Shocks and surprises covering House Republicans for The Hill

This is one in a series of op-eds celebrating The Hill's 30th anniversary.

I knew things would get interesting when I accepted a job with The Hill covering House Republicans in the summer of 2014. But I couldn’t anticipate just how wild the next seven years would be.

A Tea Party wave had swept a number of fiscally conservative rebels into office during the previous two election cycles. Ambitious folks looking to take on the establishment — and make a name for themselves — like Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) and Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.).

The following January, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and a handful of other conservative bomb-throwers would form a new group, the House Freedom Caucus, that would change Republican politics in the Capitol. If these disparate rebels banded together and voted as a bloc, they realized they had the power to shape policy, or at least make life miserable for their own leadership.

A series of stunning events soon followed. The wily, press-friendly Meadows dropped a bombshell, filing a motion-to-vacate resolution to oust Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). The morning after hosting Pope Francis at the Capitol, Boehner, a devout Catholic, said he would resign rather than throw the House into turmoil with a protracted floor fight for the gavel.

Then came an even bigger surprise. Instead of going through with the election to succeed Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told colleagues just before they cast their ballots that he wasn’t the right guy at this time and was dropping out of the race.

Then-Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.) walked out and broke the news to reporters: “McCarthy dropped out.” “Say that again?” I replied, to make sure I had heard him right. McCarthy was out, he repeated; the House was back in a state of chaos.

I immediately called Managing Editor Ian Swanson and told him what I had just learned. His headline properly captured the moment: “Shock! McCarthy drops Speaker bid.”

McCarthy’s feud with the Freedom Caucus in 2015 would foreshadow his epic showdowns with House Freedom Caucus leaders and other far-right agitators in this Congress that ultimately led to his own ouster as Speaker a year ago.

In between, we saw Donald Trump win the presidency and dominate Republicans on Capitol Hill. There was the 2017 Congressional Baseball shooting in Alexandria, Va., that nearly took the life of then-Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and rattled Washington. There was also the impeachment of Trump over allegations he had withheld military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden.

I’ve sat next to my Hill colleague and friend Mike Lillis for years in a windowless media space in the basement of the Capitol that we affectionately call “The Cave.” In 2020, we reflected on the scope of major stories we had covered while at The Hill. They included coup attempts against the sitting speaker, a horrific assassination attempt, the impeachment of a president and Congress’s efforts to respond to a deadly global pandemic.

Nothing could surprise us after all that, we told each other. We were wrong. On Jan. 6, 2021, thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to stop lawmakers’ certification of Biden’s victory.

The fighting was upstairs but Lillis and I witnessed some awful things even in the building’s basement. We saw Capitol Police officers dragging a colleague’s limp body to safety, like a scene from a war zone; another officer doused his eyes with water after being hit with bear or pepper spray.

The cops were retreating and yelling at us to run too. We hunkered down in The Cave for hours that afternoon and evening, while other colleagues sought refuge in other parts of the complex or covered the riot outside the Capitol.

Later, we documented our experiences that day for The Hill — and the historical record.

These stories represent just a small part of the publication’s stellar 30 years of coverage in Washington. But I’m grateful to The Hill — and editors Bob Cusack and Ian Swanson — for giving me a front-row seat to history and allowing me to share some of the most important political stories of our lifetime with our readers.

Scott Wong is a senior congressional reporter for NBC News. Wong was a senior staff writer at The Hill from August 2014 to January 2022.