Category: World

CNN
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Republicans’ take over of the House this week will usher in a two-year political era that threatens to bring governing showdowns and shutdowns as a GOP speaker and Democratic president try to wield power from opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

The unprecedented possibility that former President Donald Trump, who’s already launched another bid for the White House, could face indictment could tear the nation further apart at a moment when American democracy remains under grave strain. The already stirring 2024 presidential campaign, meanwhile, will stir more political toxins as both parties sense the White House and control of Congress are up for grabs after the closely fought midterms.

Abroad, the war in Ukraine brings the constant, alarming possibility of spillover into a NATO-Russia conflict and will test the willingness of American taxpayers to keep sending billions of dollars to sustain foreigners’ dreams of freedom. As he leads the West in this crisis, President Joe Biden faces ever more overt challenges from rising superpower China and alarming advances in the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea.

If 2022 was a tumultuous and dangerous year, 2023 could be just as fraught.

Washington is bracing for a sharp shock. Since November, the big story has been about the red wave that didn’t arrive. But the reality of divided government will finally dawn this week. A House Republican majority, in which radical conservatives now have disproportionate influence, will take over one half of Capitol Hill. Republicans will fling investigations, obstruction and possible impeachments at the White House, designed to throttle Biden’s presidency and ruin his reelection hopes.

Ironically, voters who disdained Trump-style circus politics and election denialism will get more of it since the smaller-than-expected GOP majority means acolytes of the ex-president, like expected House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, will have significant sway. The new Republican-run House represents, in effect, a return to power of Trumpism in a powerful corner of Washington. If House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy wins his desperate struggle against his party’s hardliners to secure the speakership, he’ll be at constant risk of walking the plank after making multiple concessions to extreme right-wingers.

A weak speaker and a nihilistic pro-Trump faction in the wider GOP threaten to produce a series of spending showdowns with the White House – most dangerously over the need to raise the government’s borrowing authority by the middle of the year, which could throw the US into default if it’s not done.

As Democrats head into the minority under a new generation of leaders, government shutdowns are more likely than bipartisanship. The GOP is vowing to investigate the business ties of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and the crisis at the southern border. The GOP could suffer, however, if voters think they overreached – a factor Biden will use as he eyes a second term.

In the Senate, Democrats are still celebrating the expansion of their tiny majority in the midterms. (After two years split at 50-50, the chamber is now 51-49 in their favor). Wasting no time in seeking to carve out a reputation among voters as a force for bipartisanship and effective governance, the president will travel to Kentucky this week. He’ll take part in an event also featuring Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, to highlight the infrastructure package that passed with bipartisan support in 2021.

Attorney General Merrick Garland could shortly face one of the most fateful decisions in modern politics: whether to indict Trump over his attempt to steal the 2020 election and over his hoarding of classified documents.

A criminal prosecution of an ex-president and current presidential candidate by the administration that succeeded him would subject the country’s political and judicial institutions to more extreme strain than even Trump has yet managed. The ex-president has already claimed persecution over investigations he faces – and an early declaration of his 2024 campaign has given him the chance to frame them as politicized.

If Trump were indicted, the uproar could be so corrosive that it’s fair to ask whether such an action would be truly in the national interest – assuming special counsel Jack Smith assembles a case that would have a reasonable chance of success in court.

Yet if Trump did indeed break the law – and given the strength of the evidence of insurrection against him presented in the House January 6 committee’s criminal referrals – his case also creates an even more profound dilemma. A failure to prosecute him would set a precedent that puts ex-presidents above the law.

“If a president can incite an insurrection and not be held accountable, then really there’s no limit to what a president can do or can’t do,” outgoing Illinois GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a member of the select committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.

“If he’s not guilty of a crime, then I, frankly, fear for the future of his country because now every future president can say, ‘Hey, here’s the bar.’ And the bar is, do everything you can to stay in power.”

Like it or not, with his November announcement, Trump has pitched America into the next presidential campaign. But unusual doubts cloud his future after seven years dominating the Republican Party. His limp campaign launch, bleating over his 2020 election loss and the poor track record of his hand-picked election-denying candidates in the midterms have dented Trump’s aura.

Potential alternative figureheads for his populist, nationalist culture war politics, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are emerging who could test the ex-president’s bond with his adoring conservative base. Even as he fends off multiple investigations, Trump must urgently show he’s still the GOP top dog as more and more Republicans consider him a national liability.

Biden is edging closer to giving Americans a new piece of history – a reelection campaign from a president who is over 80. His success in staving off a Republican landslide in the midterms has quelled some anxiety among Democrats about a possible reelection run. And Biden’s strongest card is that he’s already beaten Trump once. Still, he wouldn’t be able to play that card if Trump fades and another potential GOP nominee emerges. DeSantis, for example, is roughly half the current president’s age.

As 2023 opens, a repeat White House duel between Trump and Biden – which polls show voters do not want – is the best bet. But shifting politics, the momentous events in the months to come and the vagaries of fate means there’s no guarantee this will be the case come the end of the year.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year showed how outside, global events can redefine a presidency. Biden’s leadership of the West against Moscow’s unprovoked aggression will be an impressive centerpiece of his legacy. But Russian President Vladimir Putin shows every sign of fighting on for years. Ukraine says it won’t stop until all his forces are driven out. So Biden’s capacity to stop the war from spilling over into a disastrous Russia-NATO clash will be constantly tested.

And who knows how long US and European voters will stomach high energy prices and sending billions of taxpayer cash to arm Ukraine if Western economies dip into recession this year.

Biden has his hands full elsewhere. An alarming airborne near miss between a Chinese jet and US military jet over the South China Sea over the holiday hints at how tensions in the region, especially over Taiwan, could trigger another superpower standoff. Biden also faces burgeoning nuclear crises with Iran and North Korea, which, along with Russia’s nuclear saber rattling, suggests the beginning of a dangerous new era of global conflict and risk.

Rarely has an economy been so hard to judge. In 2022, 40-year-high inflation and tumbling stock markets coincided with historically low unemployment rates, which created an odd simultaneous sensation of economic anxiety and wellbeing. The key question for 2023 will be whether the Federal Reserve’s harsh interest rate medicine – designed to bring down the cost of living – can bring about a soft landing without triggering a recession that many analysts believe is on the way.

Washington spending showdowns and potential government shutdowns could also pose new threats to growth. The economy will be outside any political leader’s capacity to control, but its state at the end of the year will play a vital role in an election that will define America, domestically and globally after 2024.

CNN
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House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is hoping all’s well that ends well when it comes to becoming speaker of the chamber. The current minority leader and former majority leader may have thought he’d have the speakership locked up by now, but, ahead of the new Congress that begins on Tuesday, he doesn’t.

McCarthy’s problems in securing the top spot in the House are more easily understood when you realize the hand he’s been dealt. He has a historically small majority for a potential first-time speaker, and McCarthy, himself, is historically unpopular compared with other House members who have tried to become speaker.

McCarthy’s Republican Party secured only 222 seats in the 2022 midterms, leaving him little room for error to get to 218 votes – the number needed to achieve the speakership assuming all members vote. McCarthy can only afford to lose the support of four Republicans, and the list of GOP lawmakers who’ve said they will vote against him is longer than that.

No potential first-time House speaker has had such a small majority since Democrat John Nance Garner in 1931. The only first-time speaker in recent times who comes close to McCarthy’s current situation is former Illinois Rep. Dennis Hastert, whose Republican Party entered 1999 with 223 seats. Hastert had the advantage of being a compromise choice after Newt Gingrich stepped down after the 1998 midterms and his would-be successor Bob Livingston resigned following revelations of an extramarital affair.

Indeed, all other potential first-time House speakers in the last 90 years had at least 230 seats in their majority. Speakers whose party held fewer seats than that all had the power of incumbency (i.e., having been elected to the position at least once before).

Remember that McCarthy has been close to the speakership before. He was next in line to become speaker when Republican John Boehner resigned in 2015. But the California Republican couldn’t get his caucus to rally around him enough to win a majority of House votes, and Paul Ryan went on to become speaker instead.

McCarthy had a lot more votes to work with back then – 245 GOP-held seats, more than any potential first-time speaker in the past 30 years. If he couldn’t get the 218 votes then under much more favorable circumstances, one might wonder how he can get to 218 now?

Polling provides somewhat of an answer to this question and helps explain why McCarthy has been facing an uphill battle in the first place.

A CNN/SSRS poll last month found that his net favorable (i.e. favorable minus unfavorable) rating was +30 points among Republicans. That’s certainly not bad. (Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has notoriously low ratings among Republicans.) But a net favorability rating of +30 points isn’t really good either.

Another way to frame it: McCarthy is liked by Republicans, but far from beloved. There’s no groundswell of support from the grassroots demanding he become speaker.

McCarthy has the second-lowest net favorability rating among his own party members of all first-time potential speakers in the last 28 years. Only Gingrich’s +24 points in late 1994 was lower. Others such as Boehner (in late 2010) and Nancy Pelosi (in late 2006) had net favorability ratings above +50 points among the party faithful.

The good news for McCarthy is that he’s much better liked now than he was in late 2015 when his net favorability among Republicans was just +2 points. Back then, Republicans had a much more politically attractive choice in Ryan.

The former vice presidential nominee had a net favorability rating of +48 points among Republicans.

The biggest problem Republican foes of McCarthy have right now is that there’s no Ryan. There isn’t a well-known and well-liked Republican waiting in the wings if McCarthy fails. It’s difficult to beat something with nothing.

Under such a circumstance, it’s not difficult to imagine another scenario playing out: McCarthy becoming speaker with less than 218 votes. He needs a majority of those House members who cast votes on the speakership. If enough members stay home or vote present, the threshold for a majority can drop.

Although no first-time speaker has gotten the job with less than 218 votes in at least 110 years, it’s happened a number of times for recent sitting speakers. Last Congress, Pelosi was reelected speaker with 216 votes. It was the same for Boehner in 2015. In fact, it appears that five speakers have been elected with less than 218 votes in the last century.

A number of Republicans may come to realize that while they can’t vote for McCarthy, there does not appear to be a viable Republican alternative to him becoming speaker at this time. They, therefore, may simply not vote “yes” or “no” on McCarthy at all. This would allow him to slip by assuming he still gets more votes for speaker than the new House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Either way, all of this GOP angst is a pretty decent consolation prize for Democrats after losing the House majority. If nothing else, they’re watching a Republican Party that can’t seem to get its act together after a historically bad midterm for an opposition party.

And if McCarthy does become speaker, his net favorability rating of -19 points among all adults would by far be the worst for any first-time House speaker in the last 30 years. He’s far more unpopular than either Gingrich (-9 points) or Pelosi (+18 points) were among all Americans when they were first elected speaker. Both of them later became political targets for the minority party to exploit.

CNN
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A midair collision between two helicopters in Australia has left four people dead and three others in critical condition, authorities said Monday.

The collision happened around 2 p.m. local time near the popular tourist strip of Main Beach on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane.

“Those two aircraft, when collided, have crash landed on the sand bank just out from Sea World Resort,” Queensland Police Inspector Gary Worrell, a regional duty officer for the southeastern region, told reporters.

He added it had been difficult for emergency services to access the sand bank, located not far from the coast.

Thirteen people were on the two helicopters, according to Jayney Shearman, from the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS). Of those, four people died, three suffered serious injuries and six had minor injuries, including cuts from shattered glass.

All the injured had been taken to hospital, she said.

Photos from the site show debris lying on a strip of sand, with personnel gathered on land and numerous vessels in the surrounding waters.

Worrell said that though it’s too early to determine the exact cause of the accident, initial inquiries suggests one helicopter had been taking off and the other landing when they collided.

One helicopter “has its windscreen removed, and it’s landed safely on the island. The other (helicopter) has crashed, and it was upside down,” he said.

He added that after the crash, nearby police and members of the public rushed to the site, trying to remove and perform first aid on those inside the helicopter.

Angus Mitchell, Chief Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), said in a statement that an investigation had been launched into the collision.

Investigators from the ATSB’s offices in Brisbane and Canberra will be deployed to the scene to gather evidence, examine the wreckage and map the site, as well as interview witnesses and involved parties, Mitchell added.

He asked people who witnessed the collision or saw the helicopters in flight to contact investigators. A preliminary report will come in the next six to eight weeks, with a final report after the investigation is complete, he said.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk expressed her “deepest sympathies” for the victims’ families and everybody affected. “What has happened on the Gold Coast today is an unthinkable tragedy,” she said.

Police say Sea World Drive has been closed to traffic and urged motorists and pedestrians to avoid the area.

Sea World Drive is the main access point for the marine park that’s popular with tourists on the heart of the Gold Coast. It’s peak tourist season in the region right now, with schools closed for the long summer break.

CNN has reached out to Sea World for comment.

New Delhi
CNN
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This year is going to be tougher on the global economy than the one we have left behind, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva has warned.

“Why? Because the three big economies, US, EU, China, are all slowing down simultaneously,” she said in an interview that aired on CBS Sunday.

“We expect one third of the world economy to be in recession,” she said, adding that even for countries that are not in recession: “It would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people.”

While the US may end up avoiding a recession, the situation looks more bleak in Europe, which has been hit hard by the war in Ukraine, she said. “Half of the European Union will be in recession,” Georgieva added.

The IMF currently projects global growth to be at 2.7% this year, slowing from 3.2% in 2022.

The deceleration in China will have a dire impact globally. The world’s second largest economy weakened dramatically in 2022 because of its rigid zero-Covid policy, which left China out of sync with the rest of the world, disrupting supply chains and damaging the flow of trade and investment.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping said this weekend that he expected China’s economy to have expanded by at least 4.4% last year, a figure much stronger than many economists had predicted but much lower than the 8.4% growth rate seen in 2021.

“For the first time in 40 years China’s growth in 2022 is likely to be at or below global growth,” Georgieva said. “Before Covid, China would deliver 34, 35, 40% of global growth. It is not doing it anymore,” she said, adding that it is “quite a stressful” period for Asian economies.

“When I talk to Asian leaders, all of them start with this question, ‘What is going to happen with China? Is China going to return to a higher level of growth?’ ” she said.

Beijing abandoned Covid restrictions in early December, and while its reopening may provide some much-needed relief to the global economy, the recovery is going to be erratic and painful.

China’s haphazard reopening has unleashed a wave of Covid cases that have overwhelmed the health care system, dampening consumption and production in the process.

The next couple of months will “be tough for China, and the impact on Chinese growth would be negative,” Georgieva said, adding that she expects the country to move gradually to a “higher level of economic performance, and finish the year better off than it is going to start the year.”

CNN
 — 

Josh Shapiro had a massive spending advantage and a weak Republican opponent, but the incoming Pennsylvania governor thinks Democrats should still take note of how he made voters see his fight-for-the-little-guy speeches as more than just talk – and racked up the party’s biggest margin in any swing-state race of 2022.

“My sense is people don’t think government will have the courage to take on the powerful and then be able to deliver,” Shapiro said in an interview with CNN. “So I think some people are like, ‘This guy really did take on the big guy, and he really did deliver something.’”

What he’s talking about is a wide record of six years as Pennsylvania attorney general. He didn’t just bemoan the opioid crisis but secured $3.25 billion for treatment and other services in the state. And he wasn’t just complaining about corruption but overseeing the arrests of more than 100 corrupt officials from both parties.

In a midterm year in which Democrats lost the House but still did better than expected, Shapiro – who will be sworn in January 17 – dominated every day of his race in a state that was key to both Donald Trump’s and Joe Biden’s presidential wins.

Former President Barack Obama told Shapiro directly that he’s among the 2022 generation of Democrats who need to have a voice in the future of the party, according to people familiar with the conversation. Famed consultant James Carville called Shapiro’s campaign the best of 2022. He’s already being chattered about by many Democrats as perhaps the future first Jewish president.

As Democrats start planning for what’s next – what they stand for, instead of just what they stand against with Trumpism – even White House aides who now rave about Biden’s accomplishments being on par with Lyndon Johnson’s acknowledge that they’re still struggling to make many voters see the direct impact on their lives. Happy as they are about how well Democrats did in the midterms, they see most of that as a rejection of Republicans and Trumpism, with top Democrats telling CNN they know they have a different task in front of them as they head into preparations for an expected Biden reelection campaign and efforts to hold the Senate and win back the House in 2024.

Pollsters John Anzalone and Matt Hogan said in memo last month that while the party should be “understandably encouraged,” Democrats “should be careful not to interpret the results as evidence that voters liked the party more than pre-election polls suggested.”

From MAGA crowds to Bernie Sanders rallies in Pennsylvania and beyond, voters in interviews often express a common feeling that a small group is getting away with what regular Americans never could, and a cynicism that any politician is even trying to do anything to stop them.

Put Shapiro’s tight-rimmed glasses and studied Obama-style speaking rhythms next to Democrat John Fetterman’s Carhartt shorts, tattoos and bouncer chin beard and few would see the incoming governor rather than the already iconic Pennsylvania senator-elect as the one with populist appeal. Yet it was Shapiro, who grew up the son of a pediatrician in the Philadelphia suburbs and has been measuring each step on his path to Harrisburg since law school – and some around him say grade school – who got more votes in November.

Focus groups conducted by Shapiro’s campaign as he was preparing to launch last year had people saying he was “polished,” according to people familiar with the findings. Worried that could slip to “boring,” or just being written off as a career politician, aides packed his stump speeches full of more references to cases or parts of the $328 million in relief, restitution, penalties and other payments his office says he obtained over six years on the job.

When Shapiro talked about climate change, he talked about getting to affordable energy costs and about the fracking companies he sued as attorney general because the pollution was endangering Pennsylvanians’ health. When he talked about student loans, he talked about the $200 million in debt he got canceled by suing a big lender. He was just as likely to bring up the massive investigation his office did into decades of sexual abuse in Catholic dioceses across the state as he was a local construction company from which he recovered $21 million in stolen wages, knowing that either effort would give him credibility and appeal to voters who don’t think much about politics, or rarely think about voting for Democrats.

“They don’t want to hear you talk,” said a top Shapiro aide. “They want to see what you can do.”

He had a running start heading into his gubernatorial campaign: Since his election as attorney general in 2016, Shapiro and his team had made publicizing the work he was doing a central part of the strategy, from pressuring a huge state insurance company by having news conferences with women who’d been through breast cancer treatment, to mounting campaigns to have supporters write open letter op-eds to CEOs they were after, to setting up a hotline for church abuse victims to call in with their stories.

With Republicans all over the country stoking crime fears throughout the midterms, Shapiro would talk about the 8,200 drug dealers he’d locked up in his six years on the job. He’d then immediately follow up, saying that the opiates many of them were selling were part of a crisis “manufactured by greed” and how he’d also gone after those companies with the power of his office.

“Look at his model,” said Rep. Dwight Evans, a Democrat who represents much of Philadelphia. “What he says is, people deserve to be safe and feel safe. You got to have a way of showing outcomes. And he does that.”

Shapiro’s Republican opponent, Doug Mastriano, raised only $7 million, had an account full of QAnon-friendly tweets, was seen in a picture dressed up in a Confederate uniform, held events where men claiming to be security blocked reporters from entering and paid consulting fees to the antisemitic website Gab. But in a swing state that Biden only narrowly won in 2020 – and had gone to Trump four years earlier – Shapiro’s eventual victory was far from a guarantee.

In reflective moments during the campaign, Shapiro would talk about the “heaviness” he felt while campaigning and about the way his wife would poke him in the chest or voters would grab him by the arm and tell him, “You have to win.” An observant Jew, whose campaign debated whether to feature a shot of a challah bread in an opening video in which he spoke about getting home every Friday night for dinner with his family (it ultimately did) and who often cited an old Jewish teaching that “no one is required to complete the task, nor are we allowed to refrain from it,” he said he felt the weight both politically and personally.

Voters ended up rejecting election-denying Republicans in nearly every competitive midterm race around the country. Shapiro, though, didn’t wax on about the abstract wonders of democracy or voting rights, but detailed the 43 challenges to the 2020 vote count that he defeated in court.

He went on offense, mocking Mastriano for talking a “good game” about freedom, then saying “real freedom” is about freedom of choice in abortion rights, freedom to not have banned books, freedom to not feel targeted by guns on the streets and freedom to have job opportunities.

He talked about the events of January 6, 2021, but only to say that Mastriano’s presence in the crowd outside the US Capitol ahead of rioters storming the building showed that he didn’t “respect” Pennsylvanians enough to care what they thought.

He never went more than a few words without drawing a direct line back to what he’d already accomplished.

Part of Shapiro’s standard routine is always insisting he doesn’t pay attention to national politics and doesn’t think much about what other Democrats beyond Pennsylvania are doing or saying. One of his favorite lines during the campaign was how his focus was on Washington County, just southwest of Pittsburgh, and not Washington, DC.

So when asked about other Democrats being wary of going after corporations over fears they’d be tagged as socialists, or about Biden’s only sporadic attacks on oil companies for profiting as gas prices were high, Shapiro pleaded ignorance – pointedly.

“I don’t have a frame of reference,” he said, “but I guess I am surprised they wouldn’t talk about it as well.”

The result for Shapiro: He set a record of winning the most votes ever for a Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate. As his campaign has proudly pointed out, his win was so big that he could have gotten there even without a single vote from Philadelphia and its suburbs: In Erie County, which Biden won by 1 point in 2020, Shapiro won by 21 points; and in Washington County, which Biden lost by 22 points, Shapiro only lost by 2.

His coattails helped keep the Senate race tilted to Fetterman even when the candidate was sidelined by a stroke. He also helped his party hold three swing US House seats and narrowly win a majority in the state House of Representatives for the first time in more than a decade.

“He was able to represent everyday consumers against the big guys,” said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, the outgoing chair of the Democratic Governors Association and a former state attorney general himself. “People remember that, when you stood up on their behalf.”

As attorney general, Shapiro faced the corny political joke: “AG” really stands for “aspiring governor.” While many have made the jump, few have done it successfully.

Shapiro knows he’s going to have to adjust.

“When we were in the AG’s office, these cases would come to us,” said the Shapiro aide. “Now we’re in the position of, we drive the agenda.”

They’re still trying to sort out what exactly that the shift in mentality will mean.

“It’s hard to accuse me of not doing things,” Shapiro said. “I feel a responsibility to now be able to take what I did, that type of approach in the AG’s office and show that government can work.”

There’s only so far most Democrats can go in following the Shapiro model. Members of Congress can’t go to grand juries. A president can’t negotiate legal settlements.

But with Shapiro and fellow Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey of Massachusetts winning their governor’s races, other Democratic attorneys general are gearing up for more.

Even in states with multiple competitive races, every Democratic attorney general was reelected in 2022, except in rapidly reddening Iowa, and the party picked up the office in the key swing state of Arizona.

Those and other state AGs are already moving individually and in small groups on more investigations they expect to soon go public in a big way, including more pharmaceutical inquiries, privacy and data protection, and online consumer fraud. Also now rising on the list of targets: cryptocurrency.

“It certainly works. It gets the attention of corporate America. They know they have to contend with us,” said Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who also co-chairs the Democratic Attorneys General Association and just won a second term back home. “And the voters appreciate it, and it’s recognized.”

Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” Follow him @[email protected]. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN
 — 

GOP Rep.-elect George Santos has been making headlines since December 19 — when The New York Times published its jaw-dropping article documenting his litany of false claims about his work experience, education and just about everything in between. (Santos later described these falsehoods as “resume embellishment” but admitted to misrepresenting his employment and educational background.)

Santos also claimed that his grandparents fled the horrors of the Holocaust as Ukrainian Jewish refugees from Belgium — only to have this version of his family background contradicted by a review of genealogy records. (Santos’ campaign did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.)

Adding to the firestorm are recent developments that federal and state authorities have launched criminal investigations into Santos over his finances and fabrications. When he first ran for Congress unsuccessfully in 2020, Santos reported he had no assets, yet somehow he was able to lend his 2022 campaign $700,000.

Throughout these twists and turns, one thing has remained constant: GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy has not condemned Santos. Not over his admitted falsehoods, his apparent misrepresentation about family members fleeing the Holocaust, questions regarding his campaign funding or even reports on his spending of campaign funds on travel to places such as Miami. (McCarthy has not returned CNN’s requests for comment about Santos.)

This silence is not surprising. It perfectly sums up McCarthy and many in today’s GOP who seek power at any cost — with no regard for principle or the greater good of our nation.

Even fellow GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz — who has opposed McCarthy’s bid for House speaker — recently slammed the Republican leader for not having any core values, writing in an op-ed, “Every single Republican in Congress knows that Kevin does not actually believe anything. He has no ideology.”

It’s likely McCarthy has declined to condemn Santos because the California lawmaker is so desperate to secure the 218 votes he needs to be elected speaker when the new Congress is sworn in on Tuesday. (Before this scandal broke, Santos had pledged his support on Twitter for McCarthy’s speakership bid — but has since apparently deleted that tweet.) Given the incoming House GOP majority will be a razor-thin four votes, McCarthy needs Santos’ support if he is to have any chance of becoming speaker.

McCarthy has been outspoken on many other political issues since The New York Times article put the spotlight on Santos. For example, on December 21, McCarthy took to Twitter to slam the January 6 committee, writing in part: “Pelosi’s Select Committee has been focused on political theater and posturing.” That same day, McCarthy vowed on Fox News that Republicans “can eliminate waste and wokeism” when they take control of Congress.

McCarthy has also criticized the Biden administration’s border policy and played up accusations on Fox Business that the FBI worked to suppress news stories hurtful to Democrats.

Yet not a peep about the Santos story — which even caused an uproar on Fox News on December 27 when former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as a guest host confronted Santos about his fabrications, asking: “Do you have no shame?”

But it’s not just McCarthy. The GOP leadership has largely been silent about Santos. One of the few senior GOP lawmakers to chime in has been Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee. In remarks Thursday on Fox News, Comer described Santos’ actions as “a disgrace, he’s lied to the voters.” But Comer didn’t call for Santos to step aside, instead only saying he’s “pretty confident” the House Ethics Committee will investigate Santos.

It isn’t the first time McCarthy has shown his willingness to abandon principle in the pursuit of power. The most glaring example was his flip-flop on Trump’s culpability over the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. McCarthy initially took to the House floor proclaiming about Trump: “The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.” McCarthy added, “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.”

It wasn’t long though before McCarthy traveled to Mar-a-Lago to make up with Trump. By April 2021, McCarthy was rewriting history to defend Trump’s actions surrounding January 6. Why? Apparently because McCarthy understood that without Trump’s support he could never become speaker. And that transaction appears to have paid dividends; a few weeks ago Trump publicly supported McCarthy’s bid for speaker, urging his allies in the House GOP Caucus to vote for him.

Imagine for a moment if an incoming Democratic member of Congress had been engulfed in such a scandal. McCarthy likely would be screaming about how this representative-elect should not be in Congress and how the Democratic leadership needed to denounce this politician.

Barring something unexpected, Santos likely will be sworn in as a member of Congress on Tuesday without a word of criticism by McCarthy. This is today’s GOP on display. It’s a party that stands for nothing except acquiring power at any cost — even if it is gravely bad for our republic.