Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) joins Stephen K. B. to discuss the debt ceiling and debt ceiling crisis, and why he thinks the White House should have done more to avoid default on the country's $32.5 trillion debt ceiling.
00:02:08.000But at this point, I think passage of the bill and avoiding default is the major challenge that we face.
00:02:13.000Do you think the White House handled that poorly,
00:02:16.000considering that it normally has such a positive relationship with Senator Cain?
00:02:21.000The White House has a positive relation with Tim Cain for sure.
00:02:25.000And also with Joe Manchin on the Inflation Reduction Act, which did so much to move us forward.
00:02:30.000So I don't know the details on who was notified and who should have been notified.
00:02:34.000We're going to face a tough vote with two of our friends that we value in the caucus on opposite sides.
00:02:40.000So do you think that the White House should have more seriously considered the 14th Amendment as an authority for raising the debt ceiling?
00:02:51.000This is something that your Democratic colleague, Senator Blumenthal, urged earlier today.
00:02:57.000Here's the problem that I saw. If this went into the courts, there is no guarantee that there would be a timely decision.
00:03:04.000Enough time for us to avoid defaulting on our debt.
00:03:07.000I happen to think there's a good argument about Section 4 of Article 14.
00:03:13.000Perhaps now we can find a way to bring it before the court.
00:03:16.000But ultimately that decision is going to be made by a Supreme Court, which is not predictable on a subject like this.
00:03:22.000So to have the fate of the American economy hanging in the balance of a long court process or an uncertain Supreme Court decision and then dumped back in our laps is something I didn't want to see happen.
00:03:34.000But how worried are you that this is just going to become the norm whenever this needs to be raised?
00:03:40.000Well, that's why the starting point in this negotiation, which Speaker McCarthy insisted on, was that we would postpone facing this again at least until the end of next year.
00:03:51.000And that to me is a promise that really convinced a lot of us that we can move forward and not have this hanging over our heads.
00:04:43.000The debt deal that's been crafted by Biden and McCarthy is an unlimited increase in the debt ceiling.
00:04:52.000See, historically, when we raise the debt ceiling would be a hundred billion dollars or two hundred billion dollars or God forbid, a trillion dollars.
00:07:16.000And they're Democrats in that, too, because it's a it's a it's a pool of, you know, slush fund.
00:07:21.000You've got they're arguing about everything there.
00:07:26.000I think you got Rand Paul, some mothers, Mike Lee and some others are going to say, hey, we've got to cap this thing, got to put a time to it.
00:07:31.000We're going to run to ground this McCarthy insisted upon if McCarthy insisted upon it.
00:07:36.000They should be a motion to vacate tonight.
00:07:38.000I'm not a motion to vacate guy right now.
00:07:41.000I think you got to do it when you can hit him the hardest and bleed him out.
00:09:45.000If you want it, one of the one forty nine is in your district.
00:09:48.000Make sure you go to the office or you go to a town hall with them and rub their nose in this political piece because it talks about the White House laughing in your face.
00:12:28.000I basically said that that it was stupid for McCarthy to do it, but selfish.
00:12:32.000Steve, he didn't want that debate to come up again in 2024 because it threatens his leadership.
00:12:38.000So he put himself above the Republican Party, above the people of Main Street, above MAGA, above the posse, above this country for his own personal climb up the ladder.
00:12:52.000And, you know, I hope that there's some courage among conservatives now among the 70 to at least make a run at that guy because he's got no business being speaker of a house that's controlled by the Republican Party.
00:13:07.000At least the Republican Party that we'd love it to be.
00:13:12.000Hang on real quickly, because we have sub next.
00:18:17.000The great Lou Dobbs has been doing this, I think, for four decades.
00:18:20.000And he does political economy better than anybody said.
00:18:23.000He thinks it's one of the top most important votes he's ever seen because of how it sets the economy and particularly where our balance sheet is.
00:18:31.000Dr. Navarro, we'll have you back on tomorrow.
00:18:59.000What I'm trying to do about three times a week is do these short jab, quick analyses.
00:19:05.000Today, I looked at this debacle of McCarthy and explained how he's institutionalized stagflation and basically made it harder, not easier to win back the White House and Congress in 2024.
00:19:21.000And I'm blessed because one day a week, the Washington Times is putting up one of the columns.
00:19:39.000In fact, a lot of times I get ideas and then go write the Substack after you and I talk, Steve, because that seems to be a production thing.
00:21:12.000You know, today's business is going to set what's going to happen here in the 72 hours is going to set the framework for the nation's economy for decades to come.
00:21:23.000That's where on the ramparts and they hate it.
00:21:49.000We care about a McCarthy that a senator from the senior senator from Illinois said you insisted.
00:21:55.000As I said today, the key thing is to find out with the Biden bring that up or McCarthy bring it up in Durbin's given us the weapon.
00:22:03.000If it is true and Kevin McCarthy should come forward and deny it, just like he denied on the floor yesterday, they cut a deal with Hakeem Jeffries.
00:22:21.000To be able to spend to be able to spend money in the district that were only going to be in Republican districts and now going to be a Democrat district.
00:22:29.000That's how he got to the rule, the rule to the floor.
00:22:33.000So we know he cut a deal and the Democrats know that in certain money.
00:22:37.000It's not a ton of money, but to buy, you know, to build a new library to do this.
00:22:41.000It's always been that point of entry of overspending that we cut years ago.
00:22:45.000He gave that to Hakeem Jeffries, Hakeem Jeffries, tough guy from New York.
00:25:39.000And secondly, you probably forgot this because you're a busy guy.
00:25:42.000Just a little reminder about Dick Durbin.
00:25:44.000Senator Durbin, when I was working for you in the White House, wrote to DHS to investigate me to have me actually deported from this country because I was working for the president of the United States.
00:26:12.000He's got a guy that has been down in Quantico, trained the FBI, and one of the top counter-jihad guys in the world, a U.S. citizen, a great wife.
00:26:22.000They've been great citizens, great patriots.
00:26:25.000And Trump gets them in, and they know, you know, they're supposed to have 4,000 people.
00:27:08.000And, you know, they're going to have some kind of stalling mechanism if they don't get more money for defense.
00:27:13.000It doesn't matter how much money we have for defense, Steve.
00:27:17.000If it's woke, if the U.S., if they want to spend it on drag queens in the Navy, if they want to spend it for more white rage CRT seminars at West Point.
00:27:30.000I just found out from the former Secretary of Veterans Affairs at West Point, they don't, you can't major in military history now.
00:27:38.000West Point was known for two things, Steve.
00:27:41.000You know this, military history and engineering.
00:30:03.000Congressman Crane, we've played at the Open a couple of times, Dick Durbin saying that Speaker McCarthy insisted upon the movement of the debt ceiling to pass the election of 2024, basically two years into 2025.
00:30:17.000Do you have any information for us on that, sir?
00:31:21.000How folks, because you were one of the heroes obviously stood in the breach, but what are you hearing generally?
00:31:25.000We're hearing that there's a lot of blowback from, from the one 49 districts of people outraged of how this went down, particularly with no cap and two years out.
00:31:35.000Or can you, can you give us any update of what you're hearing?
00:32:15.000They want some accountability and they want heads to roll because they know what this means for, you know, their livelihood and for their kids.
00:32:23.000Um, but I'm, I'm glad that people, the 149 Republicans, Steve, that sold this country out last night.
00:32:31.000I'm glad that they're getting blowback and they can try and spin this every single, which way that they want to.
00:32:36.000But I, I gotta be honest, Steve, it was, it was embarrassing.
00:32:40.000It was a disgrace and it was hard to be in that room watching my colleagues.
00:32:44.000And many of them that I care about sell this country, um, down, down the, down the drain last night.
00:32:52.000Eli, as a combat veteran, particularly coming through Memorial Day, um, walk me through how, how did that impact you coming back here?
00:33:02.000Given what you, your colleagues, your buddies gave to this country.
00:33:06.000And of course, the ultimate sacrifice of the honor that we honored this past weekend, that this vote would actually take back the place on the traditional Memorial Day of 31 May.
00:33:16.000What, what, what, how do you size it up when you see people that know better and knowingly sell their country out?
00:33:26.000I, we had a meeting at the, with the House Freedom Caucus this week.
00:33:31.000I got pretty pissed off and pretty heated when, uh, members of the House Freedom Caucus said that they wouldn't vote against the rule because it was seen as legislative terrorism.
00:33:41.000I believe that's what they said. And I got a, I got in the queue. I got a chance to speak. And I said, I don't give a, I don't give a damn what legislations think about us voting against the rule.
00:33:53.000I said, we're losing this country. We are losing this country. And you guys are talking about parliamentary procedure that most Americans don't even know about. It's a disgrace. We're losing this country.
00:34:04.000And you guys are talking, you guys are more concerned about clearly your political careers than you are about this country.
00:34:11.000And I ended up having to, you know, kind of apologize to the group, make sure no, everybody knew I wasn't trying to single anybody out.
00:34:19.000And at the same time, it pisses me off, Steve, because so many men and women, great men and women have fought and died for this country.
00:34:26.000And we are the ones that are selling it out. I mean, sure, we've got plenty of enemies overseas that want to do us harm, but we're destroying ourselves.
00:34:36.000We've got nobody to blame for ourselves. And you saw that in full effect last night.
00:34:41.000Congressman, how can, how can he, and by the way, tell the, your folks back in the district, because Arizona is, is one of the backbones of this country.
00:34:51.940And we'd love your district, love the folks out there. And my thing of motion vacate, I'm now all for it because no one that he, he was the guy that initiated this.
00:34:59.000He's got to go. But how can he even figure he can govern when he needed Hakeem Jeffries to bail him out on the floor, even to get it to the floor, showed you what a democratic bill is.
00:35:08.980And then later he needed what 70, seven, there were 71 no's. And I think banks and Boebert were late, but registered no vote.
00:35:16.480So he needed more Democrats to vote for this than Republicans. How can he possibly govern when Hakeem Jeffries is a tantamount right now, effectively right now, the majority leader. Walk me through that, sir.
00:35:28.200Steve, he, I don't think he can govern. And that's the problem. That's why, that's why six of us never even voted for him to begin with after 15 rounds, because we knew that this is what was going to happen.
00:35:40.980I sat in the Freedom Caucus when I went through orientation right after I got elected, Steve, and I had, you know, hardcore experienced guys like Andy Biggs, Bob Good, Matt Rosendale, and others sit there and tell all of us freshmen and everybody else in the Freedom Caucus that if you elect this guy, this is exactly what's going to happen.
00:36:02.780This is exactly what's going to happen. And this is what happened. And it's just like, Steve, you know, the deal from being in the military, you know, the deal from doing jobs that have very intense stress.
00:36:16.900When you apply stress to people, what do they do? They go back to what they know, they go back to what they've, what they've been trained to do. And this is who Kevin McCarthy is. And it's not personal at all. But we're not talking, we're not talking about relationships or some little love fest up there. We're talking about the destruction of our country.
00:36:39.020We're talking about the uniparty continuing to sell our country down the river. And clearly I'm pissed off right now, Steve, but it was disgusting. And, you know, I, I'm still upset about it.
00:36:53.840Eli, one of the things about you, you stay very close to your constituents, although it's, you know, four-fifths or 90% across the country, you stay very close to your constituents.
00:37:03.420Are they right now pretty adamant? He's got to go. There's got to be a motion of AK. He's got to be held accountable. Is that where they are right now, given what's happened? It's fiasco over the last 48, 72 hours.
00:37:16.460Well, they're pretty pissed, Steve. And I, I did get a lot of comms, a lot of phone calls, a lot of text messages, you know, saying that very thing. And we'll, we're definitely gonna, we're definitely gonna be looking at that.
00:37:28.720Um, but here's the thing we got to, here's the thing. If we were actually talking strategy. Okay. Um, clearly we would need Democrat help to vacate Kevin McCarthy. Okay. That's just how it is. You can tell how many loyalists he has in the Republican party.
00:37:45.520Yes. Yes. Men that do whatever leadership tells them to, to do. Why would the Democrat party want to get rid of a guy who's putting forth legislation that they're more excited about than we are.
00:37:57.320You talk about the 149 Republicans, but there were 165 Democrats that voted for that. So why would Democrats and Hakeem Jeffries who are not only getting an additional 4 trillion for the, for the next until January 25, but they're also getting all the earmarks that were promised to them in that deal with Hakeem Jeffries so that they could roll us in that rules committee or in that rules vote.
00:38:31.060You've just laid out the, no, no, no. You've just laid out the conundrum here. If you're going to take him down, as you know, when you take a shot at the King, you got it, you got it, you got to hit. I don't need to tell Eli Crane that he used to do this for a living. Um, your constituents, I hope, know that there's a lot of folks like you and others that are working on this, this, this key issue right now.
00:38:51.060Yep. Yeah, no, we're going to see, we're going to continue to fight. There's still, and I know people, you know, they, they get so frustrated that they tune it out, but that's why I'm so grateful for what you do, man.
00:39:03.800Because, you know, between president Trump coming along and, you know, with his America first agenda and just pop his populist national agenda, it made guys like me open our eyes, start asking ourselves some hard questions, but that's what your show does.
00:39:20.300Steve, I got, I got into Phoenix a couple hours ago. I'm driving home from, I'm driving home from Phoenix and I put on war room because I, I need to know, I need to know signal. I need to know what's going on. And I'm listening to you talk about, yeah, was it, whose idea was it? Was it McCarthy or Biden? And I wanted to let you know, it was Kevin McCarthy all the way.
00:39:42.220He told us that personally in conference and, and there are people up there who still love this country, who put their voters and their constituents first. It's not about, you know, what they can get out of it. It's not about staying in office.
00:39:56.720Most of us, Steve, that are holding the line know that leadership and the swamp and the establishment is going to be gunning for us, but we don't care because we know what's on the line. And it's so much bigger than any of our political careers.
00:40:13.060Eli, what is your social media? Congressman Crane, how do people get to you?
00:40:16.720Uh, rep, Eli Crane, if, if people want to go follow me. Um, but thanks everybody for listening to war room because it's one of the only places where we can still get solid news. And, you know, like Steve says all the time, signal, not noise. And I'm constantly listening to it to myself.
00:40:37.000Congressman Crane, thank you very much. Honored to have you on here.
00:40:39.300With people like, uh, Crane, um, we're going to set things right. Remember, we got some incredibly powerful people on our side of the football. It's just incredible.
00:40:52.600Want to go back to Eli Crane dropped another bomb there, a buried lead. McCarthy did this because the party would be weaker a year from now. Remember, let's go back to the original deal.
00:41:06.080$1.5 trillion and or, you know, March, April, May, whenever the deal got done one year. So he's saying in May, let me, let me think this through. Let's think this through together. In May of 2024, the party's going to be weaker. How can the party be weaker? Let me think about that. We got the leverage. So let me think. Let me, oh, that's right. It's the end of the primary.
00:41:30.200I told you this was 100% to take the leverage away from Donald J. Trump. The party will be weaker. The party will be weaker. The dead husk of the Republican party. That will be weaker.
00:41:49.240The party will be weaker. The party will be weaker. Because Trump will be the nominee. And they don't want to give Trump any effort. They would much rather be in the situation. They just gave Joe Biden the biggest kiss he's ever going to get.
00:42:07.140They just gave him a clean debt ceiling. There's no restrictions on this. Kevin McCarthy gave Joe Biden unlimited, unlimited, no cap for two years because the party will be weaker to make sure, to ensure Donald Trump didn't have this weapon and didn't have the leverage and MAGA didn't have the leverage.
00:42:29.180It's quite clear what happened now. And McCarthy has got to go. And Kevin McCarthy, just understand this. You're going to go. You might not go tomorrow, but you're going to go. You cannot govern. You cannot govern.
00:42:42.260This negotiation, you had every piece of leverage. And Politico, all the smart pieces right now are saying they're laughing over there. They're trying to hold their glee back because when this thing comes back after the Senate, because my God, they can't pass it what they just got sent over.
00:43:01.560The one thing they'll do is they're going to add more in the defense and they're going to jam some more Ukraine there. Got to have Ukraine. Got to have Ukraine. You know, you get you, you, you didn't, you know, you haven't made any cuts, but the cuts you didn't make, you know, Americans are going to go do, you have to do without some of these goodies. Right. But no, you got to get more in Ukraine. We got to pay more pensions in Ukraine. Got to pay more teachers in Ukraine. Got to pay more health care for everybody in Ukraine. Got to do that. Have to do that.
00:43:29.000Got to do it. Apparatus demands it. Kevin McCarthy will be weaker than that's Trump. And the people around Trump that are the Kevin McCarthy court jesters. No. And now you're going to get out it.
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