00:01:26.220I think I was the strongest ally in the U.S. Senate, and I'm really proud of the policy successes we had together in terms of peace and prosperity and people being lifted out of poverty into abundance.
00:01:39.240So all of that is where we need to move back.
00:01:42.480We need to get back to a common sense agenda and away from the disasters of the last two years.
00:01:47.660You mentioned disasters the last two years, and that brings us to the Senate vote.
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00:04:41.340And I think Herschel Walker and whoever the next senator from Alaska is, either Lisa Murkowski or Kelly Chewbacca, deserve to have a say in the leadership elections.
00:04:54.080But more fundamentally, it's not just about knowing the conference and knowing who's in it.
00:04:58.460But we need to have a fundamental debate about the direction of the Republican conference and about Republican leadership.
00:05:43.020And what do we need to do differently?
00:05:44.660And so what I stood up, and I made this case to my colleagues, and I'm going to refrain from telling you what other senators said, because I think it's their prerogative to say what they said.
00:05:54.580But I'm going to tell you what I said.
00:07:19.380There were only three new Republicans who'd gotten elected.
00:07:21.820We had a tiny freshman class, and I go to leadership elections, and deliberately they schedule leadership elections just a few days after the election
00:07:30.480because they want the freshmen not to know what they're doing, to be still in their brand-new basement offices, not to know where the men's room is.
00:07:38.600And the idea is they can't possibly vote against leadership because they're so brand-new.
00:07:43.300And what I described to the freshmen, I said that first election I stood there, and I assumed, oh, okay, leadership is going to tell me what their vision is going forward.
00:07:52.640And, you know, you think about it when, you know, in junior high or high school when someone was running for student council,
00:08:01.840the candidate would stand up and give a speech and say, here's what I want to do.
00:08:06.420If you elect me to student council, if you elect me class president, I'm going to have free chocolate pudding in the cafeteria.
00:08:12.540And if you're like, oh, I want free chocolate pudding, okay, I'll vote for so-and-so, I kind of expected that.
00:08:17.820The bizarre thing is the United States Senate doesn't do that.
00:08:21.500Instead, what happens, and this has happened every single time now for 10 years,
00:08:26.200is you have a series of senators that give speeches nominating Mitch McConnell,
00:08:31.320and they describe how Mitch McConnell is the greatest and most handsome and most eloquent and wise human being to have ever lived.
00:08:38.480And then Mitch stands up, says, thank you, I appreciate it, and the entire conference votes to accept him by acclamation.
00:08:48.040So there's no actual vote, there's no discussion, there's no agenda, and it's bizarre.
00:08:54.380And what I argued to my colleagues yesterday is I said, listen, leadership is not accountable to us.
00:09:00.940There's no proposal, and I said, listen, if you look at these election results, we screwed up, the conference screwed up, and we ought to ask why.
00:09:10.700And I said, I believe I know why, which is over the last two years, leadership's agenda has been to unify the Democrats and divide the Republicans.
00:09:22.120There was bill after bill after bill that had every single Democrat on it, and anywhere from 10 to 15 Republicans.
00:09:30.640And they passed Joe Biden's legislative agenda, one after the other after the other.
00:09:35.440And I put it out, I said, look, the Democrats don't do that.
00:09:40.840The Democrats, we had a Republican Senate.
00:09:43.300You know how many bills were passed in that Republican Senate with all the Republicans and 10 to 15 Democrats?
00:11:48.840No, something that I think was so shocking was Mitch McConnell had his press conference, and you mentioned this.
00:11:54.580And for a guy that apparently has a higher approval rating in the Senate than he does with the rest of the American people, it was very interesting to see the way that he described his own party.
00:12:08.180Candidates knew what they were for, expressed it quite clearly.
00:12:13.620It's pretty obvious, and all of you have been writing about it, what happened.
00:12:17.160I mean, that's what he thought about hardcore conservative candidates.
00:12:43.120Make no mistake, he's talking in code there.
00:12:46.180But what he's basically saying is, if you found more Mitch McConnells than guys like me that don't stand up to the Democrats, more of us could have gotten elected.
00:12:54.820But it was the party's fault on the conservatives that, as he describes it, that stand up for this country, that stand up for a secure border, that stand up for balanced budget amendments.
00:13:04.080He says that is you being involved in chaos and excessive negative attacks.
00:13:08.340He says that's the reason why we lost the opportunity to win back the Senate.
00:13:13.700So, look, Mitch McConnell believes if you fight the Democrats, if you fight the socialists, if you fight the cultural Marxists who are destroying this country, and you actually fight to win, that you're being, what was the language he used?
00:13:44.460You should pick a couple of big fights that really matter and stand up and draw a line in the sand and say, this is what we stand for.
00:13:52.360So, like I suggested, we're not going to pass the National Defense Authorization Act if you're firing American heroes just because they didn't succumb to your demand that they get the COVID vaccine.
00:14:05.100How about a fight to say we're not going to fund the 87,000 new IRS agents that the Democrats just passed to harass and attack the American citizens?
00:14:16.260If we say we're not going to fund it, Joe Biden and the White House are going to say, you mean Republicans are shutting down the government.
00:14:23.560And the press is going to say, you mean Republicans are shutting down the government.
00:14:27.140And if passed his prologue, Mitch McConnell is going to say, you mean Republicans are shutting down the government.
00:14:33.220Our leadership echoes the message of the Democrats and the left.
00:14:38.220And I just raised, I said, look, the conference has a right to know.
00:14:43.400Now, is there anything, is there one issue that you give a damn enough about that you're willing to say we will use the levers of legislative power we have to fight to win?
00:14:58.400And as I said, the two historically have been either funding the continuing resolution of the omnibus or the debt ceiling.
00:15:06.140And by the way, history has shown those levers work.
00:15:09.580So, for example, the Budget Control Act in 2010, Republicans came in, the Tea Party waved, and they said, we're not going to fund everything.
00:15:17.920And Obama screamed, you're shutting down the government, you're shutting down the government.
00:15:21.680But actually, for a moment, Republicans discovered a backbone.
00:15:25.780And the Budget Control Act resulted in the greatest fiscal restraint you and I have seen in our lifetime.
00:15:32.440And they did it in a fight over the debt ceiling.
00:15:39.580Graham Rudman was the most significant long-term spending restraint that has ever passed into law.
00:15:45.720They did it in a fight over the debt ceiling, where they said, we're not going to let you raise the debt ceiling unless you do something to stop the out-of-control spending that's driving inflation, that's driving this out-of-control debt.
00:15:56.540But what is different, Ben, is our leadership believes there is nothing worth actually fighting for, that we should surrender on everything.
00:16:08.240And I pointed out, I said, look, we ought to have this very real debate.
00:16:12.000I also pointed out, there's a reason why most Republicans don't get amendments on bills.
00:16:17.860Because our leaders, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, block amendments on bills, which means they draft all the spending bills, they drop them on the Senate with an hour's notice.
00:16:30.580We don't even get to read them because they're thousands of pages.
00:16:33.400And they give it to you as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.
00:16:36.160I said, the Senate used to operate with freedom of amendment.
00:16:41.740Historically, the two prerogatives of a senator were unlimited debate and unlimited amendment.
00:16:47.920And I described to folks, I said, look, many of y'all didn't know some of the old bulls of the Senate who have retired, people like Lamar Alexander.
00:17:36.060And then the majority leader would move through and process the 30 amendments that remained.
00:17:40.140And they'd finish Thursday night or Friday afternoon or Friday night or Saturday.
00:17:44.580But they'd finish, and everyone would get an amendment.
00:17:47.820You wonder how you get these multi-trillion dollar spending bills, how you stop them.
00:17:51.880Well, you allow amendments, and you allow people to force amendments saying, don't spend on this, don't spend on this, don't spend on this.
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00:19:59.580Senator, let's talk real quick about this part of this press conference.
00:20:03.520And I pulled this because I watched the whole thing on C-SPAN, and there was a moment where Mitch McConnell, and it just seemed like it was the good old boys club at work, where there was zero concern that he was not going to be the leader, even though only 7% of Republicans support him as these new poll numbers.
00:20:24.640But this is what he said, kind of laughing at the idea of anyone challenging him on anything.
00:20:30.340Well, as you notice, we had a rather lengthy and fulsome discussion, not only of the election, but the way forward.
00:20:38.940And I think it's pretty obvious we may or may not be voting tomorrow.
00:20:47.580Well, but I think the outcome is pretty clear.
00:20:55.340I want to repeat again, I have the votes.
00:21:13.080He's basically saying, I'm your guy, whether it's now or later, if we wait till Walker gets here, if he wins or not, and I have the votes.
00:21:21.300And if you want to be on my list of people to never get anything done in the Senate or never have my friendship or never work with me on anything, be blackballed, go ahead and do it.
00:21:31.680I dare you because, quote, I have the votes, whether it's now or later.
00:21:54.560That was the whole speech, which is basically it's like the godfather going, you know, I did a favor for you.
00:22:05.620And there's going to come a time, and it may be today, it may be tomorrow, when I'm going to ask for a favor back.
00:22:14.040That's basically what he stood up and said.
00:22:16.720Well, and it's also a threat, though, in your future career, because you and I talked about this the other day.
00:22:20.980You had the most expensive Senate race in history of the U.S. Senate, and $0 came in from Mitch McConnell when you were running against Beto in the Senate a couple years ago.
00:22:30.420So, in other words, you want any of this money in the future, you better get in line and vote for me, a.k.a. I have the votes, whether it's now or later.
00:22:37.100And if you don't, you'll never get a dime from me, even though I'm in your own party.
00:22:41.580He spent $0 on my race, despite having the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history at the time.
00:22:47.340In 2016, he spent $0 on Ron Johnson's race, despite it being an incredibly contentious race, where Ron pulled it out but did it entirely without Mitch McConnell's help.
00:22:57.460He spent $0 on Mike Lee's race this cycle, despite the fact that he faced a very real race.
00:23:03.080If you're a conservative and you stand up to Mitch, you get zeroed out.
00:23:07.260He pulled the cash out from Blake Masters in Arizona, arguably cost us winning the Arizona seat.
00:23:13.460He pulled the cash out from General Balduck in New Hampshire, potentially cost us that seat as well.
00:23:20.520And so it is all about cash and power.
00:23:27.260And my view is we ought to actually have leadership that lays out a vision of what we stand for.
00:23:35.320And by the way, so the way this works is there were, I don't know, about 20 senators who spoke.
00:23:42.960And about half the senators were raising concerns about leadership and arguing for delaying the vote, which is, I think, clearly the right thing to do.
00:23:54.160The other half the senators are allies of Mitch McConnell, and they stood up and gave speeches.
00:24:00.380We've got to vote tomorrow, and it's incredibly important we reelect Mitch.
00:24:03.900And so one of the talking points they used is they said, Georgia, Herschel Walker, because we want Herschel to win, we need to all immediately vote for Mitch McConnell.
00:24:14.240And I've got to say, I stood up and I said, OK, that is the dumbest argument I've ever heard.
00:24:22.440I did the first big rally in the runoff with Herschel.
00:24:26.140You want to talk about how to demoralize conservatives in Georgia?
00:24:30.160Have all of us come back today and say, you know what?
00:24:33.480We got clobbered in this election, but we learned nothing, and we're going to reelect the exact same leadership
00:24:38.640and do the same failed policies that didn't work for the last two years because charge ahead and never mind that we're actually going to stand for something.
00:26:51.040And it's why we need leadership that is actually trying to fight and win instead of trying to find ways to acquiesce and roll over to Democrats.
00:27:03.180Well, let's talk about money very quickly.
00:27:05.660Was there any guarantees from Mitch McConnell that he was going to open his purse strings to his war chest to help in this runoff election in Georgia?
00:27:17.160Oh, look, he'll spend money in Georgia.
00:27:20.080Of course they will, because Georgia matters, and he will spend money in Georgia.
00:27:25.160But what he's not interested in doing is changing how leadership occurs.
00:27:30.440Now, let me give you some good news on this, Ben.