message was about pointing the country in a better direction, it would be very different than what we have right now, which is just like the pettiest of petty grievances. I think he had a very negative impact on both candidate selection in terms of endorsements, but also just the amount of quality candidates in competitive seats. I think there’s a constructive role that he could be playing, and I have yet to see him make an effort, so to hell with it.

Wren: To hell with what?

Meijer: With the idea of running at this moment [against other Trumpist candidates]. What is required from a purity test standpoint — folks know they need his endorsement, and then what they end up doing to get that endorsement ends up being disqualifying.

Wren: This dynamic played out with your Republican primary opponent, John Gibbs, the far-right conspiracy theorist who criticized women’s right to vote and propagated the idea that Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta participated in satanic rituals. Yet you went to a unity rally with him. That surprised me.

Meijer: I was surprised at the media reaction to that. In my mind, not going to something like that is a sore loser move. The least I can do is wish him congratulations and best of luck. It’s funny there were a lot of kind of anti-Trump and Never Trump folks who trashed me for that. I was like, “Oh, do you want me to act the same way [Trump] did? Do you want me to deny that I lost? Do you want me to be a sore loser? Come on.”

Wren: You were upset about the Democrats interfering in your primary by boosting your challenger.

Meijer: I don’t know that I’d say upset. The hypocrisy was so transcendent, just the cynicism. I think my rule of thumb is Republicans should probably not pick the person the Democrats want to be the candidate. If the Democratic incumbent is popping a bottle of champagne when they realize who their opponent is going to be, we probably didn’t make the right choice.

Wren: Would you run for the seat again in 2024?

Meijer: I’m not going to foreclose any possibility.

Wren: You took an unauthorized trip to Afghanistan with Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton, a fellow veteran, to Kabul in August of last year during the chaotic withdrawal of troops. It was widely criticized. The White House, the Pentagon and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said your presence there diverted from the withdrawal mission. Do you have any regrets?

Meijer: If I have a regret, it’s that we probably could have been there for a week and nobody would have known. The only reason why they were aware is because I thought the right thing to do was to just kind of announce ourselves, don’t ask for any support to take up any resources, contrary to a lot of the White House trying to tar and feather us out of their own sense of embarrassment.

I just think back to talking to some of the folks who were on the ground, they were like, “It’s awesome you came.” They just felt like they were working in this crucible.

Wren: Your office, by virtue of your NGO and veteran experience, became a command center in helping to get people out. How many did you help evacuate?

Meijer: We’ve gone back and forth on whether or how we can quantify that. It was very much a team effort. Our office handled thousands of cases. And we’re still working on casework for those who are back here.

Wren: Do you ever wonder if all the events of your life might have been leading up to that specific moment?

Meijer: It is hard to imagine how I could have been better positioned to try to make the maximum impact. This is why I’m continuing to stay engaged on Afghanistan. It’s rare for somebody who worked in Afghanistan to be in Congress. It’s even more rare for somebody who worked and lived by themselves in downtown Kandahar City — I just have a unique perspective and personal network.

Wren: Where do you think the Trump fixation in the Republican Party is headed?

Meijer: I think in a lot of the media there’s such a Trump fixation. He tapped into something that predated him and that will remain after him. In some places, he delivered, but the positive-to-negative ratio started to shift pretty dramatically, giving into some of the most unchecked impulses. We don’t really have the moderating effect of the water cooler in American life, right, where you’re like, ‘I think this thing is important out there.’ I don’t think there’s a race of lizard people who are controlling our lives.

My frustration is [conspiracy theories] lead folks on the right to go down these rabbit holes and chase their own tails. Meanwhile, some of the really serious, severe things that are critical for us to get ready for the future of the country: competing with China, dealing with our deficit, dealing with entitlement reforms. These are not easy things that we can like, manage in bite-sized chunks.

So much of the energy is ultimately expended down avenues that are just hamster wheels. I think that gives Democrats a tangible advantage. We saw that electorally, when they can at least pretend to be speaking to issues and not seem crazy, even if they are unwilling to change their policy outcomes that are not making those issues better. At least rhetorically, they seem to be coming from a more reality-grounded place.