Speaker Battle -11 Votes & Counting

just be next. And we all know it. We just can't allow that to happen. That's why those of us are saying, like, look, you push us into this corner. So now we're now we're saying we won't vote for anyone but McCarthy. That's why we're saying it because we cannot let the terrorists win. That's basically what's happening. Since you and I talked last time, Senator, I didn't think any of this could actually happen. I didn't think we'd get to vote eleven. Here we are, we're going into Friday,

it could be into the weekend. There are people now claiming that this is an embarrassment. I'm still not there yet. I'd love to know what you think. I think that's just part of the great process. Yeah, Look, my view is settled down. This will work out and it'll be fine. That that kind of overheated rhetoric calling people terrorists is not terribly conducive to anything resembling Republican unity. It's it's not conducive to having a strong leadership for the next

two years in the House. Engaging in vitriol and personal attacks. Listen, I think a lot of the catterwalling we're hearing is from the media, and it's from the Democrats. And to be honest, the media and the Democrats are one and the same, and they have an agenda. Their agenda is to say the Republicans are a failure, the Republicans are terrible, the Republicans are disaster. That's what they're going to say, no matter what, no matter what is happening, that's going

to be their talking points. And so all of the screaming of the media, I think is is overwrought. This is the democratic process, and it is true that we haven't had a contested speaker race like this in a hundred years, but it's also part of the way the process operates. We've had at this point eleven different votes, and it's just it's run a couple of days. The votes there's been some movement. So for the first round,

all the Democrats voted together. First round, Hakim Jeffries, who's the new Democrat leader, got two hundred and twelve votes. It takes two eighteen to be speaker. Hakim Jeffries is not going to be speaker. It's going to be a Republican speaker. Kevin McCarthy got two hundred and three, and there were a collection of people. Ten Republicans voted for Andy Biggs from Arizona, six for Jim Jordan, one for Jim Banks from Indiana, one for former Representative Lee's Eldon,

and one for Byron Donald. So there were initially nineteen that was the first round. The second round, the numbers didn't change, but they shifted who they voted for. In the second round again, McCarthy got two oh three, but the second round, Jim Jordan got all nineteen of the defectors, and so the votes for Bigs, the votes for Banks, Zelden's, Byron Donalds, all of them went behind Jim Jordan, he got nineteen. How about the third round, Well, the third round,

McCarthy lost a vote. McCarthy dropped to two o two and Jim Jordan got twenty votes. And then the vote that shifted was Byron Donalds, who had committed to McCarthy that he would vote for him for two rounds but not the third. And what he publicly said as he shifted his vote because he thought he thought Kevin was not going to get to eighteen. I don't know if

that's right or not. The fourth round it continues, but that but then we had, as just a little bit more of a complication, we had one more Republican victorious Sparts, who voted present. So McCarthy lost a vote, he went down from from two o two to two oh one. And in the fourth round, also Byron Donalds is who the dissenters voted for. So Donald's got twenty. So Jim Jordan had gotten twenty votes. Then Byron Donald's got twenty votes, and then you had the fifth round. The numbers are

the same. Sixth round the numbers are the same. Seventh round the numbers are the same except for one tweak, which is that Matt Gates voted for Donald Trump. Can we just pause there for a second to talk about Sure, that was a funny moment. And I say this because Donald Trump had been tweeting out on his our true

socially on his platform, I'm supporting Kevin McCarthy. Let's move on, let's make him the guy, and then Matt Gates, who it was one and the same with Donald Trump hit through is basically the entire time I means in the White House nominates him and he's saying no, no, like that's I don't want this job. Obviously, I'm telling you to go Kevin McCarthy. That was one if you just want to sit back and pop some popcorn and eat it, that was one of those moments for me, like, wait,

what is happening right now? Well, and to be fair, that's the same thing that happened with Jim Jordan. You know, Jim Jordan was nominated. The first time Jim Jordan was nominated was immediately after he had nominated Kevin McCarthy. Yeah, and so he's likewise said that he doesn't want the job, but they're nominating and voting for him anyway. Look, the speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the House, so theoretically Donald Trump could be

Speaker of the House. Now that's not gonna happen. Don't hold your breath. There was one vote cast for that, and that was You're not gonna see two hundred eighteen votes cast for Trump as speaker. It's gets going to be a House member. What played out in the ninth rounds we had Kevin hearn from Oklahoma who got three votes initially and then got seven votes, and then on the eleventh round got seven votes. And so where we are right now is McCarthy is at two hundred, so

he's eighteen votes short. The last round of balloting, mckeem Jeffreys had two twelve. He's had it the whole time, so all the Democrats are just voting for him. McCarthy's down to two hundred. Byron Donalds got twelve, Kevin Hearne from Oklahoma got seven. Former President Trump the last round again got one vote and then and then there was a present vote. So that's where the votes are now. You know, my reaction to all the histrionics is this is gonna shake out, and it's gonna shake out. One

of two ways. One and this may well be the most likely outcome, which is they negotiate an agreement. Where McCarthy has been making concessions to the dissenters, making concessions based on rules, making concessions based on how the House operates, making concessions making it easier for members to offer amendments, easier for amendment for members to fight for conservative principles. It may be that that McCarthy makes enough concessions that he gets the votes he needs. He needs to pick

up eighteen more votes. But if he does that, then we could have an agreement. And I will say so probably the ringleader of the dissenters has been Chip Roy from Texas, who, by the way, if you if you're teaching a master class on speaker votes and bringing people together or at least making people understand where you're coming from.

Chip Roy I think has played this perfectly, and I mean that sincerely in the fact that he let people understand why he was not voting for McCarthy, and he also explained very clearly what it would take for him to vote for Kevin McCarthy and the rules changes that he wanted. I think there are so many Americans that go, Okay, this is a guy I understand, I respect him. And if you're teaching a masterclass, if there's anything to learn from this, don't keep moving the goalposts when you're objecting

to someone. And if it's as simple as I just don't like him, then stick with that, but don't keep changing it. I think he has done the best job of articulating some of the concerns and the things that he wanted to change. I would give him an a plus in class. Well, look, there's no doubt Chip has been effective, and he's been articulate, and he's been focused

on substance. I mean part of you know what makes us complicated as you've got twenty players and the twenty folks who have been the dissenters, many of them are operating from for different reasons. Chip at least has not focused his opposition on a personal animosity to Kevin McCarthy. He hasn't been focused on demonizing or attacking him personally. Rather, he's been focused on the rules. He's been focused on the procedures. He's been focused on how the house operates.

One very significant concession that that McCarthy made on Wednesday night is that Kevin made a public commitment that going

forward he would not engage in Republican primaries. There were a number of primaries this past cycle where Kevin McCarthy's pack supported the much more moderate Republican An attacked the more conservative Republican even in bright red seats where whoever wins was going to be the nominee, and quite a few of the House Conservatives were unhappy that Kevin was raising significant amounts of money and spending it that money

against conservatives and primaries. Well, McCarthy made a public commitment, and interestingly enough, he made a commitment in the Club for Growth, which often fights against at least in past cycles McCarthy, and these primaries in turn express their willingness to support McCarthy if he would stay out of primaries.

That's a big deal, that commitment. When you said that's a big deal, explain scenarios where this could have changed outcome of House races, because I don't think people understand how much the money can really decide who's going to win these things. In money plays a massive role in a lot of elections, it doesn't necessarily decide them. But that there were mull to pull elections across the country.

Where where McCarthy's pack got involved in the primary, not in the general, not trying to support the Republican against the Democrat. Now they did that, to be clear, Kevin's pack spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Republicans in the general. So I don't want to diminish he worked very hard trying to elect Republicans across the country. But they're a number of House Conservatives who were angry that

he was he was playing in primaries. And by the way, that's reprising a battle that happened in the Senate over a decade ago. You know, if you remember back to the twenty ten cycle, Yeah, where Senate leadership engaged at a bunch of primaries. And so for example, Senate leadership

came in the primary against Rand Paul in Kentucky. They came in the primary against Mike Lee in Utah, They came in the primary against Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, they came in the primary again it's Marco Rubio in Florida, and and Senate leadership just screwed it up. I mean, I mean all four of those they got clawberd and

they got a black eye. And I will say, actually, as a bit of interesting trivia, I may have been a beneficiary because twenty ten Senate leadership got such a black eye for making the wrong call in race after

race after race and losing that. In twenty twelve, which is that with the year I got elected to the Senate, Senate leadership stayed out of primaries, and look, I got to say in hindsight that that that probably is a good thing for me, because that they would not have been supporting me in that primary, No, no way at all they would. They would have definitely been supporting your opponent, who was the safe Republican establishment candidate that you were

clearly up against. And he had tons of funding as well well, and he had as he had a every lobbyist in the state of Texas was with him because he was sitting lieutenant governor, and b he was worth over two hundred million dollars, so he wrote a thirty five million dollar check. But the point was, Senate Republican leadership kind of stepped in it in twenty ten and has been much more wary of getting in primaries since then.

This last cycle, McCarthy was pretty vocal engaging in primaries, and I think that's one of the concerns that is animating these dissenters. Let me ask you this, one of the things. You look at these twenty and I think it's clear that some of the twenty it's just personal. And I know there has to be moments in your career center where there's certain people in the Senate on your side that you just don't click with, You just

don't like. Maybe they they flat out lied to your face, maybe they've lied to you about something they were going to work with you on or support or a bill. But you do have to remind yourself, I'm this isn't me personally. I'm here to represent the interests of the people of the state or the community right where you are from, if you're a congressman, for example, how much how many blunders could be happening here because people are making this too much about them personally, not enough about

maybe their constituents. Look, emotions matter, and and people have personal sentiments and hurt feelings. And I certainly don't know what went on behind closed doors. But what makes this complicated to to reach a negotiated settlement is each of

these twenty are operating on their own. So if if, for example, if Chip Roy had the authority to commit for all twenty of them, if they all essentially gave gave him their proxy and said, if you cut a deal, we'll stick with you, I think the odds are pretty good that Chip and McCarthy could reach a deal, because I do think Chip has done a good job of focusing on procedural issues to expand debate, expand the ability to offer amendments, expand leverage conservatives would have in the House,

and I think they could probably get to the same page. What may make it impossible is I don't know how many of these players are just emotional and have hurt feelings. I don't know for how many of them it's personal with Kevin or not. Look yet, you know when you've got when you've got folks using rhetoric like calling them terrorists. You know, if you call someone a terrorist, that's not terribly conducive to getting them to come along and play nice. Yeah.

I mean that goes back to us saying earlier about if you're teaching a master class here the dues and don't are don't go and make it even more personal and think oh, well, that's going to get the twenty to really come around. When that type of rhetorics being used while you desperately need their votes to give yourself and and some of your guys are going out there as surrogance and saying things like that, that's not going

to help you get the twenty to come over. It's not like that's going to get them to see the light of day. That's gonna make them, I would assume, just by human nature dig in, you know, as a general matter, relying on insults to try to bludge in your opposition is it's a perilous path unless you have all the leverage, and at this point, with just a four vote majority, I'm not sure anyone has all the leverage.

That is a very perilous path. And so I think we will either see some negotiated settlement that involves procedural concessions from McCarthy, or at some point if if the votes don't move, and the votes don't move, and the votes don't move, presumably there will be some other candidate

who becomes a consensus candidate. Now, I don't think that would happen unless McCarthy decided okay, the votes aren't here for me, because Kevin would certainly have the votes to stop anybody else, so so it would take it would take Kevin making the decision. This isn't gonna happen. And I think I have not spoken. I haven't spoken to any of the players actually during this, so I haven't I haven't spoken to Kevin during this. I haven't spoken to Chip, I haven't spoken any of the folks there.

So I'm I'm watching it on TV. I'm watching it on Twitter like everybody else. And I know most of the players quite well. I mean, these members of Congress, almost all of them are close friends of mine, so I mean, I know know who they are as people, and you know, these folks are principles and they believe in what they're trying to do. But you'll either see

a negotiated settlement. I don't know what the terms are if there is one, or presumably at some point someone else becomes a consensus candidate, and I don't know who that would be. And I suspected an enormous amount of that would depend on Kevin McCarthy in the decision making. Hemdell, Let's talk about another aspect of this, and that is the media. Obviously they're trying to grab on and fine

headlines to fearmonger people. Earlier today, they had a big, long discussion I think it was on CNN where they were saying, Wow, this could become a national security issue because they can't get briefings and there's people that aren't even elected that they're going to get better briefings than the people that haven't been torn in yet with this new Congress on the House side, and this is going to be an issue. I mean, they're trying to give us a doomsday scenario here. How long can this go?

And everything really is just fine. Oh look, I think the national security argument is just gobbledygook. This is going to get resolved, and I think it'll get resolved fairly quickly. It could get resolved today, It could get resolved in a few days. I imagine there are scenarios where it could take a couple of weeks. I don't envision any world where it takes longer than that. And I don't even think it'll take a couple of weeks. I think it it's gonna end up one way or the other.

This is going to be resolved. So the idea that it is this horrible affront to the Republic for the House to spend a couple of days debating their leadership. That's just a weird idea. As as as we talked about in the last podcast, there's a reason I led the fight in the Senate for us to have several

weeks of debate on Senate leadership. And we had that debate at least the beginnings of the debate, which we haven't had in a long time now, because the Senate doesn't have a procedure like this where where the leader is elected on the floor. It wasn't done on c Span. Yeah, and it wasn't done in a context that holds up the House for a period of time. It was. It

was done behind closed door with the Senate. But I think in both houses having a debate about what leadership is going to do, how they're going to approach it, what their priorities are, what fights they're willing to fight. Look, the question that I asked Mitch McConnell repeatedly, what are

you willing to fight for? Give me one thing, anything, And tragically it appeared the only thing that that so far Republican leadership was willing to fight for was the disaster of a one point seven trillion dollars omnibus bill, the Pelosi Schumer's spending bill. So the reason for the frustration that I think a lot of voters have is evident. But my overarching message also is, you know, folks need to relax a little bit. This will get resolved. We're

going to have a House of Majority. We're gonna have a Republican speaker. We're gonna have Republican chairman in the committees. We're gonna have oversight hearings, we're gonna have subpoenas, we're gonna have legislation moving forward. All of that is going to happen. And at the end of the day, the cosmos is not dramatically different if it happens in a

week or two days ago. Yeah. Well, and I laugh because Democrats it was like they were throwing jello at the wall on TV and the commentators because Jeffreys came out the first one. They basically tried early in the day on Thursday, Senator was, oh, this could become a national security issue. By mid afternoon they had switched from that and represented national security. Look, we've got a Senate

in the Senate. We all have our security clearances and the ability to be read read into things, and you know we also have when it really comes to national security. What you know, you've got a president and a Secretary of State in the Secretary of Defense and a chairman of the Joint chiefs. Now, you and I aren't very happy with the job they're doing when you actually talk about national security. I think the people in the Biden

administration are affirmatively harmful for that. But the idea that it would somehow impact national security to have a few days debate over leadership is a weird argument. Well, and I laugh because they went from that earlier the day and then it was like, all right, well, we need something else that through out there. And then Representative Jeffreys comes out and he says this national security vulnerabilities. This is a dangerous moment for Americans and for the world.

It's one of the reasons why the Congress needs to organize. There are public health vulnerabilities. It's one of the reasons why the Congress needs to organize and Republicans need to get thereck together. So they threw that on there. It became well, now it's also it's not just now security now, it's probably health. I'm laughing because the Senate and recess right now. If if they had picked the speaker, wouldn't most of these people be home by now? That they'd

all be home, right, every one of them? Would They would have changed right actually that they're in DC now. The irity is that the reason the House is there is because of this. If they'd picked the speaker, they would they would have gone home. Um. And look, I don't fall to keem Jeffreys for doing what he's doing. That's what you do. Look, if you're the opposing party and the other side is having an internal food fight, you stand there and laugh and eat popcorn and and

you know, you throw rocks in the cheap seats. So of course that's what he's doing. Um. And to be clear, if if the shoe were on the other foot, we'd be Democrats. We're having If it was AOC challenging h Nancy Pelosi, you and I'd be sitting there going, man, they can't get their act together, and we would be doing exactly what would Jefferies is doing. So I don't

fault it for that. I'll tell you what I do fault though it is there are some who are engaged in nasty rhetoric on the Republican side, but also on the Democrats side. Corey Bush, That's That's what I was gonna say to you, was you just said the laughing and you'd sit back. How hard is it not to screw this moment? After you're a Democrat, you make you laugh at some of this, you say some of this.

But if there's anything that the Democratic Party should have figured out was just kind of sit back, take a moment and let and don't steal a headline away by doing something stupid. Insert Corey Bush and where you're going with us right now? One of the biggest racist blunders that never had the even get close to where they took it. And all of a sudden the story changes. And I'm sure people when the Democrats that are like, really,

you had to do this right now? Well, look, Corey Bush is one of the most radical members of the Democrat Party of the House. She is on the extreme left. She's one of the biggest advocates of abolishing the police. Ironically, she spends massive amounts on private security while arguing for abolishing the police. So it's rules for thee and not for me, And unfortunately she's been willing to really engage

in in racist rhetorics. So she sent a tweet that reads, for what it's worth, Byron Donalds is not an historic candidate for speaker. He is a prop despite being black. He supports a policy agenda intent on upholding and perpetuating white supremacy. His name being in the mix is not progress. It's pathetic. And and I gotta say that is that

is nasty. That is racist. By the way, it echoes. Uh, what what Dick Durban said in the Senate when Tim Scott, the Republican from South Carolina, African American, UH, was standing up and trying to lead legislation on police and and and both UH preventing UH, preventing violence to to to those who who are being arrested, but also protecting police at the same time. And and Durban ridiculed Tim Scott as a token um. And it's the same leftists have I retweeted Corey Bush and what I said, as I said,

open racism is normalized on the radical left. Now the Dems are calling Byron Donalds, who a black man, who's who's a conservative, who's strong articulate. They're calling him effectively a white supremacist. That's just nuts. That's but look, whether it's Corey Bush or Dick Durbin, when they see a black Republican, there is a level of anger, of animus, of bile. That's why they come out with things like token and prop um, the same thing Clarence Thomas faces,

because that they view them. And and and by the way, I'll say this as an Hispanic there is some of that. It's not nearly as nasty being an Hispanic Republican as it as it is how the left treats Black Republicans. But uh, but you know, I had Jorge Ramos on national television called be a traitor to my race because I believe in securing the border. I mean, it's there's

a nastiness. And unfortunately when you have someone you know, when Byron Donalds was was not needed and actually Chip Roy was nominating him, he pointed out a Kim Jeffreys had been nominated. He said, this is the first time in the history of our cree that two black, black people African Americans have been nominated to be Speaker of the House. And there was significant applause in the House at that I mean, that is meaningful and positive, but

it drives the Democrats crazy. They cannot acknowledge. To the leftists Byron Donalds is not black, Clarence Thomas is not black. Tim Scott is not black. I'm not hispanic. Markt Rubio is not Hispanic. You must be a leftist account in their in their bean counting world. How is it that not a single member of the media gets his tweet and immediately goes and demands a comment from the Democratic

leadership because it is racist. It's very clearly racist, and they act like it doesn't even happen, I mean even and I would say the Washington, DC Capitol Hill Press Corps is a little bit more formal than maybe some of the other press members outside in the world, where

there's a little bit more dignity in their group. And yet they just completely looked the other direction when a member of Congress says something this racist in this moment about an African American man who is who's been nominated in a historic way, in a moment that has one hundred push years of history involved in it, Well, look, part of it is the media agrees with those same radical senses you remember back when Larry Elder was running

for governor of California and the Los Angeles Time published an op ed the title of which was, Larry Elder is the black face of white supremacy. I mean, this is nasty, and they do it over and over and over again. It is particularly the hard left. They they not only revel in racism, they know they won't get called out on it from the press because the press agrees with them, or too many of them do at least. Yeah,

it's it's it's total silence on this one. And it's one of those moments when you see the Democrats and it reminds you of what you're up against across the aisle. And they allowed this to fester within the Democratic Party. Anytime a minority stands up that is a conservative, they immediately lose their race and their minority status and they do whatever they can to absolutely destroy them. Senator, it's

this has been a fun moment. As I said earlier, master class, ask on all of this, there's a lot of history involved. I know people wanted to hear what you thought about this, and I think the big takeaway from you is this is okay, this is going to play out and things are going to end well for us. And don't take debate for the media implying this is a national security risk or a health crisis risk. This is totally fine. Look my message is simple, keep calm

and carry on. This is debate, this is democracy. It will play out. It will resolve itself. I think it will resolve itself in a matter of days or at most weeks. And I don't know how it will resolve it. I have genuinely no idea what the resolution will be. But I do think the process of elected members debating amongst themselves their agenda, their rules, their policies, how they're going to conduct themselves. I think that debate is a

healthy thing in either House of Congress. It's gonna be interesting, it's gonna be fun to watch crabs, some more popcorn. My friends. We will be back with you on Monday. There may be a chance if you get a speaker before then, you might get something else from us. So make sure you hit that subscribe button, auto download button wherever you're listening to this podcast, make sure you rise a five star review center. It's the Pleasures always, and we'll see all you guys back here on Monday