In . This is mtp daily and it starts right now. Good evening, im chuck todd here in washington, happy new year. Im back. Glad to be back. Welcome to another edition of mpt daily. Its opening day for a lot of us here and for the new republican congress. Schools in session. And appears republicans learned their first lesson the hard way. Especially when it comes to dealing with donald trump. Ethics and a public outcry. But at the end of a wild day were left with more questions than answers about what all the drama really means and by the looks of things, were not the only ones. Let me explain. On the eve of this new congress, House Republicans held a vote behind closed doors to strip what was known as the independent bipartisan congressional Ethics Watchdog Group called the office of congressional ethics of its power. That vote, after hours, on a federal holiday, no less, and without the support of house leadership, was supposed to be ratified today in a larger passage of rules bills. On
which seems to be the question we ve been asking for about six years, by the way. that s a fair point. let me ask you quickly on the ethics office itself sure. would you say that ethics that ethics investigations the ethics committee, this office, would you say it was functioning very well before this episode? no, no. i ve been saying that to people all day. you know this isn t although the office of congressional ethics has been a little tougher and willing to do things than the committee on ethics that has lawmakers. it s not like the ethics enforcement in the house is this, you know, rabid law enforcement, it just doesn t work that way. i think that they were they spent a lot of capital, blew up in their face on trying to tamper something that isn t that huge a threat to begin with, honestly. carl, mr. mayor, good to see you. thanks chuck. your term will never end savrs i m concerned. all rht, a right. there you go, thank you, sir.
looks more likely than ever. i think that a lot of people are just starting to realize that we re all really we re still in a bad place. and i think that is putting fear into a lot of people. reporter: wall street was reacting to the federal reserve s latest plan to boost the economy. the fed will use $400 million to boost businesses even further. hoping businesses will borrow more, spend more, and ultimately create jobs. that s the most important number is that jobs number. reporter: and economists believe the plan will do little to encourage americans to spend. interest rates for home, car and credit card loans are already low and are not expected to drop significantly. the dow is down more than 15% in just the past two months. and it s now on track for its worst weekly performance since the financial crisis 2008. reporter: stocks in europe also spent the day in freefall. business activity there has slowed to the lowest level in three years. and there are conc
ethics, we re here to clean up the party that we don t belong to ethically. everybody still seems to be grasping for that answer. but if you don t play it right by ethics, it could bite you. we re going to move on and talk more about this. joined now by carl haus, covering washington, politics for 36 years, and as i always like to say, the unofficial mayor of the capitol hill press corps, so, all right, let me start with this happy new year, chuck. happy new year. nothing like getting congress back in a session to give us something to do. not audacious, not a great start there. let me start with this. kevin mccarthy and speaker ryan we re told were against the move from the get-go. so how the heck did we get as far as we got before it got withdrawn? i think that s what a lot of republicans around town are scratching their head about. i ran into them today and talked to them on the hill and elsewhere. how did it get that far if paul ryan and kevin mccarthy didn t