Mad House
How Donald Trump, MAGA Mean Girls, a Former Used Car Salesman, a Florida Nepo Baby, and a Man with Rats in His Walls Broke Congress
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“Mad House contains cyanide and candy on every page, which proves to be a killer combo. I loved it.”—Mark Leibovich, author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers This Town and Thank You for Your Servitude
The United States Congress has always been messy and far-from-august, but as Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater show here, in scorching, shocking detail, it has reached some kind of chaotic bottom. The anarchy that reigned over Congress’s lower chamber in the wake of the January 6th attack on the Capitol Building—the election of serial liar and con-man George Santos, revenge porn being shown on the floor of the house, and the theatrical high jinks of Lauren Boebert—all were a sign of decay and dysfunction of the highest order. Even the members of the 118th Congress would admit it was a circus—but up close, the spectacle was more alarming than funny.
Taking the reader into closed door meetings as House Republicans, in thrall to a cult of personality, bumble ever deeper into extremism, and sniping House Democrats lose faith in their President, the authors reveal a level of disorder that we have never seen before. Mad House is a searing, rollicking, and deeply reported portrait of a body at war with itself, riven by pettiness, egomania, and score-settling, and defined by the truly unbelievable antics of people like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Jim Jordan, who, handed the reins of power, attempted to actually govern a country. They did the bare minimum but voters in the 2024 elections rewarded them nonetheless, giving MAGA Republicans control of the White House, the Senate, and the House—and delivering to President Donald Trump a malleable Congress of loyalists there to serve. If you want a peek at what the next four years might look like, there’s no better place to start than the dysfunction that led us here.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 25, 2025 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780593731277
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780593731277
- File size: 4317 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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March 1, 2025
A fly-on-the-wall view of the 118th Congress, "a dysfunctional legislative body populated by a bunch of clowns."New York Times politics reporters Karni and Broadwater, who cover Congress, paint a detailed picture of what one veteran Republican representative called a "shitshow." Few political leaders of any experience or maturity were much more complimentary: Liz Cheney remarked that "what we've done in our politics is create a situation where we're electing idiots," while legal scholar Lawrence Lessig, asked how Congress broke so irreparably, quoted Ernest Hemingway on how bankruptcy happens: "gradually, then suddenly." The gradual bit came about with the slow but immutable hardening of the right wing. All that was left then, when people such as Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert came rolling in, was for the "traditional" wing of the Republican Party to make concessions in the hope that it could retain power. Thus Kevin McCarthy's devil's bargain allowed a tiny fringe of the party--just 20 members--to dictate how the other 90 percent had to vote to please both themselves and Donald Trump. Gaetz, later much in the news for disgraceful reasons, "fed on conflict and, more quickly than any other Republican in office, took to Trump's brand of scorched-earth politics." He also edged McCarthy--by any measure one of the least capable persons to hold the job--out of his position as Speaker of the House, though none on the hard right were particularly pleased with the accommodationist who followed. Nancy Mace, George Santos, Jim Jordan, and many others come in for a drubbing, though Karni and Broadwater take time to review the endless series of Democratic Party mistakes that led to Joe Biden's running against Trump in 2024 for as long as he did before dropping out. Much more fun than the Mueller Report, but just as damning.COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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