And for Meadows, the little-known freshman congressman, it was an opportunity to make a name for himself.
AMERICAN POP CULTURE WAS ROCKED IN 2013 BY THE RELEASE OF THE Netflix series House of Cards, an adapted version of the British drama that follows one exceptionally cunning and ruthlessly ambitious politician’s rise to power. Kevin Spacey portrays Francis “Frank” Underwood, a Democratic congressman who lies, betrays, swindles, and murders his way to the top of American government. The show was a commercial dynamo at the height of the Republican drama inside of the real Congress. And if there was one person on Capitol Hill who looked in the mirror and saw Frank Underwood, it was Meadows.
The freshman lawmaker from North Carolina wasn’t a bad person, and he certainly wasn’t a killer—not in the literal sense, anyway. But there was something about the way he worked a room, the way he perched his glasses low over his nose for effect, the way he would feed a group of reporters one thing and then walk away texting a favored reporter something contradictory.
There was also something cryptic about his past: A self-described “fat kid” and social misfit from Florida, Meadows lost weight, married at age twenty, and, after randomly choosing the mountains of North Carolina for a honeymoon, fell in love with the area, so much that he and his wife eventually moved there.4 First opening a sandwich shop, then selling it to become a real estate broker, Meadows made enough money to loan his congressional campaign $250,000, essentially buying both the GOP nomination and the general election in his freshly gerrymandered western North Carolina district.
We first interacted over several breakfasts in the middle of 2013, consistent with my efforts in covering Congress to build relationships with new members. Meadows wasn’t like any of the others—or like any other politician I’d come across. He was disarming, with an easy smile and a sluggish southern drawl. He was engaging on policy matters. But what set him apart was the questions he asked—about the media, the coverage of Capitol Hill, how reporters’ sourcing worked, what he needed to do to get his name in the paper. It was obvious that Meadows wanted to be a player.
Cue the release of his Obamacare letter.
It took serious gumption for a freshman lawmaker eight months on the job, but Meadows clearly saw a vacuum waiting to be filled. Cruz and Lee were leading the fight on the Senate side; nobody had yet orchestrated a real pressure campaign in the House. McConnell could only do so much: Despite a primary challenge from his right in 2014 that he was monitoring obsessively, the Senate GOP leader had the cover of a Democratic majority to deflect blame for Obamacare’s implementation. Boehner had no such luxury. As House Republicans returned from the August recess emboldened by the anger on display in their districts and itching for a showdown with Obama, the Speaker knew there would be no talking them down.
There had been a cooling-off period for both parties after the president’s reelection and his second inaugural. That period was long gone. Events that summer, including CIA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks showing illegal mass surveillance and Syria killing nearly fifteen hundred of its citizens in a chemical attack on the one-year anniversary of Obama’s “red line” remark, exacerbated partisan tensions and fueled the declining trust in government.
The acceleration of cultural conflicts throughout the year—Obama’s push for gun control, his unilateral action on climate change, the Supreme Court’s rulings striking down California’s gay marriage ban and the federal Defense of Marriage Act—had pushed traditionalists to the edge. The broader societal landscape did little to soothe the sense that things were spiraling. The Oxford dictionary shortlisted twerk as the word of the year, but opted instead for selfie, newly popular among not just Hollywood celebrities but politicians as well. Miley Cyrus was Google’s most-searched person. Even in the Vatican, a redoubt of orthodox thinking, newly elected Pope Francis was sounding squishy, doing little to pull conservatives back from the brink.
Obamacare’s approaching silhouette sent them over it.
BOEHNER AND CANTOR COULD SEE IT COMING. OBSERVING THE BREWING storm over the August recess, they prepared various trial balloons to float, hoping to prevent the zero-sum warfare their members wanted.
First, on September 9, Cantor outlined the leadership’s preferred plan to the conference: They would force both the House and Senate to vote on defunding Obamacare but would not tie those votes to the rest of the government’s funding, as