Hi, and welcome to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Tara Palmeri. Tonight, my interview with former Biden official Michael LaRosa on the efficacy of the White House’s impeachment counterpunch strategy (or lack thereof), as House Republicans kick off an inquiry that has Trump’s fingerprints all over it.

But first, here’s Abby Livingston with the latest drama on the Hill…

• The Shutdown Enthusiasts: With members of Congress returning home for the weekend, the Capitol Hill insiders left behind are describing the past few days as “a wasted week.” It began with Kevin McCarthy launching a sort-of impeachment inquiry and ended with him daring his rebels to try to throw him out of office. Meanwhile, the House has made no progress toward avoiding a shutdown—and may actually be moving backward.

  The shutdown, of course, has felt inevitable for months. But now a great deal of staff time and energy is being directed toward the actual logistics: deciding which staffers are essential and who gets furloughed, which government functions will be triaged, making contingency plans for expected-to-be-canceled October trips, etcetera. But beyond the trouble-making Freedom Caucus, the biggest obstacle to cutting a deal is that most Republican members’ constituents actually want a shutdown, as one G.O.P. public affairs consultant told me.

  This consultant, who’s been in touch with rank-and-file members this week, described how that puts the squeeze on a certain type of G.O.P. incumbent. These Republicans represent safe districts, and not that long ago counted themselves as among the most conservative members of their state delegations, even if they weren’t part of the Freedom Caucus. But now, their pragmatism is out of step with their constituents. Some are discussing the possibility of retirement—conversations that operatives expect will multiply after this week. Of course, there is another school of thought that posits that the uglier this gets, the more dug-in some of these Old Guard members might become. These members want to retire, but may ultimately rule it out for no other reason than they don’t want a future Freedom Caucus member to replace them in 2025.

• Profiles in courage: Last weekend, Lauren Boebert was kicked out of a live theater performance for (alleged) boorish behavior. Six weeks ago, Ronny Jackson was detained at a Texas rodeo for an altercation with law enforcement. George Santos has spent his entire first (and likely only) year in office grappling with his own bizarre history of fraud and fabrication. Earlier in the summer, Marjorie Taylor Greene went Queen Bee on Boebert, calling her “a little bitch” on the House floor. Is the House G.O.P. risking looking… weird?

  When I pointed out this trend to a Republican operative, he indicated the political class is numb to the behavior: “Newsflash: the behavior and complete breakdown of decorum exhibited by members of Congress should not come as a surprise to anyone,” he texted. “We’re no longer sending our best to Washington… And that goes for both sides too. Some Dems said some crazy stuff from 2017-2021.”

  Boebert faces a uniquely tough reelection next year. But even so, the utility of political shame is limited. I asked a Democratic House campaign operative if the security footage of Boebert’s expulsion will be featured in next year’s ad wars. He said his side would rather litigate her stances on issues like Medicare, Social Security. “Videos like this are always good to bring up on earned media because they continue to build the case that she is unfit for office—but ultimately, the majority of voters in America are voting over kitchen table issues,” this Democrat told me.

And now for my conversation with Michael...

Washington, a city obsessed with history and itself, is filled with murmurs about how the Clinton impeachment cost the House Republicans seats. Impeachment is even less popular in the Senate, where Republicans love to shit-sling Biden, sure, but also recognize there’s little enthusiasm for a trial. “Everyone will delight in Hunter’s messiness, then it will be smearing the president and the family, everyone will engage in that,” said a source close to Senate GOP leadership. “The question of high crimes and misdemeanors is another threshold.”

It’s not clear whether the House impeachment inquiry will recommend specific charges, nor is it clear whether McCarthy could actually wrangle a majority to vote for them, given his five-member margin. Nevertheless, even the prospect of a trial is worrying Senate Republicans up for re-election, who are vulnerable on the issue, in particular, to general election challengers on the left. “This is going to be a total fucking dog fight to the end,” said the source. “If any of them think they’re coming out of this clean, they’re wrong.”

In the meantime, of the three Johns vying to replace Mitch McConnell, senators John Thune and John Cornyn seemed to be dismissive of the whole thing, perhaps sensing that the way they handle this new dysfunction could factor into how their leadership quest plays out. Only John Barrasso seemed enthusiastic about impeachment, perhaps as a way to appeal to the rightward flank of the party.

On the campaign trail, G.O.P. presidential candidates don’t seem overly enthused about impeachment, either, perhaps because they intuit, correctly, that the inquiry favors Trump, who would love the sideshow as he bounces from one courtroom to another. (The impression that Biden has legal baggage of his own can only help him.) And if it takes the rest of the party down, who cares? Revenge is more important to Trump than Republican ideals and legislative power in both chambers.

As for the White House, the Biden administration has been preparing for this moment for months. Earlier this week, as the impeachment announcement loomed, I talked to former Biden official Michael LaRosa about the White House’s campaign strategy for my podcast, Somebody’s Gotta Win. LaRosa, not surprisingly, thinks that there have been missed opportunities to counterpunch. So I called him back after McCarthy made the inquiry official, to get his candid take on the new gray area the Biden White House will need to navigate after ignoring the issue for months. This conversation has been edited and condensed.

Michael LaRosa: You’re right. It’s already worse. The damage is already done, the Republican attacks are working. More than half of people think Biden is corrupt or was involved in his son’s business dealings. It demonstrates the importance of not allowing any attack to go unanswered.

By not engaging in the Hunter Biden stuff, they’ve allowed the vacuum to be filled, and Republicans have filled the vacuum with smears, lies, and conspiracy theories and it’s affecting public opinion. You can’t let any smear or attack go unanswered.

Has the White House been doing enough to prepare for this moment— when the words Biden and impeachment are officially being used in the same sentence? The White House response so far seems to be pretty muted.

I agree, but they’ve done a lot of preparation over the last year, in the event that the Republicans would move forward with an impeachment inquiry, by hiring lawyers and putting a rapid response plan into action. It’s exactly what they should have been doing. It’s reassuring as a Democrat that they’ve been preparing for this for over a year.

That’s why I would think their response would be a bit more robust.

There’s nothing to respond to at the moment. They’re opening an inquiry process. When I was in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, we started that process in September 2019 and that lasted about 6 or 7 weeks. We didn’t vote on whether to hold impeachment hearings until we deposed 20 witnesses over those weeks. Through those witnesses that were deposed over three committees there was more and more credible evidence of abuse of power, and that’s when we decided to hold formal impeachment hearings at the end of October. Right now, after all they’ve done, we’re still in fact-finding mode.

So the White House is in a gray area, a void: the Republicans have escalated the attacks by announcing an impeachment inquiry, implying that there’s more there there, without actually turning much up.

The perception is already there. So I don’t know what they can do at this point. I don’t want to second guess them right now.

You can no longer allow the Republicans who are doing this to define the president and his family. The more disinformation that exists, the more false equivalency to Donald Trump they’re creating. They’ve been successful thus far. You have to be responsive to every charge, every accusation, every piece of disinformation out there. The record should be corrected with rapid response.

We’re in a stage where it’s really hard to take the Republicans seriously because they have no evidence. The more the president elevates it, the more gasoline you are throwing on the fire they’re trying to burn. For right now, I don’t know if I would have the president hit back. I think they’ve missed opportunities to do that in the past, but right now, let’s see what they come up with. Let’s see what they bring to the table. But then we have to answer for it.

It’s kind of a gray area right now, it’s kind of a no man’s land. They’re starting a process. They have nothing to show right now. We have to wait and see what they have to show us.

Republicans have made allegations.

They’ve been making allegations for two years. I don’t see a need to respond.

It’s fine, there’s nothing much more to say. Bill Clinton did his job every day by putting his head down and he had really effective Democratic surrogates in Congress, like Maxine Waters, Bob Wexler, Chuck Schumer, and Barney Frank, who were out there and arguing and fighting for him. And really fighting for him, pushing back.

When Trump was impeached, it was Trump himself pushing back, defending himself against it.

It didn't do him any favors. He was still impeached.

It may have helped him politically.

Speaking out? I don’t know. I don’t know how you respond to nothing.

Republicans are saying that Biden lied when he said he didn't know that his son made money from China and that he lied when he said he wasn’t at a dinner with a Ukrainian associate of Hunter’s.

That’s not a crime. Lying is not a crime. There’s no proof that he lied. [Hunter’s former business partner] Devon Archer said Joe Biden did nothing wrong and said he did nothing wrong. There’s no smoking gun. Nobody understands what they’re trying to say. Are they saying because Hunter made money, sitting on a board or through his various business deals and, you know, gave his father a Christmas gift, that Joe Biden benefited from Hunter Biden’s business dealings and is therefore corrupt? Is that what they’re saying?

Sure, it’s a fishing expedition. They want to impeach him and in the meantime they’re creating a sense that the family has been benefiting. How do you fight that impression?

There’s reporting that shows that Trump is pushing for this. It means that this is solely personal and political, it has nothing to do with Joe Biden being corrupt or breaking the law. It’s about muddying the waters and it’s about driving a stake through Biden’s reputation of dragging him to the level of Trump.

Perhaps that’s why Biden’s latest messaging is that this inquiry is all about McCarthy trying to avert a government shutdown.

This helps the White House because it makes it less of a legal case and more of a political case. It gives them the upper hand to say this is all political; look and see.