Mad House: How Donald Trump, MAGA Mean Girls, a Former Used Car Salesman, a Florida Nepo Baby, and a Man with Rats in His Walls Broke Congress
by Annie Karni
View on GoodreadsNYT reporters Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater's account of the 2023-24 House Republican majority — the McCarthy speakership collapse, the Jordan and Scalise failures, the eventual Johnson elevation, and the dysfunction of legislating under the Freedom Caucus's veto power.
Core ideas
- The book's central reportage is the McCarthy-Gaetz dynamic and the 15-ballot speaker fight that opened the term — Karni reconstructs the specific concessions McCarthy made that guaranteed his eventual ouster.
- The "personality politics" dimension is unusual for institutional-coverage books — Karni and Broadwater treat the cast (Marjorie Taylor Greene, George Santos, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz) as essential, not incidental; the House became television and the policy outputs reflect that.
- The structural diagnosis: the Hastert Rule, the rule-of-three caucus rebellions, and the elimination of meaningful party-discipline mechanisms have produced a House where the median legislator can't pass anything because the marginal vote sets the agenda.
Published2025
Pages320
ISBN9780593731260
ReadDec 2025
