The World and Everything in It: January 4, 2023

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Republicans have a slim majority in the House now. But what can they accomplish with a divided government?

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday,

Also today, WORLD Tour.

Plus the importance of grandparents.

And there’s never a good excuse to do the wrong thing—a classic commentary by WORLD founder Joel Belz.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, January 4th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now time for news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Speaker drama » Members of House cast their votes on Tuesday for the next speaker …

AUDIO: The honorable Kevin McCarthy of the state of California has received 202.

But he failed to win the 218 votes he needed as some Republicans threw their support behind a different leader.

AUDIO: The honorable Jim Jordan of the state of Ohio has received 20.

Through multiple rounds of voting, some members of the party’s most conservative wing did not budge in their opposition to McCarthy. It was the first time in a century that a majority party’s nominee for speaker failed to claim the gavel on the first vote.

That means the House adjourned on Tuesday without a speaker. Voting will resume today.

Senate opening day » But in the Senate, day one of the 118th Congress was uneventful. Democrats added one seat to their slim majority, now 51 to 49. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer:

SCHUMER: Today I have the great honor of becoming the longest-serving senator from New York, the first New Yorker ever elected to the Senate five times.

The chamber’s GOP leader remains in place as well. Senate Republicans reelected Mitch McConnell in November as Minority Leader for another two years.

MCCONNELL: The greatest honor of my career is representing the Commonwealth of Kentucky in this chamber and fighting for my fellow Kentuckians.

McConnell was elected to the Senate in 1985. He’s served as the GOP’s Senate leader since 2007.

DeSantis sworn in » Meantime, in Florida …

AUDIO: I Ron DeSantis — I Ron DeSantis — Do solemnly swear — Do solemnly swear …

The Republican governor took the oath of office once again, sworn in for a second term. DeSantis vowed to work for tax cuts and to continue fighting the culture war against what he called “woke” activists.

DESANTIS: We will defend our children against those who seek to rob them of their innocence.

DeSantis won another four years by a landslide in November’s election.

But many of his supporters hope he only serves another two, recent polls suggest he’s the GOP’s 2024 presidential frontrunner.

Mexican prison break » In Mexico, members of a violent gang tied to a drug cartel escaped from a prison near the Texas border this week. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Gunmen in armored vehicles assaulted Mexico's Ciudad Juarez state prison, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. The attackers opened fire on guards, killing 17 people.

The brazen prison break appeared to be aimed at freeing members of a gang associated with the Caborca Cartel.

Twenty-five inmates escaped.

Authorities retook control of the prison and found 10 “VIP” cells outfitted with televisions and other comforts.

One even had a safe filled with cash.

They also found cocaine, methamphetamine, and other drugs inside the prison.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Hamlin update » The family of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin thanked fans for their outpouring of support on Tuesday. Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field during a game against the Bengals Monday night.

He was listed in critical condition in an intensive care unit at a Cincinnati hospital.

Fans gathered outside the hospital to pray for him, and millions of dollars poured into a charity started by Hamlin.

His family tweeted, “Your generosity and compassion has meant the world to us.”

China denounces other nations’ COVID restrictions » The Chinese government is blasting other nations for imposing new COVID-19 testing requirements for travelers from China. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has that story.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Australia and Canada this week joined a growing list of countries, including the U.S. that are requiring air travelers from China to take a COVID test prior to boarding.

Cases are surging in China after the communist government began relaxing strict lockdown measures.

Chinese officials said some of the new measures—quote—“lack scientific basis.”

And they threatened unspecified countermeasures against nations that are taking extra precautions.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: what Republicans may accomplish with a slim majority in the House.

Plus, World Tour.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s the 4th of January, 2023. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Washington Wednesday.

Well, the 118th Congress is officially in session. Republicans now enjoy a slim majority in the House after the November election.

But Democrats still control the Senate and, of course, the White House.

So what can be accomplished with divided government and what should we expect?

Joining us now to help answer that is Mark Caleb Smith. He’s a political science professor at Cedarville University in Ohio.

REICHARD: Professor, good morning and happy new year.

MARK CALEB SMITH, GUEST: Happy New Year to you. It’s always good to be with you.

REICHARD: Well, let’s start with the question I mentioned a moment ago. Without the presidency or full control of Congress, what kinds of things can the new House majority accomplish over the next two years?

SMITH: I mean, if by accomplish, we're talking about policy and significant policy goals, really probably very little will be accomplished, which I think for them means they're probably going to focus more on politics and 2024 and positioning the party to be competitive in 2024, probably more than anything else. And so it doesn't mean they can't do anything, doesn't mean nothing important can happen. But it just radically changes the agenda when we have divided government like this.

REICHARD: How does House leadership determine who will sit on particular committees, who will lead those committees, etc.? Explain that process if you would.

SMITH: Yeah, this is a hot button issue right now because there's lots of discussion of stripping people of committee assignments and doing other things. So typically, the way that committees function for the Republicans and the Democrats is each party has a committee—a steering committee is what they usually call it—that distributes committee assignments for their party members. So you can think of this even as a committee on committees if we want to be funny about it. But these committees make decisions about who will sit on what other committees there are in the House. And there are some rules, they kind of go by, or more norms, I guess, is probably the better way to put it, sort of typical way they do things. Usually, if you're on a committee and you want to stay on it, you can if you're reelected, and you can stay on that committee for the next Congress. They take into account seniority, they take into account how close your elections have been lately, but probably one of the most vital elements they consider is how loyal have you been to the leadership? Because these committees, the steering committees are packed full of loyalists to the party leaders. And this is just one way that the Speaker of the House or the House Minority Leader can exercise influence over the members of their caucus.

REICHARD: Republicans will have a majority in the House, but again, a very slim one. And there are multiple factions as you refer to within the House GOP. How tall of a task will it be for leadership to try and get House Republicans on the same page on so many issues?

SMITH: Yeah. I mean, I can understand why someone would want to be Speaker of the House. I mean, it's a historic position. It's a Constitutional position. It's in line for the presidency. Lots of benefits, go with it—prestige, some power. But just purely in terms right now of leading a group of politicians and trying to accomplish things in terms of policy outcomes, being Speaker of the House, if you're Republican, is it incredibly difficult and complicated and maybe even impossible job. This isn't even a discussion of a particular person who wants to be Speaker. This is just more of over the last couple of decades, this has been a very difficult group to lead. And I think really, this goes back to the Tea Party movement, where you saw very strong factions developed within the House Republicans, and those factions are still there. So we have the House Freedom Caucus members, we have more traditional mainline establishment Republicans, and those groups just simply don't mix very well right now. And I think Donald Trump's presence over the last seven years or so has just complicated this. And so just leading the group of Republicans, difficult. Now, the Democrats have their own issues. They have a strong divide between progressive Democrats and other Democrats in the Democratic caucus right now. But it seems like those progressive Democrats are a little bit more willing to get on board and be unified with their party leadership compared to perhaps the House Freedom Caucus members for the Republicans.

REICHARD: Okay, let’s talk money now. $1.7 trillion spending bill last week. Eighteen GOP senators voted for it. Some House Republicans supported it too. But most Republicans called it a bloated monstrosity with too much pork and wasteful spending.

Will the new House majority have the ability and the will to rein in that spending?

SMITH: I don't think they will have the ability to do it. Because they only control one chamber of the bicameral legislature, they can pass bills they can try to limit spending on their own, but the Senate's sitting there and it's going to basically just stop whatever it doesn't like and of course then the President is sitting there able to veto things that he doesn't like. And so there really aren't many pathways for the Republicans to move forward to rein in spending, even if they had the will to do it. But if I'm honest about it, the Republican Party hasn't really had the will to deal with spending in any kind of meaningful way for a long time. I think, what, the 1990s was perhaps really the last time we saw a Republican party that was strongly focused on limiting spending, and they were successful to some extent then. But right now, I know the rhetoric in the party is anti-spending, but I'm not sure the voting has really matched up with that over the last decade or two.

REICHARD: Okay, moving to the border problem. House Republicans last month presented a security proposal for the border. It outlines numerous measures to try and stem the record surge of traffic at the border. But what can the House really do with regard to the border without cooperation from the Senate or the White House?

SMITH: Yeah, they have made some interesting suggestions. They want to increase enforcement and increase budgeting. They would like to require legal status for people to be hired for jobs in the United States, for example. And I think all those are actually somewhat popular, frankly. But their ability to get this done right now with where they are in Congress is very difficult. But I think you have to say, from the Republican Party's perspective, immigration is an incredibly important issue symbolically, as much as it is as a policy issue. Republicans are making some pretty serious inroads, I would say, with the Hispanic community, with the African American community. And so however they craft their immigration rhetoric, as well as their policy, it's going to have one eye on 2024, I think, especially that Hispanic constituency, possibly. So I don't think they have a lot of ability to actually do something, but they do have a strong interest and making it an important part of their discussion.

REICHARD: Alright, the FBI now. Republicans have also vowed investigations of alleged politically partisan behavior within the FBI, related to the “Twitter files” and other issues. How far will Republicans dig in on that and what might we expect to see?

SMITH: Yeah, I think we’ve talked about immigration, we’ve talked about spending, I think this is actually an area where the Republicans can do some damage, if you want to think of it in those terms. With control the majority in the House and with control of a majority of committees, as long as the chairs of those committees like Jim Jordan, in Judiciary, for example, can maintain their committee unity and, as a leadership, exercise some will over that committee, they can launch investigations into a lot of different areas. There's also discussion now of perhaps even creating new committees to investigate a select committee, for example, on the weaponization of the federal government has been put forward, possibly, as we look into this transition. And so there are going to be avenues for investigation. They can subpoena materials from the White House. They can subpoena testimony. And they can really get a lot of traction over this, I think generate probably a fair bit of media attention, and potentially do some significant damage to the Biden White House in the process. And so I think this is the area where they can probably have the most effect. Now we could argue about is this productive? Is it good for the country? Is it useful? In a lot of ways we could argue about that, but I think they're gonna have a big impact in the investigatory arena.

REICHARD: What do you think Republicans might do differently over the next two years from what they did the last time they controlled the House?

SMITH: I’m not sure there’s a lot they can do all that differently. I think there's some potential that you're gonna see some interesting wrinkles, maybe, here or there. But there's a real struggle right now in all of Congress, not Republican or Democrat, just all of Congress. There's this norm in Congress that we've talked about as political scientists for quite some time. It's the workhorse versus show horse discussion. Members of Congress are always sort of divided over, do they want to be a workhorse in Congress and propose policy and build relationships and try to put together those voting coalitions to get things done? Or do they want to be a show horse? Do they want to go on cable news? Do they want to do podcasts? Do they want to do speaking tours and raise money? And so there's always been this tension there between members who want to do one or the other. I think over the last decade-plus we've seen a real tilt toward more show horse members of Congress, where they're more interested in the performance of being in Congress, and building their platform, and maybe running for the Senate or running for the presidency without nearly as much focus on the actual nitty gritty work of Congress itself. And so, in that sense, I'm not sure the Republicans are going to do all that much different over the next couple of years in what we've seen. This is a real issue within the GOP caucus. It's an issue within the Democratic Caucus as well. And I think that's the tension right now that's within the parties. How the leadership handles that I think is vital. You know, can you whip them together to actually get things done when all they really might want to do is simply elevate their profile and maybe increase their possibilities for higher office. And so Congress itself right now, I think you could argue, is somewhat dysfunctional for this reason and some others.

REICHARD: Mark Caleb Smith from Cedarville University. Professor, thanks so much!

SMITH: Thank you. It’s always a pleasure.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with Onize Ohikere, our reporter in Africa.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Brazil’s Lula in office —We begin the first World Tour of 2023 in Brazil.

Veteran leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has assumed office as the country’s new president.

AUDIO: [Cheering supporters]

Cheering supporters dressed in red and crowded Brazil’s capital city on Sunday to welcome the 77-year-old leftist politician.

Lula previously served as president from 2003 to 2010.

He takes over for rightwing leader Jair Bolsonaro, who left Brazil for Florida last week. Lula defeated him in an October runoff vote.

AUDIO: [Lula speaking]

Lula says here his administration will repeal decrees by his predecessor that eased gun-control regulations.

He also pledged to reinstall environmental protections and fight economic decline and rising poverty. But he faces a Congress dominated by Bolsonaro’s conservative allies.

Croatia in Eurozone — Next, to Europe.

AUDIO: [Fireworks in Zagreb]

Croatia has ushered in the New Year with some major economic changes. The European nation joined the EU’s borderless travel area and eurozone on January 1.

The changes mean Croatia will now use the euro as currency and become part of Europe’s passport-free travel zone.

Croatia joined the EU back in 2013, but membership rules required it to delay entering the free travel area and adopting the euro.

Boris Vujcic is Croatia’s central bank governor.

AUDIO: [Vujcic speaking]

He says here the changes will make Croatia more resilient to crises, increase investment options, and ease the cost of doing business.

Croatia is the first country to join the Eurozone since Lithuania in 2015.

Bolivia unrest —We head next to Bolivia.

AUDIO: [Protesters chanting]

Burned cars and barricades covered the streets of the city of Santa Cruz after fighting last week.

Several hundred demonstrators threw rocks at a police building and burned tires on Friday.

AUDIO: [Police transport]

That followed a court ruling earlier in the day that sentenced opposition leader Luis Fernando Camacho to four months in pretrial detention.

Camacho, the right-wing governor of Santa Cruz, was detained on terrorism charges, including his alleged involvement in the 2019 resignation of leftist president Evo Morales.

Uganda stampede — We wrap up in Uganda, where people are still dealing with the aftermath of a New Year’s Eve stampede.

At least 10 people died in the crush. They include four children.

Kampala Metropolitan police spokesman Luke Owoyesigyire.

OWOYESIGYIRE: We have decided to open up criminal inquiries against the organizer of this festival to ascertain what went wrong.

The tragedy occurred as a packed New Year’s show ended at a popular mall in Kampala. People began pushing to get outside to watch fireworks and the victims were trampled.

The government has said it would pay nearly $1,400 to each victim’s family to help with burial costs.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Scott Stallings is not a professional golfer. So imagine his surprise when he received an invitation to the most prestigious professional golf tournament.

Stallings told WXIA TV that his wife, Jennifer, received an exciting FedEx package: 

SCOTT: She opens it up and yells down to me, Scott, we’re going to the Masters!
JENNIFER: Not we, YOU’RE going.
SCOTT: You’ve been invited to the Masters. And I thought, okay, maybe it’s some kind of random tickets. And it says, no you’re invited to PLAY at the Masters.

Tempting as the invitation was, Stallings said he knew the invitation wasn’t his.

There is a Scott Stallings who’s actually qualified—a real pro golfer—and clearly there was a mixup.

But the non-pro golfer Scott Stallings will have more than just a fun story to tell. His PGA namesake is giving him some practice-round tickets and plans to take the couple to dinner before the tournament.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 4th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: grand-parenthood.

More than 80 percent of adults eventually become grandparents, but some find it hard to build meaningful connections with their grandchildren.

Maybe they’re too busy, maybe too far away, maybe they lack shared interests. Or maybe they had no relationship with their own grandparents to serve as a model.

REICHARD: WORLD Senior Writer Kim Henderson recently met some children whose grandparents don’t let barriers get in the way.

CHILDREN: I made this Lego. And it's a car that can actually move. I made this one. Something fell off. Jackson, this came up from yours . . .

KIM HENDERSON, SENIOR WRITER: For the Misner grandkids, nothing beats an afternoon with Daddy D and Jenn Jenn.

And a huge tub of Legos.

CHILDREN: We built all of this. [KH: what is all that?] Baby Yoda . . .

That was Baby Yoda, in case you couldn’t understand the 2-year-old. Other completed Lego projects sit on a desk. On bookshelves.

CHILDREN: Um, Venom Spider Man Lego.

And over in a corner.

CHILDREN: It's our Jurassic World boat.

CHILDREN: My favorite Lego is our Star Wars. Yeah, I love the Star Wars.

Their grandfather, David Misner, has a ready explanation for why playing with Legos is a worthwhile activity.

DAVID: It's great to help them with their dexterity, their fingers. And their reading skills. They're able to pay attention and follow directions. And just creating, creating something.

But did he play Legos with his own three kids? Back when he was a young dad?

DAVID: No, I took this up just for the kids.

These kids. His grandkids. The Misners have seven. Four are here today. And the fun doesn’t stop with Legos.

I ask 9-year-old Abbie what she likes to do with her grandparents.

ABBIE: Hiking and swimming.

That’s because the Misners are active themselves. They’re really fit, and they love the outdoors.

ABBIE: Usually we go to Red Mountain, but there's a place that I really want to go that we haven't been in a while, and we call it the Choo Choo Train . . .

Abbie may not realize exactly what her grandparents are up to. That they are purposefully building their relationship with her. And she probably doesn’t think much about what it took for that to happen. That the Misners moved 250 miles to be near her and their other grands.

David explains.

DAVID: We were blessed in that they wanted us to come. And Jenn and I felt that at this time in our lives, you know, we still had a lot of life to live, Lord willing, and we wanted it to count.

The Misners want to be a spiritual influence in their grandchildren’s lives.

DAVID: The pressure on the children seems to be so much greater. There's so many ways for evil to get to the children. So we just wanted to, you know, we wanted to help our children raise their children. Just provide whatever help we could.

Larry Fowler is what you might call a grandparenting expert. He heads up the Legacy Coalition, a ministry dedicated to intentional, Christ-like grandparenting. He says relationship building like the Misners are doing is imperative if grandparents want to be involved in the teen years.

FOWLER: I've been through those years, where all of a sudden talking to Grandma and Grandpa wasn't a priority. Their friends were . . .

That’s why Fowler says grandparents really need to lean into the young years.

FOWLER: If you lean in well and have a real strong relationship, it'll begin to go down some, of course, but you will still be able to speak into their lives in a real special way . . . when they are teenagers and facing some really tough things, you'll be able to be a voice into their lives.

And Fowler has some specific advice for grandparents of teenagers. Communicate with them in a way that fits the times.

FOWLER: Don't expect your teenage grandkids to enter Grandma world. They're not going to do it. So you have to enter their world. That means using their method of choice for communication, and of course, that's probably texting. That's a real important thing for grandparents to remember.

Fowler points to a time when he and his wife lived states away from their 17-year-old grandson. They took this grandson out for coffee.

FOWLER: The very first thing that he said was, “Grandpa and Grandma, I've got a girlfriend,” and he would have never volunteered that in a family setting.

The Fowlers describe this purposeful one-on-one time as “dating” their grandchildren.

FOWLER: So whether they live at a distance, and you do it when you go to visit them, or whether they live close and you do it on a regular basis, that's, that's really important.

Back at the Misners’ place, a two-layer approach is unfolding. Fun candy, combined with Scripture memorization.

JENNIFER: So you know, the motivation is if you learn the Bible verse, you get the M&Ms . . . (laughing) I think we’re stretching the rules . . .

But Abbie has her verse down.

ABBIE: For God so loved the world, He gave His one and only son. And all that believe in Him shall not perish, but shall have eternal life. John 3:16.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Birmingham, Alabama.

EICHER: To read the feature story on intentional grandparenting, look for the January 14th issue of WORLD Magazine and we’ll post a link to the story in today’s transcript.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 4th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Next up: WORLD classic commentary.

WORLD Founder Joel Belz wrote this column on pornography back in 1986. His message on the faulty logic of political extremes could not be more relevant.

JOEL BELZ, FOUNDER: Sometimes society at large, or even the small components of society, we more easily control get paralyzed in efforts to do what is otherwise good just because someone is standing there to say, we can't do that because of what it might lead to. An example of that kind of response appeared last week. A widely syndicated columnist ridiculed the Presidential Commission on Pornography, not so much for the substance of what the commission had found and recommended, but because the controls it did recommend, the columnist somehow knew, would automatically lead in the future to more serious forms of censorship which are altogether unacceptable to society.

The problem is that we have been too thoroughly taught by the old story of the camel who stuck his nose under the edge of the tent and ended up claiming the whole tent for himself. As is usually the case with a good parable, we've over applied its truth, and forgotten that it was only one of many important insights.

Now, we need an equally memorable parable to teach us this additional truth. If there's good reason to keep the camel's nose warm, and we are able to control the situation, go ahead and let him stick his nose under the edge of the tent. The fact is, of course, that almost anything we do could establish a pattern for some other form of related behavior that is unacceptable. Eating leads easily to overeating. Viewing a little TV has the potential for making addicts of us. Even conversation degenerates quickly to hurtful gossip. But appropriately, we have not totally forfeited good activities in moderation, just because of what they might lead to if carried to the extreme.

So, why should American society be so fearful about doing what is clearly right only because of what such action might conceivably lead us to? To stand with our hands tied and refuse to put restrictions on the flow of vile sexual exploitation of women, of children, and of men as well, just because someone fears that we won't have the good sense later on not to censor something else? Well, that is to exalt freedom of the press to a pedestal no single value deserves. One earmark of true civilization and a special contribution of a Biblical perspective is the ability to avoid thoughtless extremes.

Fearful columnists, along with folks like the American Civil Liberties Union, think censors of any kind are extremists. But aren't the real extremists the ones who would forbid all censorship just because of where it might possibly lead?

We Christians have made the same mistake on occasions, a confession we’ll spell out some other time. But this time it's the pornography industry that has sold society a bill of goods along with some very faulty logic.

REICHARD: That’s Joel Belz, reading his column titled “Camel’s Noses and Pornography” from his book, Consider These Things. The column originally appeared in the June 2nd, 1986 issue of WORLD Magazine.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: what’s ahead in the new year for the war in Ukraine? Plus, an update on the situation at the U.S. Southern border.

And, more pro-life answers to pro-abortion questions.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse… from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. (Genesis 1:7-8 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

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