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Return to our other top story here, and it brings us to the Supreme Court oral arguments now underway a couple of hours now in Trump versus Anderson. This is the ballot access case, not to be confused with the one about presidential immunity. We're waiting to hear likely from the Supreme Court on that as well. But what we haven't gotten that far yet today is about primary ballot access after he was removed from the ballot by the Colorado Supreme Court.
This brings us back to December.
This is a case involving the Fourteenth Amendment and it has to do with Donald Trump actually engaged in and that's the appropriate term to use here, insurrection. Dave Ehrenberg's got his eyes on this from his perch in Florida. The Palm Beach County State Attorney is with us now and David's great to see you it's been a minute.
I wonder if you can just first before we analyze all of this, and we don't need to relitigate what happened on January sixth, I want to understand what are the questions that the justices are trying to ask here, whether, in fact, beginning with the big one, whether in fact Donald Trump engaged in insurrection.
How do you answer that question?
Well, Joe, good to be with you.
As expected, the justices are largely avoiding that question. Instead, they're dealing with larger constitutional issues such as did the framers intend that states would go ahead and do this on their own or would Congress have to pass a law?
Is the Fourteenth Amendment self executing? And although I think in the end they will probably say that the fourteenth Amendment is self executing, meaning you don't need Congress to make it happen, there is still section five of the fourteenth Amendment which says that Congress shall enforce this section. So what I think the Court's going to do is they're going to punt and they're going to say, hey, Congress,
do your job. Pass some uniform laws so we don't have fifty different states going in fifty different directions because even the liberal justices were worried that Colorado as one state, could decide the election for the whole country and they
didn't want mass chaos. So I think, to me, the only question I have is whether this will be a unanimous nine zero opinion that overturns the Colorado Supreme Court case, or will it be eight to one with Justice Soda Mayor of dissenting, Because it seems like even the liberal justices, with the exception of possibly Soda Mayor, are going to go along with the majority of the conservatives on this one.
Interesting. This is.
A pretty interesting moment for this court, and I know that at least the conventional wisdom is they want to be very careful here. The fourteenth Amendment really just about the Civil War, Dave, because a lot of people seem to think so.
Well, it's about preventing insurrectionists from getting into power again.
I mean, it was.
Written in response to the Civil War, but then it was not meant just to pertain to that. This was meant to pertain to any traders in government. They didn't want any future insurrectionists, any traders to be elected to office. People who were in office at the time of an insurrection and then later tried to stay in office.
They didn't want those folks.
Now, one question, one issue that Trump's layers are making is that they want him to be exempt from the Fourteenth Amendment because they'd like to say that the Fourteenth Amendment, Section three does not include the president. So what they're trying to say is that the framers of the amendment were so worried about having insurrectionists lead the way in our government except for being president. Like they could be senators, they can be. They don't want them to be senators.
They don't want to be congressmen. But it's okay or an insurrection is to be the president. That defies common sense. So I think that argument is a loser for Trump's side. I think ultimately, though, the Supreme Court is going to say, come on, we can't have fifty different states going in fifty different directions.
This would be mass chaos.
Let Congress establish some uniform set of rules here.
If the Court David has to consider whether Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection, it also has to establish whether January sixth was an insurrection.
Right, they don't actually have to go into whether Trump engage in insurrection. That would be an embarrassing review because look, all the justices in Colorado, even the one trial court judge that rule for Trump, all agree that he engage in insurrection. The Supreme Court is not going to tackle that. They're going to avoid it, and they're just going to do with constutional issues because if they did deal with it, it would get really messy, and they don't have to.
They don't like to get their hands dirty where they don't have to. One thing I musty, Joe, is that I'm a little disturbed that Justice Clarence Thomas not only is sitting on the bench for this case despite what seems to me having a conflict because his wife was part of the whole insurrection attempt, but he also asked the very first question from the bench.
And so it just shows.
You why so many people have a low estimation of the High Court.
Dick Durbin had called on him that share of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate to do that very thing and recuse himself by Monday. Dave Ehrenberg, Donald Trump is also expected, and it could come before then to ask the Supreme Court to rule on this immunity claim.
Where do you see that going.
Well, yeah, I think he's going to lose there.
But the question is how long will the Supreme Court take to act. Now, they could just accept the review or accept the petition and then deny the review, and hopefully that'll happen because that will speed things up and then we can get to the trial before the election. On the other hand, they could sit on it and they could review it, and they could make it impossible to try this case before the election. It's all in
the hands of the Supreme Court. My best guess is that they don't want to wade into this one much either, especially because the DC Circuit Court of Appeals issued a very comprehensive, very strong opinion that I think the Supreme Court is.
Just going to defer to.
And when that happens, because I think it's a when, I think, then it's game on in DC and Judge Chuckkin is going to move forward with that trial for election interference, perhaps sometime in the late spring.
So what's the most likely scenario then, as you just outline, the Supreme Court decides to not take up the case and just just let it lie where it is in the appeals court, or they in fact uphold that ruling.
Is there a difference, Yes, One is whether they take it up, which is called cerciori or CERT. Well, they grant CERT, you need four judge justices is to grant CERT out of the nine. I don't think they're going to grant it because of the strength of the lower court ruling, but they could, and then if they do, then there'll be a built in stay and then we wait for an opinion on the merits, and that would
take a lot longer. So a lot depends, not necessarily how they will rule, because I don't think there's a chance in the world they're going to give a president absolute immunity like Trump is seeking.
But Trump's ttrategy really is delayed, delayed delay.
And if they grant CERT and they take a long time to review and make a decision, then Trump will win by losing.
Wow, do you have timeline in mind?
I know you must hate being asked that, because nobody knows what the heck the Supreme Court is going to do.
It can do whatever it wants, but will it be.
Compelled to rule quickly on both of these Fourteenth amendments and presidential immunity?
Yes, they see what's going on just like the rest of us. They know how important this is to get this done before the election, and I think they want to. I mean, just Chief Justice Roberts cares so deeply about the legitimacy of the Court. He wants people to buy into the Court as an a political institution. But if they sit on their hands and delay this thing so that he cannot be tried until after the election, they
will look very political. So I think the Chief Justice is going to make sure this happens sooner than later. And I do believe that the two cases and only two cases involving Trump that will be heard before the election will be the DC case in front of Judge chuck In. I think that's the most powerful of the two cases. And then the second case, I think the New York case involving the Stormy Daniels hush money payments,
will be heard before the election. The other two criminal cases, the mar Lago documents case, which I do believe is the strongest of all the cases, that's got Judge.
Cannon, and she's slow walking that case.
That's not going to be heard before the election, and the Fulton County case with all the issues with Fannie Willis and conflicts and all the complex Rico issues that's not going to be heard before the election either.
Amazing.
I don't know how you do that off the top of your head. Still great insights from Dave Ahrenberg. Let us know when you're back in the capitol. Palm Beach County State Attorney with us here on Balance of Power. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington with a lot more straight ahead.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then roud Oto with 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.
Here we are indeed on both Bloomberg Television and radio. Thank you so much as always, and Joe, we were just discussing here on set the idea that so much has happened over the course of just a few days after months of build up, months it took to actually get the text of the deal that would combine border
security with aid for US allies. It was launched or released on Sunday, fell apart almost instantly finally was killed for real last night, and then we see I guess a resurrection of at least parts of the package that were not border security related. Now pass it cloture on the Senate floor.
Well done, that's what is that?
An accurate summary?
Yeah?
Look, the ambassador to Ukraine is in town today, the ambassador Ukrainian ambassador to the US. To be clear, We're going to spend some time with her later. This is a critical moment for Ukraine. We know it's a critical moment for Israel. No one talks about Taiwan in this bill. Yeah, but apparently the border provisions that Republicans demanded turned out to be the poison pill for Republicans and that's getting to be hard to decipher.
Yes, it is confusing to the point you raised a few minutes ago, though, as Chuck Schumer just pointed out the possibility potentially of amendments to this bill, perhaps you could see some border related measures put back in after they were killed us.
Yeah, yeah, you figure that out. You let us know.
Maybe Megan's gully will look, Megan was just cranking on this story in the newsroom about two minutes ago. The story that you'll read on this terminal in online and is with us now. She helps to run our congressional coverage here at Bloomberg. This is like the hand of the end of the horror movie that comes popping out of the water, maybe with one limb another limb missing in this case. If it passed the procedural vote, does that indicate that it will pass the full Senate.
Yes, it most likely will pass the full Senate. They overcome the major hurdle. The issue, though, is what happens in the House. It needs to pass the House too, and we've already heard from Speaker Johnson that he will not bring this bill up. They're still clinging in the House. So House Republicans to their much stricter border language, and they're saying, we're not doing anything on this until we
get what we want on the border. What was in the very short lived deal that we saw Sunday and that was ultimately killed yesterday doesn't go further far enough for them, but it's dead on arrival with Democrats. The Republican language.
HR two is what we're talking about, the border bill that they passed months ago, that never even got a vote on the Senate floor. Why not just put it up for a vote and see if it passes, because theoretically it wouldn't get the requisite support of sixty votes in the Senate, right, so why not just call the bluff.
Well, anytime you put something on the floor, people are taking risks right when they especially in an election year, when they vote. So if you are Kirson Cinema, for instance, who hasn't yet decided whether she's running for reelection or not, she's from a border state, this is a huge issue in her district. She doesn't want to vote on the Republican only bill because that then could be used against her as a vote against immigration changes. So I think that a lot of that, a lot of this election
year politics is what's factoring in here. This is why things don't tend to get done, particularly in presidential election yeers on.
Capitol Hill, Steve Danes, who chairs the NRSC, is telling members to vote against this or was and I suspect he will again if this comes to the floor, which we expect that it will, well that end up having a corrosive effect here as he reminds these members they want to run on the border if you vote for this, and of course we don't know what changes might go into the bill. You're effectively telling people that you're good for this with this money going out the door without securing the border.
Yeah.
So Steve Danes has a much different mandate than Mitch McConnell, per se. He's trying to protect these Republicans who are running and immigration is becoming quickly the top issue, particularly in these border states, as our own polling has demonstrated. So what Steve Danes is saying is we don't want to have these candidates in a position where they're making a vote that can come back to haunt them in
the general election. If you're Mitch McConnell, you're thinking he's made statements on the floor on an almost daily basis on the need to get money to Ukraine. That is what he is being driven by as well, as you know, from his standpoint, this is the direct that they need to go in order to keep the Senate in November. You have different, you have different.
But that can change votes.
Yes, yes, oh sure. If you're running for re election in the swing state and the chairman of the Republican Committee there is telling you this is not a great Yeah, you might listen.
Well, and that speaks to what you were talking about earlier, not just with Senator Cinema, but if you're Shared Brown or John Tester, who are in these potentially flippable seats, then it's probably pretty difficult for you to vote against any vorder related measure. Absolutely, there's another individual I want to raise here because you talked about days, who potentially
will encourage people to vote against this. Rand Paul is suggesting that this is not something he's going to allow to happen in a quick manner, because sure, you need sixty votes to pass a bill, but the way the Senate works, you need unanimous consent to do so quickly. Yes, So what kind of timeline realistically are we looking out here if he makes good on that threat.
So we're coming up on a two week recess for the Senate, and as I've said before, the smell of jet fumes is a powerful motivator on Capitol Hill. I'm not making any plans for Saturday.
I will say that I think that the.
Senate will be in and working probably that day.
Well, keep that in mind. We'll be here too, maybe.
Megan Scully, thank you great reporting. Help us figure this out as we make our way through it, because it's getting to be pretty complicated. We haven't talked about a funding bill either, Kaylee before Oh, there's that three weeks from now a government shutdown could be starting partial partial shutdown by the eighth, maybe full shutdown. I just don't know if this is a crowd that's going to be in the business of writing spending bills between now and then.
Well, if you can't pass a bipartisan piece of legislation that actually was pretty much negotiated over the course of months actively versus spending bills that I'm not really sure anyone's actively working on because we're all focused on this kind of stuff, how are you going to get it together in a couple of weeks with enough.
How about that enough support?
I have no idea. I look, maybe I'm a skeptic. Let's put that aside for now.
Well, and keeping in mind that after next Tuesday, the margin in the House could be different. Speaker Mike Johnson's already having difficulty getting things done, and yet, uh.
What if Tom Swazi is the next memory of the House, which is entirely possible. And the reason why Kaylee points to this is because we're yeah, we've got an election next week, and there are new numbers out today. This is the first credible poll we've seen on New York Three. It's coming from Sienna College. Did you see these numbers? It's pretty close, actually, Kaylee, and Sienna is working with Newsday on this. Remember this is the seat held by
George Santos. Tom Swazi in this poll leads Mazi Pillup by only four.
Points, yes, forty eight to forty four, so.
Pretty close to within the margin here. If you're watching on Bloomberg TV or on YouTube, you can see what we're talking about here. As we turn to Don Levy for his experience. You know, Don was rated the nation's top polster by ABC and five thirty eight.
That is quite a distinction. Don.
It's great to have you with us here on Bloomberg. Thank you for joining us. What's going to happen next week in New York three?
Close rays, As you point out right now, in our poll, we have Tom Swazi, the former congressman, up by four points over Mazzi Pillop, the Republican challenger who has a really engaging biography. And when we start to break this down by you know, where voters think these candidates are going to be better. You have opposite sides of the coin. Voters tend to feel as though Mazzi Pillup is better on the issue of immigration, you know what in New York is called the influx of migrants. Also on taxes,
they prefer Pillop to Swazi. But you flip that around and Swase has an enormous lead amongst voters on issues like protecting democracy and on the very important issue in this of addressing abortion. So voters really have two different views of these candidates right now a small lead for Swase.
Well, is this, then, don kind of a litmus test for the wider general election in November when the issues that you just mentioned border security and the economy, on the one hand, the big talking points for Republicans threats to American democracy and abortion rights the talking point for Democrats depending on how New York three goes, what issue it turns out came out on top. Should we read that straight through to November?
I think we're going to absolutely read it that way. Whether that's fair or not, I'm not quite sure, but we're going to read it that way. I think we have to add another wrinkle to this story is that in this poll, even though these are special election voters, these are people who are going to turn out on a Tuesday in February. We're thinking that turnout will be
no more than twenty five percent. Know that this is a district that in a presidential year this year, we're probably going to be looking at six two to sixty five percent. Still, we asked these voters, in addition to who are you going to vote for on Tuesday to thirteenth, if your vote for president was right now, would you vote for Joe Biden or Donald Trump? And this district
moves nine points in Trump's erection. So instead of a four point Democratic advantage when we pit Biden against Trump, Trump is five points up in this district amongst these highly motivated special election VOTs. So again, if indeed it turns out that Swazi wins by this four and to whatever extent there are any exit polls at all, and these very same voters would prefer Trump, that's going to weigh heavily on the national discussion moving forward.
Don we heard every day while George Santos was still in office, and there was an effort to have him ousted starting about a day after he got here, that he was ruining the district for Republicans for the foreseeable future. Does this tell us that the people of New York third are forgiving to the Republican Party because they have blamed the man?
Well, certainly, the voters in New York three have a very strong Republican base. The Republican Party has a tremendously effective ground game there. Joe Biden is not popular in New York three. He's about eighteen points underwater in his favorability. And some of these issues, taxes protecting New York three and New York in general from what is seen in the district as an uncontrollable influx of migrants, and also
the issue of safety and crime in general. These are all issues that have worked in New York in general. You remember that Lee Zelden came within six points a race for governor against our governor Kathy Focal in a state with a two to one democratic advantage. So New York, although historically bright blue, is starting to trend a little bit towards the purple tone, especially in a place like New York three.
Well, and when we Joe was talking about the candidates in question here and how it's coming after George Santos, who obviously no longer is in Congress and can't be considered an incumbent here. But when we think about the body of Congress and the view of it, I also noticed you pulled voters on the idea that Swaz used to be in Congress, and the question you asked was new energy and new ideas representing us in Congress. Do
voters think that's needed? Fifty eight percent said yes. Should that be a warning for all incumbents?
Well, certainly a warning for Tom Swas Tom Swazi is known in this district, voters, in many cases a majority feel has always had his chance. He was a three term congressman. Prior to that, he was a county exec in Nassau County, So there is a little bit of we've seen this guy now. At the same time, you know, Tom Swase has his backers. And when we asked voters about some of the normal work of Congress people issues that are important in this district nine to eleven, relief,
energy issues. The folks in New York three see Tom Swazi as being probably more effective than Mazi Pillop. So there is some anti incumbent and in some ways Swazi is representing more of the incumbent than of course his Pillop, But still there's an undergirding of strength that Swazi has in the districts he's known. This is a district that felt as though they got blindsided. Mazi Pillop, although her biography has been really well vetted, has not been front
and center around the district. They're debating tonight, the first debate. It's the first time that Swazi and Pillop will appear on the same stage. So there are still some voters who have not been fully introduced to Pillop, despite the amount of money that her campaign and to a greater extent, Swazi has spent trying to tell the voters of the district who these candidates are. Swazi says he's a common sense vs. Problem solver who's going to go do the
work of this district in Congress. The district knows him. Mazzi Pillop is an unknown person, an engaging biography, and rides this wave of an anti Biden sentiment of concern over crime, concern over migrants. It's going to be a close election that's going to come down to turnout. In our poll, we have the turnout being equal percentages of Democrats and Republicans. We do that because we anticipate that Republican ground game really getting Republicans out. If this turnout
looked like an election year. In an election year, the Democrats have a ten to eleven point advantage in turnout. So Thomas Swazi has already said if he were not to prevail in the special, he's going to run again in November. An election year turnout, he might have a better opportunity than he has this coming Tuesday, still very close, four point lead for Swazi.
All right, we brought you the authority here from Siena College. He's the director of Sienna's research Institute, Don Levy. Great to have you, Don. This sounds like an awfully important debate tonight. We appreciate your sharing your work with us here on Bloomberg.
Don't be a stranger.
I want to hear from Don next time they do it next absolutely big poll on the presidential race, which will be later on this month. I'm Joe Matthew alongside Kaylee Lines on the Fastest show in Politics. Thanks for being with us on the radio, on YouTube, and on TV.
This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon Eastern on Emo CarPlay and then Roudoto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts. Watch us live on YouTube.
Joe and I indeed are live on both Bloomberg TV and radio in Washington when there has been a lot to discuss over recent days. But something Joe we should note as well is the issue of the Congressman Matt Rosendale, who apparently is jump into the Montana Senate race, one that could be one of the most closely watched in twenty twenty four because the incumbent Democrat John Tester could be vulnerable. But you get a Republican actual primary contest,
maybe things look different. And we all woke up this morning to news that the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, might be endorsing Rosendale for the job. And then they pulled it.
This is really funny if you like the back room yeah drama here Mitch McConnell, the Senate Leadership Fund had gone with a different candidate here. So you wonder if Mike Johnson was poking Mitch McConnell in the eye or what the whole point of this.
Was, well, there's certainly been a lot of poking between the two chambers going on in recent days. We know that to be sure. But actually the Congressman Rosendale weighed in on x just a few minutes ago, saying, Speaker Johnson and I have always had a great relationship. I am thankful for his continued to support, going on to say, Mitch McConnell and the DC cartel are terrified about me going to the US Senate. They know they can't control me.
They know I won't vote for McConnell as a leader. Unbelievable, there's the latest on that.
Rick Davis must have thoughts on this, Sure he does.
Republican strategist who's been in the throes of a lot of back and forth in the Senate. Of course, Bloomberg Politics contributor, what do you make of this, Rick, What is Speaker Mike Johnson doing.
Well? Mike Johnson is cawtaling to Donald Trump, which we've seen a lot of lately. There's no other explanation for him to get involved in a Senate primary as Speaker of the House than if he's just towing someone else's load. The reality is Mitch McConnell in the entire Republican Caucus need two seats. They need Tester's seat this race, and they need West Virginia, which is almost a foregone conclusion.
So the Tester race is probably the most important race in America for Mitch McConnell and the Republicans to regained the majority. And they went out of their way to recruit Tim Shee to be that candidate, knowing after the twenty twenty two elections that candidates matter in these candidates and Donald Trump hands selected like Rosendale lost to Democrats, and so this was the hope that they could get
competitive candidates to be in these seats. And this Rosendale's continued persistence in the primary just ties up the race, expends needed resources for a general election, and frankly is a lifeline to Democratic Tester. So it made no sense why he would stick his nose into it. It makes a lot of sense why the Speaker got his nose punched and went back into his turf. And so now we'll see whether or not Rosendale can mount any kind of real significant challenge against Shihi.
Okay, so maybe the Speaker shouldn't have cared as much about this racer and his vocal about that. But Rick, we know that he definitely cares about the race that's ongoing right now in the third District of New York. We were just speaking to Don Levy of Siena College about this, because there is that special election to replace George Santos, who was kicked out of the House of Representatives,
coming up quickly next week. When we're talking about a speaker in Mike Johnson, who already has had great difficulty getting anything done, including the impeachment of the Homeland Security Secretary attempted earlier this week in the Israel Aid standalone package that also was attempted and failed earlier this week. What changes for him if this seat flips to the Democrat.
Yeah, I know. I mean, it's like the nightmare scenario. He started with the smallest margin in the history of a major party control of the House, and it's only gotten smaller since he's been elected Speaker, which hasn't been for that long. So it's a disaster. Democrats see this as just another opportunity to hold things up in the House. They're on defense, and frankly, Republicans if they lose another seat like this one they're going to be on defense
to and nothing's going to get done. And it really does portend, as Joe and you mentioned earlier, a real crisis potentially with the funding a government, because right now there's no plan publicly announced by the Speaker on how he's going to actually knit together, you know, some vehicle that allows the government to be funded, and certainly not before the deadlines that he's self imposed on these CRS continuing resolutions, and so I don't know, I mean, it's
a very big problem coming up. I know we've all been focused on the supplemental and the immigration package, and those are incredibly important, but nothing is more important than funding the government.
You've been of the mind that they can pull this out of the fire here, Rick, Are you starting to get concerned because we've got a recess coming and not a lot of time to write these spending bills.
Yeah, trying to legislate like this in an election year is crazy, right, I mean, Speakers and leader in the past say, you know, like we got to get all our work done on time in an election year for president because nothing ever happens in the election year. It's just too political. And we saw just that happen, you know, with this immigration package. I mean, Republicans demand an immigration package, they get one, and then they have to vote against
it makes them look foolish. Republicans extend the budget until you know, the first quarter of this year, and now they're going to have a hard time finding the votes for it. It is a no brainer to package together these appropriations bills and pass the budget. They were supposed to have done that by September thirtieth, and they have
been just kicking the can ever since then. They have a top line negotiated agreement, so the hard part of knowing how much you're going to spend has already been done, and the fact that you then apply that to each of these appropriations bills is not that hard a task. But we just don't see the committees doing the work to get those things passed. Maybe it all gets thrown into an omnibus. That would be certainly an easy way to get it done on time, say on time at
this time, and maybe this is what the speakers. Maybe even his last act will be to fund the government.
That would be saying something after he's only been the speaker for one hundred or so days. In bibment in March will be at what maybe one hundred and fifty and Kevin McCarthy this.
Prospect, is it going to be a state of the Union or is it going to be a state of the Union without Speaker Johnson standing behind sitting behind Joe Biden.
Can the State of the Union even go on if the government.
Has partially sure? Great questions.
I guess Congress keeps doing its work right.
Not necessarily if they're not in session. In fact, I think Rick was encouraging Joe Biden to do the speech from the White House?
Am I right?
Rick?
Yeah?
Absolutely?
I mean the President does not actually have to be in the well of the House of Representatives to give the State of the Union. In fact, they used to just send over a memo and never even did the speech. So the reality is, if his political came pain prevails, they would say, absolutely, you got to talk about the state of the Union because it's messed up and without
your leadership is not going to get any better. And so show leadership by giving the speech sitting in the Oval Office behind the resolute desk and commence Americans that you are the only one who are keeping the lights on right now.
Well, Donald Trump would probably beg to differ on that argument, and it raises the question for me, Rick, we just saw what Trump was eble, even if it wasn't entirely due to his thumb on the scale, his influence perhaps and members of the House, and how that ultimately proved enough to kill this border deal entirely. He used to be suggesting back what we were dealing with continuing resolutions about to expire twice before this. The Republicans shouldn't be
fearing a government shutdown? Could the weather or not it happens actually come down to whether or not the former president gives his blessing for it to happen.
Well, we've seen him metal in the House business this week, so sure that could have an influence on it. Although we haven't heard that from any of the leadership or even the rabble rouses in the Freedom Caucus lately that they actually want the government to shut down. I mean that conversation was really more germane. You know, at the end of last year. We haven't seen people actually think
that's a good strategy right now. So the hope is that nobody actually believes that it's somehow their political advantage to shut the government down and that they do find a resolution to this, or what happens in these cases, a year long continuing resolution gets thrown on the floor and voted on that actually results in a budget cut based on the top line numbers that they'd already agreed to. But it also hurts the Defense Department at a time
when we're in conflicts all around the world. And you know, I sure wouldn't want to be a Republican leader who has to go back to his district and explain to people that I was just party to a huge cut in defense spending at a time when our security is in jeopardy.
Rick Davis, we thank you as always, Rick, thanks for the analysis and the clutch insights here as this bill clears a procedural hurdle in the Senate to fund Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Rick was with us a bit earlier when this.
Happened, and it looks like it could pass the full house. Here, Kayleie, this is important. It happened just a short time ago, teeing up a floor vote sooner than later.
So it could pass potentially the full Senate. Even the tally that we've seen in the test measure today. If you will the House, though, is a massive question for everything we were just discussing with Rick. This is a speaker who has proven to have great difficulty exercise and control over his conference and also still has the motion to vacate potentially hanging over his head with every decision
he makes. And there's members like Marjorie Taylor Green who have said, yes, we will bring that if you put Ukraine aid on the floor of this chamber.
Indeed, it was only two days ago, by the way, a standalone Israel funding bill in the House failed. So let's wait to see what happens because.
We simply can't REGI.
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