Ep. 1155 - Who Blinks First In The Ultimate Republican Staring Contest？
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
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Summary
McCarthy loses a vote to become the next House Speaker after 20 conservatives vote against him, depriving him of the 218 votes he needs to become Speaker. What does that mean for the future of the House of Representatives and the country as a whole?
Transcript
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It's Groundhog Day. Actually, it's 12th night, but it feels like Groundhog Day because yesterday,
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for the second day in a row, Republican Congressional Leader Kevin McCarthy
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lost another three votes. Now, I'm not saying three individual. I'm saying they took a vote
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three times, and he lost all of them again to become Speaker of the House of Representatives
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after 20 conservatives voted against him, depriving McCarthy of the 218 votes that he needs.
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The establishment is whining and crying as their preferred Speaker candidate cannot seem to get
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over the finish line. But the conservative stalwarts have every right to spike McCarthy for any reason
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they choose. Policy, trust, because they just don't like the cut of his jib. Doesn't matter.
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The job of the House Speaker is to wrangle cats, basically, through a combination of love,
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fear, and persuasion. The Speaker of the House needs to create consensus among his members.
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The Speaker vote is the first test of a would-be leader's ability to do that. And if the man can't
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get the votes, then he just can't get the votes. I'm Michael Knowles. It's The Michael Knowles Show.
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Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday is from Noah Lynn, who says,
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somebody should have just told Antigone that her brother wasn't getting desecrated by being left
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in the field to rot. He was being human composted. And that's okay. Could have saved her a lot of
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heartache and Sophocles a lot of writing. Such a great perceptive comment. So true. We could lose
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so much of our tragedy, of our sense of morality and human dignity if we just accept the libs
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tossing granny out into the garden to turn into worm food. You're so right. You make such a good
00:02:04.260
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The balance of power now, not just in the House of Representatives, but within the GOP,
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within the House of Representatives, is a little bit upset. And people are getting very,
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very angry about this. And especially the GOP establishment is furious. This is getting nasty.
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This is getting personal. Typified perfectly by an interview last night between Lauren Boebert,
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who is one of the congressmen leading the charge against Kevin McCarthy in the House,
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and Sean Hannity, who spent much of his TV show last night promoting Kevin McCarthy and attacking
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the conservatives who don't want McCarthy to be speaker. Listen to this exchange.
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Let me turn the tables, Congresswoman. Kevin McCarthy has 202, three votes. Your side has 20.
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So if I'm going to use your words and your methodology and your math, isn't it time for
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you to pack it in and your side to pack it in, considering he has over 200 and you have 20?
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Sean, I understand the frustration, I promise you.
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I'm not frustrated. You didn't answer my question.
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And we are hearing from many people who are still voting with Kevin McCarthy.
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Of what we're doing. And they're cheering us on. So there are more for us than are against us.
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You know, the American people are certainly frustrated by it.
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I'm frustrated by you not answering a direct question.
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You said to President Trump, you said earlier today that President Trump needs to tell Kevin
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We need to come up with a consensus candidate to elect a speaker of the House.
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You don't have the votes and it's time to withdraw.
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He has 203. Your side has 20. Why is it time for him to withdraw and not you when he has so many
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more votes? Well, Sean, he needs 218 and he does not have 218. We've been trying to work this out.
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Lauren's right. Oh my goodness gracious. I don't know Sean Hannity personally. So I don't,
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I've got nothing against him personally. And I am friends with Lauren. But Sean is just completely
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missing the point here. He's saying, well, Kevin McCarthy's got 200. You've only got 20. So why
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don't you drop out? Because Lauren Boebert isn't running for Speaker of the House. Matt Gaetz is not
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running for Speaker of the House. Neither of them have suggested that they want the job.
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It's not up to them to come up with 200 votes to become Speaker of the House. It's up to Kevin
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McCarthy as the would-be Speaker, as the leader of the Republican conference in the House to get the
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number of votes that he needs. If he can't get the number of votes that he needs, then he's a weak
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leader. That's that. Okay. It's not, it's not all that complicated. I can't tell if, if Hannity was
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being obtuse or if he's actually missing the point here. But the point is being Speaker is a very
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difficult job, being a leader of either party in the House of Representatives, but especially of
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the Republicans, where there are much, there's a far greater variety of perspectives than in the
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Democrats, who are pretty much all lockstep on the progressive side. Among the Republicans, you got the
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moderates, you got the libertarians, you got the traditionalists, you got the populists, you got this,
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that, and the other thing. It's a difficult job. And if you want to be Speaker, you've got to
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get, at the bare minimum, the sufficient number of votes to become the Speaker.
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If Kevin McCarthy does not have the votes, that's not Lauren Boebert's fault. That's not Matt Gaetz's
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fault. That's not Paul Gosar's fault. It just means that McCarthy couldn't get it over the finish
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line. As I mentioned yesterday, this is exactly what happened the last time McCarthy was up for
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the job. The last time McCarthy was up for it is 2015. John Boehner was stepping down as Speaker.
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McCarthy was the heir apparent and he couldn't get the votes. And so there was a compromise candidate in
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Paul Ryan, who now he seems much squishier than he did then. At the time, he was considered one of the
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more conservative members of the House. And Paul Ryan was acceptable both to the establishment and
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to the House Freedom Caucus. And so he became the Speaker. This is not even a particular knock on
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McCarthy's integrity or his beliefs or anything like that. But it just means that McCarthy was not able
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to muster the love, fear, deal-making, whatever you need to get the votes. And so Sean Hannity can yell
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about it and interrogate Lauren Boebert all night and cut her off and try to bully her into giving up
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the fight. But the fact is, Kevin McCarthy was not born with an entitlement to become the Speaker of the
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House. You have to earn that job through deal-making, through intimidating your colleagues, through
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inspiring love among your colleagues. And he just hasn't done it. John Boehner was able to do it.
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Paul Ryan was able to do it. I'm not saying there's even any alternative now who's able to do it better
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than McCarthy, but that's no excuse, okay? The buck stops with the leader. The leader has not been able
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to do it. And so the establishment, they're not just calling on the Sean Hannity's of the world
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to go out there and bully the House Freedom Caucus. They're calling on Donald Trump and
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Lauren. This is going to be the Lauren Boebert show today. I actually texted Lauren last night
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when this was all blowing up. And I said, hey, I know you're a little busy. You got other things
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to do right now. But if you're free tomorrow morning and you don't have to be on the floor
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of the House of Representatives to lead this fight, would love for you to come on the show.
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So I think she actually might be able to come on the show depending on when these votes are taking
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place today. Obviously, stay tuned. We'll keep you posted. But in the meantime, Lauren called out
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even Donald Trump for supporting McCarthy and trying to bully the Freedom Caucus.
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So let's work together. Let's stop with the campaign smears and tactics to get people to
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turn against us. Even having my favorite president call us and tell us we need to knock this off. I
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think it actually needs to be reversed. The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that,
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sir, you do not have the votes and it's time to withdraw. With that, I yield. Thank you.
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It's a simple enough argument. And what I'm hearing from the establishment right now is basically,
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but it's not fair. It was supposed to be Kevin. You guys only have 20 votes. Yeah,
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20 votes is enough. How do you think this works? Goodness gracious me. There was then
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some fake news that was spread yesterday, which is that it was a truth social post or a
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save America, make America great again, sort of letterhead that said,
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I, Donald Trump, am pulling my support from Kevin McCarthy. It was a forgery. Trump has
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disavowed that post going around, but it added even more to the confusion of this political fight.
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There's an irony of this fight too, which is that strictly from the standpoint of
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issues, strictly from the standpoint of policy positions, Kevin McCarthy would very likely be
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the most conservative speaker of the house that we have had since Joe Martin in 1954.
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He would from the strictly the standpoint, you just look down the list of issues, abortion,
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immigration, trade, whatever. You look down the list of issues.
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He, on the whole of Kevin McCarthy's career, again, he hasn't been tested as a speaker of the
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house, but on the whole of McCarthy's career, you just look on his votes, you look at his
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policy positions. He certainly lands to the right of John Boehner. I think he lands to the right of
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Paul Ryan. Frankly, he lands to the right of Newt Gingrich. Because Newt Gingrich, though a great
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conservative fighter, Newt Gingrich said during the partial birth abortion fight that he would
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campaign for Republicans who supported partial birth abortion. He tried to lobby against an
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RNC provision that would defund Republican candidates who were in favor of partial birth
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abortion. He sat down with Nancy Pelosi and promoted a bunch of climate change stuff. So again, none of
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this is a knock on Newt Gingrich. I really like Newt Gingrich. I'm just saying strictly from the
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standpoint of issues, Kevin McCarthy is, I think, to the right of any of them in recent history.
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There just haven't been that many Republican speakers of the house in the last half century
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or more. But leadership races are not just about issues. Frankly, I'm not sure they're even
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primarily about issues. When you elect your congressman, you are electing him on issues
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because his job is to cast a vote on policy. When you vote, when the members of Congress vote for a
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speaker, it's about a lot more than that. It's about coalitions. It's about, do you trust this
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person? Do you think this person will keep his promises? Has he sided with you before? It's kind
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of like high school. What clique is he a part of? What lunch table does he sit at? Who is he giving
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money to in the campaign years? Who is he defunding in the campaign years? Is he loyal? When the going
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gets tough, can he be counted on to stand firm? And the simple fact is there are 20 members of the
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House of Representatives who are on the more conservative side of the GOP, who are members
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of the Freedom Caucus, who just don't think that Kevin McCarthy is the man for the job.
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And you might say, well, those members, they're terrible. They're wrong. They're imprudent.
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They're crazy. They're showboating. They're whatever. I don't want to hear the excuses.
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What you need in a leader is leadership. Okay. That is the primary quality that you need in a leader.
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So if McCarthy can grab the votes, good on him. I guess he passed his first test.
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If he can't, then he probably was not going to be a very good or effective speaker in the first
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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
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vices and enjoying themselves. They want us divided. They want us to fight each other.
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That much has been made clear by the popcorn and blankets and alcohol that is coming over there.
00:15:09.440
The clerk would ask all members elect to abide by the established decorum of the house while making
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nomination. It goes on and Kat Kamek's, they were just laughing, just laughing. You know,
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these Democrats, they're sitting with their booze and their popcorn in there. I loved this clip and
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I love the Democrats getting all angry about it and clutching their pearls because it made me think
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that Republicans, we don't want to be like that. We don't want to be like the Democrats clutching
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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
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is not going to end if Kevin McCarthy doesn't become the speaker of the house within the next
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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
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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
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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,
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already read them on air and find out there was really nothing particularly interesting or lurid in
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them? I guess. But now the House of Democrats, they've got more of his tax returns. Yeah,
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that'll show him. And what did they find? Pretty much nothing. They got about 6,000 pages
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of information on how Trump handles his taxes. And they found out, this is going to shock you,
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Donald Trump takes tax deductions to reduce the amount that he has to pay the government every year.
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And he tries to minimize in his accounting the profit that his company makes to reduce his tax
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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
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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
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to, they're still going to be trying to get him and prove collusion and tax crimes and all the rest of
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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
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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
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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
00:20:20.600
as the governor of Arizona. Carrie Lake, as far as I know, has still not conceded that Arizona
00:20:26.920
governor's race. With good reason, there was a lot of crooked stuff that appeared to go on in Arizona
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
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
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.
00:22:30.280
Katie Hobbs barely campaigned for the race. Which I think lends a lot of credibility to the suggestion
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.
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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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,
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,
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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.
00:34:50.560
So what happens? Well, let's begin at where it started. This started in the summer. We wanted
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
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.
00:41:48.120
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.