00:04:58.620And then Matt Gaetz, who it was one of the same with Donald Trump through basically the entire time he's in the White House, nominates him.
00:05:12.860That was one, if you just want to sit back and pop some popcorn and eat it, that was one of those moments for me like, wait, what is happening right now?
00:05:20.960Well, and to be fair, that's the same thing that happened with Jim Jordan.
00:05:57.080What played out in the eighth and ninth rounds, we had Kevin Hearn from Oklahoma who got three votes initially and then got seven votes, and then on the 11th round got seven votes.
00:06:14.660And so where we are right now is McCarthy is at 200, so he's 18 votes short.
00:06:23.620The last round of balloting, Akeem Jeffries had 212.
00:06:27.260He's had it the whole time, so all the Democrats are just voting for him.
00:06:45.140You know, my reaction to all the histrionics is this is going to shake out, and it's going to shake out one of two ways.
00:06:55.500One, and this may well be the most likely outcome, which is they negotiate an agreement where McCarthy has been making concessions to the dissenters, making concessions based on rules,
00:07:09.760making concessions based on how the House operates, making concessions, making it easier for members to offer amendments, easier for members to fight for conservative principles.
00:07:21.360It may be that McCarthy makes enough concessions that he gets the votes he needs.
00:07:27.840He needs to pick up 18 more votes, but if he does that, then we could have an agreement.
00:07:39.760And I will say, so probably the ringleader of the dissenters has been Chip Roy from Texas.
00:07:46.360Who, by the way, if you're teaching a master class on speaker votes and bringing people together or at least making people understand where you're coming from,
00:07:58.720Chip Roy, I think, has played this perfectly, and I mean that sincerely,
00:08:03.060in the fact that he let people understand why he was not voting for McCarthy,
00:08:10.740and he also explained very clearly what it would take for him to vote for Kevin McCarthy and the rules changes that he wanted.
00:08:19.980I think there are so many Americans that go, okay, this is a guy I understand, I respect him,
00:08:27.880and if you're teaching a master class, if there's anything to learn from this,
00:08:31.500don't keep moving the goalposts when you're objecting to someone.
00:08:37.120And if it's as simple as, I just don't like him, then stick with that, but don't keep changing it.
00:08:43.640I think he has done the best job of articulating some of the concerns and the things that he wanted to change.
00:11:01.300But there were multiple elections across the country where McCarthy's PAC got involved in the primary,
00:11:10.960not in the general, not trying to support the Republican against the Democrat.
00:11:13.880Now, they did that, to be clear, Kevin's PAC spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Republicans in the general.
00:11:20.180So I don't want to diminish, he worked very hard trying to elect Republicans across the country,
00:11:25.640but there are a number of House conservatives who were angry that he was playing in primaries.
00:11:33.860And by the way, that's reprising a battle that happened in the Senate over a decade ago.
00:11:40.360You know, if you remember back to the 2010 cycle, where Senate leadership engaged in a bunch of primaries,
00:11:48.520and so, for example, Senate leadership came in the primary against Rand Paul in Kentucky.
00:11:56.380They came in the primary against Mike Lee in Utah.
00:11:59.100They came in the primary against Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania.
00:12:02.340They came in the primary against Marco Rubio in Florida.
00:12:06.020And Senate leadership just screwed it up.
00:12:08.160I mean, all four of those, they got clobbered and they got a black eye.
00:12:13.020And I will say, actually, as a bit of interesting trivia, I may have been a beneficiary because 2010 Senate leadership got such a black eye
00:12:23.540for making the wrong call in race after race after race and losing that in 2012,
00:12:30.860which is that with the year I got elected to the Senate, Senate leadership stayed out of primaries.
00:12:35.440And, look, I got to say, in hindsight, that that probably is a good thing for me because they would not have been supporting me in that primary.
00:12:44.040They would have definitely been supporting your opponent, who is the safe Republican establishment candidate that you were clearly up against.
00:12:56.880Well, and he had his he had a every lobbyist in the state of Texas was with him because he was sitting lieutenant governor.
00:13:02.220And B, he was worth over 200 million dollars.
00:13:04.360So he wrote a 35 million dollar check.
00:13:06.120But the point was Senate Republican leadership kind of stepped in it in 2010 and has been much more wary of getting in primaries since then.
00:13:20.020This last cycle, McCarthy was pretty vocal, engaging in primaries.
00:13:24.720And I think that's one of the concerns that is animating these dissenters.
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00:14:03.840One of the things you look at these 20 and I think it's clear that some of the 20, it's just personal.
00:14:12.200And and I I know there has to be moments in your career center where there's certain people in the Senate on your side that you just don't click with.
00:14:23.160You just don't like maybe they they flat out lied to your face.
00:14:27.540Maybe they've lied to you about something they were going to work with you on or support or a bill.
00:14:31.960But you do have to remind yourself I'm this isn't me personally.
00:14:38.740I'm here to represent the interests of the people of the state or the community right where you are from.
00:14:44.880If you're a congressman, for example, how much how many blunders could be happening here?
00:14:50.620Because people are making this too much about them personally, not enough about maybe their constituents.
00:14:56.880Look, emotions matter and and and people have personal sentiments and hurt feelings.
00:15:01.700And and and I certainly don't know what what what went on behind closed doors.
00:15:09.320But what makes this complicated complicated to to reach a negotiated settlement is each of these 20 are operating on their own.
00:15:21.160So if if, for example, if Chip Roy had the authority to commit for all 20 of them, if they all essentially gave that gave him their proxy and said, if you cut a deal, we'll stick with you.
00:15:33.300I think I think the odds are pretty good that that that Chip and McCarthy could reach a deal, because I do think Chip has done a good job of focusing on procedural issues to to expand debate, expand the ability to offer amendments, expand leverage conservatives would have in the House.
00:15:54.360And and I think they could probably get to the same page.
00:15:57.380What may make it impossible is I don't know how many of these players are just emotional and have hurt feelings.
00:16:08.120I don't know for how many of them it's personal with Kevin or not.
00:16:12.460Look, you know, when you've got when you've got folks using rhetoric, like calling them terrorists, you know, if you call someone a terrorist, that's not terribly conducive to getting them to come along and play nice.
00:16:25.060Yeah, I mean, that goes back to what I was saying earlier about if you're teaching a master class here, the do's and don'ts are it don't go and make it even more personal and think, oh, well, that's going to get the 20 to really come around when that type of rhetoric is being used.
00:16:40.240While you desperately need their votes to give yourself and some of your guys are going out there as surrogates and saying things like that, that's not going to help you get the 20 to come over.
00:16:51.340It's not like that's going to get them to see the light of day.
00:16:53.140That's going to make them, I would assume, just by human nature, dig in.
00:16:58.620You know, as a general matter, relying on insults to try to bludgeon your opposition is is it's a perilous path unless you have all the leverage.
00:17:12.920And at this point, with with just a four vote majority, I'm not sure anyone has all the leverage.
00:17:21.580And so I think we will either see some negotiated settlement that involves procedural concessions from McCarthy or at some point, if the votes don't move and the votes don't move and the votes don't move.
00:17:37.100So presumably there will be some other candidate who becomes a consensus candidate.
00:17:40.900Now, I don't think that would happen unless McCarthy decided, OK, the votes aren't here for me, because Kevin would certainly have the votes to stop anybody else.
00:17:49.820So so it would take it would take Kevin making the decision this isn't going to happen.
00:17:56.040And I think I have not spoken I haven't spoken to any of the players actually during this.
00:18:01.080So I haven't I haven't spoken to Kevin during this.
00:18:49.420And I suspect an enormous amount of that would depend on on Kevin McCarthy and the decision making he made.
00:18:55.280Let's talk about another aspect of this, and that is the media.
00:18:59.340Obviously, they're trying to grab on and find headlines to fear monger people.
00:19:05.720Earlier today, they had a big, long discussion.
00:19:08.280I think it was on CNN where they were saying, well, this could become a national security issue because they can't get briefings.
00:19:16.660And there's people that aren't even elected that are going to get better briefings than the people that haven't been sworn in yet with this new Congress on the House side.
00:20:06.820So the idea that it is this horrible affront to the republic for the House to spend a couple of days debating their leadership, that's just a weird idea.
00:20:18.480As we talked about in the last podcast, there's a reason I led the fight in the Senate for us to have several weeks of debate on Senate leadership.
00:20:29.120And we had that debate, at least the beginnings of the debate, which we haven't had in a long time.
00:20:33.720Now, because the Senate doesn't have a procedure like this where the leader is elected on the floor, it wasn't done on C-SPAN.
00:20:44.320And it wasn't done in a context that holds up the House for a period of time.
00:20:51.420It was it was done behind closed door with the Senate.
00:20:54.040But I think in both houses, having a debate about what leadership is going to do, how they're going to approach it, what their priorities are, what fights they're willing to fight.
00:21:04.980Look, the question that I asked Mitch McConnell repeatedly, what are you willing to fight for?
00:21:13.400And tragically, it appeared the only thing that that so far Republican leadership was willing to fight for was the disaster of a one point seven trillion dollar omnibus bill, the Pelosi-Schumer spending bill.
00:21:24.380So the the reason for the frustration that I think a lot of voters have is is evident.
00:21:33.340But but my overarching message also is is, you know, folks need to relax a little bit.
00:21:55.700And at the end of the day, the cosmos is not dramatically different if it happens in a week or two days ago.
00:22:08.060Yeah. And I laugh because Democrats, it was like they were throwing Jell-O at the wall on TV and the commentators because Jeffries came out.
00:22:18.100The first one they basically tried early in the day on Thursday, Senator, was, oh, this could become a national security issue.
00:22:25.840By mid-afternoon, they had switched from that and represented Jeffries.
00:22:29.800By the way, on national security, look, we've got a Senate in the Senate.
00:22:33.860We all have have our security clearances and the ability to be read it read into things.
00:22:39.580And, you know, we also have when it really comes to national security, what you know, you've got a president and a secretary of state and a secretary of defense and a chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
00:22:50.420Now, you and I aren't very happy with the job they're doing when you actually talk about national security.
00:22:55.020I think the people in the Biden administration are affirmatively harmful for that.
00:22:59.980But the idea that it would somehow impact national security to have a few days debate over leadership is is is a weird argument.
00:23:11.700Well, and I laugh because they went from that earlier in the day and then it was like, all right, well, we need something else to throw out there.
00:23:18.860And then Representative Jeffries comes out and he says this national security vulnerabilities.
00:23:24.400This is a dangerous moment for Americans and for the world.
00:23:29.100It's one of the reasons why the Congress needs to organize.
00:23:31.780There are public health vulnerabilities.
00:23:34.760It's one of the reasons why the Congress needs to organize and Republicans need to get their act together.
00:24:51.320I'll tell you what I do fault, though, is there are some who are engaged in nasty rhetoric on the Republican side, but also the Democrat side.
00:26:44.600By the way, it echoes what what Dick Durbin said in the Senate when Tim Scott, the Republican from South Carolina, African-American,
00:26:57.040was standing up and trying to lead legislation on on police and and and both preventing preventing violence to those who are being arrested,
00:27:12.740but also protecting police at the same time.
00:27:15.580And Durbin ridiculed Tim Scott as a token.
00:27:20.400And it's the same leftists have I retweeted Cori Bush.
00:27:27.860And what I said, as I said, open racism is normalized on the radical left.
00:27:32.820Now the Dems are calling Byron Donalds, who's a black man, who's a conservative, who's strong, articulate.
00:27:39.400They're calling him effectively a white supremacist.
00:27:45.460That's but look, whether it's Cori Bush or Dick Durbin, when they see a black Republican, there is a level of of anger, of animus, of of bile.
00:27:58.040It's why they come out with things like token and prop.
00:28:02.400Same thing Clarence Thomas faces, because that they view them.
00:28:07.280And by the way, I'll say this as as an Hispanic.
00:28:30.060And unfortunately, when you have someone, you know, when Byron Donalds was was nominated and actually Chip Roy was nominating him,
00:28:38.680he pointed out Akeem Jeffries had been nominated.
00:28:41.880He said this is the first time in the history of our country that to to black black people, African-Americans, have been nominated to be speaker of the House.
00:28:51.340And there was significant applause in the House at that.
00:28:54.400I mean, that is meaningful and positive, but it drives the Democrats crazy.
00:28:59.600They cannot acknowledge to the leftists.
00:29:26.780It's very clearly racist and they act like it doesn't even happen.
00:29:31.160I mean, even and I would say the Washington, D.C., Capitol Hill Press Corps is a little bit more formal than maybe some of the other press members outside in the world where there's a little bit more dignity in their group.
00:29:47.520And yet they just completely look the other direction when a member of Congress says something this racist in this moment about an African-American man who is who's been nominated in a historic way in a moment that has 100 plus years of history involved in it.
00:30:05.640Well, look, part of it is the media agrees with those same radical senses.
00:30:11.360You remember back when when Larry Elder was running for governor of California and the Los Angeles Times published an op ed, the title of which was Larry Elder is the black face of white supremacy.
00:30:29.680I mean, this is nasty and they do it over and over and over again.
00:30:38.180They they they they not only revel in racism, they know they won't get called out on it from the press because the press agrees with them or too many of them do, at least.
00:30:52.860Yeah, it's it's total silence on this one.
00:30:55.420And it's one of those moments when you see the Democrats and it reminds you of what you're up against across the aisle.
00:31:02.100And they allow this to fester within the Democratic Party.
00:31:07.080Any time a minority stands up that is a conservative, they immediately lose their race and their minority status and they do whatever they can to absolutely destroy them.
00:31:16.960Senator, it's this has been a fun moment.
00:31:20.920As I said earlier, a master class ask on all of this.
00:32:35.220There may be a chance if we get a speaker before then.
00:32:37.300You might get something else from us, so make sure you hit that subscribe button, auto download button wherever you're listening to this podcast.
00:32:44.620Make sure you rise to the Five Star Review Center.
00:32:46.880It's a pleasure as always, and we'll see all you guys back here on Monday.