Nov. 18, 2021: 3 headlines, 1 Congress

There are three headlines that describe most big events in the 117th Congress so far: (1) “Dems in Disarray” (2) “Kevin McCarthy Defends Far-Right Member, Who [fill in the blank]” (3) “Congress Sends Biden Historic Legislation” Long stretches of Democratic infighting over policy are punctuated by semi-regular acts of extremism by the fringe of the House Republican Conference. And every so often, a massive spending bill ends up on the president’s desk. This was supposed to be a “Dems in Disarray” week, but thanks to Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), it turned into a “McCarthy Defends …” week. Subscribe to POLITICO Playbook. Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.Jenny Ament is the senior producer for POLITICO Audio. Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.