Pelosi vs McCarthy: A tale of two leaders and why GOP will win big in the midterm elections

Ben Domenech, co-founder of The Federalist, asked Federalist senior editor and Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway to make a few predictions in politics for 2022. Here is what she had to say on the latest episode of "The Ben Domenech Podcast" on Fox News Podcasts+.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: It's an obvious one, and I think everyone is expecting this, but Republicans will have an extremely good November. They will have a massive takeover of the House of Representatives, and they're on pretty good footing in the Senate as well. And that's true, even though there have been a lot of changes to election laws that advantage Democrats and that the recent gerrymandering battles have gone in Democrats' favor. The failure of Democratic uniparty control of D.C. is so profound and so undeniable that Republicans will benefit mightily.

BEN DOMENECH: I don't think that that will surprise many people. Do you have a prediction? Do you have anything in particular that you're paying attention to or that you're interested in coming out of this coming year, election-wise — a race potentially or a factor that could play out across the country?

HEMINGWAY: Not really, but I do find it interesting — I just was thinking about this issue of how Kevin McCarthy has handled his leadership of his caucus versus Nancy Pelosi. And, you know, I'm sure there's plenty of criticism you can make of Kevin McCarthy for all sorts of things, but he really has done a good job of recruiting candidates for districts, of knowing what is important for each individual district, managing the caucus so that people can kind of be their own best version of themselves. 

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And I was thinking back to how he handled the first impeachment trial when he had to put together a roster for him for the impeachment committee, which was being run through intelligence. And he kept everybody on the committee if they wanted to stay on, even if they were kind of the never-Trump variety. He also took voluntary, temporary reassignments from some if they didn't want to be on it. You know what, he kept Jim Jordan on. Jim Jordan ran against Kevin McCarthy for the leadership post, but he has kept Jim Jordan close as an ally, like actually listening to him and his concerns, putting him on [House] government reform and oversight {committee], and now having him as the ranking member of [House] Judiciary [Committee]. 

And compare that to Nancy Pelosi, how she's handling her Jan. 6 star chamber commission. And she actually kind of harmed a bunch of people. There was the Florida rep who was the rising star — I forget her name — who was placed on the committee, and she actually just announced that not only is she not going to run against Marco Rubio for the Senate, as a lot of people expected she would. She's not even running for reelection.

And you know, you shouldn't put vulnerable people like that on a committee. And then she also put — it's [Rep. Elaine] Luria, I think, is her name — who's in Virginia, whose congressional district just went for [Glenn] Youngkin. She's going to be in a really tough race. 

And so I'm kind of curious about just those general trends and how those borderline Democrats will fare in November.

DOMENECH: Well, I know as someone who doesn't normally make predictions, I think you've made a pretty safe one this time around. That’s why you probably are a better gambler than I am, Mollie. Anything else?

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HEMINGWAY: Yeah, I just would say that Stephanie Murphy is the Florida rep who announced she's not even bothering to run for reelection. 

Yeah, I think the Supreme Court will have a very interesting term and something that pro-life activists and other human rights activists have cared about for a very long time — which is moving away from the Roe v. Wade jurisprudence that the Supreme Court put the country into in 1973 — I think that will finally go away in June when they rule on the Dobbs case [Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]. And I think that is long past due.

There were no redeeming qualities to Roe v. Wade, but the one thing that it was supposed to do was keep the court from having to be involved in abortion jurisprudence, and it failed miserably at that. And even attempts to hold on to Roe in recent years thought that it could once again try to keep the court from having to litigate this or deal with this issue every year and not just continue to fail. 

And so I think everyone on the court understands that a change needs to be made and that a majority of justices will take the constitutional approach of understanding that the court does not really have a role in this and might return it even to the states or come up with something else that will be a better situation than what we've been under for a long time.

DOMENECH: That is a momentous change, one that I know a lot of people are eager to see happen. And others are very worried, particularly within the political consultant class, about what it's going to do to roil the elections in 2022. Mollie, thank you for your predictions.

HEMINGWAY: No, wait, Ben, I have one more. 

DOMENECH: Oh, you had one more? OK, great. I thought you didn't do these.

HEMINGWAY: OK, this — this one's a really important one. I predict Hunter Biden will get off without any prosecution from the feds, as he's being investigated right now for some of the crimes involved with the Biden family business. And I predict — and this is also a pretty safe prediction — that nothing will be done about it.

DOMENECH: That does seem safe as well, Mollie. And sadly, sadly so. Though I guess we can look forward to appreciating his art for many decades to come. 

HEMINGWAY: Indeed. 

DOMENECH: Thank you so much for taking the time to join. 

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