‘Mad House’ exposes disfunction in the 118th Congress

It’s no secret that Capitol Hill is often mired in partisan politics and infighting, but a new book highlights additional chaos that public doesn’t see. In Mad House, Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater — both veteran reporters for The New York Times — chronicle the 118th body of Congress, which was elected in 2022 and served from January 2023 until January 2025.

Karni and Broadwater describe the 118th House as the first MAGA-controlled Congress, one that fully adopted the extremism and stagecraft of Trumpism. During its two-year session, the House passed only 27 bills that became law — the lowest number since the Great Depression.

Mad House chronicles how Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was elected speaker of the House after 15 rounds of voting — only to be ousted 10 months later. It also revisits the infamous spat in which Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) traded personal barbs during at a House committee oversight meeting. That particular meeting was held in the evening, which, Karni says, can be a particularly fraught time for legislative events.

Karni and Broadwater write that Republicans had a very narrow majority in the 118th Congress — with a handful of party members who often refused to do what the leadership wanted.

“When you have a tiny majority, any member can throw themselves in the mix and make themselves the deciding vote,” Karni explains. “And in the last Congress, it gave this group of 20 … far-right members outsized power. … And that’s who really kind of decided how the House functioned last year — or, more likely, did not function.”

Broadwater says current House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) owes his position to the endorsement President Trump. “And you’re seeing that play out right now with how the House has chosen not to assert itself as a co-equal branch of government to Donald Trump, not to conduct oversight of the administration, and to essentially make itself a subservient branch,” Broadwater adds.

Looking ahead, Broadwater predicts we’ll see more Congressional disfunction, rather than less — especially since “it seems that voters actually like the fisticuffs.”

“A successful way to win primaries on the Right is to be the loudest, the fighter, the most extreme,” Broadwater explains. “So what we’re seeing now in the Democratic party is I think there’s a desire among the populace for the Democrats to become more of the party of fighting and not the party that plays by Robert’s Rules and keeps things super professional.”

Interview highlights

On members of Congress sometimes sleeping in their offices instead of renting an apartment in Washington, D.C.

On burnout among members of Congress

On the Left criticizing Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for his response to the current Trump administration

On the relationship between Republicans in the current Congress and Elon Musk’s DOGE task force

Sam Briger and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web.