Ari Melber asked his panelists to predict how Kevin McCarthy will handle his new House majority.
"I think that what we're seeing right now is, McCarthy will have a little 30-second victory lap, but the crazy runs the party," said Rick Wilson, former Republican consultant and cofounder of the Lincoln Project.
"Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Jim Jordan -- the lunatics are fully in charge of the asylum. They're going to drive the agenda, and if Kevin gets off the reservation, they're going to be in a position where basically they have full control of this thing, and unless Kevin stays on an agenda for them and for Trump, with endless Hunter Biden laptop investigations, endless conspiracy theories, persecuting Dr. Fauci -- they will eat him alive. The crazy is in charge," he said.
"I will say this. Nancy Pelosi's able to hold her coalition together, her caucus together, keeping the Squad and moderate Democrats all in relative harmony."
But the nihilism of the MAGA bunch is much more intense, he said.
"They're not going to try to govern, they're going to try to own the libs and they're going to try to set up a big culture war for 2024. And they're going to try to pave the way for Donald Trump, who is the person they're most loyal to in the House, above Kevin McCarthy by an order of magnitude.
"So I think the insanity is going to begin very quickly, and they're going to go through two years of show trials and hearings and persecutions and it's going to become something I think most voters will roll their eyes at first, and then get irritated with and look at it as a political repellant in the '24 cycle."
And that's the point. The 2024 campaign begins now. And the American electorate will be reminded what happens when you hand Trumpers a majority.
