Explosive Conclusion to the Speaker Fight - What It All Means

sounded like. Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, That you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, That you take this obligation freely, without intimental reservation or purpose of evasion, And that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you're about to enter. So help your God, Yes,

I do. Congratulations and God's speed. That was it happened late in that way, I should say, technically early in the morning. Senator, your prediction on this podcast was spot on. You said you thought they would get a deal done on Friday night. It happened Friday night in this Saturday morning. Pretty spot on. Congratulations for that prediction. Well, I will say when we talked about this on Wednesday morning's pod,

what you and I predicted together. I said that I thought the most likely outcome was that Kevin McCarthy would cut a deal with the holdouts, and in particular that he would cut a deal with Chip Roy. That Chip Roy really was the leader of the twenty And the reason I thought that is because Chip was focused, I think quite rightly on changes to the rules, changes to how the House conducts business. On substance, some of the people involved in this leadership battle, I think had had

real personal animosity to Kevin McCarthy. I think Chip, to his credit, was not motivated by that. He was motivated by changing the broken way that Washington operates. And what you and I talked about Wednesday morning on this podcast is I thought the most likely outcome was Kevin and Chip would reach a deal. He would make some significant concessions, and those concessions would be a Nathan McCarthy would be elected. Ultimately at about one in the morning, uh, late last night.

That's exactly what happened. It took It took a few more hours than we had predicted, but not much. It was about about the same time period. And I will say what Chip and the other dissenters accomplished was a

really big deal. There was a lot of drama because there was a vote at eleven PM where I think McCarthy and leadership thought they had the votes, and they ended up falling just short because many of the dissenters dropped off, but there remained a handful who didn't and it and it led to it led to some interesting drama. It led to and and in particular, you also had

during the day too, votes that were missing. One Wesley Hunt, a new congressman from Houston, actually my congressman, who had to fly back to Houston because his wife had just delivered a baby, his son who was born prematurely and and and they were having to care for his son. He flew back to Houston to be with them and then turned around and was there for the late night vote. His vote was needed at the end, and he was there for the late night vote. But it it got

a little wild and woolley and including uh. At one point Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama YEA, had to be physically restrained from from taking a swing and and and coming after Matt Yates that that was I'm not sure I've seen the beginnings of an actual bar fight on the floor of the House, but it it it came pretty close. I was wondering if that was a new COVID certified mask for Congress, right the hand over the face and restraining. I'm like, maybe that count as

a new COVID mask. But at the end of the day, all of the histrionics about oh, this is terrible, this is the end of the republic. Now, the Democrats were, of course crowing. You would expect them to crow. That's what they're going to do regardless. The media went on and on. But I've got to say the agreements that

they ended up getting were significant. And let me throw a caveat that the Rules Package has not yet been voted on, that the plan is to vote on that on Monday, and so the devil is always in the details, and it could you know, this is at this point what's been publicly reported. But among other things that have publicly been reported, here are elements of the deal that

have been reported in the press. Number one, that the rules package ends proxy voting, which means members of the House actually have to show up and do their damn jobs. One of the bizarre things Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats did, and the name of COVID is allowed House members to be sitting on the beach thousands of miles away and cast votes by proxy. That was always nuts. I believe it's unconstitutional. I tell you, the Senate never did it. Schumer and the Senate never did it. If you're not

in the Senate, you don't vote. You have to be on the floor of the Senate. In fact, the way the Senate votes is so old school. You literally are standing on the floor of the Senate and the clerk calls out your name, mister Ferguson, and you say I or nay, and they write it down with a pencil on a little on a long, skinny card that has the names of all one hundred senators on it. Yeah, voting that way, I think is just there's so much history in it. I was at one time when I

was thirteen years old. Newt Gingrich allowed me to go down the flour of the House with Bob Dornan, and Bob let me hit after he put his key, you know, his card in hit the green button on a vote with him when I was thirteen. I'll never forget for the rest of my life. I love the old school side of that and having people be present. I also think it builds camaraderie and conversation over a legislation. And let's go through some of what's in play here. But before we get to that, I want to tell you

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Now there's this proxy voting ended. Also remote committee hearings ended, So if you want to have a hearing, get your butt to the hearing. That that was important. But but they're also a whole series of additional uh agreements that are apparently in the rules package, although as I said, the devil's in the detail. One is the single purpose rule the House for a long time one real source of mischief is cramming a gazillion things into a rule into a rule rather than just have it focus on

a single purpose. That's a good thing. Related to that is the Germanus Protocol, which is again a requirement that if things are added to a bill that they be germane essentially they'd be relevant to the bill. That you can't just add completely unrelated matters to a pending bill. There's another element that is apparently part of it, and it's a return of what's called the Holman rule, which

allows reducing spending at agencies and reorganizing agencies. It's an appropriation rule the House has had that enables them to get into the budget of executive agencies. That's significant. Another element is the seventy two hour rule that delays anything from moving forward seventy two hours that you have time to actually read the damn bill before you vote on it.

That's significant. There is an agreement to have a church style committee to investigate weaponization of organizations like the FBI and the DOJ and Ben You and I have been calling for that for a long time. As you know, my last book, Justice Corrupted, How the Left has weaponized our legal system is entirely about the abuse of power at the DOJ and the FBI and the CIA. I think we very much need a serious church style committee

investigating it, and that's part of the agreement. And then the two that were the biggest deals that were the biggest, the most hotly contested, were having a motion to vacate the chair that one member could bring and that means any individual member at any time can go down and move to vacate the chair, and you have to have two utter eighteen people vote for McCarthy to stay speaker that apparently is in there. And then the final one that is apparently in there is seats for conservatives on

the Rules Committee, on an other committees. And that's in order to give real fiscal conservatives leverage to fight against another bad omnibus bill, another one point seven trillion dollar monstrosity that just got rammed through, putting people in positions on committees that they can prevent that from happening. All

of those are a huge, huge deal. At the outset, the naysayers said Conservatives couldn't get any of these, and I got to say, look, it's a testament to my friendship Roy, it's a testament to the other conservatives who

were standing up and behaving in a principled manner. And at the end of the day, it's a testament to Kevin McCarthy for reaching an agreement that I think is a reasonable, a positive agreement, agreement that's good for the House and is going to give more power to Republicans, more power to conservatives, more leverage to the House to stand up to Chuck Schumer and to stand up to Joe Biden. There was a question that was asked of me and it was one that I wanted to ask

to use. I said, was this worth it? And I said yes, and they said wine. I said, just the transparency will save the American taxpayers countless dollars. How much money do you think the American people? Are we in the billions of dollars that can be saved just because of the way these rules changes and the transparency of not being able to cram so much into bill with all of this different pork. You know, I'm sorry to tell you you're off by an order magnitude it We're

in the billions of dollars. Before Monday morning, we are likely in the trillions of dollars. Wow, this is a big deal. If conservatives have more leverage to force real fiscal restraint to stop the out of control spending that is bankrupting the country, that is driving record inflation, that is put in crushing debt to China on this country, that's a big deal. And in the last couple of years, the federal government has spent more time than in the

entire history of the universe. And the only way it's going to stop is if Republicans have a backbone to stand and fight to make it stop. This battle this week significantly enhance the tools for fiscal conservatives to be able to stop the radical abuses of the last two years. Talk about tribalism for a moment. The House has a lot more members than the Senate does. In the Senate, I think you guys get to know each other a lot faster. You get to work with each other across

party lines. In the House, it's so much bigger, and there's different fractions within the Democratic Party, the Squad for example, AOC and kind of her group. You have the Freedom Caucus, and you've had the Tea Party groups, and you've had

so many different fractions. I actually think one of the biggest blessings into sky is it's going to come out of this week and these fifteen votes is there were a lot of walls and maybe misconceptions about individuals who had conversations they would have never had, interactions they would have never had, and now moving forward, there may be a much better line of communication between people because we

I mean, you were watching it like I was. It was really interesting to see people that you would assume would never be speaking to each other, that we're talking to each other intently. Vote after vote after vote. That may be a big blessing. Well, I think it is, and I think it's also a blessing to have leadership that is responsive to the members. Now, listen, Kevin McCarthy's never been speakers, so we'll see what kind of tenure he has a speaker. You know, I've told you before

I like Kevin personally. He and I have a good relationship. But there certainly had been speakers in the past who were autocratic, who were dictators, who just laid out, this is what we're gonna do. Shut up at a bay Nancy Pelosi does that. John Bayner did that. It was one of the things that caused him to be driven from the speakership is his members got tired of being mistreated and him viewing it is as essentially his reign

rather than reflecting the views of the conference. I think this process is likely to have made Speaker McCarthy significantly more responsive to the views and concerns of the conference. And I think that's healthy. I think that's what leadership should do. You're right, The House and Senator very different. Look, the House has four hundred and thirty five members right now, it has four hundred and thirty four because one member just recently passed away, a Democrat from Virginia. You know,

you have about two hundred in each party. You compare that to the Senate, and the Senate we've got forty nine Republicans. Forty nine is not that much. I mean, we have lunch together. The forty nine of us have lunched together every Tuesday, every Wednesday, every Thursday. We know each other really well. I mean, you forty nine people, you build relationships, and senators stay there sometimes longer than

you know grant monuments in Washington. So when you've been working with people for years and then for decades and it's a small group, those interpersonal relationships can be one of the real keys to getting things accomplished. One of the one of the reasons why I win a lot of the battles that I'm fighting in the Senate is at this point, my colleagues know that I don't bluff, that I don't engage in fights based on personalities. I

don't make it personal, but I focus on substance. I say, if you want my vote, I need X. If I don't get X, my vote is now. If I get X, my vote is why One of the reasons. I'm really proud of the job Chipped it is. That's exactly how he handled negotiating it. He didn't get emotionally, didn't get angry. He said, if you want my vote, here's what I need. At the outset, people said, oh, that's ridiculous. You'll never

get concessions like that. And at the end of the day, math is math, and it turned out they needed his vote, and getting Chips vote was the critical piece to bringing the rest of the group on board and getting McCarthy the votes. That responsiveness is important, and you're right, the relationships between the members, you know, you gotta remember there's also always a lot of turnover in the House. The House today is a very different house that it was

five years ago. It's a very different house that it was ten years ago. They're just it's a body that has significantly more churn. So some of these folks are brand new. You had three representative elects who'd never been congressmen were literally just elected and they finally got sworn in last night, who were part of the rebels forcing the rule change that will impact the job they do

go forward. If you're part of that at the outset, but but the relationships between and across different factions hopefully will be positive. Now, there maybe some hurt feelings. People were really ratcheted up and pissed off, And so I'm not being pollyannish and suggesting it'll all be loves and kisses.

But I do think this process it was transparent, it was democratic, and at the end of the day, it substantially increased the tools to stop the reckless spending that has fueled the record inflation and that has bankrupted the country. I think that is a really good thing. Grabbing agenda items that can bring the Republican Party together early on. I think it's going to be key to Kevin McCarthy's success.

He announced last night at one twenty am Eastern that the first piece of business the House is going to bring up is gonna be something that's very important to you. You helped expose this. You talked about how big of a threat this was to the American people. It deals with the IRS Agency eighty seven thousand, and here's what

the Speaker elects at last night, one twenty am. I know the night is late, but when we come back, our very first bill really peel the funding for eighty seven thousand, UI, I mean center, if you want to get everybody to get together real quick. This was a pretty brilliant move by him to say that. It's saying, I know it's late, I know you're tired, but when we come back Monday, get ready. And that was a standing ovation you just heard. Yeah, No, that was exactly

the right thing to do. It was very smart, it was very savvy. As you know. It's something that I've been calling on the House to do as their first bill. I said it on the trail campaigning for a lot of these guys standing next to you in a number of instances, saying, when we went a majority in the House, the very first bill the House should take up is repealing the funding for the eighty seven thousand new I R S agents. I'm glad Kevin agreed with what I

and others had called for. That's a strong unifying message. It draws a clear contrast with the Democrats. I think that's good. I will point out, so you and I both stayed up till the whole thing was over. We were watching it live. We watched the votes, the final votes, everyone coming in, all the drama, everyone holding their breath, everyone knowing how are the last few holdouts going to vote? Are they going to vote for McCarthy? Are they going

to vote present? Are they going to vote for someone else? And at the end of the day, there were no votes for someone else in the last ballot. There were a handful that voted present but allowed McCarthy to get in. After that, you had speeches, you had a pause, and then you had speeches, and you had a speech from Akeem Jeffreys and then a speech from Kevin McCarthy. And and I will say, for people that didn't watch Hakeem Jeffreys speech last night, it was consequential. I don't know

how Keem Jeffries. I have not not dealt with him. Um, I haven't really seen him give a speech until last night. Watching it. His tone, his rhythm, his speaking pattern, his way of communicating is eerily reminiscent of Barack Obama. It is I would think the same thing as I was watching him, going wow, this is Barack Obama two point zero. Um. You know, someone on Twitter tweeted out if Barack Obama and Martin Luther King had a son, he'd be a Keem Jeffries. Now that that may be a bit much.

I actually put doctor King in a whole different class. But Barack Obama is a very talented communicator and it led to eight years in the White House as a result of it. There were more than a few Democrats. There are more than a few Democrats in the Democratic presidential field who watched that speech last night and said, oh crap, that that was. That speech last night reminded me of Obama's speech at the Democratic National Committee where he talked about there there are not red states and

blue states. We are the United States of America. The messages and themes that he was echoing were really powerful, and he also he gave a long speech. He gave a speech to Democrats that was, look at all the great things we did destroying our country the last two years, and if you're a radical social issue would have been cheering like crazy. But he gave a speech saying we're great and the guys that are taking over they suck.

I mean, it was it was. It was not gracious, given that he was literally introducing Kevin McCarthy and handing the gabble to him. There was no graciousness whatsoever. It was a partisan speech. But what made it dangerous is it was a partisan speech that was very eloquent and and and basic planned. I mean they planned that. Oh yeah, no, no, that that was a written speech. He was not talking off the cuff, and and basically he hijacked the night.

It was impressive. You know, McCarthy wasn't happy, but there's not really much you can do. You can't walk up and shut him up. But Jeffreys basically hijack the night. Now, it was late enough at night. I don't know how many people listened to it, but there were millions of people across the country that looked at this guy and said,

this guy is a force to be reckoned with. When when you look at moving forward now next week, what advice do you have for these new members as they try to, you know, get their rhythm, get their feet under them. I mean the way that they got baptism by fire in this last week. Yeah, they're going to take a lot from that. But now we're going to the regular order and kind of a normal cycle and feel here. What advice do you have to new members of Congress? What do you wish somebody would have said

to you when you were first elected? If you could go back and do it all over again. Well, the advice that I consistently give to new members, either in the House or the Senate, is really simple. Do what you said you would do, whatever you promise the voters on the trail to do, follow through on that commitment. And a component of that is don't just listen blindly to leadership. You don't work in the House for Kevin McCarthy. I don't work in the Senate for Mitch McConnell. Your

boss is the men and women who elected you. My boss are the thirty million Texans. Ben, you're my boss. You're a Texan. I work for you. And so new members sometimes can get confused and think leadership, Oh, I'm supposed to follow orders from leadership. No follow orders from the men and women who elected you, and do in January what you said you would do in October. And any member that does that it's a radical thing that doesn't happen very often. I do think this fight this

week helped. I'll be talking with a lot of these House members. I very deliberately did not talk to the House members when this was happening. I consciously many of the people engage in this fight are close friends of mine. I decided, Okay, I'm gonna stay out of this. I'm gonna let them work out their own leadership battles. These are big boys and girls. They can figure it out themselves. But I will to all of them in the coming days. And you know, I think the focus needs to be

very much on results, on substance. How can we deliver for the American people? How can we fight to change the corrupt culture of Washington. These rules changes are a big step in that direction. By the way, there was one other concession that I didn't mention, but it was publicly reported, which is McCarthy saying that he's going to stay out of Republican primaries and stop spending money trying

to defeat conservatives and Republican primaries. If if McCarthy superPAC follows through on that, that's a big deal to all of those concessions were real and significant changes in how the House conducts itself. How significant is that it it when you look at the amount of money that McCarthy Superpack could come in and spend in a primary. In multiple primaries, McCarthy Superpack spent millions of dollars supporting one

Republican attacking another Republican. In almost every circumstance, when given a choice between a moderate and conservative, McCarthy's superpack would put the money behind the moderate and would attack the conservative. And that was nationally tens of millions of dollars we're spent doing that. At least publicly, they've made a commitment

they're not going to do that again. That will matter for this next cycle because we'll have contested primaries, and if McCarthy's pack is not trying to put a thumb on the scale, that means conservatives are going to be have a better chance of prevailing on the merits in

the primaries. When you look at this overall fight, what is your biggest takeaway as we move forward into this new Congress from this When you say, all right, this is the best thing, this may be the worst thing, and this is my biggest you know, throw it up in the air and I'm not sure what's going to happen moment. My biggest thing is smart, principled fights matter.

That you should engage in real, serious, meaningful fights, not show fights, but fights where you have a plan, where you have a strategy, and where you have a real outcome That can be delivered. So I'll tell you last night at eleven twenty three pm that's Texas time, so it's twelve twenty three pm DC time. It was when the final vote was ongoing. Was the first time I reached out to Chip as the final vote was happening.

I'll tell you what I texted Chip last night. I texted Chip, Chip, what you've accomplished this week is a big damn deal. You handled yourself with grace, skill, calm, resolve, savvy and principle. I'm proud of you, my friend, as is the state of Texas. Ted. That's a message that was very heartfelt, but as I said, I didn't want to convey anything like that until everything was said and done and it was over and now I hope for a world of success for the House Republican majority. They're

the one lever point we have. I hope Kevin McCarthy speakership is the most successful speakership in history, and that these rule changes firm up his resolve to fight smart, principled, consequential battles. If we do that in the House, we'll be doing our job. And that, by the way, not

only help save the Republic. Right now, but fighting smart, principled, consequential battles will also help Republicans dramatically to win in twenty four, to have a much bigger majority in the House, to win in the Senate, and to win the White House. If we stand and fight and deliver, the voters reward that by showing up and voting, and so I think this week was a big step in the right direction.

It's gonna be a lot of fun to watch what this House is able to do now and how much money that we're going to save the American people just by these rules changes that were worth fighting over. You were right when you said it, this was gonna get figured out. This is worth it, This battle was going to be worth it, and it was gonna be figured out. I think there's a lot of good that's going to

come from this new relationships built in the House. And there's a lot of other big fights they're gonna be happening. Immigration is going to be one of those. Border security, the President getting involved on this issue. We're going to talk about that Monday, his trip to the border. So make sure you hit that subscribe button, the auto download button wherever you're listening to this podcast. Make sure you right.

It's a five star review center. It was fun to watch, and it's gonna be really fun to see what Republicans get moving forward, and we'll see every one of you back here on Monday morning.