Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' office clearly altered public records in podium gate.
We have such a great show for you today.
Representative Andy Kim tells us about primary a sitting Democratic senator, one who has been indicted multiple times as he runs for Senator Menendez' seat. Then we'll talk to Vermont Congresswoman Becca Blint about negotiating Republican disarray in Congress. But first we have the Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Dana Milbank.
Molly, it is a delight and a pleasure. As always.
We woke up on Saturday absolute destruction and carnage in the Middle East. There was no Speaker of the House in case the government wanted to write some checks. We have this pro templar speaker, pro tempt speaker McHenry, who hasn't wears a bow tie and is very adorable, but no one really knows what he can do.
Right, Yes, I agree he is. He is kind of adorable.
He's cute.
Yeah, yeah, he's a very he's a very little guy, and you know, he's you know, he sort of looks the part when you know, in his side job, he's in charge of the Financial Services Committee, so he also looks really good for that job. And there's more than a few people running around Capitol Hill. They couldn't he actually be the speaker? You know, he's cute and he's competent. I mean, it's just such a rare commodity up there that he actually knows the institution, he knows what he's doing.
He doesn't necessarily give a lot of leeway to the insane people in his caucus anyway, for all those reasons, he absolutely can't become exactly thus doing he rules him out on all accounts. But the whole thing, obviously is a self inflicted crisis, and so is the notion of paralysis. So look, if there were, you know, God forbid, a situation where you actually had to have Congress act immediately too, you could declare war. Yeah, of course you could do it.
It's just sort of vague, you know, the way this was done after nine to eleven, just so they didn't decapitate our government. This guy is just supposed to reside over electing the new speaker. But guess what with two hundred and eighteen votes, or now it's actually two hundred and seventeen votes, because they're vacancies, you could just change the rules. You could do anything you want. So look, if there's something really had to be done, it could
be done in a second. So yeah, I mean, I think when people are saying, you know, we're paralyzed and there are all these crises in the world that we can't react to, that is essentially Republicans trying to put pressure on their fellow Republicans to get the speaker thing done. It's not because there's actually a fear of paralysis.
Right, it does seem from all the reporting I've read that it doesn't look like anyone is going to get to two seventeen.
That easily doesn't. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent now in the bowels of the Capitol outside room HC five they call it in the basement. You know, there's no windows, there's ventilation and plumbing you know, running through there, and it's just you know, a constant stakeout and you know you're sniffing to see what they're eating. Inside. It's just you know, for this, you know, we went to college, well at least you did. It's been pretty grim.
It's very hard to see how they get out of this. Scalise doesn't have the votes, Jim Jordan doesn't have the votes. Kevin McCarthy certainly doesn't have the votes, but.
He might want to try to get them.
Right, and that basically freezes up the contest and prevents the other guys from getting votes. Of course, the moderates, who are very good at squawking and you know, you know, you know, flexing muscle, don't actually do anything. Of course, they could reach out to Democrats to back a McHenry like character and they'd be done with this in a minute. They've decided they've got to do it with Republican only votes.
So the real question is do they have the fight in the back room in the caucus and that goes on for days or weeks, and then they bring it to the floor when they finally got the white smoke, or do they actually go to the floor and slug it out there, which of course they don't want to do because it'll look like January all over again.
Right, And originally there was some talk that Brett Beher was going to host a televised debate, which would have really made this whole thing, I should show of epic and fascinating proportion.
But that was sort of squelched.
Right, you could just go through what was the what was the decision making process there where you know, at least defending stud I know, let's bring in Brett there. What could possibly go wrong? So yes, I think that was supposed to be last night. So they instead sat around what they call venting at each other, basically still yelling at the eight disrupted everything and you know, basically just getting a lot of things off their chest but not making any progress.
It is amazing.
I mean the comment, you know, I read something from Jim Jordan's supporter who said in Congress that the body isn't even cold yet.
We need more time.
I mean, this is like the fundamental problem with this Republican party.
Yeah, I mean, you know, Garrett Graves, who's smarter than your average bear, and this caucus or Republican from Louisiana said, you know, at a minimum they're losing weeks because of this, and it could be much longer than that. So you know, what's much longer than weeks. I guess that means months. We've got this November seventeenth deadline for the next a shutdown, and everybody is freely saying they're going to have to
blow past that deadline. There is absolutely physically no way to get all twelve appropriations bills passed in that period of time. They're going to need another CR continuing resolution, and they've got maybe ten people eleven people in the caucus who say, under no circumstance will I vote for a continuing resolution. So it's determined not to work with Democrats. So we're coming up against the exact same thing again.
So even if they somehow on Wednesday are able to miraculously together behind a speaker, that same speaker is going to have virtually no power to avoid this coming car wreck.
Yeah, and I.
Think it's worth sort of pausing for a second and just looking at the forces at play here.
Right.
So you have McHenry, who certainly at least looks normal. You know, I don't know everything about him, but he certainly looks the most normal. Then you have Scullie, who has been in leadership. He did call himself David Duke without the baggage and perhaps not the greatest thing one can say about oneself, but it does read as less insane. And then you have Jim Jordan, right, so you have a continuum of like normal too, that shittery.
Right, Yeah, I would say it's a continuum of crazy all through and through.
Now.
Both Scalise and McHenry were in their day the extremists in the caucus so interesting. They were the rabble rousers, you know, they were the Matt Gates of their time. And I don't think they've changed it all. I think it's just that there have been so many new iterations of crazy with each election cycle that what was crazy in twenty ten is now totally you know, dead center of the Republican Party. Something similar has happened with Jim Jordan.
Nobody would mistake him for a moderate, but in this caucus he was a McCarthy defender. He was essentially part of the establishment and trying to rein in the excesses of the two dozen or so who are just trying to burn everything down. So in today's Republican Party, Jim Jordan even is kind of a moderate.
That is true and also just terrifying.
There are many things Molly should be terrified about. I have a long list which I keep next to my pharmaceuticals.
So now we think that they're going to have this meeting tonight and then the sort of fantasy of the party leadership is that then they'll have a voter and it'll be done.
But we all think that's not how it's going to go down.
Right, Yeah, And I mean some people say it'll happen in the same way. You know, they say it has to happen, but when you scratch the surface, they say, you know, I just don't see how that actually happens. So yeah, I mean, as of now, they're supposed to be voting Wednesday morning, but they don't even know is there going to be a rules change first? Are they
going to punish the eight people who ousted McCarthy? Are they even going to have a secret vote in the caucus, or are they going to have a vote where they actually do the roll call? So we don't even know the parameters of the voting, let alone you know, getting to the actual voting itself, where nobody has anything close to approaching a majority. So I think anybody who's saying this will be quickly resolved is being very optimus.
Now, one of the things that Matt Gates said when he was making the case against McCarthy was dishonest but also true. So he said, you know, McCarthy really hasn't done anything. He's just named a few post offices. Now, this is true, Right, the things that have come up in the House. Are we to partisan to get anywhere through the Senate or to get to Biden's.
Desk, Right, it is true that they have named a few post offices. In fact, that was the last order of business before they deposed him as speaker. I mean, you've got to feel really lucky if you're the guy they named those post offices for. But it's also I mean, it's a little rich for Matt Gates to be saying since he's the reason they're not able to do anything. So it is true you talk about sort of must
pass pieces of legislation, the appropriations process. Yeah, they've gotten a lot of messaging bills through that will not clear the Senate and certainly would be vetoed by the President. So you know, I mean, you go right on down the list, you know, And as McCarthy had done, saying we abolished we got rid of the eighty seven thousand irs agents. Well, no you didn't. You have passed a bill, right, that's not going anywhere. So, I mean it's been the
spectacularly unproductive Congress. I mean that's Senate and House alike. And that is in the large part because there is no ability so far and the House Republican leadership to compromise. Look in the Senate, there are twelve appropriations bills. Okay, they're being prevented from coming to the floor by Ron Johnson and others. But they cleared the Appropriations Committee with
lopsided bipartisan majority. So even now in these crazy times, it is possible to get everybody together and agree on something. So it just will somebody step aside and let that happen.
And I think that really is the larger question is does any of this nudge right, this Congress, this Republican House of Representatives towards bipartisanship or power sharing agreement or anything, or are they just too terrified of the primary contests.
It's partially that maybe it's the disapprobation of their peers, but every night in the bowels in the Capitol, or every day Don Bacon from Nebraska, perfectly reasonable man says, you know talks. Yes, he's talking with Democrats. You know, maybe there could be changes to the House. Well, I mean talk and talk and talk, but nothing. They never actually do it. It will only take four or five of them at this point to actually reach out and do it. When that's sort of the tragedy of the
whole thing is. You know, Kevin McCarthy, had he made even a slight gesture right to the Democrats, he didn't have to give away the store. He could just like I'll give you another one or two on ex Committee. He could have picked off enough votes to retain the speakership. There's such a powerful allergy to it. And yes, they're afraid of the Fox News reaction, the Steve Bannon reaction, the possibility of primaries of you know, not being able
to fundraise. But I think they may be more fearful than is even weren't it.
Clearly they're afraid of their own shadows. And that's how we got Trump to begin with. But the only winner in this whole fiasco is Matt Gad's right because he got airtime. He seems maga among maga. He's in an R plus seven thousand districts, so it doesn't matter. You know, nobody's primarying him from the right.
I would think not. I mean, they do seem to want to kick him out of the Republican Caucus, which, of course, we'll only give him more attention. You should see the way people chase him down the hallway. And he came to the meeting last night and discovered they were going to take away everybody's phone to come into the meeting. He was so incensed by this. I guess he was worried they were going to bug his phone
or something. He walks all the way back to his office to drop off his phone and comes back again just so he can make another grand entrance besieged by reporters. So it is crazy how this street thug is now getting a bigger limelight than anybody else on Capitol Hill.
So one of the things, like Mike Lawler is a Republican in a Biden district a D plus three going to run against mondare Jones, who's my friend who used to have that seat. Lawler sees the writing in the wall, realizes that this is just a terrible look for him and these seventeen other Republicans who won in Biden district though you know he doesn't care about them. But so he is out on MSNBC and CNN and in the mainstream media saying this is preposterous, this is terrible behavior.
Write anything he can to save his job, and you could see like it used to be. You know, if this were a Nancy Pelosi Republican Party, Nancy used to give people dispensations to go and complain about things. You know, she'd say, like, you know, you don't have to vote what's not your district. You know, the votes that an AOC can make are very different than the votes a spamberger can make. You used to see that in the Democrat Party. But I don't think there's any kind of
that kind of thoughtfulness in the Republican Party. But Lawler was complaining, Matt Gates is now fundraising off of his anger at Mike Lawler.
I mean, doesn't this end in fiasco?
Well for Mike Lawler, I remember, right, I assume, yeah. I mean he's sort of comical, like each day he comes in like I'm going to come up with some new name for Matt Gates. You know, he walks out after the debate saying the eight assholes. Right last night he was saying Matt Gates is a vile human being.
Was okay, that's maybe true enough, But it's like he can't you know, he's the one who was talking about the clown show, and I guess he figures if he just keeps insulting that that will insulate him in some way. But come on, where's the action here. You can actually do the same thing that Matt Gates and the other eight were doing, but you could do it for the cause of sanity if you really cared.
About it, right, but nobody does.
I don't want to, you know, ascribe motives. But if this happens time and time again and they never do anything, well, you have to wonder if they really are Maybe they're down with the whole thing to start with, but I don't see how this works well for the Lawlers of the world.
Yeah, and quite frankly, fuck them.
Is this like the actual moment when the leopards are eating their faces?
Or is there more?
I like that? Maybe Lawler will start I could give him something new to to tag Matt Gates with it. Tonight's I'm heading in there to hear his insult doujure. Yeah, I mean they are sort of self destructing, but come on, I mean they were self destructing in January. It never actually gets destroyed. The Republican brand is pretty toxic. I mean, okay, the Democratic brand isn't a whole lot better.
I'm going to stop you here. The Democratic brand is not better than this.
I mean, I'm talking about in the assessment of the American public right here, over and over again that not only is Biden's senile, but he's also a criminal mastermind.
It's very confusing the.
Rare senile American to be a criminal master right. But you know, I mean they're just being constantly fed this diet, you know, and the you know, the borders are completely open, and all the murders, you know. So yes, of course the Democratic brand is tarnished. That's the one thing that the Republicans are still good at is raising doubts that
people have for the entire system. So yeah, so I think the Democratic brand is better to the extent that you know, there are persuadable voters out there, but it's all pretty ugly.
To Millbank, that was really great. I'm sorry you have to go back to Congress. I feel for you.
Well, they've changed the room tonight. It's going to be in the ways and means committee room at the long Worth Feelings. So at least we're out of the basement and onto the ground level. So I'm going to call this progress.
Andy Kim represents New Jersey's third congressional district and is a candidate for the New Jersey Senate.
Welcome to Fast Politics.
Representative and current Senate candidate Andy Kim, Thanks for having me. We know each other for a long time, though not well.
But I met you.
When you were first running for Congress like three terms ago, right.
Yeah, that's right. It would have been by twenty seventeen that we met.
Yeah, you had an incredible story. You had worked.
Tell us your story and how you got involved in it, and then about your decision to run for Congress, because all of your backstory is really important and fascinating.
Yeah.
I'm a son of Korean immigrants raised in New Jersey in the district that I now have a chance to represent. I represent the district where I went to kindergarten public school kid that went on to become a Rhodes scholar, a PhD in International relations and then became a United States diplomat and worked in diplomacy and national security because I was a career guy, not a political guy. I was,
you know, worked under both Republican and Democratic presidents. But in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, you know, I really few like I needed to step up and do something, and in particular, my congressman of this district that I now represent, he was the lead author of that healthcare repeal bill twenty seventeen and author the amendment that gutted the pre
existing condition protections. And at that time, you know, I was my wife and I were expecting the birth of my second son, and he was having a lot of health issues already in the womb before he was born. And I was just really you know, seized by this issue about healthcare and about.
Three existing conditions.
Yeah, and so I decided to you know, step up and challenge my old congressman and do what I could. And I never ran for office before at that time, but I felt like I had to do something.
And you won, and that son went on to be born and to be healthy, but to need heart surgery, right, well, yeah, he's.
Been getting care. I didn't need surgery, but definitely been you know, try to improve his health. But it just kind of reminds us health issues of no fault of his own right.
Right, pre existing conditions that he was born with.
Yeah, yeah, and really important, and they were not able to repeal Obamacare in a really important moment there. But I do think it's really important what you said just now about how much you were a person who was a nonpartisan career diplomat, but who decided they had to do they had to step out of that role and run for office because of the danger that was the trump Ism that has continued to infect the Republican Party.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, look, you know, I'm somebody that was fiercely focused on the national security. You know, I served as a civilian out in Afghanistan, and out there, you know, there was always a saying, you know, when you're when you're out there in Afghanistan, nome cares if you're a Democrat or a Republican. And I worked alongside
people at the State Department for like a decade. Who we're at my wedding who still to this day, I don't actually know if they're registered Democrats are Republicans, like we just did the work. But you know, there was this kind of recognition of like, look like, you know, despite the problems that we have with partisan politics, and you know, and the challenges on that front, like we have to be able to get engaged, we have to
find a way to move forward. My boss at the State Department had this line that just still lingers in my mind. He says, you don't have good government unless you have good people working in government. Right, And I get it that politics is toxic and it makes a lot of people not want to do it, But we can't just see the ground. You know, you can't pick ground to those that are just trying to make it talxic because they want it to themselves, right.
You know, a lot.
Reasonable thoughtful people to get in politics, so they're making it crazy.
But we got to endurt.
So I was at home just absolutely infuriated about the situation in New Jersey.
Infuriated.
A Democratic senator indicted for a second time. The facts of it are as damning as anything you've ever fucking seen. I am a partisan, I am an opinion columnist on the left, and I was so appalled to see my own party engaging in the very.
Thing that we had said was wrong with trump Ism, and here you are.
I said, who the fuck is going to primary this guy? We cannot be Democrats and have this guy run for reelection. Someone must primary him. And all of a sudden, I look and it's you. So tell me. I have a feeling you're thinking was the same here as.
When you ran for Congress.
Talk to me, yeah, I mean, in fact, you're right. It is almost identical now that I look back on it. You know, in twenty seventeen, my congressman at the time released the MacArthur Amendment, and I saw all over the news and I turned to my wife and I said, I think I got to do something here. And the next day I launched a tweet that said that I
was considering righting against him. And you know, I think I had like twenty one followers on Twitter at the time, you know, but I had no one in New Jersey politics had any idea who I was. But I just I felt like I had to do something, you know, run towards the fire right. And this situation that on folder with Senator Menendez the other week, it felt almost identical. And it's a feeling I've all felt, you know, two
or three times in my life. But I read it and I turned my wife and I said, like, I think we need to do something about this. And I just felt compelled. I didn't feel like I needed to wait to talk it over with everybody. I'm going to just do what I did in twenty seventeen, which is trust my part, trust my gut, and say like, I am gonna do everything I can, so I, you know, send out a tweet this the day after, almost identical
to what I did in twenty seventeen. I didn't realize that until after I had done it, that how similar the two episodes were. But I just I knew that if I didn't do everything that I could, that I would probably regret it for the rest of my life. And here I am, now, you know, a three term member of Congress from New Jersey. You know I have the ability to step up and try to show what leadership means, try to show that we could have a politics that can restore integrity. So you know, that was
just what moved me. It was obviously probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest, spontaneous decision I've made in my career and it's a big risk for me.
Yeah, I feel like you're not a huge risk taker.
When I feel passionate about some you know, when I said, you know, two or three big decisions I made, you know, the decision to run for Congress to in the first place, that was a big risk. I had a newborn and an eighteen month old before that.
You know.
The other big thing. I mean, you know, I volunteer to go to serve in Afghanistan that be embedded with the military at the height of the war in twenty eleven.
So that's pretty scary.
But I feel in my heart when I know that it's something that I feel passionate about, I am willing to take big risks for my country.
Yeah, primary a sitting Democratic senator, even though there is more than reason here to do it is actually quite scary, right, Yeah.
I mean, look, it's intimidating in terms of just taking a step of this magnitude that I wasn't even thinking about. You know, it is not something I was planning towards. Again, it just is about doing the right thing and standing up for what I believe in. Doesn't matter if it's
you know, a Democrat or a Republican. I believe that, you know, valleys hold consistent across the board, and so in the same way, you know, I worked under both Republicans and Democrats before, I'm willing to stand up to Democrats or Republicans if I feel like they're doing the wrong thing or if they are not approaching the work with that heart of public service that it needs to be.
So let's talk for a minute about one of the reasons that the situation with Menandez is both really scary and also one of the ways he's managed to sort of keep his job is because he's been known as the sort of top dog on foreign affairs, which is why this looks so incredibly bad in every fucking way. You actually have a ton of foreign affairs experience because you were a career diplomat.
Yeah.
Look, I worked my whole career in national security, you know, worked at the State Department of the Pentagon, at the White House National Security Council, out in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
And I look, I even worked briefly as a staff from the Center Foreign Relations Committee when I was younger, And so I've seen this from a lot of different angle and I have to say, you know, some of the allegations that were out there, especially about you know, providing potentially senseive information to the government of Egypt about the personnel at the embassy and in country. I mean,
you know, again, those are our career diplomats. Those are people that I worked alongside, or the types of people I worked alongside. People are put in their lives at risk to serve in different posts or around the world, and what we owe them and what the sacred trust is that we do everything we can to protect them and look out for them, keep them safe while they're doing how countries work out there. Yeah, that allegation against the senator was deeply alarmed.
I get it.
It's not as eye popping maybe as the pictures of the gold bars, but that is something that led me to say, hey, look like, look, he absolutely has you his right for his day and core, and that presumption of it is instantil proving guilty. But in terms of actually being able to continue to do this job as a senator, to sit on the Foreign Relations Committee still, even though he's not the chairman anymore, Like, that doesn't give me confidence that alleged here is specific to the job.
It wasn't something some crime completely unrelated to his job. It was about the job. And so that's where I just felt like, you know that, you know that I was the first person from New Jersey, first official from New Jersey to call for him to step down, And it was because I just didn't feel like I could and the people in New Jersey could have confidence that, you know, he can do this job still right now.
And I think that it's really important part of why trumpsm was so offensive to a lot of us. And I think Hillary Clinton said this best public service about serving the public. I mean, you are here to serve the public, and it seems to me like Bob Mernandez can no longer do that.
Yeah, I mean, look, we live in the time of the greatest amount of distrust in government in modern American history. I am a Democrat that wanted district that Trump won twice. So I engage in kind of across the spectrum viewpoints. And you know, it's often called sort of a battleground district, at least my old House seat. But like it makes this like there's like a blue army and a red army.
Duke get it out every day, but like the reality on the ground is that the vast, vast, vast majority of people in my congressional district don't trust either party right now, and you know, we have to get engaged with this idea of like how do we restore that trust? And it's exactly this kind of stuff that is just eroding that trust. And like if I've been saying this line a lot lately, where I say, you know, I
believe that the opposite of democracy is apathy. So many folks, especially for a New Jersey, are getting close to that where like they see the stuff and like, you know, this is what my neighbors said, Like we talked about it on the day of the indictment coming out. My neighbor's just like that's Jersey. You know, that's Jersey politics, and I just like it breaks my heart.
Well you're like, that's not New Jersey. Let's make it not New Jersey politics.
It doesn't have to be. You know, like I'm tired of my state being this like laughing stock around the country for politics and our reputation, and just like we got to stop it. So like that's you know, that's just the kind this is like a break glass, you know, moment for me, just like people in New Jersey are fed up, and frankly, you know the reaction all over
the country. I mean, you know, in the first week after I made this announcement, we raised about a million dollars from people all over the state, all over the country, I think, because people all over the country feel this way too, even if they're in the up from New Jersey, they see this and they're just like, how is this America right now?
Like?
How is how call it? You know, continuing to have these kinds of problems.
So I saw some polling, and again I really don't believe that the Poles know what they're doing, because a lot of this polling has been so wrong. But I just I saw polling that showed you way ahead, talk to us, way ahead of a sitting incumbent.
Yeah, look, I'm I think the polling YA saw it too. I think there are one or two, I think two different polls that came out last week that that, you know, we're encouraging, showing that, you know, the people in New Jersey A were paying attention and they had seen a
lot of this information. I mean, I guess, you know, it was kind of everywhere so I feel good about that that people are informed, but also that they knew who I was and that they saw that contrast, And you know, I saw you know, people online saying that, like, look, like you know, Andy, somebody that has been building his
whole career around this issue about integrity. They cited how, you know, I've been leading the charge on you know, banning members of Congress from owning and trading individual stocks.
Yes, that's something I'm passionate about, going.
Yeah, you know, and so like, you know, the hold that in contrast with what we had heard of the allegations. I am somebody that's at least been in politics long enough to know that you can't take anything for granted. I'm grateful for the early response, and now I think the needst to keep the pressure on. I mean, look, I mean he's he's built a war chest of nearly
eight million dollars, he's continuing the fundraise. I want to make sure that we are strong enough to be able to you know, get that word out there and to you know, the really withstand the pressures of a state wide campaign in a state of nine knowing people and two of the biggest media markets in the country. With New York and Philly. So there's a lot that needs
to happen. But hopefully what we want and what I'm hoping to build is the largest grassroots mobilization in New Jersey's history and the really trust trying to show what it is that we stand for.
Yeah, how would you vote differently?
You're both Democrats, but you're very You're a very different person and very different politician.
Yeah.
I mean, look, I think one of the issues that we talked about, which is about the issues of like good governance, anti corruption, That's something that I've been really leading on, really making sure that we're taking those steps on ethics for four, that we're prioritizing these issues that I know are so central because I honestly believe like if you can't fix the issues of big money and dark money and politics, that it pedes our ability to
get things done when it comes to gun violence prevention, or you know, on on so many other issues. You know, another issue where you know, I just feel like I had different opinions and clashes is about you know, for instance, like prescription drug costs and other things like that when it comes to healthcare. So you know, I do feel
like there's certainly going to be differences there. There's going to be differences on foreign policy as as we've seen how he's been handling that on a lot of different issues, Whereas you know, I approach things often from a much more comprehensive approach, really try to make sure we're engaged in the diplomacy that we need. But you know, before we get to a lot of that, you know, the core central argument right now is about integrity, and I
think that a lot of people in New Jersey. You know, we can talk to the issues and that's going to be important, but ultimately they want to know is what's in your heart, Like why are you doing this job? How can I trust you to make the right decisions for my family?
You know, when push.
Comes to shove, And I think that that's that's where really right now the fissure is. And I hope to show that contrast.
Thank you so much for joining us, and I hope you will come back.
Yeah, thank you for having me, and I absolutely happen to come back anytime.
Becca Blent represents Vermont's sole congressional district.
Welcome to Beast politics. Congresswoman.
Thank you, you're the lone congresswoman from the state of Vermont. I feel like the Vermont delegation, like, you guys are my people.
It is easy to get your senators.
And you you guys are frequent flyers here. But I want to ask you what is happening in the United States House of Representatives right now?
Oh, Molly, it's terrible, So explain to our listeners. Okay, yeah, I'll break it down for listeners. Now. We're in this situation right now because the Republican Party has not dealt with their extremist Maga way of the party because they take it over. That's what's going on here. This is a civil war within the party. And if they had dealt with trump Ism, if they had dealt with people within their party who don't leave in the constitution upholding
the law, we wouldn't be in this situation. And McCarthy also really made an incredibly stupid agreement back in January, agreeing to a rule change that said one person could call for his ouster. I mean, it's ridiculous. You can't govern that way, Amember. The press was asking me the other day, are you surprised that McCarthy is out? I said, no, we all know it would end up here. When you have that kind of a rule and you bend over backwards to accommodate the extremists, they're going to eat their
own And so it's really frustrating to watch. And as I've said to Vermontra's time and time again, the hardest part for me is watching the moderates, the people who say that they're moderate, who say they're interested in governing, they don't stand up to the extremists. That's the hardest part for me, because they'll say privately, oh, this is terrible, this is terrible for us. We need to bring the extremists,
We need to get them out of our party. This isn't good, and yet they vote in line with them repeatedly. We got to deal with this reckoning sometime. Unfortunately it's right now, when you know, we've got a bunch of things happening internationally. But they got to figure out the path forward. We're here as partners, but they've said they don't want our help.
Yeah, I mean, it would have been so easy for McCarthy to have made any kind of deal. Yes, I mean his numbers are he only needed you know what, five six.
Exactly, and leader Jeffries did make those overtores, like let's talk about some kind of power sharing agreement, let's talk about equalizing membership on committees, like there are things that we can do here, And once again McCarthy said, no, I don't need you. Well, clearly he did, and I think he didn't realize the extent to which he had burned all of his bridges by going back on every deal that he made with both the Democrats and the
Senate and the White House. Right, you can only do that so many times before people say enough, we need somebody who is more trustworthy.
So much of the discourse was like, why did Democrats save McCarthy? Why would they.
Exactly why when we he screwed us over at every possible opportunity, And in what worlds? In what world would Republicans ever have given Speaker Pelosi, you know, if there was a tough race, like it just.
Doesn't happen to happen, right, this is this.
Is absurd, And this comes back to my original you know premise here, which is essentially, there is one group that's interested in governing, and right now that's the Democrats. We're interested in government having, you know, functioning governing, keeping the government funded, making sure programs are working, and then you've got a group that is not interested actually in that. And so again, why would we continue to prop up someone who said in the hours and the darkest hours
of January sixth, oh, I'm done with this guy. I'm done with Trump, you know, and and made even stronger statements in the day's following and then a few weeks later he's at mar Alaga kissing the ring. So how can we possibly believe that he's going to be somebody long term who's going to deal with the real rot in that party?
The case Republicans were trying to make was that McCarthy would be better for Democrats than Jim Jordan.
And I'm going to go on a limit hear and say, I'm not convinced he would be.
Yeah, we're not either, because if you look at what he allowed his extremists to do, so anti abortion, so anti LGBTQ, so anti the poor and the most neediest of us, you know, among us in the country.
Cutting the cr by thirty percent.
Exactly thirty percent cuts to government would impact every single American who receives any kind of of supports from the federal government. It's not fiscally responsible to do that. And so yeah, it's one of the things I was saying to folks back home. How could it be worse? I would rather have us be able to say, look, if the Republicans elect Jim Jordan, right, somebody who is in the thick of it in January sixth, right, the committee knows that he knew a lot more than he's saying
he knew. Right, We know he wouldn't comply with subpoenas. Like, if that's who they choose as their guy, then let's see it for what it is. Whereas I feel like McCarthy was putting a band aid on this gaping chest wind and enough already, enough with this dance.
You know, it's so interesting when you say that, because I really do it does really feel like McCarthy.
Kept saying, well, I'm a moderate, I'm a moderate.
He was holding impeachment trials of Joe Biden. He started in impeachment hearing, I mean, that's not moderate, that's insane.
And when you've got someone like Ken but who's no liberal, saying the Biden impeachment inquiry is a sham, right, I mean, it was pure pure politics and pandering to the most extreme members of his conference, and so it is. It is a reckoning that I thought, honestly would have come before now. And we'll see what emerges from from their meetings. I don't see how either Jordan or Scalise gets to two eighteen. I really don't.
But if they do eventually elect him Jordan, which you're making eighteen vulnerable Republicans vote for a guy who is at best in crime ignorer.
Yes, well, I mean so I sit now with him on Judiciary. He's the chair. He's been using the committee to try to figure out ways to get Donald Trump off the hook in his you know, legal proceedings. That's always using our committee. If this is the guy they choose, let's have this out in the open for Americans to see.
There's a lot of clarity there. If he gets elected.
Exactly, I mean, this stuff terrifies me. It is the the enablers terrify me. The people who know better, the people who see it and understand how dangerous it is, but do not seem to understand that they have to use their voices because it means more from them coming within the conference than it means for any of us, Right, they just tune us out. If you had the folks saying, do we believe in the Constitution or do we not?
Do we believe in the rule of law or do we not?
Or we simply you know, an arm of Trump incorporated.
Yeah, Jesse just sent me that George Santos has endorsed Jim Jordan. Yes, but the thing that the House is supposed to be doing right now is the budget.
Talk to us about where you guys.
Are with the budget and why this is a complete shit show.
Well, so, if you remember, there was an agreement to prevent a horrible default back in June, and as part of that deal, you had spending agreement being made between the House, the Senate, and the White House, basically saying here is the amount of money that we're going to spend to fund government this year.
Right.
I think two weeks after that agreement was signed into law, already they were backtracking and saying that they're actually not going to honor that agreement. And so you had the Appropriations Committee and other committees of jurisdiction in the House trying to build a budget based off of those numbers. And that's when the Republicans came back under McCarthy and said, no, no, no, we're not going to agree to those things that we already shook on and signed and signed this law. We
actually want thirty percent cuts to the budget. So we don't have a working budget right now, and anything that we pass under the extremists is going to be dead on arrival in the Senate. Right that's the piece that they don't seem to understand. It baffles the mind. I came up to my state legislature and I used to say this to my senators all the time. Guys, if we can't get it through the other chamber, we got nothing. So can we please be communicating not just across the aisle,
but across chambers to see what is actually possible? And it's just been a whole lot of wasted time.
Only way to get things passed in this House would be to craft legislation that is more bipartisan or nonpartisan. And there are certainly things like Israel where both parties there's very little daylight between them, but that can't happen because these Republicans are so afraid of primary contests.
Right.
Yes, some of it is fear about primary contests, and some of it is just actually just fear that when you have a former president who is willing to take to social media and basically sick the dogs on you know, other Americans, like, how could they feel safe? Right?
Right?
And so it is both days it is worrying about their own political careers and putting that above the country. And it is also this genuine concern that Trump broke all of the rules of engagement around politics, and it's fine to dehumanize people, to demonize people. I mean, when you see him in that speech the other day when he was mocking the horrible brutal attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband,
I'm Paul Pelosi like, this is a depraved individual. And so there's a reason why people within Republican conference are wanting to distance themselves from him but are afraid to do so. Now, I'm not excusing the lack of courage, Believe me, When you come right down to it, the whole charade of the moderate Republicans falls apart when you look at the agenda.
That they passed.
It was a really nasty, cruel agenda that was essentially looking to take away supports from low income families and schools, taking away nutritional assistance, attaching writers for abortion bands, for every piece of legislation, constantly attacking the LGBTQ community. Right, these are not serious people who are interested in actually coming together. I don't even want to say in a bipartisan marina. I just want them to be based in reality. Honestly,
the bar is pretty low. Like based a reality, you can't seem to do math, and you can't get anything through if you don't have the votes. And does it really work for you to be facing yet another government shutdown? Right, there's no serious of purpose here.
Well, the goal here is just to raise money, right.
Yes, And we saw that that was so interesting in the debate on the floor, and that's what was you know, it was Republican versus Republican on the debate on the floor about the speaker and they were pointing out that Matt and Gates and others were using the speakership issue to raise money even while we were on the floor
of the House debating what should happen. Right, And it's a real problem that I have when I see many members of the press said, oh, well we learned from Trump, like we learned that you know, we have to take this more seriously, we have to, you know, treat candidates like Trump in a different way. But I'm not seeing that yet. When I step out of the House of Representatives and walk down that big, long set of steps
in the front, who are they chasing down? The press is chasing down Mack Gates, Margie Taylor Green, and George Santos.
It's funny because you're the second person today to talk about the press chasing down its So do you feel like on some level the mainstream media is incentivizing this kind of bad behavior?
Absolutely? Absolutely, And it pains me to say that. I have friends who are journalists. I know they try their level best to get it right, but they have also shared with me that it is the headlines that drives the news and not the other way around. And so they do chase the conflict to entrepreneurs, right. They do chase people like Nancy Mace, who you know, she's not a moderate, right, and yet they continue to refer to
her as someone who's you know, governing minded. And so we have to stop giving these people a platform because they're not the ones actually doing the work of passing legislation to keep government open. They're simply creating problems for their own ends, not because they're there to serve their constituents. And I wish they would stop, you know, literally chasing them down the street to get some kind of comment from them. It's absurd.
It's a sort of mobius strip of self reinforcing properties.
But I just strategically for a minute.
So Matt Gate's fundraising off of his fight with Mike Lawler, who is one of these vulnerable House Republicans. Aren't these Republicans like still dealing with a normal electorate, won't sooner or later, These people, I mean voters don't like this, do they?
I mean, oh no, they don't. They don't like it. And so here's the thing. So we got to that crisis around the funding of government and the continuing resolution. We had, you know, a discharge petition that had been signed by every single Democrat and we only needed five Republicans to sign it that simply said, here's a clean continuing resolution, let's keep the government open.
Did they do that?
No, So we got to the brink of shutdown hours before. And they can't help themselves. They can't seem to realize that they are contributing to the to the chaos and the dysfunction, And so I thought it was really rich that Lawlor and some others were blaming Democrats for the chaos. That is absurd that they could have diffused all of this around the continuing Resolution and the funding if they
had simply signed the discharge petition. It didn't require them to do any make any brave statements on the floor, didn't require them to do any backroom deals with anyone. They simply needed to put their signature down on a piece of paper that said, hey, let's fund the government. And they weren't even willing to do that.
Yeah, but they weren't willing to do it because why do you think.
Well, I think they want to have it both ways, right. They don't want to draw the ire of Donald J. Trump, right, but they also want to act like they're actually moderate voices within Congress. Well, I'm sorry, you can't do both those things. You cannot be a moderate who actually is trying to appease and enable Donald Trump and his supporters. You can't. The two are are mutually exclusive.
Yeah, do you think they're still just so afraid of Trump or do you think there's sort of more nuance here?
Well, They're worried about smear campaigns. They're worried about what happens if they get a knock on their door from people who were activated by something they saw on social media. Look, you know, they saw what happened on January sixth cent They saw the videos of people yelling, hang like Pence, Hang like Pence, right, And it's just so much disinformation. But honestly, I think about this a lot when I'm
sitting in that chamber. I think, what are the conditions by which people will be more courageous, will have more metal and more backbone. And I don't know if you and I have talked about this before, but so my grandfather was killed in the Holocaust, and I think a lot about what is it that makes good people not act? And you can look at any movement that is around demonizing or dehumanizing people around the globe, right, what is it that enables those people to just go along with
what they know is wrong? And I'm not trying to liken Lawler's the role that he's playing here with Nazis. That's not what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to say is that when you know that it can be better and should be better. You should do better whatever way that you can. And that's what worried me about coming off of this speaker vote, that they didn't seem to learn the lesson that they created this problem by not standing up to their extremists. And it's not going to go away.
Yeah, it's not.
Right, especially again if the press continues to lift up the voices of Magate's Margie Taylor Green, Jim Jordan. They are all these mini Trumps that are coming in his wake.
Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I hope you'll come back, absolutely happy to be here.
No moment. Jesse Cannon, my junk fast.
There's really really important things happening in the world, and yet people are still discussing the dumbest shit possible, are they not?
So?
A very very fulsome piece of reporting on our vice president published in the New York Times magazine this week by A. Steed Herndon, who is a very accomplished and important political journalist. In it, there are a number of people, some speaking anonymously, some speaking on the record. One thing that stuck out to us, brought to our attention by organizer Memes. One of my favorite accounts on the social
media site formerly known as Twitter. I'm all for anonymously shit talking your boss, but obviously complaining about a black woman who is constantly under global scrutiny. Taking time for hair care is racist, BS, and.
I'm going to read to you.
A member of Harris's staff remarked on the amount of downtime the vice president schedules on trips, which includes an inordinate amount of time dedicated to haircare. Well, listeners, I would like to make a confession, I myself spend it in Orton, and Jesse can attest to this.
It's on my calendar all the time.
An ordinate amount of time on hair care.
And I am not even the vice president. So that is our moment of fuckery. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.