2023
January
06
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

January 06, 2023
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Linda Feldmann
Washington Bureau Chief

It’s easy for Democrats to indulge in schadenfreude as House Republicans struggle to perform the first task of their new, narrow majority – electing a speaker. Early this week, a House Democrat mocked Republicans by tweeting a picture of himself holding a bag of popcorn.

But this is no laughing matter. At press time, after 13 rounds of voting, the House still had no speaker, and thus no ability to conduct business – no seated members, no right to pass legislation, no classified national security briefings, no government oversight.

On the plus side for the top House Republican, Kevin McCarthy of California: In Friday’s first vote, he came close to the majority needed to become speaker after making concessions to hard-liners, including allowing any single member to force a vote on ousting the speaker. But he still fell short.

That Friday’s fraught proceedings took place on the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol was lost on no one. That day of infamy became a violent scene that gripped the nation, as supporters of then-President Donald Trump attempted to prevent the counting of electoral votes confirming Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

Two articles in today’s Monitor Daily explore the continuing aftermath of the riot: one on the Capitol Police, the other on the trials of Jan. 6 participants.

Meanwhile, the next House speaker could be heading for the mother of all challenges: preventing a default on the national debt as the United States reaches the legal limit of its borrowing authority. The ideological clashes in today’s House drama will inform that process. Republicans are expected to try to force spending cuts before agreeing to raise the debt ceiling. The next speaker will have little room for maneuver, amid profound implications for the global economy.

Already, the days of Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s speakership – and her ability to “herd cats” – feel distant.

“I’m not sure Republicans are the same breed of cats as Democrats,” observes Gail Russell Chaddock, retired Monitor congressional correspondent. “Trump made feral popular in GOP ranks.”

Still, hope for bipartisanship is not lost. President Biden’s appearance with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky on Wednesday, touting infrastructure spending, made that evident.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

A deeper look

Matt Rourke/AP
Logan and Abigail Evans, children of the late Capitol Police Officer William "Billy" Evans, accompanied by their mother Shannon Terranova, speak their father's name at a ceremony on the anniversary of the violent insurrection by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, in Washington, Jan. 6, 2023. Officer Evans was killed in April 2021, when an attacker rammed a car into him near a police barricade at the Capitol.

The Explainer

Adrees Latif/Reuters
Migrants look toward the United States as they are ushered toward the bank of the Rio Bravo del Norte, also known as the Rio Grande, before being smuggled into Roma, Texas, from Ciudad Miguel Alemán, Mexico, July 13, 2022.

Listen

Jessica Mendoza/The Christian Science Monitor
Jingnan Peng, a multimedia reporter for the Monitor, shows his video camera to Gracie Carlson while on assignment at a small day care facility in Fairbanks, Alaska, that immerses toddlers in Gwich'in, an Alaska Native language.

To show quiet progress, he aims his lens at society’s margins

Humanity in Focus

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Difference-maker

Munza Mushtaq
Pastor Moses Akash de Silva (right) helps prepare carrot sambol for hundreds of people at the Voice for Voiceless Foundation’s flagship community kitchen in Rajagiriya, Sri Lanka, Nov. 4, 2022. “The community kitchen attracts different people from different walks of life,” he says.

The Monitor's View

AP
People walk by a billboard announcing the Arab Gulf Cup in Basra, Iraq, Jan. 3.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Matthias Schrader/AP
People ski on a slope near Schladming, Austria, Jan. 6, 2023. Sparse snowfall and unseasonably warm weather in much of Europe are allowing green grass to blanket many mountaintops across the region where snow might normally be. It has posed issues for ski slope operators and aficionados of Alpine white this time of year.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us. Please come again Monday, when we look at the resilience of older Ukrainians amid war and Russian occupation.

More issues

2023
January
06
Friday
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