Bush Booed At Obama Inauguration

Inside The Tea Party's Rising Influence

The battle over the debt ceiling may be over, but Congress remains deeply divided.

"Republicans are now taking a well-deserved victory lap while the Democrats are in a state of near total dejection," says journalist Robert Draper. "The Republicans got some cuts, they kept some revenue off the table but most of all, what they've done is dramatically shift the ethos in Washington."

Draper recently profiled the House Majority Whip in a New York Times magazine article entitled "How Kevin McCarthy Wrangles the Tea Party in Washington." On today's Fresh Air, Draper joins Terry Gross for a conversation about the relationship House Republican leaders have with the Tea Party freshmen who swept into office during the midterm elections. Draper points out that the 87 new members of the House constitute more than a third of the 239-member Republican caucus and are the reason the GOP now controls the House.

"Nearly 40 percent of them are self-styled 'citizen politicians' who have never held office and who rode into Washington on the Tea Party wave," he writes. "For now, however, they ... constitute the most formidable power bloc on Capitol Hill."

Draper is working on a forthcoming book about the House of Representatives. He is also the author of the book Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush .

Interview Highlights

On failing to raise the debt ceiling

"I think that the vast majority of Republicans did care. They did see consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling, whether those consequences would come into effect on August 2 or two weeks later or a month later. Nonetheless, they had twinned the devastation of failing to raise the debt ceiling with the devastation that they believed would arise if significant financial reforms did not take place. ... All along they seemed to realize that President Obama was not going to allow, on his watch, the US to lose it's AAA rating, would not allow America to default on its obligations. That became the brinksmanship. There was a lot of sweating but all along, there was a thought on the part of the Republicans that President Obama would play ball at the very end because he would have no choice.