The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1155 - Who Blinks First In The Ultimate Republican Staring Contest？

00:00:00.000 It's Groundhog Day. Actually, it's 12th night, but it feels like Groundhog Day because yesterday,

00:00:06.720 for the second day in a row, Republican Congressional Leader Kevin McCarthy

00:00:11.080 lost another three votes. Now, I'm not saying three individual. I'm saying they took a vote

00:00:17.160 three times, and he lost all of them again to become Speaker of the House of Representatives

00:00:22.720 after 20 conservatives voted against him, depriving McCarthy of the 218 votes that he needs.

00:00:28.980 The establishment is whining and crying as their preferred Speaker candidate cannot seem to get

00:00:35.860 over the finish line. But the conservative stalwarts have every right to spike McCarthy for any reason

00:00:43.320 they choose. Policy, trust, because they just don't like the cut of his jib. Doesn't matter.

00:00:50.040 The job of the House Speaker is to wrangle cats, basically, through a combination of love,

00:00:57.280 fear, and persuasion. The Speaker of the House needs to create consensus among his members.

00:01:04.820 The Speaker vote is the first test of a would-be leader's ability to do that. And if the man can't

00:01:12.420 get the votes, then he just can't get the votes. I'm Michael Knowles. It's The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:17.680 Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday is from Noah Lynn, who says,

00:01:29.180 somebody should have just told Antigone that her brother wasn't getting desecrated by being left

00:01:33.800 in the field to rot. He was being human composted. And that's okay. Could have saved her a lot of

00:01:39.640 heartache and Sophocles a lot of writing. Such a great perceptive comment. So true. We could lose

00:01:47.520 so much of our tragedy, of our sense of morality and human dignity if we just accept the libs 0.97

00:01:58.980 tossing granny out into the garden to turn into worm food. You're so right. You make such a good 1.00

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00:03:22.160 The balance of power now, not just in the House of Representatives, but within the GOP,

00:03:26.960 within the House of Representatives, is a little bit upset. And people are getting very,

00:03:32.140 very angry about this. And especially the GOP establishment is furious. This is getting nasty.

00:03:38.760 This is getting personal. Typified perfectly by an interview last night between Lauren Boebert,

00:03:46.320 who is one of the congressmen leading the charge against Kevin McCarthy in the House,

00:03:50.980 and Sean Hannity, who spent much of his TV show last night promoting Kevin McCarthy and attacking

00:04:00.240 the conservatives who don't want McCarthy to be speaker. Listen to this exchange.

00:04:05.580 Let me turn the tables, Congresswoman. Kevin McCarthy has 202, three votes. Your side has 20.

00:04:12.220 So if I'm going to use your words and your methodology and your math, isn't it time for

00:04:18.680 you to pack it in and your side to pack it in, considering he has over 200 and you have 20?

00:04:25.740 Sean, I understand the frustration, I promise you.

00:04:29.600 I'm not frustrated. You didn't answer my question.

00:04:31.740 And we are hearing from many people who are still voting with Kevin McCarthy.

00:04:36.860 You're not answering my question.

00:04:38.120 Of what we're doing. And they're cheering us on. So there are more for us than are against us.

00:04:42.560 And they are waiting for Kevin to cave.

00:04:45.660 You know, the American people are certainly frustrated by it.

00:04:48.860 I'm frustrated by you not answering a direct question.

00:04:51.600 You said to President Trump, you said earlier today that President Trump needs to tell Kevin

00:04:57.300 McCarthy you don't have the votes.

00:04:59.460 We need to come up with a consensus candidate to elect a speaker of the House.

00:05:03.540 You don't have the votes and it's time to withdraw.

00:05:05.560 He has 203. Your side has 20. Why is it time for him to withdraw and not you when he has so many

00:05:12.320 more votes? Well, Sean, he needs 218 and he does not have 218. We've been trying to work this out.

00:05:20.080 Lauren's right. Oh my goodness gracious. I don't know Sean Hannity personally. So I don't,

00:05:25.000 I've got nothing against him personally. And I am friends with Lauren. But Sean is just completely

00:05:30.920 missing the point here. He's saying, well, Kevin McCarthy's got 200. You've only got 20. So why

00:05:36.840 don't you drop out? Because Lauren Boebert isn't running for Speaker of the House. Matt Gaetz is not

00:05:42.440 running for Speaker of the House. Neither of them have suggested that they want the job.

00:05:46.760 It's not up to them to come up with 200 votes to become Speaker of the House. It's up to Kevin

00:05:53.340 McCarthy as the would-be Speaker, as the leader of the Republican conference in the House to get the

00:05:59.640 number of votes that he needs. If he can't get the number of votes that he needs, then he's a weak

00:06:03.920 leader. That's that. Okay. It's not, it's not all that complicated. I can't tell if, if Hannity was

00:06:11.200 being obtuse or if he's actually missing the point here. But the point is being Speaker is a very

00:06:18.100 difficult job, being a leader of either party in the House of Representatives, but especially of

00:06:23.100 the Republicans, where there are much, there's a far greater variety of perspectives than in the

00:06:29.160 Democrats, who are pretty much all lockstep on the progressive side. Among the Republicans, you got the

00:06:32.740 moderates, you got the libertarians, you got the traditionalists, you got the populists, you got this,

00:06:36.800 that, and the other thing. It's a difficult job. And if you want to be Speaker, you've got to

00:06:42.300 get, at the bare minimum, the sufficient number of votes to become the Speaker.

00:06:46.700 If Kevin McCarthy does not have the votes, that's not Lauren Boebert's fault. That's not Matt Gaetz's

00:06:52.460 fault. That's not Paul Gosar's fault. It just means that McCarthy couldn't get it over the finish

00:06:58.660 line. As I mentioned yesterday, this is exactly what happened the last time McCarthy was up for

00:07:03.460 the job. The last time McCarthy was up for it is 2015. John Boehner was stepping down as Speaker.

00:07:09.160 McCarthy was the heir apparent and he couldn't get the votes. And so there was a compromise candidate in

00:07:15.860 Paul Ryan, who now he seems much squishier than he did then. At the time, he was considered one of the

00:07:21.020 more conservative members of the House. And Paul Ryan was acceptable both to the establishment and

00:07:26.360 to the House Freedom Caucus. And so he became the Speaker. This is not even a particular knock on

00:07:32.900 McCarthy's integrity or his beliefs or anything like that. But it just means that McCarthy was not able

00:07:39.500 to muster the love, fear, deal-making, whatever you need to get the votes. And so Sean Hannity can yell

00:07:49.460 about it and interrogate Lauren Boebert all night and cut her off and try to bully her into giving up

00:07:57.740 the fight. But the fact is, Kevin McCarthy was not born with an entitlement to become the Speaker of the

00:08:04.160 House. You have to earn that job through deal-making, through intimidating your colleagues, through

00:08:10.900 inspiring love among your colleagues. And he just hasn't done it. John Boehner was able to do it.

00:08:16.780 Paul Ryan was able to do it. I'm not saying there's even any alternative now who's able to do it better

00:08:21.900 than McCarthy, but that's no excuse, okay? The buck stops with the leader. The leader has not been able

00:08:27.260 to do it. And so the establishment, they're not just calling on the Sean Hannity's of the world

00:08:31.520 to go out there and bully the House Freedom Caucus. They're calling on Donald Trump and

00:08:36.760 Lauren. This is going to be the Lauren Boebert show today. I actually texted Lauren last night

00:08:40.560 when this was all blowing up. And I said, hey, I know you're a little busy. You got other things

00:08:44.260 to do right now. But if you're free tomorrow morning and you don't have to be on the floor

00:08:48.720 of the House of Representatives to lead this fight, would love for you to come on the show.

00:08:53.340 So I think she actually might be able to come on the show depending on when these votes are taking

00:08:57.320 place today. Obviously, stay tuned. We'll keep you posted. But in the meantime, Lauren called out

00:09:02.480 even Donald Trump for supporting McCarthy and trying to bully the Freedom Caucus.

00:09:08.940 So let's work together. Let's stop with the campaign smears and tactics to get people to

00:09:15.980 turn against us. Even having my favorite president call us and tell us we need to knock this off. I

00:09:23.020 think it actually needs to be reversed. The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that,

00:09:27.820 sir, you do not have the votes and it's time to withdraw. With that, I yield. Thank you.

00:09:34.100 It's a simple enough argument. And what I'm hearing from the establishment right now is basically,

00:09:39.680 but it's not fair. It was supposed to be Kevin. You guys only have 20 votes. Yeah,

00:09:44.300 20 votes is enough. How do you think this works? Goodness gracious me. There was then

00:09:49.300 some fake news that was spread yesterday, which is that it was a truth social post or a

00:09:55.860 save America, make America great again, sort of letterhead that said,

00:10:00.760 I, Donald Trump, am pulling my support from Kevin McCarthy. It was a forgery. Trump has

00:10:05.820 disavowed that post going around, but it added even more to the confusion of this political fight.

00:10:12.140 There's an irony of this fight too, which is that strictly from the standpoint of

00:10:18.280 issues, strictly from the standpoint of policy positions, Kevin McCarthy would very likely be

00:10:26.780 the most conservative speaker of the house that we have had since Joe Martin in 1954.

00:10:33.280 He would from the strictly the standpoint, you just look down the list of issues, abortion,

00:10:40.900 immigration, trade, whatever. You look down the list of issues.

00:10:45.300 He, on the whole of Kevin McCarthy's career, again, he hasn't been tested as a speaker of the

00:10:51.880 house, but on the whole of McCarthy's career, you just look on his votes, you look at his

00:10:54.940 policy positions. He certainly lands to the right of John Boehner. I think he lands to the right of

00:11:02.600 Paul Ryan. Frankly, he lands to the right of Newt Gingrich. Because Newt Gingrich, though a great

00:11:08.240 conservative fighter, Newt Gingrich said during the partial birth abortion fight that he would

00:11:12.980 campaign for Republicans who supported partial birth abortion. He tried to lobby against an

00:11:19.760 RNC provision that would defund Republican candidates who were in favor of partial birth

00:11:25.320 abortion. He sat down with Nancy Pelosi and promoted a bunch of climate change stuff. So again, none of

00:11:29.940 this is a knock on Newt Gingrich. I really like Newt Gingrich. I'm just saying strictly from the

00:11:33.920 standpoint of issues, Kevin McCarthy is, I think, to the right of any of them in recent history.

00:11:40.540 There just haven't been that many Republican speakers of the house in the last half century

00:11:45.420 or more. But leadership races are not just about issues. Frankly, I'm not sure they're even

00:11:55.900 primarily about issues. When you elect your congressman, you are electing him on issues

00:12:01.300 because his job is to cast a vote on policy. When you vote, when the members of Congress vote for a

00:12:08.360 speaker, it's about a lot more than that. It's about coalitions. It's about, do you trust this

00:12:13.660 person? Do you think this person will keep his promises? Has he sided with you before? It's kind

00:12:19.080 of like high school. What clique is he a part of? What lunch table does he sit at? Who is he giving

00:12:24.820 money to in the campaign years? Who is he defunding in the campaign years? Is he loyal? When the going

00:12:31.340 gets tough, can he be counted on to stand firm? And the simple fact is there are 20 members of the

00:12:37.280 House of Representatives who are on the more conservative side of the GOP, who are members

00:12:42.140 of the Freedom Caucus, who just don't think that Kevin McCarthy is the man for the job.

00:12:47.360 And you might say, well, those members, they're terrible. They're wrong. They're imprudent.

00:12:51.000 They're crazy. They're showboating. They're whatever. I don't want to hear the excuses. 1.00

00:12:54.840 What you need in a leader is leadership. Okay. That is the primary quality that you need in a leader.

00:13:00.060 So if McCarthy can grab the votes, good on him. I guess he passed his first test.

00:13:05.220 If he can't, then he probably was not going to be a very good or effective speaker in the first

00:13:11.620 place. When you want to better yourself, not just in a political sense, but in an eternal sense,

00:13:16.500 you've got to check out Father Mike Schmitz's Bible in a Year podcast.

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00:14:35.020 download that plan for free. One of my favorite exchanges that took place at the Capitol yesterday

00:14:40.380 was from Republican Congressman Kat Kamek, who got up and she said, listen, fellas, the Democrats,

00:14:47.880 they want to see us fighting with each other. That's why they're over there indulging in all sorts of

00:14:52.540 vices and enjoying themselves. They want us divided. They want us to fight each other.

00:14:57.600 That much has been made clear by the popcorn and blankets and alcohol that is coming over there.

00:15:08.020 The house is not in order.

00:15:09.440 The clerk would ask all members elect to abide by the established decorum of the house while making

00:15:38.500 nomination. It goes on and Kat Kamek's, they were just laughing, just laughing. You know,

00:15:44.800 these Democrats, they're sitting with their booze and their popcorn in there. I loved this clip and

00:15:50.660 I love the Democrats getting all angry about it and clutching their pearls because it made me think

00:15:56.380 that Republicans, we don't want to be like that. We don't want to be like the Democrats clutching

00:16:01.840 their pearls, all angry, red in the face all the time. I think Kat Kamek's attitude is far better.

00:16:08.500 It's okay, guys. It's all right. This is democracy in action. You can laugh a little bit. The world

00:16:14.980 is not going to end if Kevin McCarthy doesn't become the speaker of the house within the next

00:16:19.380 15 minutes, okay? It'll be just fine. You like democracy? This is what democracy is.

00:16:25.300 You like legislative bodies in Washington, D.C.? Probably you don't like those things

00:16:29.120 because the legislative bodies in Washington, D.C. are also known as the swamp.

00:16:33.140 They don't have the best reputation in the world. But I think I saw some poll that Congress was less

00:16:38.940 popular than syphilis for different periods of American history. But nevertheless, this is what

00:16:43.020 we've got. This is the system of government. This is how it works. They're all big boys. Kevin

00:16:47.480 McCarthy's got plenty of thick skin. It's okay. Let it play out. This is democracy in action.

00:16:53.720 If you can't get a kick out of this sort of thing, get another job if you work in politics. And if you

00:17:00.560 can't get a kick out of this kind of thing, get another system of government because this is what

00:17:04.300 democracy is. Speaking of the House Democrats, the House Democrats now, while Republicans are fighting

00:17:10.360 over who the leader should be, the House Democrats, they've got him now. You know the him I'm talking

00:17:17.800 about. Trump, they finally got him. That roadrunner Donald Trump, he has evaded wily coyote Democrats

00:17:27.140 for about seven, eight years now. But they finally went to Acme. They bought the biggest anvil they

00:17:34.160 can find. They've got him now. They're releasing his tax returns. Didn't they already do that?

00:17:42.140 Didn't we already get Trump's tax returns? Didn't my doppelganger over at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow,

00:17:48.680 already read them on air and find out there was really nothing particularly interesting or lurid in

00:17:52.740 them? I guess. But now the House of Democrats, they've got more of his tax returns. Yeah,

00:17:59.220 that'll show him. And what did they find? Pretty much nothing. They got about 6,000 pages

00:18:06.120 of information on how Trump handles his taxes. And they found out, this is going to shock you,

00:18:13.420 Donald Trump takes tax deductions to reduce the amount that he has to pay the government every year.

00:18:21.040 And he tries to minimize in his accounting the profit that his company makes to reduce his tax

00:18:30.000 burden. And he, that's it. He just does what every businessman has done ever. No evidence of

00:18:39.100 any crimes, of course, is nothing. They've got nothing, as they've always had nothing from the

00:18:44.320 beginning. And they're going to try again. And I'm sure they're going to drag this issue out for

00:18:47.820 another 10 years. Donald Trump is going to have been in the grave for half a century. They're going

00:18:51.960 to, they're still going to be trying to get him and prove collusion and tax crimes and all the rest of

00:18:56.160 it. The reason that this matters though, is it's a real stain on the Congress. And it's a real stain

00:19:02.360 on the Ways and Means Committee. And the Democrats are as stained as they can possibly be. But it is a

00:19:07.360 real stain on them because there was no legal reason to release Donald Trump's taxes. It doesn't matter.

00:19:15.980 It doesn't have much of a political consequence to him. But citizens have an expectation when we file

00:19:22.940 our taxes. That the government is not just going to release them whenever we become political targets.

00:19:29.960 And that's what the government has done here. If there were some pressing national security,

00:19:37.780 public interest reason to release Donald Trump's tax returns, then maybe there's an argument to do it.

00:19:44.900 But there wasn't here. It was just a completely arbitrary exercise in power. And it means for every

00:19:51.980 citizen of the United States, certainly for every conservative, certainly for every prominent

00:19:56.900 conservative, but really for every other citizen who might imagine that at some point the other

00:20:02.320 party is going to get into power, you now think when you're filing your taxes, oh, this could just be

00:20:06.700 totally public information. Because the trust, whatever trust we once had with the federal government,

00:20:13.080 that is evaporating by the very day. Speaking of corrupt Democrats, Katie Hobbs has been sworn in 1.00

00:20:20.600 as the governor of Arizona. Carrie Lake, as far as I know, has still not conceded that Arizona 0.98

00:20:26.920 governor's race. With good reason, there was a lot of crooked stuff that appeared to go on in Arizona 0.99

00:20:32.900 in the 2022 elections. Election machines magically not working. Vote counts taking a very long time to

00:20:40.680 come in. Precincts reporting hundreds more votes by the end of the day than voters who were checked in

00:20:46.280 to vote at that precinct. A lot of dodginess. The person who was in charge of the elections this

00:20:51.280 past cycle, coincidentally, was Katie Hobbs, then the Arizona Secretary of State, now sworn in as

00:20:57.120 governor of Arizona. As Katie Hobbs was sworn in, she was asked to defend the Constitution. I kid you

00:21:05.000 not. She started laughing when she was asked to do that.

00:21:10.000 Hi, Kathleen Marie Hobbs. Hi, Kathleen Marie Hobbs. I do solemnly swear.

00:21:17.280 I do solemnly swear. I do solemnly swear. I do solemnly swear. I will support the Constitution.

00:21:23.320 Stop it. I will support the Constitution. Of the United States. Of the United States.

00:21:29.580 And the Constitution and laws. And the Constitution and laws. Of the state of Arizona. Of the state of

00:21:34.980 Arizona. I solemnly swear that I will uphold the Constitution. Oh, stop it. Ha ha ha. Tee hee hee.

00:21:47.120 Not a good look, lady. I don't know exactly why she was laughing. I hope that there was some explanation 0.96

00:21:53.180 as to why she was laughing at the prospect of her upholding the Constitution. But it's definitely not

00:21:58.720 a good look. And the reason that I'm a little reluctant to just write it off and say, oh, well,

00:22:05.540 it's probably just a coincidence, is because the whole swearing in was not a great look.

00:22:11.080 Katie Hobbs did not allow the press to cover her swearing in. She allowed, I think, one photographer 0.51

00:22:18.220 from the Associated Press into the room at the state capitol while she told the rest of the press to

00:22:24.200 just watch it on a screen somewhere. Which is in keeping with Katie Hobbs' campaign, or lack thereof. 0.96

00:22:30.280 Katie Hobbs barely campaigned for the race. Which I think lends a lot of credibility to the suggestion 0.98

00:22:36.220 that the fix was in. That this was a somewhat questionable election process. Especially when

00:22:45.080 you add on to it the fact that Katie Hobbs was the official in charge of running the elections. 1.00

00:22:48.560 When you add on to it the fact that the election officials in Maricopa County,

00:22:52.020 where all the shenanigans occurred, even the ones who were nominally Republicans were openly campaigning

00:22:58.020 against candidates like Carrie Lake. The whole thing just seems really dodgy and sketchy. The

00:23:04.020 whole thing does not seem particularly Democratic. Are we allowed to suggest that? I know that we're

00:23:11.260 one day away from the most sacred feast of the liberal liturgical year. January 6th, the great

00:23:17.540 solemnity of January 6th, according to the Libs. And we're never allowed to question the sacredness

00:23:22.460 of our democracy, unless it's convenient for the Democrats. But I don't know. What's been going on

00:23:27.680 in Arizona doesn't look particularly Democratic to me. It's a new year, but leftist companies are still

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00:25:19.320 delivered. Speaking of abuses of power, my colleague Jordan Peterson is being investigated by the Ontario

00:25:29.340 College of Psychologists. And he's being investigated by them. He's being threatened by them. They are

00:25:36.860 suggesting that they might take away his license to practice psychology because Jordan tweeted against

00:25:46.760 political correctness, basically. He announced the other day that the Ontario College of Psychologists

00:25:52.800 has demanded that he submit himself to mandatory social media communication retraining

00:25:59.000 with their experts for, among other crimes, retweeting the Canadian conservative leader

00:26:05.500 and criticizing Justin Trudeau, the big lib who's running Canada. And some people are saying the son

00:26:12.680 of Fidel Castro. I would never suggest such a thing. Because he did that, because Jordan has tweeted

00:26:17.420 in support of the conservatives against the liberals, they want him to be re-educated.

00:26:21.200 They want to send him to a re-education camp or, he says, he will face an in-person tribunal and

00:26:29.160 suspension of his right to operate as a licensed clinical psychologist. Preposterous, of course.

00:26:37.580 Now, they're not going to destroy Jordan Peterson's career. Jordan Peterson will be just fine. He's not

00:26:44.220 going to starve if they take away his license to practice psychology. But on people who don't have

00:26:50.360 multi-million best-selling books and world tours and shows and movies and all the rest of it,

00:26:57.480 this kind of power, the power of credentialism, could destroy somebody's life and career.

00:27:04.700 Some of you, maybe many of you listening to this show today, have very possibly faced this kind of

00:27:11.500 question, especially during COVID. Even outside of COVID, though, if you don't say the right thing,

00:27:17.860 if you don't do the right thing, then you're going to be blackballed from your job. Then the licensing

00:27:24.540 or credentialing organization, they're not going to give you your license. Then the university is not

00:27:30.120 going to give you what has become the basic credential of operating in our liberal culture.

00:27:35.760 You need to have the four-year college degree. What do you need to have learned? Nothing.

00:27:41.680 What skills you need to have acquired? Absolutely none. But you need to have that credential or you're

00:27:47.540 not allowed to be admitted to the very special club to work in all the fancy jobs in our culture.

00:27:53.920 It's a problem of credentialism. Now, this underlines a movement that you have seen for a long time on the

00:28:02.620 American right, which is that we have, every day that passes, less and less respect for these kinds

00:28:10.600 of credentials. This was not always the case. This is actually a trend that is going on.

00:28:15.460 And people call it populism and people call it anti-intellectualism. It's not that. It's not our

00:28:23.160 fault. It's not the conservatives' fault. It is the fault of the people who dole out the credentials

00:28:29.800 for squandering their own credibility. It's not my fault that a Harvard degree or a Yale degree

00:28:37.500 or a Stanford degree doesn't mean what it used to mean. 50, 70 years ago, the New York Times used to

00:28:47.540 report on the outcomes of a Yale political union undergraduate debates.

00:28:53.220 Today, at the Yale political union and similar sorts of debating societies, students will whine

00:29:03.140 and cry and throw a hissy fit if Kristen Wagoner, a pro-life, pro-religious freedom lawyer, 1.00

00:29:10.700 shows up and explains the law. In fact, actually, I want to be fair. It wasn't the Yale political

00:29:14.480 union where that incident occurred. It was at the Yale law school. This was graduate students. This was

00:29:19.220 the professional students who were supposed to be lawyers, whining, crying, basically throwing a riot

00:29:23.960 because someone has a different opinion. It's not the fault of the conservatives now who mock all of

00:29:30.000 the elite credentials. It's the fault of the elite institutions, which have squandered all of their

00:29:35.580 own credibility. And right now, we're at this difficult point where people are getting squeezed

00:29:43.500 because the credentials still kind of matter. There is still some power in them, but people know it's all

00:29:49.140 kind of hollow and bogus, but it still sort of matters. I very much look forward to the day

00:29:54.000 where a psychologist will not need the approval of the Ontario College of Psychologists

00:30:01.140 who have revealed themselves to be nothing more than a leftist activist organization

00:30:07.140 to practice psychology or of any of these other gatekeeping institutions that have been totally

00:30:14.960 captured by the left that have crawled in like invasion of the body snatchers, hollowed out the

00:30:21.280 guts of what these institutions used to be. And now they're walking around pretending that they still

00:30:27.520 have authority. They don't. The only way out is through. There's no going back to those good old

00:30:33.440 days, okay? The only way that you're going to achieve good old days, good new days rather, is by pushing

00:30:39.280 through and saying, screw it. Who cares? Who cares what the Ontario College of Psychologists...

00:30:43.200 If I want to talk to Jordan Peterson and have him try to fix my brain, I'm going to do it whether the

00:30:47.540 Ontario College of Psychologists wants to or not. And the Canadian government wants to come after him

00:30:52.240 for doing that. Well, maybe it's time that we have a little less respect for the Canadian government

00:30:56.980 and all of these other liberal totalitarians who want to banish any sense of reason and tradition

00:31:07.620 and normal life from our society. Speaking of titles and credentials, I need you all to take out your

00:31:17.000 violin cases, the tiniest little violin case you've got, open those tiny little latches, pull out that

00:31:21.920 little miniature instrument and start playing the sob song for Prince Harry, who is very, he's very

00:31:28.000 upset. He's very hurt. Prince Harry, who has spent the last several years attacking his family in the

00:31:36.340 most public way possible, as his grandfather and grandmother are dying, two of the most respected

00:31:42.200 people on the world stage, he's just lambasting his family, whining, woe is me. He says he wants privacy

00:31:48.500 and then he just keeps going on TV all the time. Well, now he's whining because apparently his family

00:31:52.960 isn't being very nice to him. It never needed to be this way. The leaking and the planting. I want a

00:31:59.640 family, not an institution. They feel as though it's better to keep us somehow as the villains. They've

00:32:04.800 shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile. I would like to get my father back. I would like to

00:32:10.100 have my brother back. This is so tawdry. This is just so, it shows you how dishonest and disingenuous

00:32:19.880 the whole Meghan Harry phenomenon has been. Because what they say is, we don't want to be in the

00:32:26.640 spotlight anymore. We don't, the press has been so, we hate the press. The press has been so unfair.

00:32:30.760 We had to leave England because of how, how we're in the press all the time. And so what are we going

00:32:34.780 to do? The very first thing we do in our private lives, we launch a TV show. We give an interview

00:32:40.640 to Oprah. We give an interview to the Guardian. We write books. We sell those books on TV. We do,

00:32:46.300 it's just, it's so tawdry and dishonest. And it, it reminds you that when you want, if, if, if things

00:32:57.620 just continually are going wrong in your life over, everyone's going to experience tough times, that's

00:33:04.180 not necessarily your fault. But if things are just consistently, if everything is constantly wrong

00:33:08.760 in your life, maybe you don't cast the blame on grandma or grandpa or daddy or brother, or maybe

00:33:17.140 the person to look at is that guy staring back at you in the mirror. And maybe the, what you ought to

00:33:25.820 do is not just seek attention everywhere from the whole public. Maybe it's time to look inward and

00:33:30.960 see if you can fix something about yourself. This would be a lesson that our friends over in the GOP

00:33:37.640 might be able to figure out. The sort of people who have been power in the GOP for a very long time

00:33:41.920 might, might be able to figure out if they had an ounce of self-awareness, but they don't. So instead

00:33:47.460 they're blaming Lauren Boebert. Is your home's title still in your name? With one forged document,

00:33:52.020 scammers can steal your home title and equity, but now you can protect yourself.

00:33:55.420 Home Title Lock's million dollar triple lock protection provides 24-7 title monitoring,

00:34:00.160 urgent alerts to changes, and if fraud happens, they'll spend up to a million dollars to fix it

00:34:04.460 and restore your title. Use promo code DAILYWIRE at HOMETITLELock.com for a free title history

00:34:09.480 report plus a free 14-day trial of their million dollar triple lock protection. Head over to

00:34:14.480 HOMETITLELock.com now with promo code DAILYWIRE to ensure your title is still in your name.

00:34:19.220 We have Lauren on the call. Lauren, thank you so much. I know you're very,

00:34:22.920 very busy right now, but thank you for making time to come on the show.

00:34:27.520 Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me on, Michael.

00:34:29.960 So Lauren, where does it all stand? We've given a recap of the speaker fight through last night

00:34:39.100 on the show. Kevin McCarthy lost three rounds of voting two days ago. He loses three rounds of voting

00:34:43.780 yesterday. You and those terrible, evil House Freedom Caucus Republicans, you're not budging here. 0.60

00:34:50.560 So what happens? Well, let's begin at where it started. This started in the summer. We wanted 0.93

00:34:57.440 to handle this privately and have a solution before January 3rd. These negotiations began in the summer

00:35:05.420 and they were dismissed because Kevin McCarthy thought he was going to have this massive red

00:35:11.140 wave and our votes did not matter. When he saw that the $300 million that he raised did not produce the

00:35:18.840 red wave that he promised, he realized quickly he's going to need our votes. And so some concessions

00:35:24.580 were put into play. It was very difficult to get them into play. It was difficult to get them approved

00:35:31.320 with our rules process. The way Washington, D.C. operates and functions, we want to fundamentally

00:35:37.340 change this town. It is broken. It is less popular with the American people than cockroaches.

00:35:44.940 So we have to get something right here and we cannot go along with the status quo. Well, on January 2nd,

00:35:52.600 two of my fellow colleagues and myself, Matt Gates, Scott Perry, we walked into

00:35:57.820 Leader McCarthy's office after whipping votes all day long and handed him 218 votes. We said,

00:36:06.960 here it is. Let's seal the deal. Here's some common sense issues that you can put forward,

00:36:12.380 some promises that you can make, single member motion to vacate. So there is accountability on

00:36:17.680 the third in line to the presidency of the United States. You cannot demand more responsibility and

00:36:23.140 follow Nancy Pelosi's precedents of less accountability. So this is our check and balance

00:36:29.200 on the speaker. And that was a priority for me personally, certainly, and for many others.

00:36:35.640 But then things like bring the Texas border plan to the floor for a vote, bring a term limits bill

00:36:41.460 to the floor for a vote. Any member who wants to reduce spending in an amendment will make that

00:36:47.720 amendment in order so we can bring it to the floor and have a vote. Earmarks, bring them to the

00:36:53.040 floor individually for a vote. This is spending money that we do not have. So let's at least have a vote

00:37:00.720 on it instead of packing it into a bill where we'd have no option to either swallow the whole thing

00:37:05.720 or say no way. These are things that we presented to him. He solicited a list from us of committee

00:37:14.760 assignments. All members provide committee assignment requests. We know where our talents and skills are

00:37:21.200 best utilized. And we provided that list. Kevin McCarthy made a great argument saying, listen,

00:37:28.340 the people in this group only want two committees. I need you spread out. I want you to have more

00:37:33.700 influence. And we agreed with that. And we said, you know, this is a time constraint on many of the

00:37:38.560 members. That's a lot of responsibility, a lot of pressure, but we're willing to take that sacrifice

00:37:42.960 and have these committee assignments that bear more pressure. And so we provided that to him.

00:37:48.680 And then January 2nd, when all of that was laid on the table, Kevin McCarthy laughed us out of the

00:37:56.100 room, said that it was a selfish wish list and would not take the deal. Well, now here we stand,

00:38:03.700 Michael. I no longer have those 218 votes to provide to Kevin McCarthy. So it doesn't matter

00:38:10.360 if I go to the floor today and vote for Kevin McCarthy, because there are now more than ever

00:38:15.320 votes that he does not have to get to that speakership. This is very important to know.

00:38:22.220 He walked out of that meeting and lied about what we requested. Trust is absolutely broken if there

00:38:27.900 was any to begin with. And this is a huge problem. We want unity in the Republican Party. And I believe

00:38:34.680 now is the time to start seriously considering consensus candidates who will unify the Republican

00:38:41.480 Party so we can get to work for the American people. This is really important context, I think,

00:38:47.080 because what you're saying is over the summer, Leader McCarthy just didn't think he needed you guys

00:38:53.380 because there were supposed to be more Republicans in the House. And so he would be able to win the

00:38:57.320 speakership without having your votes along. Because of what happened, that turned out to be

00:39:03.880 a bad bet. And when you make bad bets, you got to pay the price for those bad bets. And you bring up

00:39:09.480 this other point, which is trust. And I think this is really important because a lot of this debate

00:39:13.560 has focused on how on the issues, Kevin McCarthy is relatively pretty good. We come from a world of

00:39:19.340 John Boehner's. So I guess Kevin McCarthy is more conservative than John Boehner. But what you're

00:39:24.420 saying is, no, it's really about trust. When we're talking about leadership elections,

00:39:29.240 we need to be able to trust the leader. And what you're saying is you don't think that

00:39:33.960 Leader McCarthy has proven himself trustworthy. Correct. And that's why we wanted the tools

00:39:39.620 implemented to where maybe we don't need to trust him because the individual member is empowered enough

00:39:46.260 to get the job done and is not ruled by a dictator as a speaker. This is not a kingdom that we live in.

00:39:54.080 We don't anoint a king. I believe that this is how our founding fathers intended this process to

00:39:59.240 work. Our vote is there to be debated, not just rubber stamped and cast to the biggest fundraiser.

00:40:06.760 But you cannot have good faith negotiations where trust is absent. And so that's why motion to vacate

00:40:15.280 was so important to me because that is the check and balance on this position. If you break trust,

00:40:20.840 if you don't do what you promised, well, buddy, you're out of there. And he has already shown

00:40:25.900 he's not willing to do that. I still have not seen a public announcement of a single member motion to

00:40:32.380 vacate. He's lying to the American people saying that he gave us that.

00:40:35.180 And Lauren, for those listening who don't know what that is, what is a motion to vacate?

00:40:38.640 A motion to vacate gives us the opportunity to remove the speaker and have another vote for speaker

00:40:45.180 if necessary. This is something that does not get used, but it's available. This is something

00:40:50.640 Thomas and Thomas Jefferson wrote and has been in effect for nearly two centuries. And Nancy Pelosi

00:40:58.060 was the first speaker in history to modify that. She removed that individual empowerment from the 0.83

00:41:04.460 from the member and and said, you no longer have a say in this. I get to rule how I want.

00:41:10.920 And you don't have a check. You don't have a balance. Kevin McCarthy wanted to leave that

00:41:15.720 as Nancy Pelosi had it. There were concessions. He got down to 50, got down to 20, got down to five.

00:41:22.140 No, Thomas Jefferson wrote it as one member. Any one member can bring that motion to vacate the chair

00:41:29.240 forward. And that is our accountability. This is something that was my red line.

00:41:34.000 And I've only heard from a staff member who chased us out of the GOP conference and begged us to vote

00:41:41.580 for Kevin McCarthy. We'll give you a single member motion to vacate. And I said, that's adorable.

00:41:46.420 Where's Kevin saying it?

00:41:48.120 So so I guess this is now where the rubber meets the road. And I know you're short on time. So

00:41:53.520 what happens after all of this context? I mean, I think you've explained your position very,

00:42:00.140 very well. I think that it's it is pretty clear that leader McCarthy, he just he thought he had

00:42:06.260 the votes and he didn't have the votes. And this actually the same thing happened in 2015. Let's

00:42:10.280 not forget. Kevin McCarthy was the heir apparent after John Boehner. He didn't have the votes. And

00:42:14.340 that's how Paul Ryan emerged as the compromise candidate. So so what happens? What could Kevin

00:42:19.340 McCarthy come out and say right now that would win over your votes and maybe the votes of your

00:42:25.400 colleagues in the Freedom Caucus or if there's nothing that he could say? Who who would you

00:42:32.120 support today? I know that this is a little bit in flux, but who would you support today to replace

00:42:37.000 him? Right. So we have been offering a menu of other candidates. I don't believe that my my

00:42:43.820 switching to Kevin McCarthy matters because there are so many who are solidly Kevin. You can issue a

00:42:49.720 public apology. You can change all the rules. You can wear a straitjacket and and just have a portrait

00:42:55.740 that says that your speaker and we get to run this place and they're not going to vote for Kevin

00:43:00.460 McCarthy. So at this point, we do have to start looking forward to other other candidates. And I can

00:43:06.200 name 200 who are potential candidates right out of the conference GOP. I'm excluding myself. So that's

00:43:11.980 why that number is 200. And Kevin's excluded as well. But, you know, this this is something that we

00:43:18.160 have to start talking about. We've presented Jim Jordan's Jim Jordan. We have presented Andy

00:43:24.100 Biggs. We've presented Byron Donald's. I've heard Jim Banks name be voted on in in these during these

00:43:31.300 votes. Maybe it's someone outside of Congress. Maybe it's a Lee Zeldin who actually won us the

00:43:36.360 majority without his efforts in New York running for governor. We wouldn't have the majority. And maybe

00:43:42.180 it's it's someone who is in the conference like a Kevin Hearn, who is currently chairman of the

00:43:47.220 Republican Study Committee, which is the largest caucus in the Republican conference. He was

00:43:53.060 unanimously elected with 173 votes to chair that committee. And he actually has a balanced budget

00:43:58.680 that he wants to put on the floor, which is another thing that Kevin denied in our proposal

00:44:03.780 on January 2nd. So maybe it's someone like that who already has the trust of the conference and can

00:44:10.100 truly get to 218. Before I let you go, Lauren, is is the trust now just irreparably broken?

00:44:17.600 That is to say, if Kevin McCarthy came out and issued a statement said, OK, I'll give you a single

00:44:23.000 member motion to vacate. OK, I'll give you this, that or the other thing. One, would that change your vote?

00:44:29.120 And two, would that change enough votes to to put him into the speakership? I know you've suggested

00:44:35.540 maybe not. But but just to be totally clear, are you saying that from the people you're talking to,

00:44:42.340 McCarthy's speaker candidacy is is actually dead? It's dead. Yes. The nails are in the coffin.

00:44:50.180 And there are plenty of members who are cheering our efforts on who are afraid of retribution.

00:44:55.880 We were threatened in conference. It was it was a nightmare in there. We were threatened

00:45:00.980 by steering committee members who who actually assign committees to members of Congress that

00:45:08.420 if we vote against Kevin at all, we will not receive committee assignments. And Kevin McCarthy

00:45:14.420 affirmed that he stood up and said, your district elects you, your conference elects what committee

00:45:21.320 you are assigned to. And so trust is broken. As it stands for me, I am a no on Kevin. And there

00:45:29.780 are too many others who are there who don't allow him to get to 218. He doesn't have the numbers,

00:45:36.460 Michael. Wow. That's that's really, really big. And I have to tell you, I know that people are

00:45:41.600 pulling their hair out over this, especially in the establishment GOP. To me, this is politics.

00:45:46.840 This is a constitutional republic at work. This is it. This is kind of how it works. And

00:45:51.340 if you're going to make bets in politics, then you got to make sure those bets pay off or you're

00:45:55.800 going to pay the price. And if you if you want a leadership role, I know you recently had an

00:46:00.640 interview on television where where the host who will remain unnamed was yelling because he said,

00:46:07.800 well, Kevin McCarthy has 200 votes. You only have 20 votes. Well, I thought you made the point very

00:46:12.460 well. The first test of a congressional leader, someone who is in leadership, someone who's the

00:46:17.880 Speaker of the House is, can you get the votes that it takes to put you into the office? Because

00:46:22.460 the whole job is getting the votes and creating consensus. Lauren, thank you so much for taking

00:46:27.080 the time today. I will be waiting with popcorn, maybe with some booze, as Kat Kamek suggested people

00:46:33.020 do to to see how this fight plays out. Thank you for coming on. Thank you so much. And I do believe

00:46:38.560 that history is going to show that we are on the right side of this. We're going to get it right.

00:46:42.320 All right. Thank you, Lauren. That's it. I've run out of time. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the

00:46:45.880 Michael Knowles Show. We are heading over to the member block right now. So do not go anywhere

00:46:50.900 unless you're not a Daily Wire member. Then you've got to head on over to dailywire.com

00:46:56.340 right now. Subscribe, become a member. We'll see you over at the member block.

The Michael Knowles Show - January 05, 2023

Ep. 1155 - Who Blinks First In The Ultimate Republican Staring Contest？

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