00:00:50.000His 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.
00:00:59.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:53.000And by doing that, you raise a lot of money and you travel the country.
00:01:57.000So the way the process works is the House leadership raises a bunch of money and they dish out that money to support candidates in critical races.
00:02:10.000And a lot of candidates struggle to raise the amount of money that is necessary to win.
00:02:14.000And so then they rely on leadership to come in and to support them.
00:02:17.000I don't love that system, but it's a reality, that system.
00:02:20.000And so it's not even a matter of what does McCarthy have over them.
00:02:25.000It's he's developed relationships with them for years and has been supporting them.
00:02:32.000And by supporting them, he develops friendships and relationships in an expectation that they're going to support Kevin in leadership if he is to be speaker, if he's trying to become speaker of the house.
00:02:47.000Lauren Bobert voted for Kevin of Oklahoma.
00:03:02.000And Lauren's going to join us in a second.
00:03:03.000So essentially, the way it works, again, I'm not a fan or supportive of it, but it's the way that the House is structured is that you need to raise every cycle anywhere between $250 to $300 million to just be competitive.
00:03:16.000Pelosi raised about $400 to $500 million.
00:03:21.000And so then you dish out that money and just you distribute that money in districts via super PACs, direct contributions, leadership packs, all sorts of different ways.
00:03:30.000And so there is a fear that if you do not have someone in leadership, who's going to be able to raise that money?
00:03:40.000Whoever is in leadership, they'll be able to go through and raise the necessary money to be able to do this and to be able to get towards victory.
00:03:45.000But a lot of these people are not going to vote for anybody but Kevin because Kevin helped them when they were early in their career.
00:03:53.000You take someone, for example, a Maria Elvira Salazar.
00:03:57.000Maria Elvira Salazar is a congresswoman in Miami.
00:04:01.000Kevin McCarthy came in in the 2020 election and spent millions of dollars in that district.
00:04:07.000I think it was Donna Shalala that Maria Elvira Salazar beat.
00:04:11.000Shalala was a Clintonite who was in a very comfortable Democrat seat.
00:04:15.000Kevin McCarthy came in and raised millions of dollars and spent millions of dollars to help get Maria Elvira Salazar across the line.
00:04:24.000Now, Elvira Salazar has been a moderate and a disappointment on a lot of different votes.
00:04:46.000He was in a very, very tight race in Utah, an extremely tight race for Mia Love's old seat.
00:04:51.000Kevin McCarthy raised a bunch of money, came in, and supported Burgess Owens.
00:04:56.000So Burgess Owens feels that he has a sense of obligation to Kevin McCarthy, who came in and spent millions of dollars.
00:05:04.000Now, I could tell you who did not spend millions of dollars, the conservative MAGA base, which I'm part of, because we just didn't have that much money to do that, and it's just not what we do.
00:05:12.000And so, some of these people that are very loyal to Kevin McCarthy, it's not because there's some sort of swamp dwelling deal.
00:05:19.000I'm sure there's plenty of that, okay?
00:05:21.000But some of it is as simple as young Kim, who has a seat in Orange County, where Kevin McCarthy came in a lot of money to help her get across the finish line.
00:05:29.000And a lot of these people, like Nicole Malatakis, or Congressman Van Drew, or Santos, for example, they are in the more moderate districts and they need a lot of money to be able to get into office.
00:05:45.000Love Andy Biggs, love Matt Gates, but they did not need as much resources to be successful.
00:05:52.000Okay, now we have Congresswoman Lauren Bobert, who had a mostly peaceful interview with Sean Hannity last evening, and she's a great person and speaks at our turning point events.
00:06:17.000Yes, I do believe that Kevin Hearn is the true consensus candidate.
00:06:21.000I've been getting asked many questions about who that person is that we're going to arrive on and actually begin having these real discussions rather than just proving that Kevin McCarthy does not have the votes.
00:07:09.000And I believe that he would make a tremendous speaker of the house who could unite the Republican Party and get our country back on track, deliver the promises that we have made to the American people.
00:07:23.000So, Lauren, is there any universe that you would then support Kevin?
00:07:29.000Any concessions or any deal that could be struck?
00:07:50.000We did not want this to come to the floor.
00:07:52.000We wanted to handle this in private as adults, as members of Congress, to actually get together and work things out.
00:07:59.000I have spent countless weeks away from my family developing rules and debating rules and procedures that empower individual members of Congress.
00:08:12.000And in the summer, when these conversations began, Kevin McCarthy dismissed us because he raised $300 million and was expecting a massive red wave.
00:09:15.000Bring a term limits bill to the floor.
00:09:17.000Bring the Texas Built Border Plan to the floor.
00:09:20.000Allow members who are offering an amendment to reduce spending to have their amendment made in order so we can vote on it, vote on individual earmarks.
00:09:31.000This is not anything that is outrageous or unreasonable or extreme.
00:10:46.000So I've been working behind the scenes since the summer to unite the Republican Party, and I was doing so in good faith.
00:10:54.000I had my own hard red line, which was denied up until maybe last night.
00:11:02.000A messenger came to me and said Kevin's willing to move on single member motion to vacate to actually have a check and balance on the Speaker of the House.
00:11:12.000And I haven't heard that from Kevin himself, but it wasn't just the fact that he turned down the deal where I delivered him 218 votes and the gavel on the first ballot.
00:11:24.000It was more that he lied about the meeting that we had and said that we came in with a personal wish list that did not benefit the country.
00:11:33.000He has apologized to one of us, three who were in that meeting in private.
00:11:38.000And that member said, great, will you offer?
00:12:04.000He lies on a regular basis to our conference about us, about the deals that he's making and what he is working on and to the American people.
00:12:15.000This is not a leader and certainly not the actions of a man that I want to support.
00:12:21.000I will not be voting for Kevin McCarthy.
00:12:26.000We need the tools in place to do our job correctly.
00:12:29.000And we need leadership that is principled and who will deliver on the promises and not just say whatever they have to say for the political moment or to fundraise.
00:12:40.000So I suppose, Lauren, the only question I have, and you're in the room, and so you can speak to this far better than I can, is that are any of the concessions, do you think that that has been meaningful?
00:12:53.000Or is it just at the point where, look, I can't even take the concession seriously because there's no trust anymore?
00:13:01.000Because when I hear things like we get representation on rules and motion to vacate and the CLF thing, that seems to be progress.
00:13:14.000However, is your argument just, hey, we're done here regardless of how many concessions we get?
00:13:24.000As far as concession candidates, I believe that I just offered up the true concession candidate, Kevin Hearn of Oklahoma, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, who is unanimously elected as chairman by 173 members.
00:13:37.000This is someone who can actually unite the Republican Party.
00:13:41.000You know, we have been offering a menu of names for people to join us with.
00:13:49.000We have growing opposition against Kevin McCarthy.
00:13:53.000There are members who even are in leadership, who I will not name, who are coming to us and saying there's not a single person in my district who wants me to continue to vote for Kevin McCarthy.
00:14:06.000They are hearing from their constituents and from the nation that they do not want Kevin McCarthy to be speaker.
00:14:13.000They see the corruption and the fraud that comes from him.
00:14:17.000They see that he is part of the problem, part of the swamp.
00:14:20.000And he's been in leadership for 14 years here, Charlie.
00:14:23.000What has he delivered on other than raising $300 million for a massive red wave that didn't produce?
00:14:30.000So there are 100 people allegedly, let's say it's 50 that say they're only going to vote for Kevin.
00:14:36.000And some of that is believable because some people received a lot of support in their district.
00:14:40.000If they're not going to move and you guys aren't going to move, I mean, but your guess is that they're going to move to Kevin from Oklahoma.
00:14:48.000Is that your calculation that Kevin's going to be talking to my colleagues about, yes, I'm going to be talking to my colleagues about this aggressively and whipping votes for Kevin Hearn?
00:15:25.000So, yeah, it seems as if, at least the whispers I'm hearing, that some of the offers made by the McCarthy camp might have moved, I don't know, 10 people, but there's probably what, including you, six or seven holdouts.
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00:18:45.000You're one of the first guys out there really platforming some of the folks like Matt Gates and Lauren Bobert famously not too many weeks ago when they were talking about this ball back in mid-December.
00:18:57.000I happen to agree with Ms. Bobert on the personality.
00:19:02.000And that might be a part of the whole thing.
00:19:04.000However, this really needs to go back to the rules.
00:19:09.000They need to go back to regular order.
00:19:10.000That's what this should really all be about.
00:19:12.000Now, that said, realistically, Kevin does have a trust problem.
00:19:17.000And I think that that's what was reflected with what you heard from Ms. Bobert, who is a champion, by the way.
00:19:23.000And so with that trust problem, Kevin has to do some real groundwork in fixing all of those issues.
00:19:31.000You're going back more than a decade for some of those historians who have been around.
00:19:37.000This party crackup started back in 11 and 12 with some government shutdowns, with the Republican Study Committee breaking up.
00:19:44.000Um, there has been a really like almost like a hot war inside of the Republican Party between guys like you know, Boehner and their leadership funds and Paul Ryan and Canter, who was taken out by Brant.
00:20:33.000And if something breaks the right way, you could see a lot or the wrong way for Kevin.
00:20:37.000You could see a lot more votes against Kevin if he doesn't get serious about putting these concessions on paper.
00:20:45.000And he can't use Manu Raju to do the negotiation anymore.
00:20:49.000CNN, NBC, those aren't the guys that should be negotiating with these leaders like Chip Roy and Mr. Perry and Gosar and Good and Bishop and all the rest.
00:20:59.000This should be the guys in a room at a table getting it done.
00:21:05.000So let's pretend for a second, because I think this will illustrate a point I'm trying to make.
00:21:11.000Let's pretend that McCarthy's trust is not a variable and just person X, let's say Jim Jordan, was the person that we trust, okay?
00:21:36.000If what we're hearing is true, we're seeing guys like Rob Costa and Mr. Scott Wong from NBC tweeting out there about, I guess, Kevin has made the concession to come down to the one-member filing of the motion to vacate the chair.
00:21:52.000If that's true, it's hard to know if it's true because we're talking about NBC and CNN here.
00:21:56.000And I don't know who leaked that to them.
00:22:00.000And that's the whole problem with the trust gap there, Charlie.
00:23:09.000They're coming around to you and saying, we will end your career if you don't vote yes for this and give us our money.
00:23:15.000Give us our money, the taxpayer dollars.
00:23:19.000And so that's why these rules are so vital.
00:23:23.000And so that's a really just a quick vignette to sort of explain.
00:23:27.000Like you said, single issue bills, no more of these omnibus things.
00:23:32.000All of that goes away if these rules get fixed.
00:23:34.000And then we can actually maybe fix a lot of the country.
00:23:38.000So, if McCarthy puts this in writing, I suppose it really, at some points, it does have to be in trust, right?
00:23:44.000Because it can't be a contract, I guess.
00:23:45.000But I suppose that's why the one vote motion to vacate is so important, right?
00:23:51.000Because then what they'll do is they'll take it.
00:23:54.000So, a lot of this will go to the steering committee, and there's a process by which all this gets rolled out here in the parliament, right?
00:24:02.000And they'll hash it all out with these parliamentary procedures.
00:24:07.000And there will be a rules package, and it'll be public or should be and then agreed upon, okay?
00:24:13.000And so, that's that's why I know some folks are saying, hey, he's got to start to demonstrate some trust.
00:24:20.000And the funny thing is, is there's a lot of leadership folks that are actually reaching out to a lot of the conservative side, media, you know, members' offices and saying, Hey, guys, please come to the negotiating table.
00:24:31.000Look, these issues have been a topic of discussion that the House Freedom Caucus has made public since going back to like August and September.
00:24:41.000There's a five-page memorandum that has all of this stuff in it.
00:24:45.000You can go read it at nationalphile.com.
00:24:47.000Charlie, I'll shoot it over to you so you guys can maybe talk about it some more and folks can read about what it is that these very reasonable requests that these Freedom Caucus members and conservatives are asking for.
00:24:57.000And again, it's not just 20, there are many, many more who want this done, but they fear retribution from Kevin.
00:25:03.000And again, going back to that trust gap issue that Kevin has, he's got to stop spanking people for asking for very common sense rules.
00:25:12.000And so, yeah, how, I mean, if you were to say, how do you bridge a trust gap in this kind of high-pressure situation with a decade of memories and experiences to navigate?
00:25:27.000Kevin has a lot of work to do, my friend.
00:25:30.000He has a lot of work to do to fill that trust gap.
00:25:33.000And so, again, leaking stuff to Manu Raju or Mr. Wong at NBC or Zenona at CNN or whoever else, that's not going to cut it for the negotiation.
00:25:44.000I think he has to get really look, it's going to have to eat some humble pie.
00:25:48.000Kevin has, look, Boehner, Paul Ryan, they never would have brought a vote like this.
00:25:53.000He's starting off on a horrible foot, and it's all of his own doing.
00:27:03.000And you want to know how they can fix it?
00:27:05.000All of those members in Texas, there's tons of them in Texas, okay?
00:27:09.000And Chip Roy is leading the fight with Cloud down there in Texas, but there's Ronnie Jackson has to go to Kevin and say, Kevin, you got to give in on these rules.
00:27:18.000You got to get serious about closing the trust gap, okay?
00:27:21.000Trent Kelly in Mississippi, Mississippi, all of the Republicans there are voting for Nancy Pelosi's House rules.
00:27:26.000Republicans in the state of Mississippi voting for Nancy Pelosi's House rules.
00:28:09.000So instead of the Congressional Leadership Fund, it could be Restore America PAC or whatever, right?
00:28:15.000Or how about it could be one of the FTX funds that Kevin used to spend $30 or $40 million against conservatives to kill all of the MAGA candidates and turn the big red wave into this tiny little pink trickle.
00:28:28.000So, Noel, in closing here, before we go to a break and we kind of go back to this whole thing, never is a big term.
00:28:37.000Do you think that is a wise thing for the caucus to say, considering some of the momentum towards what you consider to be meaningful concessions?
00:28:50.000I think that she's taking a hard stance in negotiating.
00:28:54.000And I think that for some people in the House conservative, the conservative wing of the House conference, that's a wise move for them to make.
00:29:01.000Kevin has, he's still got a lot of work to do.
00:29:04.000And I think that's, when you hear that word never from a Boebert or somebody else like a good or some of the hardliners who are doing great work, when you hear that word, what you need to hear is the trust gap has not been filled yet.
00:29:19.000And this would definitely not fill the trust gap, but it's a possibility, just so everyone understands.
00:29:24.000A possibility is one of two things: coalition government, which doesn't look likely, but what could happen quickly is the moderates get in Kevin's ear and they're like, dude, go find 10 Democrats and end this thing.
00:29:43.000A lot of these people are not movement conservatives.
00:29:45.000I'm not trying to fearmonger, but I could see, I could see either Crenshaw or Van Drew or Malatakis going to Kevin and say, I could get this deal done, Kevin.
00:29:54.000Noel, it is a possibility that Kevin and/or a moderate brigade, they just say, you know what, we're going to go make a deal with 10 Democrats.
00:30:05.000Well, first thing I would say is the fact that that's even a conversation piece is really concerning.
00:30:12.000And that should tell us everything we need to know about Kevin McCarthy first.
00:30:15.000Second, there's a couple of different striations, I think, in there about what might potentially happen.
00:30:21.000Rather than seeing the guys like Crenshaw and then Mark Levin, who doesn't know what Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution is, which is proportional representation, rather than talking about 10 Democrats flipping and going off the back end or 20 maybe to get the majority for some sort of coalition pick like a Liz Cheney or I don't know who else they might pick.
00:30:47.000The guy from Illinois, Kensinger or whatever.
00:30:51.000Rather than something like that, what would be more likely, Charlie, the way that this deliberative body works is you would have a lot of like backroom horse trading around committee assignments and committee ratios and things like that.
00:31:05.000And then what you would see, I think, before you would see Republicans actually join in and go enable, vote with 212 Democrats, okay, thereby ending their career and maybe shifting a kicking off like some sort of watershed moment where we see the Republican Party totally implode.
00:31:23.000I think you would see some of those Democrats maybe just voting president, president or abstaining to lower the threshold number from 218 down to 215 or 217.
00:31:33.000But I don't think they're anywhere near that ballpark because of these numbers.
00:31:37.000Okay, so in my opinion, I believe that whole narrative because of what I've just explained is totally horse squeeze and bogus.
00:31:46.000And those guys pushing that stuff is total fear.
00:31:49.000I know you're not doing that fear-mongering.
00:31:50.000You're very measured, Charlie, and that's very much appreciated.
00:31:54.000But those other guys are off their rockers.
00:31:58.000And I do have, and I've a voice with my audience, after being burned in Arizona, after huge expectations, a lower risk threshold than other people have, than you have.
00:32:12.000And right now, the strategy, like, hey, let's get more concessions, it's working, right?
00:32:18.000And, but you know, Alinsky's rules for radicals, which is a tactic that goes along too long becomes a drag, right?
00:32:25.000So there's a point of potential diminishing return.
00:32:30.000What is the best case scenario for how you think this all ends up?
00:32:35.000Okay, so from what I understand and national file, we've been down here all week on the ground, knocking on doors, talking to members, good, you know, on the conservative side and on the sort of leadership side.
00:32:49.000And what we're hearing is that, look, this is a stalemate for right now.
00:32:55.000Kevin's going to have to make a ton of concessions publicly.
00:33:00.000He's going to have to close that trust gap.
00:33:03.000I think you're going to see them take a day off probably tomorrow for January 6th.
00:33:08.000It's funny, they don't get to fly home and enjoy their weekend or go to the Caribbean or wherever they go during January or February on their weekends.
00:33:15.000But I think they're going to be here voting potentially Saturday, maybe Sunday.
00:34:01.000You really want to be speaker after this to go deal with the debt limit and to go deal with Ukraine and deal.
00:34:05.000I mean, man, you're sure you're not going to be able to do that.
00:34:08.000That's going to be a very short-lived gig if he doesn't walk that tightrope very, very effectively.
00:34:14.000And from what we're seeing right now, his vote counting skills aren't looking the best.
00:34:19.000I don't know who wants to be speaker after all of that, man.
00:34:22.000And that's, I want the Republican majority to be the most conservative Congress we can get for real oversight, real results, and to slow down a lot of the spending.
00:34:33.000I know we won't be able to stop it, but we'll see what happens, Noel.