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PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN
WITH MAX COHEN AND CHRISTIAN HALL

THE TOP

Happy Friday and Merry Christmas Eve. We are going to try to keep it light for you today – for the most part. We will be off next week, unless there’s breaking news. We’ll be back Jan. 3 – the first Monday of the year, and our one-year birthday! – with our next regularly scheduled edition.

Our weekly Power Matrix rankings have been a staple of Punchbowl News’ first year. Thanks for following along with us. Today, as part of the last edition of 2021, we’re bringing you the Power Matrix “Year in Review.” 

→ Most Ups:

1. Joe Biden: 15

2. Chuck Schumer: 9, Kevin McCarthy: 9, Joe Manchin: 9

3. Nancy Pelosi: 8, Mitch McConnell 8

President Joe Biden leads the way with 15 ups this year, a reflection of the positive headlines from the early months of his administration. Plus, Biden scored major legislative wins when passing the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Democratic leaders of Congress – Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer –  also rank highly for their work shepherding through Biden’s agenda. 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) feature near the top as well, a reflection of the difficulties of governing in a closely divided Congress. Manchin and McConnell have been able to exert their power in the Senate when pumping the brakes on Democratic plans. And while McCarthy has little to do in the House, as minority leader he is poised to claim the gavel if all goes to plan in 2022. 

→ Most Downs:

1. Donald Trump: 13

2. Joe Biden: 12

3. Ron Johnson: 8

The year began with the deadly attack at the Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. Accordingly, Trump leads the way on downs due to his incitement of that attack and his subsequent denial of culpability. Trump continues to spread dangerous election fraud lies a year after the attack.

Biden has the second-most downs, in another reflection of how hard it is to govern a divided Washington. The president’s low approval ratings, disastrous handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, Covid’s continued deadly impact and failure to get inflation in check have hobbled him in the second half of 2021.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) comes in at third for downs. This will come as no surprise if you’ve heard his incessant drumbeat of vaccine misinformation this year. 

→ Top Differentials:

1. Kevin McCarthy: +6 (9 up, 3 down)

2. Mitch McConnell: +5 (8 up, 3 down), Joe Manchin: +5 (9 up, 4 down)

3. Rob Portman: +4 (5 up, 1 down) 

Being in the minority is easy. That’s what the top differential ratings show. You rarely get blamed for things going wrong, since your party isn’t responsible for governing. And when the majority slips up (like failing to pass BBB or struggling to stem a wave of retirements), you benefit. 

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), however, reached across the aisle to negotiate the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package. And of course, Manchin’s informal role as the shadow Senate majority leader earns him a high differential.

And here is this week’s Power Matrix edition.

LOOK BACK

The Punchbowl News leadership year-end report card

What a fascinating year it’s been for the congressional leadership. This has been the most consequential period for legislating in recent memory. Congress has passed the American Rescue Plan, which authorized $1.9 trillion in new spending. It passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which totaled $1.2 trillion, including $550 billion in new spending on top of the baseline. The House passed the Build Back Better Act, which the chamber had pegged at $1.75 trillion. That’s $4.8 trillion in new funding just in 2021 alone, a staggering figure. 

The leadership, as you’ve probably figured out by now, is our reportorial obsession. Let’s review what they’ve dealt with this calendar year. First of all, 2021 started out with a massive attack on the Capitol and our democracy. And party leaders in both chambers struggled with what that meant for the institution.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has had to manage a razor-thin Democratic majority, all while trying to keep the volatile House of Representatives from breaking into open conflict. Managing the institution has been a full-time job for Pelosi. She installed metal detectors around the chamber, instituted mask and security mandates while penalizing those who defied it and supported stripping several Republicans of their committee assignments following violent public statements. And she did all of this while passing an aggressive legislative agenda.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has an even narrower margin in the Senate – and it shows. He worked with Pelosi to get the BIF and ARP into law, but has struggled with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Manchin has pulled an emergency brake on much of the party’s agenda, including raising the minimum wage, the BBB and voting rights, to name a few items.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, has had it relatively easy, except for a few bumps in the road. The BIF split his party in the Senate, as did the Jan. 6 commission and his two deals to raise the debt limit. Toward the end of this year, McConnell has seemed a bit more upbeat about his party’s political prospects, easily rattling off the states that will be key to him becoming majority leader once again: “Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada and Arizona.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has two goals most every day: better position his House Republican Conference to win the majority, and manage some of his, let’s call them, more incendiary members. He’s doing pretty well on the former, and not really trying on the latter. McCarthy privately told House Republicans last month that he wasn’t a babysitter, and lawmakers had to control themselves. This was in response to a spate of racist and bigoted comments made by a variety of his members.

Anyway, in the spirit of the holiday season, we thought we’d give an imagined gift to each of the leaders in D.C.

→ Joe Biden: A magic wand to ward off inflation, and a month without a crisis.

→ Schumer: He got a lump of coal from West Virginia. But what he really needs is a superpower to convince Manchin to follow the Democratic agenda.

→ McConnell: Manchin.

→ Pelosi: Immortality. 

→ McCarthy: One week of his conference not saying something dumb, racist or bigoted. 

→ America: A break from Covid, lower prices and a stretch of normalcy. We all need it.

→ Climate Power Education Fund is up with an ad buy attempting to seize on the high gas prices headlines to promote “clean energy.”

“Big oil executives took advantage of a recovering nation just to make more money,” the narrator says in the 30-second clip airing in the D.C. media market. “It’s time to tell big oil their rigged game is over. America, it’s time for clean energy.”

Check out the ad below, courtesy of AdImpact.

FRONTS

MOMENTS

President Joe Biden has no public events on his schedule.

11 a.m.: First Lady Jill Biden will visit Children’s National Hospital.

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “Lapid Says Israel Will Support Iran Nuclear Pact, if It’s ‘a Good Deal,’” by David Sanger and Patrick Kinglsey

→ “Biden Administration Rejects Medicaid Work Requirements in Georgia,” by Chris Cameron

→ “C.D.C. Shortens Covid Isolation Period for Health Care Workers,” by Azeen Ghorayshi and Reed Abelson

WaPo

→ “Inside the administration’s failure to avert a covid testing shortfall,” by Annie Linskey

→ “Thompson says Jan. 6 committee focused on Trump’s hours of silence during attack, weighing criminal referrals,” by Tom Hamburger, Jackie Alemany, Josh Dawsey and Matt Zapotosky

WSJ

→ “Judges Held Off Congress’s Efforts to Impose Ethics Rules—Until Now,” by James V. Grimaldi, Joe Palazzolo and Coulter Jones 

→ “Omicron Starts to Slow U.S. Economy as Consumer Spending Flags,” by Sarah Chaney Cambon and Harriet Torry

Reuters

→ “Jared Kushner investment firm Affinity raises $3 billion in committed funding,” by Steve Holland

Politico

→ “Bernie Kerik plans to publicly release documents demanded by Jan. 6 committee,” by Kyle Cheney

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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images