Amanpour & Company: 'Charlie Sykes: GOP, Toxic Narcissists & a Fundamentally Broken Congress'

Source:Amanpour & Company talking to Republican political analyst Charlie Sykes.

"Congress is broken. So say staffers and an unprecedented number of elected representatives quitting mid-term. A recent survey by the nonprofit Congressional Management Foundation found that a large majority of senior staffers believe the legislative body is no longer functioning. Conservative political commentator Charlie Sykes joins Michel Martin to discuss "The Great Resignation." 

From Amanpour & Company

As my colleague Kire Schneider wrote about this yesterday: 

"Now why is the MAGA House of Representatives (which is not the entire Congress) a cluster flop? (To clean this up) 

I'll give you a hypothetical: imagine having Communists running private banks and other private, for-profit corporations and a few months later these banks and other businesses go bankrupt. 

Imagine putting sharks in-charged of a giant goldfish tank and a few days later all the goldfish are gone. 

Imagine an airline hiring nothing but blind people, alcoholics and other drug addicts to fly their planes. And within days, all of their planes have crashed, with passengers aboard on every flight. 

My point is,MAGA is not a governing coalition. They're a political cult of political suicide pilots and bombers. They're not in Washington to govern. They're there to defeat as many establishment Republicans (meaning the real Republicans) as they can and to kiss Donald Trump's feet (to keep it clean) as much as possible and to see that he gets back in The White House."

From The New Democrat

I can't emphasize this enough: it's not the 118th Congress that is a cluster flop. (To paraphrase Tim Miller from The Bulwark) Its the 118th House of Representatives that's a cluster flop. (Or whatever pejorative term that you prefer)

The Senate (which is the functioning half of Congress. Hopefully that's not a newsflash for anyone.) is a functioning institution right now: 

They are confirming executive nominees and Federal judges, 

Doing their oversight 

Keeping the government open 

They already passed an aide package for our allies like Ukraine, Israel, the refugees in Gaza, Taiwan, etc. 

They're doing the things that Congress is supposed to do. 

It's the MAGA controlled House, that look aliens from another planet, trying to figure out how to start a car, answer a phone, tie their shoes, blow their noses, struggling to do the basic things in life, that every competent person takes for granted, because they're so natural for them. 

And I'm not saying all of this because the Senate is controlled by Democrats and the House is controlled by Republicans. Correction: the House is controlled by political militant movement group of suicide pilots and bombers, also known as MAGA. But there's evidence that Speaker Mike Johnson is willing to act like normal Republican and Speaker on issues like Ukraine and the border. But I think he would need help from House Democrats to be able to do that and keep his job. 

But I'm saying all of this because over in the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who spent the previous 4-6 years as arch-rivals in the Senate, seem to have a constructive working relationship now. 

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