The Charlie Kirk Show - A House Divided with Mike Davis

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:00.000 Today, the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:01.000 Mike Davis joins the program.

00:00:03.000 I have a lot of respect for him.

00:00:04.000 He floats Steve Scalise for speaker.

00:00:06.000 I think that's a bad idea.

00:00:07.000 And we have other people joining our program.

00:00:09.000 Email me your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.

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00:00:14.000 Start a high school or college chapter, tpusa.com.

00:00:17.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:20.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:22.000 Here we go.

00:00:23.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:24.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:26.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:30.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:33.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:34.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:35.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:00:44.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:00:52.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:04.000 The future of Kevin McCarthy and the speaker's race is unfolding.

00:01:09.000 It's happening right now as the votes are going to be tallied for another round of, let's just say, roll call.

00:01:19.000 So basically, here's what's happening right now on the House floor.

00:01:22.000 The 118th Congress is now official, but technically, these are all congressmen-elects.

00:01:28.000 They're not even allowed to swear people in.

00:01:30.000 So one of the funniest things I saw yesterday is that George Santos, the pathological court-jesting liar from New York, basically sent out an email last night saying, I'm so honored to have been sworn in as a congressperson.

00:01:45.000 You were not sworn in yesterday.

00:01:47.000 He's just basically sitting in the back of the room exactly where he deserves.

00:01:51.000 No, it's true.

00:01:52.000 Santos sent out an email last night saying that I was sworn in.

00:01:55.000 It was probably an automatically generated email that he assumed he was going to be sworn in, but a little bit deceitful there.

00:02:03.000 So here, look, there's a lot of drama happening right now on the House floor.

00:02:05.000 So here's what's happening.

00:02:06.000 There's no Speaker of the House.

00:02:08.000 You've got to get to 218 votes to be able to get to become Speaker of the House.

00:02:15.000 Now, the McCarthy camp has anywhere between 150 to 170 votes.

00:02:22.000 So anywhere between that.

00:02:24.000 And so when the Speaker of the House race begins to unfold and there are holdouts, which Republicans are withholding from the vote, the essence of what is happening on the floor right now is the Speaker of the House race is in complete and total turmoil.

00:02:48.000 So let's play some tape here as I'm trying to figure out what's happening on the screen.

00:02:53.000 This was Kevin McCarthy yesterday, play cut one.

00:02:55.000 We're going to be doing the votes for Speaker Locked in tomorrow.

00:02:58.000 I think we're going to have a good day tomorrow.

00:03:04.000 What are your conversations like in that mirror?

00:03:06.000 Good to see you.

00:03:07.000 Are you from here to make more concessions in exchange for us for?

00:03:12.000 Hope you all have a very nice New Year's.

00:03:15.000 And so that was Kevin McCarthy yesterday.

00:03:18.000 So look, here is the big bet that Kevin McCarthy placed.

00:03:20.000 Kevin McCarthy said, look, I believe that if this goes to the floor and these holdouts surface themselves, they are going to look unreasonable and eventually they're going to break in our direction.

00:03:35.000 That was a bad bet by Kevin McCarthy.

00:03:38.000 Kevin McCarthy's calculus was incorrect.

00:03:40.000 Kevin McCarthy's calculus was that they were going to be about five to ten rebels and they were going to voice their opposition.

00:03:49.000 And eventually, after a couple rounds of votes, they were going to consolidate in my direction.

00:03:54.000 So I talked to several House Freedom Caucus members for over an hour yesterday.

00:03:59.000 And I listened and I heard their arguments, some of which I agreed with, some of which I found to be preposterous.

00:04:05.000 For example, one House Freedom Caucus member said, look, it really doesn't matter who ends up becoming speaker.

00:04:10.000 What matters is the process and eventually, you know, exposing the cartel for what it is.

00:04:17.000 That sounds good, but I, for one, would love to have investigations and subpoenas over Anthony Fauci, over the FDA, over Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Afghanistan withdrawal, southern borders.

00:04:29.000 That sounds good.

00:04:30.000 I find that to be rather preposterous.

00:04:32.000 I understand the spirit of what was being said, but I don't find that to be strong.

00:04:35.000 What I did find to be a good argument, though, after talking to several House Freedom Caucus members last evening, who will remain nameless, is the rules changes that they wanted to make.

00:04:44.000 And one of the most persuasive arguments that I heard from the House Freedom Caucus was that, Charlie, this $1.7 trillion omnibus bill that happened in December was an outrage.

00:04:56.000 It was a raging, throbbing middle finger into decent, normal Americans who wanted to live their life, have a functioning government, and this $1.7 trillion omnibus bill that sent money to Ukraine, that sent money for border security abroad, that did all these different sorts of things while not securing our own border.

00:05:19.000 We have to go about fixing the rules so that something like this never happens again.

00:05:24.000 So there's a component of Congress, and it's very wonky and it's not always fun to talk about that, but it's important, called the Rules Committee.

00:05:31.000 The Rules Committee effectively runs Congress.

00:05:34.000 The Rules Committee meets on Sunday evenings before a whole week of Congress, and they go through the rules of the procedure, the votes, of what it is going to take to get bills to the floor, effectively controlling the machinery of Congress.

00:05:49.000 Now, that's something that is rather uninteresting for a lot of us that are not in the weeds of parliamentary tactics in Congress, but it's critically important.

00:06:01.000 So the House Freedom Caucus, and I told them this, I said, if you guys are going to win the messaging war, make it less about Kevin McCarthy and talk about how you want to get specific rules changes so that we do not have another $1.7 trillion omnibus bill.

00:06:20.000 I find that to be more reasonable than just saying we're going to oppose Kevin McCarthy out of personal politics.

00:06:28.000 And so after speaking to them, here's basically what unfolded.

00:06:31.000 And this is mostly public and some of it's private, is that there was, there were a series of negotiations that were happening at the very last moment on the evening of January 2nd.

00:06:41.000 A delegation, a group of House Freedom Caucus members came and met with McCarthy, and they said, we want changes on the rules committees.

00:06:48.000 We want steering committee changes.

00:06:50.000 I don't quite understand the difference between steering and rules.

00:06:53.000 Again, this is very minutiae.

00:06:54.000 It's very weeds, but it's highly important.

00:06:56.000 It's critical.

00:06:57.000 I'm not discounting it.

00:06:58.000 It's just when you're not in kind of in-depth in Congress, it's not as consequential from the outside.

00:07:05.000 So, but they said, Kevin, here are our demands.

00:07:07.000 Now, to be fair, some of those demands were probably overly aggressive for a last-minute negotiation ask.

00:07:14.000 It just was.

00:07:16.000 In the last minute, you're not going to get everything you're asking for.

00:07:18.000 However, the spirit to say we do not want another $1.7 trillion omnibus bill to be passed, I find that to be a persuasive argument.

00:07:28.000 I think that omnibus bill was one of the most insulting pieces of legislation that we have seen, so damaging to our republic, to our ability to function and flourish as a civilized country.

00:07:40.000 And now trying to remedy the process and the machinery, I think is admirable.

00:07:47.000 Now, it seems as if everybody is applauding right now.

00:07:49.000 I'm guessing somebody just nominated Kevin McCarthy to become Speaker.

00:07:55.000 That is my guess of what is happening right now, just looking at the standing applause around him.

00:08:03.000 So, someone just stood up and nominated Kevin.

00:08:05.000 Now, what's going to happen next, I'm told, is historic based on my sources.

00:08:09.000 I'm told that the Freedom Caucus is about to nominate somebody that is going to be new and unique.

00:08:18.000 So, we'll see who that is.

00:08:19.000 Now, negotiations are ongoing.

00:08:21.000 These negotiations fell apart on the evening of January 2nd.

00:08:26.000 Basically, Kevin McCarthy said, these are outrageous demands.

00:08:30.000 I'm not going to take it.

00:08:33.000 I'm not going to proceed with this.

00:08:35.000 And the House Freedom Caucus said, fine, let's see who blinks.

00:08:41.000 And they went to the House floor and we saw what happened yesterday: three failed votes.

00:08:44.000 So now this is the kind of extension of that.

00:08:47.000 The McCarthy block remains largely unmoved.

00:08:50.000 Byron Donald's defected from McCarthy to Jim Jordan.

00:08:53.000 But what is going to happen next is I'm told the House Freedom Caucus is now going to nominate somebody in their own words as historic.

00:09:01.000 We'll see who it is as Mike Gallagher from the 8th Congressional District of Wisconsin wraps up his speech in favor of McCarthy.

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00:10:12.000 So Hakeem Jeffries has officially been nominated by the Democrats for Speaker of the House.

00:10:19.000 No shock, no surprise there.

00:10:21.000 Nothing too extraordinary.

00:10:24.000 I am curious about who the next nomination is.

00:10:25.000 So I do want to take this live.

00:10:27.000 I'm guessing the Freedom Caucus is about to stand up and nominate somebody.

00:10:30.000 It could be Jim Jordan or it could be somebody else.

00:10:33.000 I don't know.

00:10:33.000 We'll find out.

00:10:34.000 I've been told that the T's here.

00:10:36.000 Let's listen to Chip Roy, please.

00:10:40.000 Yesterday, my first vote for Speaker of the House was for Byron Donalds.

00:10:48.000 Today, I'm rising to nominate Byron Donalds for Speaker of the House of Representatives.

00:11:00.000 Byron is a dear friend, a solid conservative, but most importantly, a family man who loves dearly his wife, Erica, his three children, has a proven track record as a businessman, public service in the Florida legislature, and now is a member of the United States Congress.

00:11:27.000 Now, here we are, and for the first time in history, there have been two black Americans placed into the nomination for Speaker of the House.

00:11:47.000 However, Enter Speaker, order Or, Madam Clerk, order.

00:11:57.000 We do not seek to judge people by the color of their skin, but rather the content of their character.

00:12:05.000 Byron Donalds.

00:12:14.000 Byron Donalds is a good man raised by a single mom who moved past adversity, became a Christian man at the age of 21, and has devoted his life to advancing the cause for his family and for this country.

00:12:31.000 And he has done it admirably.

00:12:34.000 But there's an important reason for nominating Byron, and that is this country needs a change.

00:12:46.000 This country needs leadership that does not reflect this city, this town that is badly broken.

00:13:02.000 The House of Representatives is the people's house.

00:13:07.000 It represents the entirety of our country, and we each represent some 750,000 people.

00:13:13.000 And we come here, and here we sit in a room filled with those representatives.

00:13:20.000 And my friend, Mr. Gallagher, and he is my friend, and I agree with him on many things.

00:13:25.000 And I agree with almost everything that you were talking about.

00:13:29.000 But we should be in here having this kind of a conversation with this many people in the room about Ukraine.

00:13:38.000 And we should debate the merits.

00:13:40.000 And we should debate the ups and downs of being involved.

00:13:42.000 We should debate the $45 billion.

00:13:45.000 We should debate whether it should be more or less.

00:13:47.000 We should debate whether it should be paid for.

00:13:49.000 We should debate what the result we should demand.

00:13:53.000 The only way you're going to get that is if you change the rules and have the leadership to advance the rules to make sure that we can do that.

00:14:06.000 Now, we've had a conversation for two months to try to advance the ball, and we have had success in doing that.

00:14:13.000 But we're not there.

00:14:15.000 We're not at the place where we need to be to guarantee, to guarantee that we're going to be able to stand up in the face of the swamp that continues to step over the American people on a daily basis and spend money we don't have and to continue to leave our borders open and to continue to fund bureaucrats that are stepping over the freedoms of the American people.

00:14:37.000 Byron will stand up and do that.

00:14:41.000 Byron.

00:14:48.000 Charlie Kirk here.

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00:15:48.000 We received an email here that I want to read.

00:15:51.000 This is one of the most consequential moments in recent GOP history, a rare moment where power can be challenged and Trump found himself on the wrong side of it.

00:16:01.000 That is what one of our listeners said.

00:16:02.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:16:05.000 Mike Davis joins us.

00:16:07.000 So just before we go to Mike Davis, Byron Donalds, who has not self-selected a run for the speaker, has been nominated by one of his colleagues, Chip Roy.

00:16:18.000 I find the whole thing to be rather ingenious by the House Freedom Caucus.

00:16:23.000 Now, I don't like this affirmative action stuff. 0.96

00:16:26.000 I find it nauseating where we have two black people running. 1.00

00:16:29.000 Skin color means nothing. 0.96

00:16:31.000 And Chip Roy, who I consider to be a friend and really smart, sort of contradicted himself there.

00:16:36.000 He's like, we have two black people running for Speaker of the House, and we don't care about skin color, and we care about the content of one's character.

00:16:44.000 So, and then he did say that Byron's character is terrific, which by the way, I can attest to that.

00:16:48.000 I know Byron really well.

00:16:50.000 His wife runs a charter school.

00:16:52.000 They homeschool their kids.

00:16:54.000 They homeschooled their kids before their kids went to the charter school they helped start.

00:16:58.000 Byron Donalds is a true grassroots conservative from Collier County, Naples area in Florida.

00:17:06.000 So this is about to get very, very interesting.

00:17:08.000 Joining us now is Mike Davis from the Article 3 Project.

00:17:11.000 Mike, that's some breaking news there.

00:17:13.000 What are your thoughts?

00:17:14.000 It's interesting.

00:17:14.000 Are you talking about the thoughts on Byron getting nominated?

00:17:18.000 Yes.

00:17:19.000 I mean, I don't think people think he has a realistic shot of winning, but it's symbolic.

00:17:26.000 So whatever.

00:17:27.000 I just, look, we may disagree on this.

00:17:31.000 I don't think Kevin McCarthy is going to be elected speaker.

00:17:33.000 I don't think that he should be elected speaker.

00:17:36.000 I don't think he's earned the votes, and I don't think he will earn the votes.

00:17:38.000 And so I think that we're dragging this out unnecessarily.

00:17:43.000 Kevin McCarthy has known for two months he does not have the votes to become speaker.

00:17:48.000 And he did nothing to earn those votes during that time.

00:17:51.000 And he's actually lost votes.

00:17:52.000 They went into the first vote.

00:17:54.000 He thought he was going to lose five votes.

00:17:56.000 He ended up losing 19.

00:17:58.000 They did a second vote.

00:17:59.000 He lost 19 votes again.

00:18:00.000 They had Jim Jordan do his endorsement speech on the House floor, thinking that that would bring these dissenters or defectors over to Kevin McCarthy.

00:18:10.000 Not only did it not work, he actually lost another vote.

00:18:13.000 So Kevin McCarthy is down 20 votes.

00:18:16.000 President Trump did not endorse Kevin McCarthy during three of these failed votes.

00:18:21.000 President Trump specifically stayed on the sidelines.

00:18:25.000 Kevin McCarthy apparently called and begged for Trump's endorsement.

00:18:30.000 Trump put out a, I think, a pretty tepid endorsement today.

00:18:34.000 I just don't think Kevin McCarthy has the votes.

00:18:37.000 I don't think he should be speaker, but even if you do think he should be speaker, he doesn't have the votes.

00:18:42.000 It's time to move on.

00:18:43.000 Yeah, so I agree that he doesn't have the votes, but he does have enough votes to make turn this into a long negotiation and or standoff, right?

00:18:52.000 Because I mean, there are probably 100 people that are saying we're going to only vote for Kevin.

00:18:57.000 So then what?

00:18:58.000 That's nonsense.

00:19:00.000 I mean, this is what's going to happen.

00:19:01.000 Kevin McCarthy's not going to get the votes to be speaker.

00:19:04.000 He doesn't have 218 votes.

00:19:06.000 Jim Jordan does not have 218 votes to become speaker.

00:19:09.000 So it's going to go to Steve Scalise.

00:19:11.000 Well, hold on, but Mike, Steve Scalise is a flaming liberal compared to Kevin McCarthy.

00:19:16.000 Why should we support that?

00:19:17.000 I think that is, I think Kevin McCarthy's office is putting out some.

00:19:22.000 No, That's not true, Mike.

00:19:24.000 No, Steve Scalise supported, was neutral with Liz Cheney and Harriet Hageman.

00:19:28.000 Hakeem Jeffries says, I have a much better relationship with Steve Scalise than with McCarthy.

00:19:33.000 So is your argument in favor of Scalise?

00:19:36.000 I think you have to look at, you know, you can pick off those two examples as that he's a flaming liberal.

00:19:42.000 He's just not.

00:19:43.000 No, he is compared to Kevin McCarthy.

00:19:45.000 I mean, Mike, you just lost me, man.

00:19:47.000 Steve Scalise is worse than Paul Ryan.

00:19:50.000 I mean, Kevin McCarthy, for all his faults, was going to put Marjorie Taylor Greene on oversight.

00:19:55.000 Like, if your argument is Steve Scalise, like, that's not compelling to me at all.

00:20:00.000 Well, I'm not a champion for Steve Scalise.

00:20:03.000 I just think by default, he's going to become the speaker.

00:20:06.000 But then, then, then your argument needs to be confronted and defeated then, because Kevin's better than Scalese.

00:20:14.000 I actually don't think Kevin is better than Scalise in many different ways.

00:20:19.000 Well, I'll tell you on big tech is the biggest reason for me.

00:20:22.000 I run the Article 3 project and I run the Internet Accountability Project, as you know.

00:20:26.000 We have been fighting for three years now to take on big tech from the right, to hold big tech accountable, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.

00:20:36.000 And the biggest impediment to our fight is Kevin McCarthy.

00:20:40.000 And our second biggest impediment to our fight is Jim Jordan.

00:20:42.000 And the reason is, is that they take big tech's money.

00:20:46.000 They pretend like they're warriors against big tech and they do big tech's bidding.

00:20:49.000 And Kevin McCarthy is the worst at this.

00:20:52.000 He has Jeff Miller as his top advisor.

00:20:54.000 Jeff Miller has been Kevin McCarthy's top advisor for decades.

00:20:59.000 And he is a lobbyist.

00:21:01.000 He is a lobbyist who has taken millions of dollars from Apple and Amazon.

00:21:05.000 And Jeff Miller is running Kevin McCarthy's race to become speaker.

00:21:09.000 There is no chance that if Kevin McCarthy becomes the Speaker of the House, that we will update and enforce our century-old antitrust laws and break up big tech.

00:21:17.000 Big tech will actually thrive under Kevin McCarthy because he does their bidding, and that will continue.

00:21:23.000 Steve Scalese, for whatever faults he may have on Liz Cheney and other issues, he is much more gettable on the big tech issue, which I think is one of the most important issues that House Republicans will face over the next two years.

00:21:39.000 If we don't break up big tech's gatekeeping power over information and commerce, they will continue to throw elections for Democrats.

00:21:48.000 They will continue to censor, silence, deplatform, and cancel conservatives and others with whom they disagree.

00:21:55.000 Look what happens with Elon Musk.

00:21:57.000 Elon Musk made this $44 billion investment to buy Twitter.

00:22:01.000 It's been great.

00:22:02.000 It's a horrific investment for Elon Musk, but it's been great for conservatives and free speech.

00:22:06.000 Okay, what happens when the advertisers crush Elon Musk with their advertiser boycotts?

00:22:12.000 What happens when the Google, Google, and Apple do what they did to Parlor and kick Twitter out of the app store duopoly because Twitter, they think, doesn't censor enough?

00:22:21.000 What happens when Amazon kicks Twitter off the internet?

00:22:24.000 Our free speech in this country is hanging by a thread, and we must break up the trillion-dollar big tech monopolist or we're going to get crushed again.

00:22:34.000 Remember.

00:22:35.000 I mean, I agree, but Steve Scalise took money from Netpack too, man.

00:22:39.000 And I'll tell you, I'll tell you this, Charlie, as someone who's worked on this issue every day for three years, I can assure you that Steve Scalise is a lot more gettable than Kevin McCarthy.

00:22:50.000 Okay, I mean, I won't fight you on that.

00:22:52.000 You do have more understanding of that.

00:22:54.000 But I mean, he did take money from Google's PAC, too, right?

00:22:57.000 So if that's the...

00:22:58.000 A lot of them did.

00:22:58.000 I hear you.

00:22:59.000 No, I agree.

00:23:00.000 So that part of the argument is a wash, right?

00:23:04.000 But it's not a wash.

00:23:06.000 It's not just taking the money.

00:23:07.000 It's what Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan are doing behind the scenes over the last year.

00:23:12.000 No, and I'm going to trust you on that.

00:23:13.000 I hear you.

00:23:14.000 I hear that from a lot of people.

00:23:15.000 And I think that's a good argument.

00:23:16.000 I do.

00:23:17.000 So, but just this idea that it's going to go to Scalise, Hageman, I don't know.

00:23:23.000 Do we have that clip?

00:23:24.000 Let's play Cut 36.

00:23:25.000 This is Hakeem Jeffries saying he's not close with Kevin, but Scalise is a buddy.

00:23:30.000 Play Cut 36.

00:23:31.000 What is your relationship like with your Republican counterpart, Kevin McCarthy, who wants to be the speaker?

00:23:36.000 When was the last time you spoke with him?

00:23:39.000 I haven't had a conversation with Leader McCarthy Carthy recently.

00:23:43.000 I do have, I think, a much warmer relationship with Steve Scalise.

00:23:48.000 Now, that could just be friendship, right?

00:23:50.000 Mike, I don't want to misrepresent that, but do you understand the skepticism of be careful what you wish for?

00:23:56.000 No, I understand that, but he wouldn't be.

00:23:59.000 If you're in the House leadership, you wouldn't be having conversations between the House Republicans' top leader and their number two or number three leader.

00:24:06.000 It's just not how it works.

00:24:07.000 You work with your counterpart across the aisle.

00:24:10.000 So Speaker Pelosi would work with House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and the Whips would work with the Whips.

00:24:17.000 And, you know, that's just how it works.

00:24:19.000 I don't think because Hakeem Jeffries has a working relationship with Scalise and he doesn't have a working relationship with McCarthy is unusual or says anything.

00:24:29.000 Okay.

00:24:30.000 How many rounds do you think this is going to go?

00:24:32.000 Well, we're in our fourth round right now.

00:24:34.000 We'll see how that goes after the Trump endorsement.

00:24:38.000 And, you know, it's going to go as long as Kevin McCarthy wants to drag this out.

00:24:45.000 He doesn't have the votes to become Speaker.

00:24:48.000 And we just need to come to that reality.

00:24:49.000 He doesn't have the votes and he's never going to have the votes.

00:24:51.000 And so what we have to figure out is what is the next option?

00:24:55.000 Look, I don't think Steve Scalise is the perfect option, but he's, I think, the only one who's going to get the 218 votes necessary in this narrow conference to become the speaker of the house.

00:25:07.000 And so would he be my first pick?

00:25:09.000 Probably not.

00:25:10.000 But I think he's going to be the speaker of the house.

00:25:13.000 So this current vote tally is over with.

00:25:15.000 Basically, it's not over, but there have been nine votes for Byron Donalds.

00:25:19.000 And so basically, it's going to be a matter of time in your estimation or in your calculus before Kevin backs out.

00:25:27.000 Or does Kevin try to then go back to the Freedom Caucus and resurrect the deal that died on the night of January 2nd?

00:25:35.000 It's pretty, they're pretty dug in.

00:25:37.000 Here's the problem.

00:25:38.000 This is the problem I have, Charlie, is Kevin McCarthy's team is floating the idea that they're, you know, you talk about Scalise having a working relationship with Hakeem Jeffries.

00:25:47.000 Kevin McCarthy's team is actually floating that they're going to go to Hakeem Jeffries and get Democrat votes to vote for president.

00:25:54.000 That is correct.

00:25:54.000 No, that's right.

00:25:56.000 So let's, I mean, who's making the deal with the devil with Hakeem Jeffries?

00:26:00.000 You know, Scalise has a civil relationship with him.

00:26:03.000 McCarthy, who only cares about becoming Speaker, I don't know if McCarthy has a conservative bone in his body or a guiding principle other than he wants to become the speaker.

00:26:12.000 And that's my problem with Kevin McCarthy.

00:26:14.000 And I will say, though, that is correct in some sense.

00:26:17.000 I don't know it as deep or not.

00:26:20.000 I believe he is a conservative.

00:26:21.000 I don't know to what depth or what detail.

00:26:24.000 I do believe he really wants to be speaker.

00:26:26.000 I think aspiration drives him.

00:26:28.000 But in some way, that can be used to one's advantage to try to get concessions.

00:26:34.000 And the fear is if you go to Steve Scalise, there's a chance that MTG on oversight, Jim Jordan as a chairman, there is a risk that we have to say that it could be a much more moderate Congress where it could have been more conservative because McCarthy really wanted to be Speaker.

00:26:50.000 Final thoughts, Mike?

00:26:52.000 I think if you look at Scalise's record, he has been a conservative throughout his entire career.

00:26:58.000 I don't know him personally, but I know people who have worked for him and worked with him.

00:27:02.000 He is a principal conservative.

00:27:04.000 He's a very good guy.

00:27:05.000 He's been effective.

00:27:07.000 You're seeing that he is, you know, he's playing second fiddle to McCarthy right now.

00:27:11.000 I think you would see a much different Scalise if he's the Speaker of the House.

00:27:15.000 Mike Davis, great commentary.

00:27:17.000 Really appreciate it.

00:27:17.000 Thank you, man.

00:27:18.000 Thank you.

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00:28:56.000 Someone says here, I believe Mr. Davis is wrong.

00:28:58.000 Scalise would be a disaster.

00:29:00.000 Why not Byron Donalds?

00:29:01.000 He's a solid conservative and no BS fighter.

00:29:04.000 I don't understand why we'd be pushing Scalise.

00:29:07.000 Okay.

00:29:08.000 Also, just the people supporting Steve Scalise, Alyssa Farah.

00:29:12.000 Remember Alyssa Farah, who used to be in the White House?

00:29:14.000 She's behind Scalise.

00:29:16.000 Let's get to some tape here as the voting continues on the House floor and history is unfolding here.

00:29:22.000 Let's get to this right here.

00:29:25.000 Let's go to Cut 33, Chip Roy, on the speaker race, play cut 33.

00:29:31.000 But, Congressman, is it better to not have a speaker at all and to not have a functioning house than do you think anybody in America right now is like, oh my God, there's not a speaker, right?

00:29:43.000 Because what is somebody who lives right now in like Des Moines, Iowa, and they're going to their job, they're going to school.

00:29:49.000 Oh, no, 24 hours without a speaker in the house.

00:29:53.000 We're a body.

00:29:53.000 We can go past motions.

00:29:56.000 We can do whatever.

00:29:56.000 If there's an emergency, we can do whatever we need to.

00:29:59.000 But we're having a debate.

00:30:00.000 It's healthy to have that debate.

00:30:02.000 The institution needs to change, and that's why we're having the debate.

00:30:04.000 So you don't think Americans care that there's not a speaker of the house right now?

00:30:07.000 I think Americans want us to change the way everything works or doesn't work.

00:30:11.000 And I think they're patient enough to wait out a day or two for us to do what needs to be done to make things actually function.

00:30:20.000 I have to agree with Chip Roy here.

00:30:22.000 The average welder in Whitefish, Montana is not like, boy, I'm going to have a tough day at work today because I don't have a speaker of the House.

00:30:29.000 I think that's a good argument.

00:30:30.000 I do.

00:30:31.000 In fact, I think some people are probably thrilled that there's not a leader of Congress.

00:30:37.000 What did Thomas Jefferson say?

00:30:39.000 Our liberty is not safe while the legislature is in session.

00:30:42.000 Now, however, we do want to have oversight subpoena capacity.

00:30:47.000 That's a very real thing.

00:30:48.000 So, just so you know what you're looking at, that Donalds, which essentially the Donaldson is an anti-McCarthy vote.

00:30:56.000 And it'll be very interesting to see how Donalds responds to this in the kind of press fury that ensues, how he navigates this.

00:31:05.000 He could say, you know what?

00:31:07.000 I'm going to do it.

00:31:08.000 I'm going to challenge Kevin McCarthy.

00:31:10.000 That would be a legitimate challenge.

00:31:13.000 I don't think that the argument that Byron Donalds is dead on arrival, I'm not so sure about that.

00:31:20.000 Not so sure.

00:31:22.000 I think that Byron could be a competitive, a competitive race.

00:31:28.000 Freedom at CharlieKirk.com.

00:31:31.000 We have an email here.

00:31:35.000 Charlie, I know Steve Scalise.

00:31:36.000 I'm a Louisiana resident.

00:31:38.000 I do not support him for being Speaker.

00:31:41.000 He works against our interests and he's far more liberal than I ever realized.

00:31:46.000 And someone said here, Charlie, why are you talking about Steve Scalise?

00:31:49.000 Well, because the question is, if not Kevin, then who?

00:31:52.000 Right?

00:31:53.000 That's where the conversation quickly goes.

00:31:55.000 And you might say, well, if not Kevin, then Byron Donalds.

00:31:58.000 I mean, Byron's a rock star conservative.

00:32:01.000 It'd be very interesting to see if he could end up getting the votes.

00:32:06.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:32:08.000 Email me your thoughts as always: freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:32:11.000 Thank you so much for listening, and God bless.

00:32:16.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - January 04, 2023

A House Divided with Mike Davis

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