INSIDE D.C. WITH JOHN GIZZI NEWSMAX WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT
GOP TARGETS JOSH SHAPIRO • The national press is increasingly focused on Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro as both the Democrat Kamala Harris should have picked as a running mate and a formidable candidate for president in ’28. Although Shapiro is popular throughout the Keystone State, Republicans there insisted to Newsmax the GOP will wage a full-blown campaign against him next year for reelection. Any of the three Republicans in statewide office — reelected state Treasurer Stacy Garrity and Auditor General Tim DeFoor, and newly elected state Attorney General Dave Sunday — can run for governor “from cover,” since all were elected to four-year terms in ’24. In addition, MAGA Republican Rep. Dan Meuser is eyeing the gubernatorial race. Many GOP leaders privately concede Shapiro will be almost impossible to beat but that he can be “roughed up” before 2028.
TAX CHANGES ON TABLE • Assuming all their members stay together, Republicans in the House
48 NEWSMAX | FEBRUARY 2025
and Senate are sure to invoke reconciliation — the 50-year-old process that quickly expedites tax, spending, and other fiscal measures — to enact a budget and tax reform. By tax
SHAPIRO
reform, one Republican senator told Newsmax, “We mean putting everything on the table.”
Noting that only 16% of Americans itemize their charitable deductions, the same senator suggested that the itemization could be replaced by a universal deduction for all taxpayers who give to charity. Asked if the home mortgage deduction so loved by homeowners could be ended in return for an across-the-board lowering of tax rates, the senator replied: “Why not? It will be a long time before we have a chance at genuine tax reform again.”
HOUSE CONTROL ON KNIFE-EDGE • With the House divided almost evenly — 219 Republicans to 215 Democrats, with three vacancies in strongly GOP districts — Speaker Mike Johnson is pleading with incumbent Republicans not to seek other office or step down in ’26. So far, Oklahoma Rep.
Kevin Hern’s decision not to run for governor next year is seen as a sign House Republicans need to stay put for a while in order to keep their majority. Kentucky’s Andy Barr was widely thought to have lost the chairmanship of the Financial Services Committee because he was committed to a Senate race next year, rather than
BARR
long-term wielding of the gavel. As Johnson keeps
urging lawmakers to remain in the House, one wag noted that “every death, every sex scandal, and every job offer with more money than a congressman makes will be national news because any one
could determine control of the House.”
Justices Staying on Bench
• No sooner had Donald Trump been elected president last fall than talk began in Washington that Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas — the most conservative jurists on the high court — would soon retire to permit Trump to name younger successors who would serve for a long time. Not so, it turns out. A source close to Alito, 74, told The Wall Street Journal that “the idea he would step down for political purposes is inconsistent with the man.” And people close to Thomas, 76, all agree he is going
nowhere and will most likely serve until May 2028 — 36 years and seven months after he was confirmed, in line to break the record of William O. Douglas as the longest-serving Supreme Court justice in history.
BARR/CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
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