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Welcome to the Thursday edition of Bloomberg Sound On. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington. Little Friday with a lot yet to happen today, as we do expect a vote on Israel funding standalone funding in the House of Representatives a bit later on today should happen?
What three four hours from now? Based on what we're hearing in the.
New Speaker of the House held his first news conference as Speaker today says it's time to get this done.
Here's a speaker, Mike Johnson.
Israel doesn't need a ceasefire. It needs its allies to cease what the politics and deliver support now. And that's what we're doing. House Republicans plan to do that. We're going to do it in short order, and it provides Israeli eight. It needs to defend itself, free its hostages and eradicate Hamas, which is a mission that must be accomplished.
But of course it's a far cry from what Joe Biden asked for that one hundred and six billion dollars supplemental that also includes money for Ukraine. You don't need me to go through this whole thing now, if you watch this program, you could probably tell me at this point. And we also have this scoring problem. Remember the CBO yesterday said that this attempt to use IRS money as
an offset would actually increase the deficit significantly. And so Chuck Schumer takes to the Senate floor today to say, we won't even take up this bill. It's already dead on arrival, remembering the President already threatened to veto it.
The Senate will not be considering this deeply flawed proposal from the House GOP, and instead we will work together on our own bypart is an emergency aid package that includes a to Israel, Ukraine, competition with the Chinese government, and humanitarian aid for Gaza, so much needed. Let me say that again, the Senate will not take up the House's GOP's deeply flawed proposal.
Then what are we doing here?
Let's ask Jonathan Tamari from Bloomberg Government, who toils every day on Capitol Hill and has been all over this writing for it about it, I should say, for the Terminal and for Bloomberg dot Com, it's good to see you, Jonathan. We're going to do this, I understand round four thirty in the afternoon. Whether it passes or not, I guess doesn't matter because it's going nowhere.
Is that right?
That seems to be the indication. But look, it takes both sides of Capitol Hill to come up with something. You know, the House is going to most likely pass this. The Senate's going to say it's not going anywhere. The Senate will pass their own version that probably ties together Israel Aid, Ukraine Aid, and a few other priorities, and the House may very well say, well, we're not taking
that piece up. So this is the negotiation. This is These are the same factors that Kevin McCarthy confronted before he was ousted, and then Speaker Johnson replaced him. Ultimately, it often ends up being that the House has to swallow what the Senate can pass because the Senate accent a bipartisan way and the President is a Democrat and aligned with the Senate more. But this is kind of really his first legislative tests that we're seeing him take on as the new speaker.
True enough, and to your point, Tom Cole, Republican Congressman, says, don't send that Senate bill over here here he is earlier today.
What they're proposing on their side is not going to pass over here. And so let's to now and work together. We have a common objective. We all want to support Israel.
Let's do that.
I'm not sure the common objective matters at this point, Jonathan, how do we see this ending? Is there a path at some point for a standalone bill or a conference that puts some of these other items, including Ukraine, into one piece of legislation.
There will certainly be some path, I think on both of these items. Exactly what that looks like is unclear, but look, pass sending aid to Israel is probably one of the most popular things that Congress can do right now, the things that would have the most partying support. Whether that's tied in with other priorities or if it's standalone by itself, it's something virtually every member of Congress wants to do. Ukraine is a little more controversial, but there's
still support in both parties for supporting Ukraine. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been a big proponent of it, So I think in the end, given the number of people who want to see this happen, I think they do both pass at some point, but it could be a rocky road to get there, and it is certainly going to test how Johnson negotiates with the Senate, negotiates with Chuck Schumer, and how he manages his own conference where Ukraine aid is less popular than it is among
Senate Republicans.
Well, as you write on the terminal, Jonathan, a great story, Mike Johnson quickly facing the same forces that slammed McCarthy. We think about how he could be jammed by the Senate. We also think about a government shutdown potentially. What are we sixteen days away at this point? The new speakers talking about a ladder cr Democrats say they don't even know.
What that is.
Is a shutdown more likely today? As this conversation continues.
You know, I think a shutdown is maybe a little less likely overall than we feared back in September, when I think most people thought there would be a shutdown and it ended up being averted. I think Johnson has a little more credibility with his right wing to make a deal with the Senate. Kevin McCarthy, remember, was never trusted by the right wing, so anytime he came back with a compromise, they were outraged. Johnson starts with some trust, so they might give him a little more leeway to
make a short term deal. They know they wasted three weeks just without a speaker, not even being able to advance any kind of spending bills, and I think he wants to avoid a shutdown. He doesn't want to shut down to be, you know, the first major result that he's responsible for as the House speaker. So I think ultimately they find a way to kick this into next year, but there will be some long, tough negotiations and certainly some brainsmanship over the next two weeks.
Great reporting, Jonathan, find him on the Terminal, as I mentioned in Bloomberg dot com, covering this every day on the hill for Bloomberg Government. Jonathan Tamori, We thank you as we turn to the situation in Israel, and we're going to talk about all this coming up with our panel, Rick and Genie. The headline on the Terminal, troops encircle
Gaza City as death toll climbs. Great questions about what this next phase is going to look like in the coming days that we want to talk about with Michael Knights of the Washington Institute, the Jill and Jay Bernstein fellow, who specializes in the military and security affairs and has spent a career becoming an expert in Iran's proxies around the globe. Michael, it's good to see you and thank
you for your time today. As this ground operation, which we'll call it now instead of an invasion I think, continues. You see troops circling Gaza City. What is it exactly that they are preparing for and what's going to happen in the next couple of days.
The first thing they're doing is what we call isolating the battlefield, and that means Israeli has already controlled the offshore environment, the coastline. Now they're also driving a corridor south of Gaza City so that Gaza City cannot be reinforced by Hamas forces in the south of the Gaza Strip. Now, let's civilian's doubt, but they won't let military reinforcements in for Hamas and then in the other parts of the
northern Gaza Strip, what Gaza City is. They're also creating lodgments there that we call tactical assembly areas, which means a cleared area which has been fortified, where you can forward base your troops and then when they make sorties into Gaza City and come back at night, they have a secure base from which to operate.
Lot says that it's attacking israel barracks, Israeli barracks near the Lebanese border, and we keep seeing these headlines about skirmishes to the north. Michael, are you more concerned about Hamas or Hezbolah when you consider the idea of escalation, I'm actually.
More concerned about who they's in Yemen who are starting to throw ballistic missiles and crussols at Israel, and about the prospect of the front on the Israeli Syrian border called the Golan kicking off. Also, there's that part of occupied West Bank in Israel where many of the Postinians there, non ha mass Palestinians might start to really serious rioting.
So in some ways I'm less concerned about the you know, the Hezbola right next door or the Iranians getting involved, because both of those groups have got a lot to lose if they were in a knockdown drug out or with Israel. Whereas they're very willing to fight to the last Syria, in the last Iraqi, in the last Yemen, or indeed the last Palestinian to weaken Israel and damaged reputation of Israel in the US.
Well, I'll tell you that who these as you mentioned have have declared war for whatever that is worth or what it means against Israel. And we have seen repeated strikes from Israel and the US in fact in Syria. What is it that we should be looking for? As you mentioned the goal on heights and the skirmishes we're seeing in Syria, what could that turn into?
What we're really looking at Amongst all of the rumback factions is a way of looking like they're supporting Harms and not letting her mass down. But reality is they're doing what you would call casualty limiting attacks on the United States, in other words, quite carefully calibrated attacks that are not into need to actually kill Americans to draw heavy retaliation. They're staying away from places like Embassy Baghdad in Iraq by mutual agreements between the RAM and the
United States. So you know, at the present time it looks crazy, but it's actually a bit more controlled than people think. Even leblisas buller and it's fighting with the Israelis on the border has quite well established rules and they've been doing this a long time. So yes, rockets and missiles flying back and forth, but almost all the players seem to be focused on limiting the intensity and the geographic broadening of this conflict, whilst not being seen
to let down their partners. For instance, Hamas, You've.
Been tracking anti US strikes in Iraq and Syria for the past couple of weeks. It's important research that you're doing as part of the Malicious Spotlight that'll point people to at your website Washington Institute dot org. What's the trajectory here. Have you seen an increase or is it's been kind of a steady drip so far of attacks in Syria and Iraq.
Well, it's been very steady. For the first time since twenty twenty one, we've seen, you know, a surge of Syria, of attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria. Key trend is that most of the action is moving to Syria at the moment because Syria is a sort of failed state environment where we don't recognize the sovereignty of the Syrian government, so we can all fight freely there. The Iranian backed groups can fight freely there. They don't
have to worry about the sad regime. And we can fight freely there because we don't have to worry about getting kicked out of the country as we would in Iraq if we started dropping bombs there. So you know, Syria is really where a lot of it is headed. What's really interesting is that last night, for the first time, we didn't get any new attacks on US forces in
Iraq called Syria. And after you know, over a week and a half of attacks every day, multiple attacks, four or five to get none feels a little bit like when the tide recedes right ahead of a tsunami. It almost feels like someone's taking breath and might be a bit of a rocky weekend ahead.
Well that's a scary thought, like someone who's taking a breath. So put this together for us, Michael Knights, do all these attacks, all the proxy groups that we have mentioned suggest a de facto declaration of war by Iran?
Are we missing the ball on this?
Well?
It's a de facto declaration of proxy war. And what that really means is this, the Iranians have already gained a lot of what they want from this conflict. Saudi
Israel US normalization might be wrecked for a while. Arab world's extremely angry in America and Israel, and a heavy blow was landed on Israel the military defeat on October the seventh, At the moment Hamasku probably disappeared in the face of the earth, and Iran will still chalk this one up as a wind so they don't need to put their own homeland security in Iran or His Bullet survival on the line for this one. They just need to keep this new story going using all these lower level tactics.
Do we need to put our security on the line here in the US?
I think the movement of the US carry a battle groups and the very heavy build up in the Middle East has shown the Iranians and His Bullet that they can't launch a new blow against Israel, and it probably has effectively kept them out of the war. They would have been tempted to come in heavier if they had not seen US come in so heavy. So I think
what we've done has been quite effective. From deterring the big war, you know, we can't deter the small war quite as effectively, these kind of low casualty or no casualty strikes on the US that mainly signal defiance.
Michael, I'm glad you could join us and appreciate your sharing your expertise with us. Michael Knights the Washington Institute where he works as a fellow, bringing expertise here on Iranian proxies and exactly what is happening now on the ground in Gaza. We're going to bring this to the panel next, as the House of Representatives prepares to vote on Israel funding in a maneuver that appears to be dead on arrival already in the Senate, the President says
he'll vet to it. So what is the plan to help? I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington. Rick and Jeanie are on the way in next. On the fastest show in politics, This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch the program live weekdays at one Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Big day for the new Speaker of the House.
He's had the job for well all of one week, and he's bringing this bill to the floor knowing that it's likely not going anywhere if.
It passes the House. This is Israel.
We're talking about Speaker Johnson holding his first news conference today and he held fourth flank by Republican leadership up there in the gallery and let everyone know his plan for today.
Then Democrats take their turn. That's the way this works.
Everyone clears out, the Minority Party comes in, Pete Aguilar not having any of it.
We're learning a lot about this new speaker this week with these first legislative decisions, and this has been a complete and total disaster. We look forward to working in a bipartisan way to send aid to our allies abroad, but this bill today is not that vehicle.
A complete and total disaster. As we assemble our panel, Jeanie Shanzano and Rick Davis.
Are with us.
Glad to say Bloomberg Politics contributors. Great to have you both here. Jeanie, I spent a little bit of time with Nancy Pelosi earlier today. She held a briefing for a group of reporters in downtown Washington, and I asked her if it was possible for an election denier to succeed as Speaker of the House. She took a second, and she said, Republicans wanted Donald Trump to be their speaker. Remember, well they got him.
Was she right?
Yeah, nobody is the original Donald Trump, and many people have tried. But she's right to the effect that they do have a speaker now who took steps to you know, decertify the election, and most prominently in trying to support Ken Paxton, the attorney general from Texas, with this very bizarre effort to overturn the results from four other states. I mean, it's one of the most confounding things. Republicans used to be all about states, right, and there they
go trying to overturn the elections from other states. So this is part of who we have as a speaker. Many of us were not familiar with Mike Johnson before this. Pelosi certainly was, and now we are learning a lot more and he is there. But you know, she is right to the extent that this is what the Republicans could finally agree on. This is who rather they could finally agree on somebody who is conservative and he is
an election denier in twenty twenty. And he's also somebody who has taken steps like you know, defund the IRS and all of these efforts defund in terms of the IRS agent. So you know, this is who he is, and they got what they paid for, and he's in the same situation that Kevin McCarthy was. None of those things have changed.
So what do you make of this exercise today? Rick Chuck Schumer says Senate won't take up the House bill. Joe Biden says he'll veto it. Is this just a matter of the Speaker getting something on the getting a win on the board, then we go on and have a more serious conversation about working in bicameral fashion here.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I don't think this is anything that's unusual at all between the House and the Senate. That's why they have this conference process, you know, where confers from the House and the Senate hammer out differences in the legislation.
You know, the Senate sent a incredibly bipartisan I think eighty five votes for their bill that they passed last night on some of the appropriations material, and that does send the signals to the House that you've got this big bipartisan margin in the Senate, so you at least know that anything you come up with that's got Senate
support's going to pass widely. And Speaker Johnson reassured the Senate say when he met with him that he was going to give it an open vote on the Ukraine, and we know that if the House is able to vote on Ukraine that without just Republican votes, then yeah, it's likely to have three hundred vote margin in the House. So the reality is, I think we're a lot closer getting something done. And you know, you know, like Genie's
quick to throw Johnson out of the bus. That's the new thing for Democrats to do, and makes sense politically to do it. But for three weeks all we heard was just pick anybody, anybody, and it'll be great. And now we got anybody, and he's not good enough. The reality is that, you know, nobody saw this one coming, but he's making progress and I think he just kind of ignore the noise. I mean that the irs deal is just noise.
Just noise, and so let's talk about maybe what else could be there as an offset. Tom Cole talked about this, Rick, this is of course, well, I guess an elder statesman in this House of Representatives, he likes.
The idea of offsets.
I know that this is controversial for emergency spending, and he's suggesting if you don't like this, irs, they well, maybe there's something else out there.
Here's Tom Cole from early We would.
Prefer, obviously that we have an offset, and we proposed one. There's a variety of potential products, but it makes sense. We have lots of unspent money. Why not use that and direct it to Israel.
Support lots of unspent money. Genie.
He's suggesting there are options here. Should Democrats be having this conversation? What would you like to see?
Absolutely, they should have a conversation about responsible offsets. That's absolutely what should be happening. And it has been a long term problem in both sides and both sides of the Aisle, and in both the House and the Senate. I do have to say to my dear friend Rick Davis, I was not one of the people saying select anyone by any means, nor did I throw Mike Johnson under the bus reiterating what somebody has stood for in their professional career is not that he was an election denier.
He still is, and he wants to put as a responsible speaker. He wants to do offsets with the irs, which everybody agrees is not going to offset anything but add to the deficit. So I don't think I'm throwing anybody under the bus. Far from it. I think he should be very very clear. If he is really intending to be fiscally responsible, then he should do that. And
I absolutely agreed Democrats should be having that conversation. And no, no, no, I never said just choose anyone and anything would be great.
Far from it.
All right, this is not going to help everyone get along here because I've got to talk about impeachment. Mike Johnson, of course, was asked about this. Surely in his first news conference, he would be knowing that this impeachment inquiry could turn into a real, full blown impeachment trial. We don't know about that. But last evening, I don't know if you guys saw this. Speaker Johnson hosted Sean Hannity, apparently the mascot of the House, and they had, like
the entire conference on Fox. At one point Hannity asked all of them, how many see this impeachment procedinging forward and would support that? Almost every hand went up, if not every hand. Johnson spoke to that today with reporters.
Serious.
What you're seeing right now is a deliberate constitutional process that was envisioned by the founders, the framers of the Constitution. This is how they envisioned this to go, not the way the Democrats did it. Snap impeachments, sham impeachments, and
all the rest. So I know that I know that people are anxious about it, but I will say Chairman Comber, Chairman Jordan, and Judiciary Chairman Smith in ways and means they've done an extraordinary job, very methodically, and I would say outside the scope of politics, that's.
Not exactly what we heard after the one hearing that was held by the Oversight Committee. Rick, do you think that this impeachment inquiry actually turns into an impeachment?
Yeah, I mean it has the potential to do that. I mean, you know, just to correct the speaker, maybe he wasn't in the chamber at the time, but it was a snap impeachment decision by then Speaker McCarthy who said he would never do it and that would open it up to the floor for a vote, and he didn't do that. So there is a bit of a history here that needs to be pointed out. Not much different than frankly, what Nancy Pelosi did. So you know, that's a little bit of baggage to carry into this process.
No question that it was all put on the back burner, you know when Jim Jordan launched his career to be a Speaker of the House, and maybe if he had become speaker would have all gone away, because I'm not sure who the chairman of the Juiciary Committee would have been then. But look, they've got an enormous amount of work to be done, and I think Speaker Johnson is owing to the political realities of his caucuses sewn by the you know, everybody raising their hand with Hannity asking
the question. The reality is they just don't have time to do it between now and the end of the year unless they decide that they're just going to bail on everything else they're doing. And frankly, they don't have that option either. So I would be I would be amazed if they're able to get anything done before the end of this session.
I wish I had more time on this, genie.
But what does a speaker Johnson meant for an impeachment against Joe Biden?
You know, I don't think it makes that much of a difference. I do think they could potentially have the votes to impeach. I think the sad reality is is impeachment, which was seldom used as we know throughout American history on both sides of the Aisle, has now become a tool, you know, and they're using it to attack each other, and that is shameful and it's not the way it should be. I oppose the first impeachment of Trump, and
unless they have evidence against Joe Biden. If they do, I would support it, but they got to bring it forward. But vote wise, they might have the votes to do this, and I think Republicans would rue the day because it's not going to go very far in the Senate, but waste an awful lot of time.
We turn our attention to the coach coming up next. It was a late night and probably not a very fun one for Tommy Tuberville. It was less fun for his Republican colleagues on the Senate floor.
They've had it.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound on podcast five weekdays at one Eastern, Bloomberg dot Com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business app where there's non demand, wherever you get your podcasts.
With breaking news from the Senate today, ninety five to one the vote to confirm Admiral Lisa Francetti to be the next Chief of Naval Operations, the first woman to be a US military service chief. It actually happened today amid a temporary break from the Tommy Tubberville blockade. And this is what had Republicans in a lather last night on the Senate floor. Imagine this went on for five hours. They decided at last to dare Tommy Tuberville to do what he said he would actually allow and let these
promotions come to the floor one by one. It just didn't work out that way. Listen to Maggie Hassen presiding over the Senate with an objection from the senator from Alabama, remembering he's blocking these promotions in protest of the Pentagon's abortion travel policy.
Let's go to the Senate.
Is there objection?
I'm President. This senator from Alabama object objection is heard.
From Alaska.
Thank you, amount of President. And just for people who are watching, that last nominee fifth fleet commander. So you may have heard there's two carrier strike groups in the Middle East. That's the naval officer who would be in charge of all of them right there. We could have put him in charge. Pretty important to have fifth fleet commander ready to go and just objected to I'm not sure why again we're bringing these up one by one.
Which is what I thought.
My colleague from Alabama said he was good to go with.
It's what we did think. Senator Joni aren't the same looking right at Tommy Tarberthville.
It is really unfortunate that tonight these men and women have been denied their promotions. We have done the best that we can to honor the request of a fellow senator that these nominations be brought to the floor and voted on individually. And I really respect men of their word. I do not respect men who do not honor their word.
Wow, So we assemble the panel. Rick Davis and Genie Shanzeno. Rick Lindsay Graham says, I've been trying to work with his times, speaking directly at Tommy Turberville sitting in the chamber, trying to work with you for months on this, but you're actually impacting readiness and some of these promotions that are stalled will actually lead service members to leave the military because at a certain point, if they're not served, that'll be the option. Was this a breakthrough last night?
We actually he saw someone confirmed today. What happens next?
Well, I think that Comrad Tubberville, China's favorite senator, is finally starting to quote feel the heat. He said last week that he's going to continue to block these nominations because he doesn't feel the heat. And I think that was a good message to the Senate, saying, unless you turn up the gas, the temperature in the Senate's not going to be enough to get me to cave. He
did go back on his word. He has been telling people as part of his sort of spin that if you want to take him up one by one, I'm happy to do it. And they did that and he
didn't do it. I would remind him too that these are all people that you mentioned, Sullivan, Jony Ernst, Lindsey Graham who throughout their career in the Senate have also served in the reserve forces of our military, people who have actually given time out of their Senate career to support the military, and they would have better unders standing and the need and readiness of the military of these confirmations and anybody else standing in the well of the
Senate that night, and they vociferously argued against Comrade Tubberville.
So didn't seem to be any break.
If it was gonna cave a Comrade Tubberville wild have caved last night. But I think that Republicans and said are going to have to find other means to do this, and the practicality of doing it by one by one like they did with the new Chief of Naval Operations last night, just isn't practical at a time when we have to pass important legislation to support our allies around the world and fund our government.
Well once snuck through Genie Democrats want to bring them in one big block to the floor, is that the way this ends because they need Republican help.
To do that.
They do, and when we got this proposal out by Reid and Cinema, and it makes sense that they would essentially be able to vote them on Blanc. I mean, to Rick's point, it is just not feasible that now and I believe over three hundred of these promotions that have been just languishing now for nine months, that you could go through this one at a time. I mean, it is a good sign that this vote happened today
and they were able to get one person through. But you imagine repeating that, and if you try to go the way they did last night, Tupperville is going to stand up and he is going to object. You know, I think one of the most stunning things he said last night was this you know, fiasco that he's created has not impacted military readiness, and the reality from everybody
in the military is quite the contrary. And you know, you look at one of the things that seemed to spark the Republican group from Collins to Joni Ernst and Mitt Romney and Todd Young and all the others to join and really do something you see more in the House than he was doing the Senate, which is to this sort of intra party, you know, a Republican on Republican attack. Was because of what happened to this Marine commandant who because the promotions have been stalled was working
two jobs and suffered a heart attack. And you know, this is just happened recently. It's been widely discussed and it's widely used as an example of this is one case of many of what this holding up of these promotions are doing. And of course the reality is, and I think it was Lindsey Graham who said this, but the argument they were making yesterday was you were holding up the careers and lives of people who had nothing
to do with this policy. All the people standing their last week are opposed to abortion, but this is not the way to do it, and you're doing it at a time when we have chaos around the world. We have troops now spread out all over the world. They are needed, and you can't continue without people receiving their proper promotions. So it's well beyond time that Coach Tupperville has stopped in this one man crusade.
Genni referring to General Eric Smith and paring cardiac arrest on Sunday. Does that light a fire here?
Rick?
We're out of time. But does this create a new sense of urgency?
H for sure.
I think all of these things are bringing to bear a emergency that exists within a Department of Defense that needs to be alleviated.
Everyone's got a plan until something like this happens. Rick Davis and Genie Shanzano. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound On podcast. Catch the program live weekdays at one Eastern.
On Bloomberg Radio, the tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Welcome to our two of Bloomberg Sound On. I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington, joined now by Kaylee Lines. Just hours away from a vote on the House floor on Israel funding, We're going to talk about this right now. Kaylee, welcome back to the conversation with the gentlewoman from Florida. We go to Capitol Hill now to have a conversation with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
It's great to see you, Congresswoman.
Is we get the view from Democrats here and your new Speaker of the House and what's about to happen. I know this is not what you were looking for. Chuck Schumer says it's not going to fly in the Senate. Joe Biden says he's going to veto it. Will you vote for standalone Israel funding today?
You know, I am gravely concerned that Speaker Johnson has decided for the first time ever, even though I'm sure that he's sat across his desk from pro Israel supporters in his community and committed to them that he would never vote to condition aid to Israel, And yet that's exactly what he's putting on the floor today. It's unprecedented
and dangerous. He is actually putting a quote pay for on the bill that doesn't actually pay for anything, blows up the deficit and jeopardizes Israel and the future of Israel's security.
But be that as it may, Congresswoman, it still would provide funding for Israel. What is a moment of need? So is that a no, you wouldn't vote for this.
I believe it's essential that we put on the floor the President's entire Emergency Supplemental Security Package, which ensures that we fully fund Israel's needs in the worst crisis that any Jews have faced since the Holocaust, that we make sure that we're standing strongly in support of Ukraine and not allowing either terrorists like Hamas or tyrants like Putin to win, and certainly to make sure that we keep
China at bay by providing security to Taiwan. And then you know, we've got to also think about the disasters that have occurred across the country, whether it's hurricanes in Florida or wildfires in Hawaii in California. So we have a lot more to do, and it's shortsighted to just put this bill on the floor with a deficit busting provision that is jeopardizing it israel security. So I support strongly making sure that Israel has what it needs to
defend itself. And I'm sure I'm going to have an opportunity to vote for that at some point.
So it sounds like a know on this one today you might have heard earlier from Tom Cole. He says, the Senate bill, the one that you're describing, and we've talked a lot about it here on the program with regard to Ukraine, Taiwan and border security. Congresswoman, and he says that bill won't pass the House, So what's the pathway here to get all this done?
That bill will passed the House if it comes to the floor of the House. The only way it doesn't pass the House, because there is a majority of the House of Representatives that supports funding for Ukraine, is if Speaker Johnson makes a decision to put a bill that has the entire package from the President, fights Putin and Hamas and keeps China at bay, and takes care of the natural disasters that dozens of our communities across the country desperately need relief from, puts it on the floor
and allows a majority of the House of Representatives to say that they support it, then going to go to President's Biden deskin, He'll sign it into law. That's how we can do that. That's how the democratic process works.
And we are just hearing from the White House National Security spokesperson Admiral Kirby again reiterating that Biden would veto a bill that only funds Israel. It just becomes a question though congresswomen of expediency. There has been a lot of hiccups in the House in recent weeks, partially because there was no speaker. There is now and he clearly
wants to do this in a single bill. So is there a point at which it just becomes too urgent to get this funding to Israel, as that is a live, hot conflict ongoing right now where things would change for you.
This is very simple. Even if Speaker Johnson wanted to do it as a single bill, Why is he conditioning eid? Why is he adding IRS cuts? I mean that's like having a restaurant.
Okay, if I could just clarify, that's not your issue. Primarily is the pay for not taking these as single subjects. If it was a single subject for Israel.
I don't think it should be a single subject. I think the whole package should come. But it certainly makes it deeply problematic to put it on the floor when he has a bit a pay for that blows up the deficit, that sets a dangerous precedent. And uh and that is grossly irresponsible.
Congressman.
Earlier today on the floor, Sure Pete Aguilar said that that the new speaker is a total disaster.
Are Democrats are going to give him a chance?
Or is this is already not working, Congresswoman, based on what you're hearing from Mike.
Johnson, I mean he certainly does. It hasn't started out with a responsible step foot forward, we could have had a four hundred plus member vote in support of aid to Israel in her hour of need, and instead he's playing political games and using Israel as a political wedge. Not a very good telegraph of things to come. We'll see what happens, but we've got a looming government shutdown.
Let's hope that we can come together and ensure that we don't plunge our economy into disaster by doing something like that.
So congressom an aside from the question of providing funding for Israel, they're also are just questions surrounding the conflict Israel is currently engaged in. There is reporting today that Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln, when he makes a trip there tomorrow, is going to be pushing the Israeli government to essentially make a series of pauses in their strikes to allow humanitarian aid in and to allow hostages to get out. Do you think at that point, at this point,
that is an appropriate strategy. Should Israel be taking any pauses here?
Israel is a sovereign nation and they need to be able to make sure that they can defend themselves and make their own decisions about how best to do that.
The goal here must be to eradicate Hamas. You have only to look at the video that the Hamas spokesperson did with a news interview in which he said the Hamas attacks from ten to seven were the first time, but there will be a second, and a third and a thousandth time, because they will go after Israelis and try to eradicate Israel and kill Jews until we're all dead and until Israel is gone. So this is not something that we just you know, shrug our shoulders and
it's one and done. They are telling us what they're going to do, and Israel has to be able to eradicate Hamas, and certainly we need to make sure we protect innocent Palestinian lives. We need to free Gaza from Hamas, and we need to make sure that we can get humanitarian aid in there, as long as it's not going to strengthen Hamas instead of weaken it.
There have been some questions about some of the rhetoric that we've heard about the Israelis from some progressive Democrats, including Rashida to leave, and I know that the House chose to reject an effort to censure her. I wonder your thoughts on that vote, congress Woman, where you came down on it, and how concerned you are about what appears to be an alarming level of anti Semitism growing in this country.
The alarming level of anti Semitism is something that is causing Jews across this country to clutch our hearts in fear. We have and I have two Jewish college students on a college campus myself. I have a son and a daughter in college, and it is so frightening to see the videos that you have Jewish students attending college who are being surrounded by pro Palestinian protesters who are shouting from the river to the sea, which essentially means that
Israel should be eradicated. The dangerous anti Semitism that is spread and propagated online through TikTok and the algorithms of the social media companies has to be stopped. And thankfully we have a president who put forth a national strategy to combat anti sis Semitism. But we need all of our colleagues to dial down the rhetoric and not fan
the flames to make things worse. We have to come together and really sit down and demonstrate that we're all for peace, that we all want to make sure that we condemn terrorism and that we fight either to terrorism and the tyrant in Russia, and ensure that we can promote democracy here and around the world. That should be all of our priorities.
Well, congresswomen, as you do, try to prioritize those issues in Congress. There are also a number of maybe distractions, if you will, that your body has been dealing with, including last night dealing with the expulsion resolution for Republican Congressman George Santos. Do you have any idea why thirty one of your colleagues decided against voting for that.
You know, I did speak to a number of my colleagues and there were some that were concerned about the precedent that would set to vote to expel a member who had not actually been convicted. The majority of us did vote to expel him, but it takes two thirds, and you know, I can understand the intellectual argument. I voted to expel him, and I voted to expel him because I felt that he was elected on entirely false pretenses.
He his voters were forced to basically vote for a fabrication, not for who George Santos really is, which is clearly a fraud and a cheat and a criminal. So I had some colleagues on both sides of the aisle that I think felt that explosion was only warranted, like the two other times that it has been done in the history, when someone is convicted.
Obviously, when it's good to see you, I know you have to run for votes. So we'll let you do that now. W Wasserman Schelt's Democrat from Florida with us here on Bloomberg. I'm Jill Matthew in Washington alongside Kaylee Lines. And so there's there's a no yeah on this bill today that that may not be able to pass the House, never mind vote anywhere beyond the House.
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