And I'm pleased.
Is punch to have on the common Spirit health text or excuse me? Hotline from the Commonwealth of Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massey. It's Sassy with Massey time on the Mandy Connell Show.
How are you today, Congressman, I'm doing well here in the swamp.
Well, you know, I will never forget the first time that I talked to you after you went to DC for the first time, and you said to me, and I said, how's DC? And you said, well, everybody up here thinks it's a hot tub when it's really just a swamp, right, And I and I that stuck with me so much. And thank you for making time because I got to tell you. My listeners were not happy with you when you voted against a continuing resolution, and I promised them that nobody could explain you were thinking
on that better than you. So I just want to let you kind of lay out your thinking and your reasoning on that for people that may not be familiar with all of your entire body of work as a rabbel rouser in Congress.
Sure. So the is short for continuing resolution, and what it means is instead of doing the twelve separate bills like we're supposed to. We do one giant bill, and we don't even rewrite the bill from last year. We continued last year's budget. So this CR was actually Joe Biden's last year's budget. And I wasn't going to lock our country into Joe Biden's budget for the first nine months of Trump's administration. I think it's ridiculous that we did now listen to the excuses they gave for why
we had to pass this CR. This goes all the way back to last September. They said we've got to do this was Mike Johnson, We've got to do a CR that goes to December because we don't want to fight before the election. We'll lose the majority and Trump won't win the White House. So let's fight after the election. So they did a CR continuing a resolution to fund the government till December. When they said we would fight, we get to December and they said, oh, look, we
won the Senate, we want in the White House. We kept the House. It would be foolish for us to fight here in December. Let's fight in January on the spending. And then they said, well, wha wait, wait, wait, January, Trump's not going to have enough time to get cabinet in and decide what we want to do by then. Let's kick it to March. So they kicked it to March. We get to March. What's the excuse after six months of doing this crap? Oh, we don't have enough time?
What you don't have enough time being surprised by the March deadline? Congress being surprised is like a florists being surprised by Valentine's debt. It's gone to calendar, it's been coming. It's like we have to deal with this every year.
Now, let me ask you this question, and I already know the answer, so I'm just going to softball it up for you. You've now been in Congress for twelve years. What has happened in that twelve years to harden or soften your view about the Republican leadership's ability to get significant spending cuts past.
I have watched enough of them. At first, Like with John Bayner when he was Speaker, you had to believe he was just incompetent. He lost every spending fight with Barack Obama in the White House, and this was after the tea party wave, and at first you think maybe he's just incompetent or not that good. No, you can't lose every fight. You could get something. So I decided they're playing on the same team. And if you use that model, it's been fairly accurate. The Republicans and the
Democrats are up here. They're both on team spending. They agree to each other's spending increases. And that's how they get that's what they call compromise. Instead of saying I'll cut this much of mine and you cut this much of yours, they both agree to spend more in each of their departments. It's the same playbook every single time. And what's convinced me that I'm right is the history of saying this is what's going to happen, and then
it happens. Like look at that fight on the cr in the house, or Rakeem Jeffreys in this corner and Mike Johnson in this corner, you know, weighing in at two hundred and twenty one representative going toe to toe on on what was actually Joe Biden's budget. It was a fake fight. And I made a video it says it's a fake fight. You're going to find out when it goes to the Senate, because in the Senate the Democrats will vote for it, right, and that's because they
need sixty votes to pass it. How does that know they were going to vote for it? Well, this is the Democrats were not going to shut the government down. They had they had a retreat set up where they were going to have special speakers and parties and drinks, and they weren't even going to be in town. And when the government oftensively would shut down. And then Mike Johnson sent us all home after we passed it. He was so sure this was going to pass in the
Senate he sent us home. And that's when I said, Okay, this is the fix is in here. I got to tell the public what's going on. Then they say, and by the way, this let me give you an example. Trump getting held up in the courts on the things that he wants to cut right, USAD and whatnot. And one week after we fully funded not me, I voted
against it. One week after Democrats and Republicans have passed the bill and President Trump signed it that fully funds the Department of Education for the next nine months, they do a press conference saying they're going to enter the Department of Education. The problem is the court. Somebody's going to take them to court and saying, oh wait, you
passed a law and you signed the law. It says you're going to fund the Department of Education, and now by executive order, you're not going to do the thing that you sign. It's a stretch, and that's you're not going to get those things.
Well, this is exactly the point that I have been trying to make. And the point is everybody who's excited about all of the cuts that Doge has been finding and unearthing and firing these people and getting rid of the USA, they mean nothing unless Congress passes the legislation that has to pass in order to lock these things into legislation.
They're just they're a pigh cross promise.
When they're in executive order, you know they're they're easily made, easily broken. So my frustration is, to your point, what we're all excited about, the exact opposite is happening in Congress.
It is get there on two different trajectories. Reality and what is being promoted right now are two different things. There is one hope, though, Mandy. There's something called recisions if the White House requests not to spend money, not where they were. This is different from the stuff that he's been held up in court, like when he said I'm not going to pay USAID in the court right,
you got to pay USAI day. This is actually in law of this process where the President is budget manager or whatever can send to Congress or requests for some funding they don't want to spend, and then we vote to rescind that money. And it only takes fifty one votes to pass that and Senate I am all for that. But what I want to know is why haven't we start here? Is it? Why are you know we named several post offices a week up here, usually on Monday.
If you know, you fly in and you name a few post offices and call it a day, and then you know, get up on Tuesday and do something else. Why don't If we're naming post offices on Monday, why don't on Friday? We pass recisions? And it's not like this reconciliation thing where you only get one or two shots at it every year. As far as I know, you could, you could do a recision every week.
Well, I have an article today from the Hill Dot com and the headline is GOP senators warned Trump agenda will be slowed by internal divisions. Now this is the least surprising headline that I've seen in some time. But now they're saying the Senate isn't likely to pass President Trump's border security, energy and tax agenda until July at the earliest. Is so, I mean, they're not even moving forward with that yet? So is it is a bridge too far to think? The recisions are they started in the House.
Is that how they work?
I believe the process calls from them to be started at the White House and then ah, then like we have to receive a request from the White House and then we act on that. I think that then the Senate has to vote on it with fifty one votes. I believe that's how it's structured.
So let me ask you. Let me ask you this question.
I mean, do you see any real and I'm talking about like, you know, the conversations that happen in the cloakroom conversations. Is there any real will in the Republican Party in the House to lock in the destruction of usaid, to lock in the Department of Education bill, which, by the way, you've already filed.
Is there any real will or is this all just more theater?
By the way, yeah, I do have the build in the Department of Education. And now when they bring that bill to the floor, if they're going to put somebody else's name on it, they're not going to give me any credit for having done that for the last eight years in building public support, explaining to people why it's good for education, not for education to leave these decisions up to the states and teachers and parents. So you know, what will we get out of all this? What was your question again?
No, I don't even know at this point. I mean, honestly, it's like there's just so much going on.
I do have a question. I have a couple of questions from our text line.
One of them is I get his thoughts on it, but he knew it would still pass without him. Speaking of the continuing resolution, it was a show vote, which is fine, But how will he vote on Trump's agenda when he is the winning vote? Do you want to address the concept of a show vote.
The concept of a show vote, Well, honestly, I'm giving people hope. I call it the hope vote. Okay, they hope and pray that there's somebody up here who hasn't completely changed their principles based on who is the president? Is like, now is it that all Republicans can be big spenders? And it's thought, Look, I can't control anybody's vote but mine. I pressed by put my voting card in and press that button. I would have dearly loved to have the Freedom Caucus with me on that. The
problem is they're afraid of Trump. I got attacked by Trump for voting, though, And why did I get attacked if they didn't need my vote? Think about it and then they know. I mean, I had conversations with the president. The last conversation I had with him was two weeks after the election, and I said, you've got six months to get your agenda done before the Senate just starts tying you up like molasses. And he agreed, Like, this mandate doesn't last four years, it doesn't even last two years.
It lasts about six months, and then they will just like a boxer, just sort of hug you and tie you up. So no, it wasn't a show vote. I was disappointed that the Freedom Caucus was not with me. I was disappointed that people The other complaint I hear people say, and maybe this particular listener has the same complaint. Well, what was Massey's plan? What would he have done? Okay?
I would have passed the twelve bills, like the nineteen seventy four Budget Act calls for twelve separate bills funding twelve different parts of the government the president. This would make Trump have way more power because his options wouldn't be shut the government down or not shut the government down. He would have twelve bills there in front of him.
And if you had a disagreement on the Department of Education, he could refuse to fund that until we got to some he refused to sign that one of the twelve bills or usaid he could refuse to sign one of the twelve bills that fund the State Department. Okay, but that leaves ten twelves to the government open the front, the TSA still working, the flight controllers are still in the tower, all that, and so you're not presenting him with a false, you know, a false choice. That's what
I would have done. That's what the raw calls for us to do. That's what I've been saying for twelve years. The thing is, the uniparty does not like that. They want it to be all or nothing. The government's going to shut down or it's not going to shut down. What a horrible way to run government. And we you know, we're always told you're going to fight with will fight when we get to spendate y and when we get
the White House. We've got the House, the Senate, and the White House, and show me, show me the first fight we've had here in the House of Representatives that's not a fake fight. When's it going to happen? I'm waiting for and.
I'm sure, I'm sure you're ready. I've got a text. He who said, why doesn't.
He introduce twelve spending bills?
Well, it takes a while to write them. I did. I did introduce and get passed into law a bill that says, and this was passed into law. It's part of two years ago when we raised the debt limit and they needed my vote to get it through rules committee. I said, okay, I'll do that if you put a provision in law. By the way, Joe Biden signed this, the Senate passed it. This provision that was attached to that debt limit increase that says, if you don't do
twelve separate bills, you don't do the appropriations process. If you do a CR, everything gets cut one percent if it goes past April. If it goes past April thirtieth, Well, here's Mike Johnson, got his legal scholars and parliamentarians, and because everybody agreed to it, they can get away with it. I suppose they said, because we're doing the Continuing Resolution all the way to September thirty, it's the end of the fiscal year, it counts as twelve separate appropriations bills.
Oh my god. And that's the Republican Speaker of the House and did that.
Yes, he totally. It was ignoring the law that gives him an automatic one percent cut across the board.
I'm talking to Congressman Thomas Massey. Sorry about that. I want to let people know who's speaking here.
Man.
That's frustrating, and this is, you know, Thomas. I my whole life, my dad was a Reagan Republican, and my whole life I've always been told that the Republican Party is the party of fiscal responsibility. But if I am a thinking, rational person, that ship sailed so long ago, and I don't know how to get it back on track.
Why don't you.
Offer a bill that would say if you want a deficit, if there's a budget deficit, no one is allowed to run for reelection.
I bet they would fix it.
Then that would be great. Or you can't leave town and go campaign for your own reelection. In the state of Kentucky, by the way, they're not allowed to raise money while they're in session, and that maybe the deal in Colorado. I don't know. This is for the state legislature I'm talking about, right, and somebody suggests that we should do that for Congress, that you can't raise money while you're in session. But then somebody pointed out the net result of that is you have really short sessions.
But you know what, that's not a bad thing.
That's not a bad thing. They compressed the session to thirty days out of the year, and then the fundraising becomes the other three hundred and thirty five days. You can try to make rules, but it's only as good. The rules are only as good as the people that you elected to follow those rules, because for any given rule, they'll just suspend it if they get two hundred and eighteen votes. Here in the UNI party always has two hundred and eighteen votes.
Congressman, I'd love to know your thoughts on the speed with which because you mentioned earlier that you advised Trump to get as much of his agenda done in six months before the Senate locked him up, have you been shocked by the speed with which he has unfurled executive orders? And what are your thoughts on those executive orders overall? Because I've always known you to be a constitutional guy.
Oh, I think they're wonderful. I mean, everybody in the executive branch works for the president. And this is the thing Trump failed to realize in the first administration. He kind of assumed this lie that the DOJ is some fourth branch of government, that the Attorney General doesn't work for the president, or the FBI director doesn't work for the president. He went along too long under that false premise. But this time he understands it, he's doing it. I
give him a ninety five percent on executive orders. I'm not going to be a big fan of the tariffs, but the reality is Congress gave him that authority. I went and looked it up, and if there's four different bills that passed mainly in like the sixties, and seventies where they gave the president the authority to do tariffs. So with the exception of tariffs, I'm going to give him an a plus on the things that he's done by executive order. He can still be doing more and
he needs to work. He needs to tell Mike Johnson that you need to start passing my agenda in the House and putting the Senate on the spot while we've still got the momentum.
I agree, I agree wholeheartedly.
What are your thoughts on maybe at some point your chances of running for Mitch McConnell's seat.
That's the same circus with different monkeys. I from my office window, I can see the Senate side of the Capitol here, and it really is not much different that you. You know, my Twitter account wouldn't change, my salary wouldn't change, by work hours wouldn't change. They say, oh, but you'll be one of one hundred instead of one of four hundred and thirty five. Well, it doesn't really matter when you're the only one fighting some days, if you're just
the one. So I am not likely to run for that seat.
I like the phrase not likely, you know, never close the door entirely you never know what's going to happen in the future. One last question before I allow you to get back to real work, and that is this, I'd love to know your thoughts on the judges, federal judges who have been overruling or staying some of these executive orders we just talked about.
Oh my gosh, well again, by the way, I'm missing a judiciary back room meeting on this very topic to be on your show. It was like an impromptu meeting that was called by Mike Johnson with our Judiciary Committee, because all impeachments would come from our committee, and so this is something we would we would have to start in our committee. Mannie, this is this is This gets back to what I said before. Congress's biggest power is
whether you fund it or not. If we would take Trump's agenda and put it into spending bill and pass that and have Trump sign it, there's no argument the court can make the Court cannot make Congress spend money that it doesn't spend the power of the person. I was in a meeting, a breakfast meeting with Anton and Scalia and about a dozen of my Republican colleagues. This is before that he was a Supreme Court justice before he passed away. And my colleagues were like, well, the
executive branch has too much power. We need the judicial branch to step in. And Scalia said, I'm just not my job to referee fights between judicial and executive or Congress and executive. And you're the most powerful branch anyway, and you have all the power you need. And somebody said, but impeachment, it's too hard, Justice, and he said, I'm not talking about impeachment. You're funding everything you complained that Obama is doing. So yeah, this should not be a question.
Because we know we control the House in the Senate, why don't we pass legislation and take this out of the court's hands about whether the president has that power or whether he has to do what Congress said, let's get off of the Biden train tracks and get on the Trump rain tracks. And right, but Congress is doing a cut copy paste of Biden's budget. That's what the CR was. This, This enables the courts to say Trump's got to do it. That CR does Yep.
Congressman Thomas Massey, I appreciate you. I appreciate you skipping a very important meeting to have this conversation and I am cheering you on always from AFAR and especially on Twitter. If you want to follow his Sasse with Massey commentary on Twitter, you can do so. I put a link on the blog today at mandy'sblog dot com. Thank you so much for your time today.
Thanks Mandy. Great being in Colorado with you