Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 07, 2023


Explosive Conclusion to the Speaker Fight - What It All Means


Episode Stats


Length

30 minutes

Words per minute

164.61511

Word count

5,064

Sentence count

377

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

12

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergusons break down the deal between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Chip Roy to become the next Speaker of the House of Representatives. They discuss the deal and what it means for the future of the country.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.540 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.300 Welcome. It is The Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:08.800 It is a moment that finally happened.
00:00:11.640 Many of you were asleep, but we have a new Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.
00:00:16.040 And here's what it sounded like.
00:00:17.680 Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States
00:00:23.400 against all enemies, foreign and domestic?
00:00:26.620 That you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
00:00:32.160 That you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.
00:00:39.060 And that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you're about to enter.
00:00:46.160 So happy God.
00:00:47.320 Yes, I do.
00:00:48.360 Congratulations and Godspeed.
00:00:51.560 That was it.
00:00:52.920 This happened late in that, well, I should say technically early in the morning.
00:00:56.980 Senator, your prediction on this podcast was spot on.
00:01:01.880 You said you thought they would get a deal done Friday night.
00:01:05.920 It happened Friday night into Saturday morning.
00:01:08.320 Pretty spot on.
00:01:09.620 Congratulations for that prediction.
00:01:11.220 Well, I will say when we talked about this on Wednesday morning's pod, what you and I predicted together,
00:01:19.040 I said that I thought the most likely outcome was that Kevin McCarthy would cut a deal with the holdouts.
00:01:25.860 And in particular, that he would cut a deal with Chip Roy.
00:01:28.200 That Chip Roy really was the leader of the 20.
00:01:30.600 And the reason I thought that is because Chip was focused, I think quite rightly, on changes to the rules, changes to how the House conducts business, on substance.
00:01:41.840 Some of the people involved in this leadership battle, I think, had real personal animosity to Kevin McCarthy.
00:01:50.500 I think Chip, to his credit, was not motivated by that.
00:01:53.280 He was motivated by changing the broken way that Washington operates.
00:01:58.220 And what you and I talked about Wednesday morning on this podcast is I thought the most likely outcome was Kevin and Chip would reach a deal.
00:02:06.780 He would make some significant concessions.
00:02:09.820 And those concessions would be enough and McCarthy would be elected.
00:02:14.220 Ultimately, at about one in the morning, late last night, that's exactly what happened.
00:02:19.620 It took a few more hours than we had predicted, but not much.
00:02:23.820 It was about the same time period.
00:02:25.540 And I will say what Chip and the other dissenters accomplished was a really big deal.
00:02:35.720 There was a lot of drama because there was a vote at 11 p.m.
00:02:41.440 Where I think McCarthy and leadership thought they had the votes and they ended up falling just short because many of the dissenters dropped off.
00:02:50.900 But there remained a handful who didn't.
00:02:53.240 And it led to it led to some interesting drama.
00:02:57.500 It led to and in particular, you also had during the day two votes that were missing.
00:03:06.840 One, Wesley Hunt, a new congressman from Houston, actually my congressman, who had to fly back to Houston because his wife had just delivered a baby.
00:03:14.720 His son, who was born prematurely and they were having to care for his son.
00:03:20.260 He flew back to Houston to be with them and then turned around and was there for the late night vote.
00:03:24.160 His vote was needed at the end and he was there for the late night vote.
00:03:28.020 But it it it got a little wild and woolly, including at one point, Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama.
00:03:38.920 Yeah. Had to be physically restrained from from taking a swing and and and coming after Matt Gaetz.
00:03:45.820 That that was I'm not sure I've seen the beginnings of an actual bar fight on the floor of the House, but it it it came pretty close.
00:03:56.600 I was wondering if that was a new covid certified mask for Congress.
00:04:01.260 Right. The hand over the face and restraining. 0.88
00:04:03.300 I'm like, maybe that'll count as a new covid mask.
00:04:05.940 But at the end of the day. All of the histrionics about, oh, this is terrible, this is the end of the republic.
00:04:14.300 Now, the Democrats were, of course, crowing. You would expect them to crow.
00:04:17.900 That's what they're going to do regardless. The media went on and on.
00:04:21.720 But but I've got to say the agreements that they ended up getting were significant.
00:04:28.080 And let me throw a caveat that the rules package has not yet been voted on that.
00:04:32.340 The plan is to vote on that on Monday. And so the devil is always in the details.
00:04:36.840 And it it could you know, this is at this point what's been publicly reported.
00:04:42.560 But among other things that have publicly been reported here, elements of the deal that that have been reported in the press. 0.99
00:04:47.760 Number one, that the rules package ends proxy voting, which means members of the House actually have to show up and do their damn jobs.
00:04:55.500 One of the bizarre things Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats did in the name of covid is allowed House members to be sitting on the beach thousands of miles away and cast votes by proxy. 0.97
00:05:08.240 That was always nuts. I believe it's unconstitutional.
00:05:11.940 I tell you, the Senate never did it. Schumer in the Senate never did it.
00:05:14.500 If you're not in the Senate, you don't vote. You have to be on the floor of the Senate.
00:05:18.880 In fact, the way the Senate votes is so old school.
00:05:21.680 You literally are standing on the floor of the Senate and the clerk calls out your name, Mr. Ferguson.
00:05:27.620 And and you say, I or nay.
00:05:30.360 And and they write it down with a pencil on a on a on a little on a long, skinny card that has the names of all 100 senators on it.
00:05:39.860 Yeah. Voting that way, I think, is just there's so much history in it.
00:05:44.000 I was at one time when I was 13 years old, Newt Gingrich allowed me to go down the floor of the House with Bob Dornan.
00:05:50.720 And Bob let me hit after he put his key, you know, his card in hit the green button on a vote with him when I was 13.
00:05:58.060 I'll never forget for the rest of my life. I love the old school side of that and having people be present.
00:06:03.860 I also think it builds camaraderie and conversation over legislation.
00:06:08.120 And let's go through some of what's in play here.
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00:07:41.400 Now, there's this proxy voted at proxy voting ended.
00:07:46.040 Also, remote committee hearings ended.
00:07:47.920 So if you want to have a hearing, get your butt to the hearing that that that was important.
00:07:53.780 But but there are also a whole series of additional agreements that are apparently in in the rules package.
00:08:01.040 Although, as I said, the devil's in the detail.
00:08:02.940 One is the single purpose rule.
00:08:05.300 The House for a long time, one real source of mischief is cramming a gazillion things into a rule into a rule rather than just have it focus on a single purpose.
00:08:16.200 That that's a good thing.
00:08:18.600 Related to that is the germaneness protocol, which is, again, a requirement that if things are added to a bill, that they be germane.
00:08:24.760 Essentially, they'd be relevant to the bill that you can't just add completely unrelated matters to a pending bill.
00:08:32.600 There is another element that is apparently part of it.
00:08:35.040 And it's a return of what's called the Holman rule, which allows reducing spending at agencies and reorganizing agencies.
00:08:42.960 It's an appropriation rule the House has had that enables them to get into the budget of executive agencies.
00:08:48.940 That's significant. 0.98
00:08:49.860 Another element is the 72-hour rule that delays anything from moving forward 72 hours so that you have time to actually read the damn bill before you vote on it. 0.98
00:09:00.320 That's significant. 0.91
00:09:03.100 There is an agreement to have a church-style committee to investigate weaponization of organizations like the FBI and the DOJ.
00:09:12.500 And, Ben, you and I have been calling for that for a long time.
00:09:15.160 As you know, my last book, Justice Corrupted, How the Left Has Weaponized Our Legal System, is entirely about the abuse of power at the DOJ and the FBI and the CIA.
00:09:24.700 I think we very much need a serious church-style committee investigating it, and that's part of the agreement.
00:09:31.440 And then the two that were the biggest deals, that were the biggest, the most hotly contested, were having a motion to vacate the chair that one member could bring.
00:09:43.580 And that means any individual member at any time can go down and move to vacate the chair, and you have to have 218 people vote for McCarthy to stay speaker.
00:09:52.800 That apparently is in there.
00:09:54.280 And then the final one that is apparently in there is seats for conservatives on the Rules Committee on other committees, and that's in order to give real fiscal conservatives leverage to fight against another bad omnibus bill, another $1.7 trillion monstrosity that just got rammed through, putting people in positions on committees that they can prevent that from happening.
00:10:19.340 All of those are a huge, huge deal. At the outset, the naysayers said conservatives couldn't get any of these.
00:10:27.940 And I've got to say, look, it's a testament to my friend Chip Roy.
00:10:33.620 It's a testament to the other conservatives who are standing up and behaving in a principled manner.
00:10:37.640 And at the end of the day, it's a testament to Kevin McCarthy for reaching an agreement that I think is a reasonable, a positive agreement, agreement that's good for the House and is going to give more power to Republicans, more power to conservatives, more leverage to the House to stand up to Chuck Schumer and to stand up to Joe Biden.
00:10:58.480 There was a question that was asked of me, and it was one that I wanted to ask to you.
00:11:04.220 Somebody said, was this worth it? And I said, yes. And they said, why?
00:11:07.400 And I said, just the transparency will save the American taxpayers countless dollars.
00:11:13.880 How much money do you think the American people are we in the billions of dollars that can be saved just because of the way these rules changes and the transparency of not being able to cram so much into a bill with all of this different pork?
00:11:27.020 You know, I'm sorry to tell you, you're off by an order of magnitude.
00:11:31.980 We're in the billions of dollars before Monday morning.
00:11:35.840 We are likely in the trillions of dollars.
00:11:39.700 Wow.
00:11:41.160 This is a big deal.
00:11:42.600 If conservatives have more leverage to force real fiscal restraint to stop the out-of-control spending,
00:11:51.860 that is bankrupting the country, that is driving record inflation, that is putting crushing debt to China on this country.
00:12:00.400 That's a big deal.
00:12:01.520 And in the last couple of years, the federal government has spent more time than in the entire history of the universe.
00:12:09.340 And the only way it's going to stop is if Republicans have a backbone to stand and fight to make it stop.
00:12:18.320 This battle this week significantly enhanced the tools for fiscal conservatives to be able to stop the radical abuses of the last two years.
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00:13:04.020 Talk about tribalism for a moment.
00:13:06.500 The House has a lot more members than the Senate does.
00:13:10.660 In the Senate, I think you guys get to know each other a lot faster.
00:13:14.640 You get to work with each other across party lines.
00:13:17.480 In the House, it's so much bigger.
00:13:20.000 And there's different fractions within the Democratic Party.
00:13:23.280 The squad, for example, AOC and kind of her group.
00:13:25.920 You have the Freedom Caucus, and you've had the Tea Party groups, and you've had so many different fractions.
00:13:32.320 I actually think one of the biggest blessings in disguise that's going to come out of this week and these 15 votes is there were a lot of walls and maybe misconceptions about individuals who had conversations they would have never had, interactions they would have never had.
00:13:48.820 And now moving forward, there may be a much better line of communication between people.
00:13:55.220 Because, I mean, you were watching it like I was.
00:13:58.000 It was really interesting to see people that you would assume would never be speaking to each other, that were talking to each other intently, vote after vote after vote.
00:14:07.380 That may be a big blessing.
00:14:09.440 Well, I think it is.
00:14:10.780 And I think it's also a blessing to have leadership that is responsive to the members.
00:14:15.940 Now, listen, Kevin McCarthy's never been speaker.
00:14:17.780 So we'll see what kind of tenure he has as speaker.
00:14:21.140 You know, I've told you before, I like Kevin personally.
00:14:23.720 He and I have a good relationship.
00:14:26.120 But there certainly have been speakers in the past who were autocratic, who were dictators, who just laid out, this is what we're going to do, shut up and obey.
00:14:36.600 Nancy Pelosi does that. 1.00
00:14:38.640 John Boehner did that.
00:14:39.860 It was one of the things that caused him to be driven from the speakership, is his members got tired of being mistreated and him viewing it as essentially his reign rather than reflecting the views of the conference.
00:14:56.640 I think this process is likely to have made Speaker McCarthy significantly more responsive to the views and concerns of the conference.
00:15:08.160 And I think that's healthy.
00:15:08.860 I think that's what leadership should do.
00:15:11.180 You're right.
00:15:11.780 The House and Senate are very different.
00:15:13.260 Look, the House has 435 members.
00:15:15.220 Right now it has 434 because one member just recently passed away, a Democrat from Virginia.
00:15:22.900 You know, you have about 200 in each party.
00:15:26.700 You compare that to the Senate.
00:15:28.440 In the Senate, we've got 49 Republicans.
00:15:30.480 49 is not that much.
00:15:32.020 I mean, we have lunch together.
00:15:33.400 The 49 of us have lunch together every Tuesday, every Wednesday, every Thursday.
00:15:39.520 We know each other really well.
00:15:41.320 I mean, you 49 people, you build relationships and senators stay there sometimes longer than, you know, granite monuments in Washington.
00:15:50.520 So when you've been working with people for years and then for decades and it's a small group, those interpersonal relationships can be one of the real keys to getting things accomplished.
00:16:04.920 One of the reasons why I win a lot of the battles that I'm fighting in the Senate is at this point, my colleagues know that I don't bluff, that I don't engage in fights based on personalities.
00:16:19.480 I don't make it personal, but I focus on substance.
00:16:22.040 I say, if you want my vote, I need X.
00:16:25.840 If I don't get X, my vote is no.
00:16:27.640 If I get X, my vote is Y.
00:16:29.740 One of the reasons I'm really proud of the job Chip did is that's exactly how he handled negotiating it.
00:16:35.580 He didn't get emotional.
00:16:36.620 He didn't get angry.
00:16:37.960 He said, if you want my vote, here's what I need. 0.95
00:16:40.940 And at the outset, people said, oh, that's ridiculous.
00:16:42.920 You'll never get concessions like that.
00:16:45.340 And at the end of the day, math is math.
00:16:47.980 And it turned out they needed his vote.
00:16:50.420 And getting Chip's vote was the critical piece to bringing the rest of the group on board and getting McCarthy the votes.
00:16:58.220 That responsiveness is important.
00:17:00.880 And you're right.
00:17:01.360 The relationships between the members, you know, you got to remember, there's also always a lot of turnover in the House.
00:17:07.260 The House today is a very different house than it was five years ago.
00:17:10.260 It's a very different house than it was 10 years ago.
00:17:12.600 They're just it's a body that has significantly more churn.
00:17:16.160 So some of these folks are brand new.
00:17:18.880 You had three representative elects who'd never been congressmen who were literally just elected.
00:17:26.020 And they finally got sworn in last night who were part of the rebels forcing the rule change.
00:17:32.560 That will impact the job they do going forward if you're part of that at the outset.
00:17:37.120 But the relationships between and across different factions hopefully will be positive.
00:17:44.940 Now, there may be some hurt feelings.
00:17:46.280 People were really ratcheted up and pissed off.
00:17:49.980 And so I'm not being Pollyannish and suggesting it'll all be loves and kisses.
00:17:56.200 But I do think this process, it was transparent, it was democratic, and at the end of the day, it substantially increased the tools to stop the reckless spending that has fueled the record inflation and that has bankrupted the country.
00:18:16.140 I think that is a really good thing.
00:18:17.780 So grabbing agenda items that can bring the Republican Party together early on, I think it's going to be key to Kevin McCarthy's success.
00:18:26.500 He announced last night at 1.20 a.m. Eastern that the first piece of business the House is going to bring up is going to be something that's very important, I know, to you.
00:18:36.080 You helped expose this.
00:18:37.480 You talked about how big of a threat this was to the American people.
00:18:40.540 It deals with the IRS agents, $87,000, and here is what the Speaker-elect said last night, 1.20 a.m.
00:18:48.800 I know the night is late, but when we come back, our very first bill will repeal the funding for $87,000.
00:18:57.900 I mean, Senator, if you want to get everybody to get together real quick, this was a pretty brilliant move by him.
00:19:10.360 To say that, saying, I know it's late, I know you're tired, but when we come back Monday, get ready.
00:19:15.400 And that was a standing ovation you just heard.
00:19:17.740 Yeah, no, that was exactly the right thing to do.
00:19:20.320 It was very smart.
00:19:21.280 It was very savvy.
00:19:22.160 As you know, it's something that I've been calling on the House to do as their first bill.
00:19:27.620 I said it on the trail, campaigning for a lot of these guys, standing next to you in a number of instances,
00:19:33.560 saying when we win a majority in the House, the very first bill the House should take up is repealing the funding for the 87,000 new IRS agents.
00:19:42.500 I'm glad Kevin agreed with what I and others have called for.
00:19:46.140 That's a strong, unifying message.
00:19:48.920 It draws a clear contrast with the Democrats.
00:19:51.780 I think that's good.
00:19:52.660 And I will point out, so you and I both stayed up until the whole thing was over.
00:19:57.300 We were watching it live.
00:19:58.420 We watched the votes, the final votes, everyone coming in, all the drama, everyone holding their breath,
00:20:04.200 everyone knowing how are the last few holdouts going to vote?
00:20:07.120 Are they going to vote for McCarthy?
00:20:09.020 Are they going to vote present?
00:20:10.160 Are they going to vote for someone else?
00:20:11.820 And at the end of the day, there were no votes for someone else in the last ballot.
00:20:14.920 There were a handful that voted present, but allowed McCarthy to get in.
00:20:21.120 After that, you had speeches.
00:20:25.220 You had a pause, and then you had speeches, and you had a speech from Hakeem Jeffries,
00:20:28.880 and then a speech from Kevin McCarthy.
00:20:30.780 And I will say, for people that didn't watch Hakeem Jeffries' speech last night, it was consequential.
00:20:40.440 I don't know Hakeem Jeffries.
00:20:42.060 I have not dealt with him.
00:20:44.920 I haven't really seen him give a speech until last night.
00:20:51.600 Watching it, his tone, his rhythm, his speaking pattern, his way of communicating is eerily reminiscent of Barack Obama.
00:21:08.680 It is.
00:21:09.500 I was saying the same thing as I was watching him, going, wow, this is Barack Obama 2.0.
00:21:14.220 You know, someone on Twitter tweeted out, if Barack Obama and Martin Luther King had a son, he'd be Hakeem Jeffries.
00:21:24.380 Now, that may be a bit much.
00:21:26.060 I actually put Dr. King in a whole different class.
00:21:28.740 But Barack Obama is a very talented communicator, and it led to eight years in the White House as a result of it. 0.99
00:21:39.480 There were more than a few Democrats in the Democratic presidential field who watched that speech last night and said, oh, crap.
00:21:51.100 That speech last night reminded me of Obama's speech at the Democratic National Committee where he talked about there are not red states and blue states. 0.94
00:22:08.000 We are the United States of America.
00:22:09.740 The messages and themes that he was echoing were really powerful.
00:22:15.560 And he also he gave a long speech.
00:22:18.300 He gave a speech to Democrats that was look at all the great things we did destroying our country the last two years.
00:22:25.880 And if you're a radical socialist, you would have been cheering like crazy.
00:22:28.560 But he gave a speech saying, we're great. 1.00
00:22:33.380 And the guys that are taking over, they suck. 0.98
00:22:36.620 I mean, it was it was it was not gracious, given that he was literally introducing Kevin McCarthy and handing the gavel to him. 0.99
00:22:45.140 There was no graciousness whatsoever.
00:22:48.880 It was a partisan speech.
00:22:50.780 But what made it dangerous is it was a partisan speech that was very eloquent.
00:22:54.800 And and and basically clearly pre-planned.
00:23:00.280 I mean, they planned that.
00:23:01.520 Oh, yeah.
00:23:01.780 No, no, that that was a written speech.
00:23:03.540 He was not talking off the cuff.
00:23:05.440 And and basically he hijacked the night.
00:23:08.160 It was impressive.
00:23:09.780 You know, McCarthy wasn't happy, but there's not really much you can do.
00:23:13.020 You can't walk up and shut him up.
00:23:14.980 But Jeffries basically hijacked the night.
00:23:17.580 Now, it was late enough at night.
00:23:19.560 I don't know how many people listen to it.
00:23:21.200 But there were millions of people across the country that looked at this guy and said, this guy is a force to be reckoned with.
00:23:30.680 When you look at moving forward now next week, what advice do you have for these new members as they try to, you know, get their rhythm, get their feet under them?
00:23:44.020 I mean, the way that they got baptism by fire in this last week.
00:23:48.440 Yeah, they're going to take a lot from that.
00:23:50.360 But now we're going to the regular order and kind of a normal cycle and feel here.
00:23:56.280 What advice do you have to new members of Congress?
00:23:59.580 What do you wish somebody would have said to you when you were first elected, if you could go back and do it all over again?
00:24:06.420 Well, the advice that I consistently give to new members, either in the House or the Senate, is really simple.
00:24:13.300 Do what you said you would do.
00:24:14.500 Whatever you promised the voters on the trail to do, follow through on that commitment.
00:24:22.200 And a component of that is don't just listen blindly to leadership.
00:24:27.860 You don't work in the House for Kevin McCarthy.
00:24:31.340 I don't work in the Senate for Mitch McConnell.
00:24:34.000 Well, your boss is the men and women who elected you.
00:24:39.100 My boss are the 30 million Texans.
00:24:41.480 Ben, you're my boss.
00:24:42.760 You're a Texan.
00:24:43.700 I work for you.
00:24:44.700 And so new members sometimes can get confused and think leadership, oh, I'm supposed to follow orders from leadership.
00:24:51.720 No, follow orders from the men and women who elected you and do in January what you said you would do in October.
00:25:02.340 And any member that does that, it's a radical thing.
00:25:05.660 That doesn't happen very often.
00:25:07.580 I do think this fight this week helped.
00:25:11.640 I'll be talking with a lot of these House members.
00:25:13.800 I very deliberately did not talk to the House members when this was happening.
00:25:20.440 I consciously, many of the people engaged in this fight are close friends of mine.
00:25:25.720 I decided, okay, I'm going to stay out of this.
00:25:27.720 I'm going to let them work out their own leadership battles. 0.84
00:25:30.360 These are big boys and girls.
00:25:31.560 They can figure it out themselves.
00:25:33.980 But I will talk to all of them in the coming days.
00:25:37.440 And, you know, I think the focus needs to be very much on results, on substance.
00:25:43.300 How can we deliver for the American people?
00:25:45.520 How can we fight to change the corrupt culture of Washington?
00:25:52.460 These rules changes are a big step in that direction.
00:25:55.460 By the way, there was one other concession that I didn't mention, but it was publicly reported,
00:25:59.940 which is McCarthy saying that he's going to stay out of Republican primaries
00:26:04.300 and stop spending money trying to defeat conservatives in Republican primaries.
00:26:08.240 If McCarthy's super PAC follows through on that, that's a big deal, too.
00:26:12.520 All of those concessions were real and significant changes in how the House conducts itself.
00:26:19.700 How significant is that?
00:26:22.120 When you look at the amount of money that McCarthy's super PAC could come in and spend in a primary.
00:26:28.080 In multiple primaries, McCarthy's super PAC spent millions of dollars supporting one Republican,
00:26:36.820 attacking another Republican in almost every circumstance when given a choice between a moderate and a conservative.
00:26:42.380 McCarthy's super PAC would put the money behind the moderate and would attack the conservative.
00:26:46.380 And that was nationally tens of millions of dollars were spent doing that.
00:26:51.520 At least publicly, they've made a commitment they're not going to do that again.
00:26:54.920 That that will matter for this next cycle because we'll have contested primaries.
00:26:59.860 And if if McCarthy's PAC is not trying to put a thumb on the scale, that means conservatives are going to be have a better chance of prevailing on the merits in the primaries.
00:27:09.960 When you look at this overall fight, what is your biggest takeaway as we move forward into this new Congress from this?
00:27:20.180 When you say, all right, this is the best thing.
00:27:24.640 This may be the worst thing.
00:27:26.100 And this is my biggest, you know, throw it up in the air.
00:27:28.900 And I'm not sure what's going to happen moment.
00:27:30.580 My biggest thing is smart, principled fights matter.
00:27:43.460 That you should engage in real, serious, meaningful fights, not show fights, but fights where you have a plan, where you have a strategy.
00:27:54.840 And where you have a real outcome that can be delivered.
00:28:01.380 So I'll tell you, last night at 1123 p.m., that's Texas time.
00:28:09.020 So it's 1223 p.m. D.C. time.
00:28:12.680 It was when the final vote was ongoing.
00:28:16.560 It was the first time I reached out to Chip as the final vote was happening.
00:28:21.100 And I'll tell you what I texted Chip last night. 0.78
00:28:22.740 I texted Chip, Chip, what you've accomplished this week is a big damn deal.
00:28:30.700 You handled yourself with grace, skill, calm resolve, savvy, and principle.
00:28:39.480 I'm proud of you, my friend, as is the state of Texas, Ted.
00:28:45.960 That's a message that was very heartfelt.
00:28:47.800 But as I said, I didn't want to convey anything like that until everything was said and done and it was over.
00:28:54.520 And now I hope for a world of success for the House Republican majority.
00:29:00.500 They're the one lever point we have.
00:29:01.920 I hope Kevin McCarthy's speakership is the most successful speakership in history.
00:29:06.600 And that these rule changes firm up his resolve to fight smart, principled, consequential battles.
00:29:16.900 If we do that in the House, we'll be doing our job.
00:29:20.620 And that, by the way, not only helps save the Republic right now, but fighting smart, principled, consequential battles will also help Republicans dramatically to win in 2024,
00:29:32.360 to have a much bigger majority in the House, to win the Senate, and to win the White House.
00:29:37.280 If we stand and fight and deliver, the voters reward that by showing up and voting.
00:29:45.880 And so I think this week was a big step in the right direction.
00:29:50.220 It's going to be a lot of fun to watch what this House is able to do now and how much money that we're going to save the American people just by these rules changes that were worth fighting over.
00:30:01.640 You were right when you said it.
00:30:03.300 This was going to get figured out.
00:30:05.000 This is worth it.
00:30:06.100 This battle was going to be worth it.
00:30:07.540 And it was going to be figured out.
00:30:09.280 I think there's a lot of good that's going to come from this new relationships built in the House.
00:30:13.700 And there's a lot of other big fights that are going to be happening.
00:30:16.220 Immigration is going to be one of those. 1.00
00:30:17.780 This is border security, the president getting involved on this issue.
00:30:21.220 We're going to talk about that Monday, his trip to the border.
00:30:25.140 So make sure you hit that subscribe button, the auto download button, wherever you're listening to this podcast.
00:30:31.060 Make sure you write us a five-star review center.
00:30:33.260 It was fun to watch.
00:30:34.860 And it's going to be really fun to see what Republicans get moving forward.
00:30:39.460 And we'll see every one of you back here on Monday morning.
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