Meridian Huddle: 2022 Capitol Hill Priorities with Anna Palmer, CEO of Punchbowl News  

On January 19, 2022, Meridian International Center hosted Capitol Hill Priorities for 2022 with Anna Palmer, CEO of Punchbowl News for a fireside chat moderated by Puru Trivedi, Meridian’s Vice President of External and Corporate Affairs. Punchbowl News is a non-partisan content and news establishment focused on “Power, People, and Politics” which launched on January, 3, 2021. This online media platform provides members with daily news on leaders and current events in Washington, D.C. It is used equally by Democrats and Republicans alike, as Punchbowl News prides itself on sharing unbiased and non-judgmental content for all its members.  

The discussion focused on Palmer’s journey launching Punchbowl News and her opinion on Capitol Hill’s current situation. Several questions were posed regarding Palmer’s perspective on America’s reaction to the change in presidential leadership this past year and how the media is portraying discourses between political leaders. Palmer often encouraged the audience to consider how Capitol Hill’s priorities will affect future events as she emphasized that the way Capitol Hill moves forward is what is most important. Additional comments about voting rights, filibuster and domestic lobbying were also discussed.  

In a year from now, Palmer believes that Capitol Hill will still be debating many of the same topics without making much progress including inflation, government spending, the role of the economy and social issues. In her opinion, many of these issues will not be resolved anytime soon so she poses two important question to consider: how will Congress look this time next year and will we still be talking about COVID-19?