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A MESSAGE FROM META

Let’s get into it…

A MESSAGE FROM META

Jeffries, of course, has run cover for Johnson in the past—including last May, when Marjorie Taylor Greene attempted to oust him after Republican foreign-policy hawks had joined Democrats to approve a new aid package for Ukraine—a high priority for the House Democratic caucus. It was, to be sure, a magnanimous move from Jeffries et al. But it would potentially be much more costly for rank-and-file Democrats if they were to swoop in and save Johnson on January 3, which would involve members standing up on the House floor and declaring their support for Johnson by name, and on live television. Democrats who vote for Johnson would increase their risk of a primary challenge, so volunteers were always going to be hard to wrangle, even before the events of last week. In short, the speaker finds himself in the kind of pickle that, if history is a guide, has presaged a short tenure. Still, rumors of Johnson’s political demise have been greatly exaggerated over the past year, and perhaps just in the past week. Yes, the coming roll call will be his hardest test yet, but the very fact he’s kept the job this shows his political skills shouldn’t be discounted.

Curtis, a previously obscure House member, has rapidly become one of the most closely watched figures on the Hill. He repeatedly told This Week’s Jonathan Karl that he supports Trump and wants the president-elect to be “wildly successful.” But, he added, “That doesn’t mean there won’t be moments when I disagree with him.” Curtis is plainly aligning himself stylistically with his predecessor, Mitt Romney, a former Republican standard-bearer who voted “guilty” on both Trump’s impeachments. “Anybody who wants to give me heat for doing my job, bring it on. This is my job,” Curtis told Karl. “It’s my constitutional responsibility.” So how does an incoming freshman, in a party that tends to cower before Trump, roll into the Senate with this kind of courage? When pressed on the argument that Trump has a mandate and deserves his preferred cabinet, Curtis said he’d heard it before, including from his own son. “My response to him was a couple of things. One, in kind of a joking way, I said, ‘You know, I did get more votes than him in Utah. Does that give me a mandate?’” He continued: “People forget the ‘advice’ part of advice and consent. I can’t advise the president if I haven’t thoroughly talked to these people, if I haven’t investigated everything about them, if I haven’t learned their strengths and their weaknesses,” he added. “And I think I owe that to the president. And I think the better job I do, the better president he will be.” Across the aisle, John Fetterman will be perhaps the most closely watched senator during confirmations—another member who can’t always be expected to vote his party’s line. Indeed, the soon-to-be senior senator from Pennsylvania confirmed on ABC that he will vote for Elise Stefanik to serve as United Nations ambassador, along with Marco Rubio to run State. These, however, are not controversial picks within the Democratic caucus. In Rubio’s case, senators don’t like voting against other senators. And with Stefanik, there will almost certainly be other Democrats anxious to show they aren’t knee-jerk nays (even though they generally can’t stand her). According to my conversations in Senate circles since her nomination, Stefanik has cleared the bar of not disqualifying herself. Still, Fetterman’s enough of a maverick that he’s worth watching on other confirmations. “There is going to be some that I will vote yes, and there’s some maybe that I’ll vote no,” he said. “But nobody can accuse me of just saying I had a closed mind, or I just said no because Trump picked this person, or whatever.”