The battle to find a new Speaker of the House is well underway, and the name being thrown around is none other than President Donald Trump. The question is, who will replace Kevin McCarthy as Speaker and who will fill that position?
00:06:40.280I will not compromise my principles, but I can compromise on policy.
00:06:45.080However, when the Republican Speaker allows the Democrat minority to dictate the financial legislation, the big financial legislation that is coming out of the House, we have a major problem.
00:07:00.740And we saw that on the debt ceiling deal, and we saw that again on this continuing resolution that we never should have been negotiating to begin with had we simply followed the Budget Act of 1974 and provided the 12 individual appropriation bills by June 30th, which statute, by the way, calls for it.
00:07:22.380And by the way, to my understanding, Kevin McCarthy promised exactly that, did he not?
00:07:30.600And so when we've got someone who will not honor their word, who little talked about, acquired 209 Democrat votes to pass a bill this weekend and only 125 Republican votes to pass this continuing resolution.
00:07:48.340Clearly, he is he is he is serving at the behest of Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrat Party, and he broke his word to us.
00:07:58.740And then the final straw, I really believe, was when we watched on the news and saw that he had negotiated a deal with President Biden to tie border security funding to Ukraine funding, to additional Ukraine funding when they've already received over 100 billion dollars.
00:08:16.740And the vast majority of Americans and certainly Montanans and the conference have said that they are against that.
00:08:26.500Well, I want to compliment you again and congratulate you on what you've achieved, because I agree with you that a change in speaker was absolutely called for absolutely necessary if you're to proceed on the promises that were made to the 118th Congress, which was true reform that you all achieve.
00:08:46.900I'm and I'm saying this for the benefit of the audience.
00:08:49.080I'm quite aware you're you as one of the authors of it.
00:08:55.000But, you know, the thing is, Lou, and what we were doing is trying to restore Congress.
00:09:01.280We were not asking for a radical deviation from the norms.
00:09:05.100All we wanted to do was restore Congress, because over the last 15 to 18 years, we've seen a terrible consolidation of the power into the hands of the speaker and into the few select individuals that were basically granted super legislative status.
00:09:24.000And they were making the decisions about everything.
00:09:26.640And so what we did is that we need to go back to having 72 hours to review all legislation.
00:09:32.800We need to go back to making sure that all 12 appropriation bills are delivered to the House and delivered out of the House by June 30th.
00:09:43.780We need to go back to having single subject legislation.
00:09:48.800These are all very, very realistic reforms that that pretty much every legislative body around the country operates their states under.
00:09:58.700Yeah. And are you going to are you all going to make that a absolute condition of support for whoever runs for speaker that he or she absolutely commit to the appropriations process?
00:10:15.300Go back to the 1974 Budget Control Act to do it.
00:11:23.800And then I asked Tom Cotton and some of the senators, you know, excuse me, are you the same folks who are taking in all of that big pharma money, all of that big Wall Street money, all of that big business money, big tech money, big money?
00:11:37.820And you follow McConnell around and Schumer around like like puppies behind their money trade.
00:11:48.080This conduct that I've seen is a result of what you all achieved.
00:11:52.520And what they what they fail to mention, I mean, they're quick to talk about the people that were brave enough to stand up against leadership, which we see in short supply over in the Senate.
00:12:04.320OK, but what they fail to mention is the fact that Kevin McCarthy garnered 209 Democrat votes and only 125 Republican votes to pass a continuing resolution.
00:12:19.000Clearly, he's working with the Democrats.
00:12:23.980And that was on, you know, just this weekend.
00:12:26.580Back when the debt ceiling issue was raised, we passed a debt ceiling package, Lou.
00:12:33.560You know, we worked really hard on that.
00:12:35.800We were able to claw back the residual revenue that was available from the COVID spending and the new green deal provisions.
00:12:43.880And then take that and put it in our bucket and then freeze the spending levels at fiscal 22 and then increase the debt ceiling by 1.5 trillion or until March 11th of 24 so that we would still maintain some kind of control.
00:13:01.020And again, Kevin, he didn't pass legislation with Republicans.
00:13:06.020He went out and garnered 169 Democrat votes and 145 Republican votes to pass a debt ceiling package that gave them unlimited spending until January of 25.
00:13:19.800We are never going to get control over the national debt by allowing transactions like that to take place.
00:13:27.920Well, you're going to have to stop just about everything Joe Biden proposes because he is out of he's out of his ever loving mind.
00:13:36.060What he's doing, he's he's sending money that's not authorized.
00:13:39.160He is operating as a as a straight out, flat out authoritarian without any requirement to bring in the Congress of the United States to express the will of the people.
00:13:49.200We're talking with Congressman Matt Rosendale.
00:13:53.680We're back talking with Congressman Matt Rosendale.
00:14:02.340Congressman, I I'd like you to to to listen to Kevin McCarthy.
00:14:07.620He had some words for you and specifically I would like to to roll that if we could, Mr. Fawcett.
00:14:15.100I read a tweet the other day of Matt Rosendale.
00:14:19.180Um, he goes to mass every day, but you know what he said his prayer was all last year that Republicans didn't have a big victory, that they had a narrow victory.
00:14:30.640When you have members like that, that are part of your team, you got a tough team.
00:14:36.660Well, there you know, he's admonishing you for wanting to have more influence over that rhino conference.
00:14:43.840Uh, your reaction to his words, people from Montana are glad that I'm tough.
00:14:50.180That's first that's first that we'll start it off.
00:14:52.900But 100 percent, I was hoping that we had a thin majority because I knew that that would give us the ability to move that conservative agenda forward.
00:15:02.880Lou, if we did not have a small majority, then we would be dealing with the same old nonsense that we do year after year after year, which has brought us thirty three trillion dollars of national debt.
00:15:16.760And guess what? I was right. That's why we passed H.R. one domestic energy policy legislation that was very conservative.
00:15:27.220That's why we passed H.R. two. I've been told that was the most comprehensive and conservative border security and immigration legislation that has ever been passed in Washington.
00:15:38.780That's why we passed the National Defense Act, NDAA, with all Republican votes had never been done before, including a five and a half percent increase of pay for our service members.
00:15:51.760But we also clawed back and made sure we removed all the taxpayer funding out of the NDAA for things like transgender surgeries and abortions that previously the the more moderate members were afraid to extract.
00:16:08.980And by having a small group of very conservative members, yeah, we were able to get that accomplished and bring everyone along with us.
00:16:17.280So what are you mentioned to your constituents, the people you represent back there in Montana, your phone had to be running, running, ringing off the hook.
00:16:27.740What's been their reaction to your position to the vote to replace the speaker?
00:16:34.460I have had very, very few people reach out to me and say that they were disappointed in that vote.
00:16:42.760I won't say that I haven't had any, but I've had very few.
00:16:46.620I mean, it's more like twenty five or thirty to one saying we are so proud of the work that you have done.
00:16:55.420And we know that you're trying to rein in this out of control spending.
00:16:59.620And quite frankly, Lou, I mean, it's very difficult for someone like me to sit here and be lectured by folks that have been here for several decades about how I'm supposed to conduct my affairs when they're the very people that have been in management of increasing the national debt to thirty three trillion dollars.
00:17:19.820I tell them, I think maybe we need to try something a little bit different.
00:17:36.900Well, I think the strong words are probably going to be floating around for another week, is my guess, because tensions are high and tempers are hot.
00:17:47.620And people often say things that they regret later on.
00:17:51.900And so I don't take any of it to heart, Lou.
00:18:12.700I've got a very, very short memory when it comes to those kinds of things.
00:18:15.640And I very quickly get back to the work at hand, which is to make sure we pass those appropriation bills so that we don't have yet another continuing resolution around Thanksgiving.
00:18:27.840Now, Daines is in charge of that money, that Senate money.
00:18:33.140You know, you think he's going to be the sort of fellow to kind of short arm you on the on that money come Election Day?
00:18:41.060I think that the voters across Montana will have to talk to him about that.
00:18:47.140Well, I think that, you know, you can you you convey immense judgment and wisdom, I must say.
00:19:08.760And if it weren't for you, you brave eight, I don't you know, we wouldn't be in too good a shape.
00:19:15.760I don't think the Republicans, by the way, all these smart fellows over in the Senate in particular, and all the you know, even the bow tied folks in the House have much idea of just how frail the public opinion is about what the Republicans are doing.
00:19:33.240You have done something to ignite support in the base in this country.
00:19:39.420And I think that assures you at least an even shot of taking even more seats in the House and control of the Senate come 2024.
00:19:49.920I think the people across this nation need hope.
00:19:54.160And that's and that's they see things are bad and they just need a glimmer of hope.
00:19:59.060And this is why the pundits and the pontificators do not understand the the absolute notoriety and support that Donald Trump has, because they they are out of touch with the man on the street.
00:20:17.060They're out of touch with the regular Americans.
00:20:20.400When I when I went back to the district in August, Lou, I can tell you something.
00:20:24.920I didn't go off on a fishing trip or go off on a code down on some exotic location somewhere.
00:20:31.680I spent the month of August traveling around the state meeting with my people, because guess what?
00:20:37.820And I listen to the folks that have businesses that are trying to make payroll that they themselves don't collect because they're trying to make sure that their their employees are able to go home at the end of the week and make that paycheck.
00:21:15.260And it's interesting to me because you all you know this, the the folks over at the Chamber of Commerce and the business roundtable,
00:21:23.420those people are over there just puking themselves at what happened because they had a nice, comfortable arrangement with with Speaker McCarthy and the boys over in the Senate.
00:21:33.480You know, the boys over in the Senate are a real problem.