Politics
Opinion: 2023 was the year of the do-nothing House Republicans. This year, they'll do worse than nothing
It’s a new year but the same old mess in Congress. Instead of a fresh start, lawmakers return next week to their stale, dead-end arguments and legislative gridlock.
And by now the reason they’re mired in the mess is an old story: Repeatedly in 2023, we saw the dysfunction of the MAGA Republicans who narrowly took control of the House last January, making that chamber virtually ungovernable and yielding one of the least productive years in Congress’ history. Just a couple dozen mostly minor bills became law, a fraction of the usual number.
Opinion Columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
The House and Senate broke for the holidays still bloodied from the unfinished sausage-making. To borrow another lawmaker metaphor, they kicked the can down the road — cans, plural — into 2024.
Yet agreement on lingering issues — spending, Ukraine aid, immigration — hardly comes more easily in an election year; the distractions of the presidential primaries start this month, in Iowa and New Hampshire. Then there is the House Republicans’ greatest distraction of all: their top-priority push to impeach President Biden, on grounds still TBD.
What we’re in for in 2024 is more of the misrule that results when one of our two major parties morphs from a small-government party into an unabashedly anti-government bloc.
The federal fiscal year is already three months old and still Congress hasn’t completed the spending bills to cover the government’s annual operations. In 2023, House Republicans provoked two near-shutdowns over four months. This year we’ll get such threats twice just within the next month.
That’s because Congress, at the insistence of House Republicans and their neophyte leader, Speaker “MAGA Mike” Johnson, illogically extended stopgap funding for federal programs in separate bills with separate cutoff dates. One measure, including money for farm, transportation, energy and veterans’ programs, expires Jan. 19; the second package, for other large domestic programs and the Pentagon, lapses Feb. 2.
That means the House and Senate will have just 10 days when they return (including a break for the long Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend) to reach agreement before their first budget deadline. Here’s a New Year’s prediction: House Republicans’ antics will force Congress to miss its first deadline, triggering a partial government shutdown even as the second funding deadline looms.
The hapless House Republicans say they won’t support another stopgap bill or the typical “omnibus” package combining all government funding, but they’re too divided to pass the 12 spending bills separately. Their already thin majority shrank further with the year-end resignation of dethroned Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the expulsion of fabulist fraudster George Santos; a third Republican, Ohio Rep. Bill Johnson, is resigning Jan. 21. And yet House hard-liners are upping their demands for more spending cuts and culture-war add-ons against abortion, drag shows and the like, oblivious to other House Republicans’ opposition, let alone that of the Democrat-controlled Senate.
In short, the two houses of Congress are farther apart than ever. They haven’t even agreed on the bottom-line figures for the spending bills, a prerequisite for setting funding levels for programs within them.
And virtually no one has confidence that the new speaker can corral his caucus. Johnson hails from among the anti-government hard-liners, not the pragmatists; he counts the Bible as his legislative manual and follows Donald Trump as his North Star.
As a fellow Louisianan, popular outgoing Gov. John Bel Edwards, told Politico recently, “I would feel better about Mike Johnson being speaker of the House if I felt he was someone who really believed in making government work.”
Not being able to pass essential bills is just one aspect of Republicans’ dysfunction. Blocking bills is another, and they’re good at that.
So it is that Congress hasn’t approved additional aid for Ukraine since the end of 2022, when Democrats controlled the House. With the second anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion approaching, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate still favor continued Ukraine support as critical to our national security and Europe’s. Yet House Republican leaders echo Trump, Vladimir Putin’s pal, in opposition.
They’re joined by Senate Republicans, including Ukraine supporters, in insisting that Biden and Democrats support an immigration crackdown in return for more aid. Yet they can’t agree on what the new immigration measures should be. House Republicans want far more punitive changes for asylum, deportations, detentions and border security than their Senate counterparts.
A bipartisan group of senators continued negotiations for an immigration compromise over the holidays. Any deal, however, would likely draw opposition in the House from both right and left. Meanwhile, shunning compromise, Johnson and about 60 other House Republicans opted for a photo op, traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border Wednesday.
Democrats are no less divided than Republicans on border issues, between progressives opposed to tough restrictions and centrists eager for Biden to cut just about any immigration deal, to blunt what’s become a perilous election-year issue for their party.
For all Congress’ challenges — funding the government, confronting decades-old migration problems and responding to the worst war in Europe since World War II and another engulfing the Mideast — House Republicans signaled last month that their focus for 2024 is what?
Impeaching Biden.
They’d reportedly like to draft articles of impeachment as soon as this month, perhaps for bribery. But they have neither the goods on Biden nor the votes.
“I haven’t seen any [evidence] yet, to date, that shows me that the president did anything wrong,” Ohio Rep. Dave Joyce, a Republican former prosecutor, told NBC News just before Christmas.
No matter — the Javerts among his party colleagues will keep claiming otherwise. And they’ll keep digging for proof, as they have for over a year.
As if they didn’t have anything else to do.
The United States and Iran traded missile fire and accusations on Thursday as tensions in the Strait of Hormuz ratcheted up, threatening an already fragile cease-fire.
U.S. Central Command said that American forces had “intercepted unprovoked Iranian attacks and responded with self-defense strikes” while U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers were traversing the strait to the Gulf of Oman on Thursday.
In a statement, Central Command said Iranian forces launched multiple missiles, drones and small-boat attacks as three U.S. warships were transiting the strait. None of the American naval vessels were hit, Central Command said.
The U.S. vessels that were traversing the strait were the U.S.S. Truxtun, the U.S.S. Rafael Peralta and the U.S.S. Mason. The warships had steamed into the Persian Gulf earlier in the week as part of the Navy’s short-lived effort to guide merchant ships stranded in the Persian Gulf through the strait.
In response, U.S. forces struck targets on Qeshm Island and Bandar Abbas along the Iranian coast in the strait, U.S. officials said.
It was the latest twist in a head-spinning week in the region, as President Trump, searching for an off-ramp in the war that he started Feb. 28, has contradicted his senior administration officials on the state of the war, the state of American efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and the status of peace talks with Iran.
After the exchange of fire on Thursday, the president said the cease-fire was still in effect and downplayed the Iranian attacks.
“They trifled with us today,” Mr. Trump told reporters late Thursday. “We blew them away.”
The president added, however, that Iran needed to sign on “fast” to a proposal from the United States that would have both sides reach an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and refrain from fighting for 30 days while they try to reach a comprehensive deal.
Even as the president and senior officials described peace negotiations that they said were advancing, Central Command has forcefully hit Iranian vessels that it says have violated an American-imposed blockade of the strait.
Central Command “eliminated inbound threats and targeted Iranian military facilities responsible for attacking U.S. forces, including missile and drone launch sites; command and control locations; and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance nodes,” the command’s Thursday statement said. It added that Central Command “does not seek escalation but remains positioned and ready to protect American forces.”
Iran, for its part, accused the United States of launching “unprovoked” attacks as the U.S. ships traversed the strait.
In a statement carried by state media, Iran’s armed forces said the U.S. military had violated the month-old cease-fire by carrying out airstrikes on Qeshm Island and two other cities on the country’s southern coast. Central Command said the ship attacks had emanated from those sites.
When asked if the U.S. response to the Iranian drone, missile and small-boat attacks went beyond self-defense, a senior U.S. military official said that an effective defense sometimes involves a carefully calibrated offense.
Erica L. Green contributed reporting.
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President Donald Trump praised White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles as “winning it decisively” in her battle with cancer after she revealed she was diagnosed nine weeks ago while accepting a major award Thursday night.
“It’s been especially inspiring to see her courage and toughness in recent weeks, and she’s been winning a battle with cancer and winning it decisively,” Trump said in a pre-recorded video message. “It was an early diagnosis, so she’s going to be in great shape.”
Wiles said during an onstage conversation that she would continue to work following the diagnosis.
“I come to work every day. I do my job, I don’t complain, and I think that sets an example, too, for the people I work with,” Wiles said.
WH CHIEF OF STAFF SUSIE WILES DIAGNOSED WITH EARLY STAGE BREAST CANCER, PROGNOSIS ‘EXCELLENT,’ TRUMP SAYS
President Donald Trump hosts a lunch with Kennedy Center Board members as Chief of Staff Susie Wiles looks on at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 16, 2026. (Annabelle GORDON / AFP via Getty Images)
Trump surprised Wiles with the video as she accepted the Independent Women’s Forum Barbara K. Olson Woman of Valor Award at a gala in Washington, D.C.
He praised her as “the first female chief of staff in American history” and “one of the best White House chiefs of staff ever in history.”
“I say the best, actually,” Trump said, adding that he was “tremendously grateful” for her “friendship, loyalty and support every single day.”
TRUMP CHIEF OF STAFF PLEDGES NO ‘DRAMA’ OR SECOND-GUESSING IN WHITE HOUSE
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles listens as President Donald Trump announces the creation of the U.S. strategic critical minerals reserve in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 2, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Wiles said she did not know the video was intended for the gala, despite briefly walking in while Trump was recording it.
“I walked in when he was filming it, but I didn’t know what it was for, and I kind of ducked out the back door,” she said.
Trump credited Wiles with playing a key role in each of his presidential campaigns, “especially in 2024,” and said his administration’s accomplishments have come with “her help and her leadership.”
TRUMP CHIEF OF STAFF SUSIE WILES RECOUNTS BUTLER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT, THOUGHT PRESIDENT WAS DEAD AT FIRST
President Donald Trump and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles participate in an Invest America roundtable in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Susie, we have a problem. I say go to Susie,” Trump said. “We owe her a tremendous debt and what she’s done is just incredible for our country.”
Wiles, who described herself as a lifelong Republican, said her decision to back Trump in 2016 was one of the biggest risks of her career.
“I wanted a disrupter,” Wiles said. “I looked around at the disrupters in the field and said, I think Donald Trump’s the one.”
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Asked about her role now, Wiles said, “This is the path God chose for me. And I’m here, and I’m doing the best I can every day.”
The gala was held Thursday at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C.
Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this reporting.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom said his administration is “moving forward aggressively” to continue laying the groundwork for a giant tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to replumb the state’s water system.
“We got to move faster. Move faster,” Newsom said to regulators during a speech Thursday at a conference held by the Assn. of California Water Agencies. “We all have to be held to a higher level of accountability.”
California’s 40th governor provided a chronological look back at his water policies since taking office in 2019 and asserted the need to continue his effort to modernize state infrastructure to provide for cities and farms into the future.
Newsom cast the tunnel as a “climate adaptation project,” noting that climate change is projected to shrink the amount of water the state can deliver with its current infrastructure.
With his term expiring at the end of the year, Newsom acknowledged that he will soon “pass the baton” on water policy to the next governor. Democrat or Republican, that person could decide the fate of his signature water project.
“The Delta Conveyance, if we had it last year alone, would have provided enough water, in terms of what we could have captured with an updated system, enough water for 9.8 million Californians’ needs for over a year,” Newsom said. “We’ve got to get that done.”
Water has been a focus of the Newsom administration since his first day in office, when the governor took his cabinet to Monterey Park Tract, a rural Central Valley community that lacked access to safe drinking water.
Described by Newsom as “the forever problem” in California, water policy is also among the most politically contentious issues in the state.
The tunnel would create a second route to transport water from new intakes on the Sacramento River to the south side of the Delta, where pumps send water into the aqueducts of the State Water Project.
The project is particularly acrimonious, drawing out geographical battles between north and south and thorny fights between officials who want to build the tunnel and environmentalists and Delta residents seeking to protect the local ecosystem and their way of life.
Newsom and other supporters have said the tunnel would protect the state’s water system as climate change intensifies severe droughts and deluges. Opponents call the project a costly boondoggle, arguing it’s not necessary and would destroy the Delta.
It’s been mired with regulatory hurdles and other challenges for years.
The State Water Resources Control Board is considering a petition by the Newsom administration to amend permits so water could be tapped where the tunnel intakes would be built.
There have also been other complications. A state appeals court in December rejected the state’s plan for financing the project, and the California Supreme Court in April declined to take up the case. The state Department of Water Resources said it still plans to issue bonds to finance the project.
Other court challenges by Delta-area counties and environmental groups are also pending.
Whether the project is ultimately built may hinge on whether large water agencies, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, decide to participate and pay for its building.
State officials have said that the tunnel, called the Delta Conveyance Project, ultimately would be paid for by participating water agencies.
The state estimated in 2024 that the tunnel would cost $20.1 billion, while opponents say it could cost three to five times more than that.
In the last seven years, California has invested $11 billion in water infrastructure, Newsom said.
The Democratic governor reflected on other parts of his water policies, saying he has prioritized securing funds to provide clean drinking water to more communities where Californians live with contaminated tap water.
He said while there has been progress in bringing safe drinking water to more communities, there is still “a lot more work to be done.”
Newsom touted his administration’s investment in replenishing groundwater in the Central Valley and its efforts supporting plans to build the Sites Reservoir near Sacramento.
Newsom said the Sites Reservoir is critical for the state’s future, and he indicated some frustration about the pace at which it’s advancing.
“We’ve got to do the groundbreaking at Sites,” he said. “If you can’t agree to an off-stream investment in this world of weather whiplash, we’re as dumb as we want to be.”
He said his administration has also made progress on environmental projects including restoring wetlands around the shrinking Salton Sea, removing dams on the Klamath River, and developing a strategy to help salmon, which have suffered major declines in recent years.
Touching on issues that generate heated debate, Newsom talked about a controversial plan for new water rules in the Delta that relies on so-called voluntary agreements in which water agencies would contribute funding for wetland habitat restoration projects and other measures.
Newsom described the approach, called the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes program, as a solution to break away from the traditional conflict-ridden regulatory approach and improve the Delta’s ecological health.
“Got to maintain the vigilance on these voluntary agreements. At peril, we go back to our old ways,” he said.
Environmental advocates argue that the proposed approach, which is widely supported by water agencies, would take too much water out of the Delta and threaten native fish that are already in severe decline.
Newsom said climate change is increasingly driving “weather whiplash” in California and that the state must prepare. He noted that his tenure included the extreme drought from 2020-22, followed by extremely wet conditions in 2023, which revived Tulare Lake on thousands of acres of farmland.
He said the state needs to manage water differently because the effects of climate change have been apparent over the last several years: “The hots were getting a lot hotter, the dries were getting a lot drier, and the wets were getting a lot wetter.”
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