Rep. Ritchie Torres, Randi Weingarten & Sam Brodey

the House. But first we have the Daily Beast congressional reporter Sam Brodie. Oh my god, welcome to Fast Politics. Sam Brodie, it's great to be here. Thank you. We're so excited to have you. So let's talk about what is happening. Because this is a lame duck but filled with drama. Talk to us about some of the drama.

There's all kinds of drama happening. This is a big changing of the guard moments in Congress, and not just because Republicans are going to switch into the House majority, but yesterday Democrats elected a new leadership team basically for the first time in twenty years, which is hugely significant, and it was you know, kind of dramatic in a sense because it's so important, but there was like no

drama to it whatsoever. Like Democrats absolutely lined up behind their their new team of Hakim Jeffries, who was replacing Nancy Pelosi's leader, and then Katherine Clark as the number two and Pete Aguilar's the number three. The drama is really happening on on the Republicans side right now, as Kevin McCarthy like furiously tries to cobble together two and

eighteen votes to become Speaker of the House. Which is so funny that this is playing out this way because it was sort of assumed that the drama was going to be on the Democratic side after Pelosi left. There were so many questions is to what the post Pelosi era would look like. Who might step up? You know, Hakeem Jeffries was considered the air apparent, but like there

were some other people in the mix. Whereas it was like assumed on the Republican side that, Okay, Kevin McCarthy, if you get some already, he's going to be in charge. Not looking like a super sure bet right now, there's a lot of people on the Republican side who are at least saying right now that they're not going to support him as speaker. So some Republicans in disarray, kund

of right now. So we'll talk to me about this, because the sort of fascinating data point here with everything you read is that McCarthy doesn't have the votes, but there's no one else, and so McCarthy is going to get it. That seems like a flawed logic discuss. Yeah, you know, the thing about that kind of logic is that there's no one else until there is someone else. That's kind of the way these things tend to work out.

At the end of the day. It's it's going to be about Kevin McCarthy and whether his conference wants him to be in that position. And if he doesn't get the votes, I mean, I think the people who oppose him are viewing this as a referendum on him. If he doesn't get the votes, something else is going going to happen. And you know, we've seen leaders in the past emerge this way where no one's really talking about them and it ends up happening. I mean, when John

Bayner left, Kevin McCarthy was also the heir apparent. Then he sort of had some full back campaign because he didn't get support, and Paul Ryan, who's sort of a big figure, there isn't somebody like him with that kind of stature now that Paul Ryan had then, But no one was saying like, oh, Paul Ryan is definitely going to be the speaker. But McCarthy bowed out and Paul

Ryan ended up being the speaker. So weird things can happen, and it's really about whether these Conservatives trust Kevin McCarthy to do this job. So let's talk about what you're seeing otherwise in the leadership. For example, it seems like there's sort of five people have already said or maybe more that they won't support McCarthy. How many votes does McCarthy need to get to be speaker. He needs to eighteen, and there are going to be two d and twenty

two Republicans. He can lose four. And there are at least five people out there in the Republican side who are saying they won't support McCarthy or are currently not supporting McCarthy. But this is where things get really interesting, because I think there are probably three maybe who are just hard nos just not ever going to vote for Kevin McCarthy, that could be fine for him. Who are those people or are there backbenchers? None of us have ever heard of a friend of the show, friend of

our show. Maybe at the two Beast, the gentleman from Florida, Matt Gates. He's going to be a no. No matter what a couple other guys, I mean Andy Biggs, who was the only one to actually run against McCarthy when Republicans had their closed door nominating vote, He's going to be a no. And then I think another backbencher or two may just kind of do it to make a statement. So that's where things are at. I think there's like a larger group that are out right now not supporting him.

But this this may end up being kind of the tough bargain, maybe the poison pill that Kevin McCarthy swallows, because there are these hardliners in the Freedom Caucus who you know, I think we'll vote for McCarthy, but they want to extract some real stuff out of him. Basically, they want to extract rules changes that will give them a lot more power and give McCarthy a lot less

power if he's speaker. This rule I just want to stop you is something where they can call him up for election as speaker anytime they want, right basically, and then there's just a number of other things that, if they're adopted, would make Kevin McCarthy's life miserable. It gives rank and file members a lot more power to shape the legislative process and force legislative action on things that, say Kevin McCarthy might really not want them to do.

It's sort of like this Fossian barbed where in order to become Speaker, Kevin McCarthy is going to have to make a deal that is going to make his job as Speaker that much more difficult. And I think that's something that maybe gets lost a little bit in this conversation. Obviously it's important to watch whether Kevin McCarthy actually gets the votes. But in order to get the votes, he's going to start on you know, day one is speaker, He's just going to start rolling the boulder up the

hill that day. I mean, that's really it. It's this hard for him just to get to the starting block, and these rule changes could make it really hard for him to function as speaker. Thoughts, prayers. I just want to get back to this idea for a second, because I don't have a lot of love for for Kevin McCarthy. Could you see a Steve Scullies being the sort of more consensus candidate or is there really no one who

is has emerged as a possible challenger. No one has really emerged as a possible challenger, And I think the school is actually just on paper, is more of a

consensus candidate, probably just in terms of the fundamentals. The thing is is that McCarthy and Scullies have this rivalry going back a long time, and they have their respective loyalists, and people are just very My sense has been that that Republicans are wary of backing Skollies as as the alternative, just because that kind of dynamic has been so set for a long time and they have their respective amps.

And I think the sense is that it would have to be somebody who's not in the current leadership if it does fall apart or or something like that, it would have to be someone who has not been in the mix and been courting votes and built up their own base of support, because then it becomes personal for people who would maybe not support McCarthy if if they bring in schools, because then It just kind of kicks up all this this sort of dust that's been percolating

on the Republican side, drama wise for the last few years. So let's talk about what is going to happen in the lame duck. I also do want to talk about this cock the D Triple C Caucus chair, because that is it now open. We saw that was Sean Patrick Maloney's seat. Sean Patrick Maloney lost his seat in this redistrict doing perhaps surprisingly, Now they're looking for the two people have volunteered for the job. Talked to us about that.

That seems like a crazy story. Yeah, I think Democrats right now are in a moment of reevaluating what the D Triple C chair should look like. It was pretty shocking that Sean Patrick Maloney lost, and I think stepping back and looking at the rest of what happened in New York, it's really, you know, not that shocking at all. But party committee chairs are just not supposed to lose.

There were some things that happened during the campaign where the D trips spent to protect Shown Patrick Maloney, and that's an internally sensitive move because your job number one is supposed to be protecting the rest of the members. So all this stuff has has Democrats thinking about, Okay, should the d triple C chair even be a member at all? I mean, there's no inherent rule that it that it has to be, it's just a convention that

it is. So at this moment right now, Democrats are sort of thinking about ways in which they could make this job a little less fraught, maybe free this person up from I don't know, having to worry about are they going to get reelected on top of trying to you know, stay in the majority or take back the majority. What I'm told from folks just checking in throughout the week on this stuff is that it's unlikely that Dens are going to do this kind of like wholesale reimagining

of the position. So it's probably still going to be a member of Congress who does it. But people aren't super satisfied with the current Shares or the current Shared candidates who are out there. They both have a lot of scandals as two people who put themselves out backbenchers with lots of scandals. Right. Almira has had to run competitive elections in the past, but not in a Laski cycles. Tony cartin Is has never had to run a competitive

election against a Republican. Usually people want teatrip chairs to have at least some knowledge at some point of how to win a campaign against the Republican. So there's a lot of satisfaction out there. And what I think is kind of crazy about this is like, like Democrats could take back the House. They really could, especially if if Republicans are doing what they're planning on doing with the Hunter Biden stuff, and you just look at the map.

I mean, there there's a good like if Democrats take half of the seats that went for Biden and are currently represented by Republicans, they'll they'll win the House. So someone can step up and be the hero, you know, But there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of folks who are, you know, waving their hands in the ear and being like, oh, yeah, I'll do it. It's a bit of a weird dynamic. There is this lame duck. Now it seems like defensive marriage is going to pass, right,

It's passed the Senate, but not the House yet. That's right, It passed the Senate, which was really the hurdle, and the real question in the House is how many votes will it get how many Republicans will will vote for it? I think that's like an interesting question for Congress nerds and maybe a sense of where this House Republican Conference might get up. But it's a foregone conclusion that it's going to pass, and I think they're going to put

it on the floor next week. And then there's this The quote was nobody wants to give Kevin McCarthy a grenade with the pin pulled already about this debt ceiling issue. Talk to us about the debt ceiling issue. Yeah, so it's crazy that this is where things are at now. A few years ago this wasn't the case. But you have the leader, the presumptive leader of the House Republican Conference basically saying we're willing to play politics with the

debt limit. I mean, nobody said that twenty years ago, and like five years ago, it was just kind of the cranks who said it, and you know, they had enough power to make things happen. So the name of the game here in the Lame Duck across the board is like how much can Democrats get done to set themselves up for success and give the Republican majority in the House just fewer opportunities to I guess how can I say that's elegantly like function up. I really don't know,

like function app is perfect. And one of the things that Kevin McCarthy is is really gonna, I think probably try to do is because it's still going to be divided government, so the set of being democratic it limits his options. But from the investigations to how they handle government funding. They want to create problems for Joe Biden ahead of re election. But potentially the debt limit could

be one of those things. I think it's sometime early next year, so I mean that lands right, that's the need of that rolls right into the Republican Foxhall that they could toss over to the White House if if they choose. You know, but I think everything gets harder right now because Republicans know that the clock is taking on democratic control and if they're able to drive certain things out, that the clock will run out and January

three Republicans will be in charge. There's already been an incredible spate of letters written by Kevin McCarthy about all of the things he planned to do when he gets the job. He doesn't have yet. Can you talk to us a little bit about that, because I every day I see another letter from him. McCarthy is, if he gets to this position, aside from the rules changes, is going to be pulled in about a million different directions.

And I think what will be called oversight by Republicans is going to be a really important thing to watch because Republicans, the bills they passed are not going to come law, and so oversight is the way that they can toss red meat to the kind of more maga members of their conference to keep them happy and to keep them from revolting against Kevin McCarthy. Yet, McCarthy also has some of these new members who just came in and you might have heard some of them after the election.

For example, the guy who beat Sean Patrick Maloney, his name is Mike Waller. He's elected, and he's like, you know, I really you know, I'm paraphrasing, and but he he really expressed no interest at like a Hunter Biden Benghazi Committee or anything like that. He's like, people, you know, people don't really want us to do that. So he's going to be pulled in these different directions. So I think viewing all these letters and Jim Jordan's has a bunch of letters that have come out. He's going to

be the chair of the Arry Committee. Yes, I saw an amazing Jim Jordan letter today where he's going to investigate the investigators. He is without his jacket. I would hope. Right, here's a really good example of why this is all a little bit of kabuki theater. McCarthy sends out this

letter saying, January six Committee, keep your records. We're going to take hold of those and we're going to show the American people, and I think people who follow the January Sifton you would say or support it was a sure man, go ahead, take them, like, get all of our stuff out there. We left some stuff on the cutting room floor. It would be great if you guys

could air that. Continue to air that, because I'm sure they're sitting on plenty of stuff that is going to reflect a lot more poorly on on Trump and his his backers than it is on the January six Committee. I highly doubt that Kevin McCarthy is going to go down that road. So it's important to view that stuff through what is Kevin McCarthy's posturing and how is he using oversight or oversight threats just as a way to

keep his his people in line. There is one thing that came into mind that I do think is super important to note in terms of like the lame duck, and that's kind of in the investigations thing, which is, I'm sure you're following the Ways of Means Trump tax stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they have the taxes now, right, they have it now. They also have a month before before the before the

Republicans take charge. So I think there's some really interesting questions as to how does Riche Neil, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, handle this. You know, Nancy closey still you know, kind of she's technically still the leader until until January three. I'm sure she's working closely with Jeffries, but how do they decide to handle this?

And I think it's fair to say with with these records, I mean, when Republicans take charge of that committee, they're gonna, you know, that's going to be put in a foul cabinet um in a very very quiet corner of the Capital the file get the paper shredder or fire cabinet. So I just want to just clearly just go this for one second. So basically, all of Kevin McCarthy's grand plans will endanger all of the seats the Republicans just one. I think it's fair to say that, Yeah, the proof

is sort of in the pudding. These folks got elected and they're saying, you know, we really are not really good interested in doing any of this stuff. It's a remarkable moment of you know, Republicans kind of catching the car. They've got the House after all the expectations of a huge red wave that didn't materialize, and their base is really hungry for them to make a Hunter Biden Laptop committee, and the people who just put them in the majority are like, not so fast. This is a bad idea.

It would be one thing if there was a forty seat Republican majority, like Republicans talked about, and you know, folks like the guy would be tryn Patrick Mullaney would kind of be irrelevant. Well, that's not what happened. They have a four seat majority. I think because of what happened, the voices on the Republican side who are wanting to pump the brakes on all this Hunter Biden stuff and impeaching you know, my orchists and teaching you know this

person and that person. Like the voices saying pump the brakes are are going to be a lot more listened to. I think by Kevin McCarthy. Fantastic, so interesting, Thank you so much. Please come back, Sam, Yes, I will come on anytime. That's always so. Randy wine Garden is the president of the American Federation of Teacher Welcome too Fast Politics. The most dangerous person in the world, Randy Weingarten, congratulations.

You know what I saw it. Initially, Molly, I was amused because I'm like, oh my god, he must be running for president. Like I have never heard Mike Pompeio utter my name or a word about education, much less teachers or math or science or literacy or whatever. So I'm like, I guess he's trying to out Betsy Divoss here. Yes, what I really hated about it. Look, I don't really care what he says about me, although in this moment in time, because it signals things to extremists, you know,

it can be very dangerous. This is what I really cared about. He called what teachers do filth. That's what I really cared about. For everyone who doesn't totally know the situation, Mike pomp, a blowhard of the worst kind, has decided that he wants to run for president, and one of the ways he's trying to get the base excited is by attacking you, because you are the two things Republicans hate, teachers unions, and this is a culture

war trope that they've gotten very excited about. And then he followed up by saying, you're the most dangerous person in the world. The sort of Republican attack on an education has sort of taken. It's been a multi pronged attempt. First, I want to talk to you about the book banning and that element of it. You know that there are things too dangerous to learn. That seems to me to be a sort of interesting revival of a kind of

nineteen fifties thing. I mean, are you surprised that that came down the pike or were you waiting for that? Or has that always been there? So let me give you my thirty second to my minute analysis of this. You know, you have the of arcs and the gazillionaires like the Koch brothers, the U Lines, the divorces. They've always seen this amount of money that goes into education, and they've tried to figure out how do they glom onto it. You know, first they want to cut their taxes,

but they really want to glom onto this money. They came up with vouchers and charters and all sorts of other competition and things like that. But ninety semi percent of parents still want to send your kids to public schools. So you have that group of people. And remember Pompell

is very connected to the Koch brothers. But then on top of it, this is the new part that the combination of what happened in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder and in the aftermath of COVID is what has made the cultural wars into a high octane battle because people, you know, at the beginning of co the parents who started watching what their kids were doing with teachers on zoom. We were getting just tremendous love for teachers about how engaged they were and what they were trying to do

and how much they were trying to do. And we kept you know, all sorts of places open for food delivery and things like that, and you know, you saw all that. But what happened between George Floyd's murder and everyone seeing seven minutes of this guy being killed by a police officer and seeing that video, it created a lot of empathy, and it created a lot of sense of, Oh, my god, racism is really going on in the country.

Put a pin in that for a second. And then on top of that, all of the dislocation and the disruption because two or three years of people not being in school or their calendars disrupted, their lives disrupted, and the uncertainty created a lot of uncertainty. Those two things were the recipe for chaos, vilification, and division. So what has these cultural wars been now? Now? Think about them?

The cultural wars. Get rid of social emotional learning in schools, get rid of the teaching forget about book banning for a second, the teaching of Anne Frank and Ruby Bridges and calling honest history critical race theory which no one knows. And then what happened with trans kids? Fifty million dollars in the last election cycle to try to vilify trans kids and it didn't work. Not working is the best

part of that whole story. Yeah, exactly. But my point is there were seeds here that made it very seductive for the Steve Bennins and the chaos disruptors, divide yours to say, let's exploit the anxiety. But also they were really really fearful, which is why you saw the attack and teaching honest history and why you see the attack

on social emotional learning. They're really afraid that we were bringing people together and understanding that everybody has to be seen and we really need to take on racism and anti semitism and homophobia and Islamophobia, and that idea of bringing people together and public schools doing it. They're really really afraid of that. That's why I think that I am the most dangerous person to him, because that's what public school should be doing, bring people together and helping

kids not only recover but thrive. As someone who has school aged kids who went through the pandemic, there has definitely been learning loss. I mean, that's no what he is arguing about that. In fact, the teachers have been pretty open about that, the thing I always hoped would happen. And I wonder why there isn't more openness to this.

This is just like me as a parent, is I wonder why there isn't more openness to like doing a thirteenth year of school for people because I do feel like they missed a lot of like emotional learning, et cetera. What happens when people start talking about a thirteen and fourteenth year of high school as opposed to a dual enrollment program is that everybody is leary about the concept of leaving kids back or you know, holding people back

because of a pandemic. Having kids suffered enough and leaving kids back is always viewed as a penalty as opposed to you know, this is good for someone. It's always you know, even thinking about how the term is used. So that's why those of us in education talk about accelerated learning. Of course, this pandemic of hurt kids and

hurt families and hurt the country. And if you're five years old and all of a sudden you're not playing with your friends for months and months at a time, and you don't know one day from the next year, got to wear masks and do not have to marry. And I think we were wrong by not being more open to saying, look, of course, this period of time is terrible. What we were trying to do is educators were trying to do everything in their power to keep

kids up. I think what we have to do and think about accelerated learning, think about high schools really differently, meaning let's make sure there's pathways in high schools to

college and to career. Let's make sure that we can readily do dual enrollment programs and businesses be part of this in terms of how we help kids get certification or apprenticeship programs or things like that, so effectively having a thirty year or fourteens here, but doing it in a really different way, because I think the psychological issues

right now are as important as almost anything else. We have to help kids get their mojo back and their profidence back in a sense that they can be on the path to you know, success, because think about, Look, I'm old already. I'm I'm gonna be sixty five years old this month. But think about the generation gen Z and the other generations born in the nineties and the two thousand's, they went through the two thousand and eight recession, and they're going through this. That's a lot of pain

to go through at the start of one's life. So that's why I'm I'm thinking, let's find real ways of having pathways like career tech ed, like all the stuff that's happening with chips do all the kind of tutoring that is going on right now. Let's help kids get their mojo back and really focus on mental health and and disrupting isolation. There was a moment with the pandemic where I really thought that, um, it would bring us all together, and a lot of historians sort of hoped

that it would be that. And instead, you know, the way the Great Depression did, there were sort of moments of connection, and even the nine eighteen flu pandemic in a certain way brought people together. But instead we've had this very polarized sort of attack on these teachers, you know, mad the right has been very mad at teachers for masking, mad at teachers for not having in person school sooner.

And you know what I think is interesting is like, you know that one year when the pandemic really started, you know, there wasn't in person school. But as soon as we started to really learn about it and there were vaccines, as soon as humanly possible, everyone got back into the classroom. Republicans tried to run on that in this mid term, and they really weren't able to because it just didn't catch fire the way they had hoped, which I do think is probably a good sign about

the American people. I do too, And and look, let's just be real. In school learning is a lot more effective than being on zoom and being remote. And one of the reasons it's more effective is that people I don't want to sound like Barbara Stress and people people needing people, but people need people and kids need to

be in relation with one another. But as one of the people who from April, I mean, this is this is what's so hard about living in this post true society that we're in and where there doesn't seem to be any guardrails against the extremists disinforming or telling of lies. But from April, my union was trying to figure out how to get people back into school in a safe way. And I think what happened here was the politics and

Trump's political need to try to win reelection. He decided the way he was going to win re election was to first pretend that COVID didn't exist, and then he completely mishandled the pandemic as he missandaled virtually everything else. But what happened as a result is, you know, with the exception of Fauci, he didn't really trust very many other people who were speaking from that podium about what

was going on. So look at what happened. Andrew Cuomo all of a sudden became the de facto president for the moment. I think that the uncertainty about what was going on created anxiety, and the politics infected it in a way that was just gross and made people more uncertain. And look at it now, millions of people have died. We now have three respiratory viruses. They're putting a lot of people in the hospiti But nobody wants to talk about any of this or take any kind of measures

because of, you know, the politics of COVID. I think if Biden was the president when COVID first started, we would have had a very different response, and I think there was there would have been a real shot of bringing the country together. Oh yeah, I mean well, I would also say that under Trump we lost a million people. Most countries that are wealthy countries like US lost many

many fewer. So I mean, you know, there was a lot of malpractice governing Maul to practice as one would expect, and the way in which Trump acted people were dispensable, and the way in which they acted in terms of the opening of schools. I mean, I just want to put some facts out. As soon as the vaccines were available, and we were very grateful. We are the fastest growing healthcare union and we're the second largest teacher union and

the largest college union. So of my member as soon as the vaccines were available, ultimately got the vaccines and wanted to be in schools. Overwhelmingly of my members wanted to be in schools. They just wanted to be safe. And if you look at Guiden's record in terms of school opening, even during O Macron versus Trump's record, even in the highest places, the highest incidents of O Macron last January, eight percent of schools were open compared to

Trump schools. These school board meetings one of the things that Steve Bannon has been well for the midterms more but also now they've encouraged their people to run for school boards. You had a lot of pretty incredible, you know, videos of people. There were people talking about that. You know, there was this uh lie that a child had identified as a cat and that the teachers had put a cat litter box in this classroom. Lat of Republican candidates

ran on this lie even though it's not true. Are you seeing a downstream effect from the school board candidates and explain yes, number one, you know, and we're still getting all the results from all the school board elections in the main the pro public education candidates one, particularly in blue areas and in a lot of purple areas. In red areas, you saw kind of a mix, a mix bad. But what is happening is that it is creating an USA Today had a great article about this

yesterday or in the last couple of days. It is really creating a huge chilling effect on teachers. So that's story about the cat, the cats and litter. It was gross, it was disgusting. It was a lie. The other thing that's gross and disgusting and a lie is that teachers are grooming kids or trying to convince kiss to change sexes. It's gross, But it goes back to the point I was trying to make before, which is new need teachers and kids to have a trusting connection with each other.

All of this is intended to break that bond and to undermine public schools, and that's what's so dangerous about it. Yeah, a guy like Pompeo, he know it's better. He's a West Point guy he gives the head of the CIA. He knows what are the seeds of authoritarianism. It's this deshumanization and it's this distrust and he is walking right into it intentionally because of his political aspirations. This is so interesting. I hope you will come back. Thank you

so much, randywine Garden, of course, thank you. Congressman Richie Torres represents New York's fifteenth congressional district. Welcome to Fast Politics, Richie Torres. It's always an honor to be here. It's always an honor to have you. Such an interesting time to be a Democrat. You had some votes this morning. Will you tell our listeners about what happened this morning.

So I'm proud to report that the House Democratic Caucus has selected Keem Jeffreys, Congressman Keem Jeffreys from Brooklyn, as the first person of color to lead House Democrats in the history of the United States. Hopefully one day he will become the first speaker of color in the United States. So we've made history. He's going to be a powerful

bass and voice of the party. He's one of I would argue he's our best communicator, in our best spokesperson and so it's exciting to be part of making history. It's so interesting because I was thinking about it. I was thinking in the House it's different, but in the Senate there's still only two black senators. And you know, just as imporant is the racial diversity is generational. Congress

historically has been something of germtocracy. You know, the three leading Democrats in the House or at or above the age of eighty, all but a few of the committee chairs are at or above the age of seventy United age thirty five and essentially in embryon in the United States. Commm wait, there are three I'm sorry, there are three African American senators, which is extremely small, and there's only ever been twelve. I think it's like their twelve or

thirteen throughout history, which is like crazily small. I want to talk to you about this sort of the way that this went down, because it does seem very organized. Hakim and Catherine Clark is going to be the minority with and Pete Aguilar, who's who said to be the

chair of the caucus. The three of them essentially ran as a team as a slate, and the three of them have been part at work cultivating relationships with members, campaigning for members across the country, raising money for the party. The three of them laid the ground world for you know. I mean it might it might seem like a four nation, but I feel like that ignores the mense amount of time and effort that each of them put into their

campaign for leadership. Can you talk a little bit about there's some anxiety on the progressive side that Representative Jeffreies maybe won't play ball or you know, has his trained relationship with the progressive wing of the party. What do you think about that? And you're on the ground, so do you see that? Or Now, like every everyone has detractors, But you'd be hardcrest to find a member who is more deeply and broadly respected within the caucus than had Peen.

I mean he has. He appeals to a broadcross section of the Democratic Caucus. He is a deep relationship with Mark Coo can is the co chair of the Progressive Caucus. He commands respect from the new Dens, from the blue dogs, from the problem solvers. You know, he's respected across the board. There's always going to be critics who will find faults with everything, but if you examine Hakeem's record progressive by

any standard. I mean he was instrumental in passing the most consequential criminal justice reform legislation in recent history, and in the First Step Act giving second chances to those who had criminal records at the federal So if you look at his record rather than listen to critics in the peanut gallery, I think you would conclude that he is fundamentally progressive. He's pragmatic because his position requires it.

What do you see in this lame duck? Now, it looks like today defense of marriage was voted through the Senate. That seems like a pretty big deal. What else do you see happening now in these this last month, we are set to pass the Respect for Marriage Act in the House, which would protect both the right to same sex marriage and into racial and codify marriage equality. And federal we're going to pass the National Defense Authorization Act. The hope is that we can pass an omnibus, a

budget that will fund the federal government. But McConnell wants more money for the military. The Republicans always want more funding for the military. And then there are Republicans who are simply against passing an omnibus. Hold together. We simply want to shut everything down. What do you think it's going to be. It's going to be this big changeover, right with this, even though Republicans have very small are going to have a very small majority, They're still going

to have the majority. But it's not clear whether the Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy has enough votes to become speaker, Like we might go to the floor without knowing whether he has the votes to become speaker. It's it's it's astonishing. I mean, you know, we often draw a false equivalence between the left and the right, or the far left and the far right right, but in truth, the Democratic

Caucus is unified, whereas the Republican caucus has hostage. Takers were willing to hold their own leader rants by rants. You know, we would never do to our leader what the far right is doing to Kevin McCarthy. It's amusing

to watch. Yeah, I do have to say, Kevin McCarthy, this will be the second time Kevin McCarthy has been I mean, there may have actually been more times, but the most recent time with Paul Ryan, where he just I feel like he doesn't want to make that mistake again, where he sort of gets to the finish line and then it doesn't work. I could see him bringing it to the floor without actually knowing what he has the votes. The last time that has happened, it's probably the early century.

It's sort of fascinating because when you talk to people in the pundon class about why McCarthy is going to be the speaker, and I'm and I'm thinking of people on the conservative leaning in the pundon class, they'll say, well, there's no one to challenge him. But I'm not sure that's the kind of endorsement that gets your people's votes. There's always someone waiting in line to go speakers that

seems I'm persuasive to do right. And it's like the hostage takers in the Republican conference want to make an example. I want to send a message. I mean, these people are arsenals, and we have a diversity of an opinion in the Democratic Caucus, but there's no one in our caucus who's an arsenals, who's a hostage. There's no equivalent of a mac deans. Yeah, I don't know if you were.

There was a really interesting opped this morning by someone who had worked in g OP leadership during the Clinton Monica stuff, and it was super interesting, and he talked about this idea of like trying to find the scandal to pin on the Democratic can you know, candidate, politician,

et cetera. And he talked in this piece about this idea that they're just convinced that Hunter Biden's laptop is going to bring down Joe Biden and that that actually voters really don't like that, but that that seems very much what they're committed to doing. I mean, what do you think about that? And like, you'll be in this Congress when this happens, which should be really interesting and strange. The Republican Party, particularly the extremes of the Republican Party,

are radically disconnected. For real, the mid term elections were clearly a rejection of extremism. You know, we're not for January six, We're not for the reversal, reverses weight, We're not for the extremism of the Republican Party. You might have had the makings of a traditional red weight elect Instead, the Republicans were undone at the hands of their own extremism, and instead of allowing themselves to be chastened and humbled by the results, you have people like mc gates who

are doubling down on their extremes. I predict the Republicans will self destruct and we will take back the House in two years. I was thinking about this a lot, this idea that like Trump has been responsible for the loss of three elections now every swing state Trump candidate lost. But there seems to be no self reflection there. You get the sense that there is some measure frum fatigue. But you're right, the grip that Trump has on the

Republican Party is not yet broken. And in fact, what I found telling, and Trump had dinner with vicious anti semis and I mean Dick Fuentis is an avowed white supremisis and Kanye West. When he had dinner with them, there were very few Republicans who are willing to speak out against There were very few Republicans who were willing to condemn Donald Trump for elevating probably the most anti Semitic voices in the United States. And so that speaks

to the fear factor. That speaks to the continuing grip that Donald Trump has on the psyche of the Republican Party and the terror and the fear that he strikes in the hearts of Republicans. I know you're not a psychiatrist, but do you think they're that it's just they're scared of the primary challenges and they hate male and the death threats, or do you think they really think there's no other way that they think that their base is really still very much belongs to Trump. I think it's

a combination of factors. You certainly have people who are true believers, who are true adherents of trump Is, which has become a religion, and the Republican Party. There are Republicans who do recognize that Trump is a liability, you know, his endorsement is the kiss of death, but who are

too afraid to speak out against them. For the reasons that you just said, he remains popular among the base of the Republican Party, and he's heavily favored to become the Republican omnique, the only person who has a fighting chance of defeating him in a Republican primaries. Rond de Santist. But no one should underestimate Trump's control of the Republican Party, and for what it's worth, I prefer him as the nominee because he's much more. But that he's so toxic.

That is just like the things he does to America are not worth it. You know, I fear round the Stantis because he's a more competent warm up shop. But he plays the same game, but he can do so while appearing competent and moderate at the same time. And there's a sense in which that is more insidious, more dangerous. Yeah, that makes sense. So I just want to talk to

you about what your plan is now. My plan is to remain Congress, but unfortunately I'm gonna join the minority, and so We're going to be part of the resistance to the extremes and accesses of a House Republican majority. I have no doubt that the Republicans will attempt to wage frivolous impeachment proceedings, particularly against my Orkists, like he's the Cabinet secretary who has become the prime target of the Republicans. I expect an endless dream of frivolous hearings

about Hunter Biden. So it's going to be a painful two years, but look hopefully for fair to push back against the Republicans and fight for the American team. There will be Democrats on these committees, so the committees will remain by partisans, but the Republicans will control. Whether the Republicans controlled the House by one seat or a hundred seat, the outcome is the same. The Republicans control the speaker, will control the speakership, and will control the committees. Will

they decide who go as on committees. Historically, the Republicans will determine the number of seats that the minority party gets and then leaves it to the party to decide who gets to be a member of the committee. But there's an exception. McCarthy announced that he's going to remove particular Democrats from particular committee. So he's targeting Adam Chef on the Intelligence Committee, Eric swallll on the Intelligence Committee, and Elano mare on the Foreign Affairs Committee, which to

me is a dangerous game. Right, he's doing that as reciprocity for Marjorie Taylor Green. Right, Okay, to me, it's dangerous to remove people from committees simply because you disagree with the boy, right, because when does that end? It never stops. It's going to be an endless cycle over Talis. Yeah, I mean, but you know, Marjorie Taylor Green didn't get removed from her committees because she was wacky. She got removed.

In case of Marjorie Taylor Green, she you know, she engaged in rhetoric that incited violence, potential to incite violence, so there was unethical conduct. But you know, removing Adam Schiff from the Intelligence Committee simply because you disagree with his views on the connection between Russia and Trump, that's ridiculous. Yeah, McCarthy is, you know, is hostage to these more fringey Republicans. But in the end he might be hosted by his own right. He is also very, very stupid, which will

make this even more strange and interesting. I expect the Republicans to self destruct. The party has become unhinged, it's become a cultural personality around Trump. It's becoming capable of governing. Like the irony is that democratic control of the presidency, the House, and the Senate actually led to more bipartisanship, not but also the GOP based They don't want to

see that. The MATC. Gates is the Josh Holly's, the Ted Cruises of the world are content to be performers and to grant stand in front of cameras and to obstruct and oppose everything none of these people have the slightest interesting doctor which really, like, you know, if you have no interest in governing or legislating, then why become a legislator. I mean, I feel like it's like with Ted Cruz. They want to be a celebrity but not

necessarily a legislator. And my views, you can either be a celebrity or a congress person, but in the end you cannot be Richie Torres so interesting. Very thrilled to have you keep us posted always never a dumb woman in decent Yes, come back soon. Secondly, Molly jun Fast Jesse Cannon, I saw that you spent your day doing what I did. The moment of Juckery has to be the three hour live stream that you and I both watched. I did not watch three hours. I only watched like

about forty minutes. No. I tapped out what he started saying that colckwork Gards was really about the Jews. Everything is about the Jews. So for those of you who are not extremely online, and also for my dad, Hi, dad, what we're talking about is a man called Alex Jones.

You know him for lying about the murders of children in Sandy Hook, Connecticut that Alex Jones had a live stream, and on it was Kanye West now called Yea spelled ye and Nick fuent as a white supremacist, and also Ali Alexander, who is most famous for his involvement in the January six riots, and also Laura Loomer and the long Panel. It was long panel where Kanye said a lot of really really, really really anti Semitic things about

the Jews. Was a lot of back and forth. Probably the most absurd part of the whole thing was that Alex Jones was actually trying to tell Kanye that the Jews weren't all bad. So, you know, one of my favorite parts is when he said, come home, Kim, come home to Christ. Kanye says, Hitler invented highways and microphones. Kanye also said, I see good things about Hitler. Also, Kanye also said, as Jesse and I both watched it, Uh, he said my website is the Bible. That was one

thing he said that didn't make much sense. And then another thing he said is I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis. I like Hitler. He said, they did good things. We've got to stop dissing the Nazis all the time. To end it, he had Alie, Alexander and Alex Jones tweet to his thirty two million followers on Twitter tons of dumb things about January six prisoners. Yeah, it's just unbelievable. So it is our moment of factory and Jesus Christ. That's it. We didn't kill him. That's

it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your 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.