Verdict with Ted Cruz - November 16, 2022


We Go Behind The Scenes Of The Senate Leadership Fight Over Mitch McConnell!


Episode Stats


Length

35 minutes

Words per minute

166.85979

Word count

5,856

Sentence count

374

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

12

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz reacts to Donald Trump's announcement that he's running for President of the United States in 2020. He also talks about the Senate vote on whether to delay the vote, and why he thinks it should be delayed until after the Georgia primary.

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.
00:00:02.520 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.840 Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:00:06.920 Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:08.540 And Senator, it is a very big moment that we're dealing with right now with Senate elections.
00:00:14.820 Also, the shock happening in Poland with these missiles from Russia, apparently.
00:00:20.060 And we have the president's announcement.
00:00:23.420 For everyone, if you missed it, here is what Donald Trump had to say about running for a third time for president.
00:00:30.000 He used two words.
00:00:31.160 I don't want to be Joe.
00:00:32.220 It's two words.
00:00:33.020 American dream.
00:00:35.620 That was not good what he did.
00:00:38.080 A lot of bad things like going to Idaho and saying, welcome to the state of Florida.
00:00:43.680 I really love it.
00:00:45.580 In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.
00:00:53.320 I tell you, Senator, it was fun watching Donald Trump mock Joe Biden right before those words.
00:01:01.820 Tonight, I'm announcing my candidacy for the president of the United States of America.
00:01:05.260 I want to get your reaction to this.
00:01:06.920 Well, listen, Joe Biden and the disaster of the last two years deserves mocking because it has been horrific.
00:01:14.200 It's hurt the American people.
00:01:15.700 And all across the country, people are suffering.
00:01:18.420 I will say when Donald Trump was president, we accomplished tremendous things together.
00:01:23.820 I worked with him every day.
00:01:26.220 I 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.
00:01:39.240 So all of that is where we need to move back.
00:01:42.480 We need to get back to a common sense agenda and away from the disasters of the last two years.
00:01:47.660 You mentioned disasters the last two years, and that brings us to the Senate vote.
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00:03:25.500 Mitch McConnell now has an approval rating.
00:03:28.240 The last number I just saw was a 7% among Republicans.
00:03:31.440 7%, not a typo, not 17%, not 27%, 7%.
00:03:36.640 You have this rush that you warned Americans about just two days ago to make him in charge of the Republican Party in the Senate.
00:03:44.760 And now there are many people that have been calling their senators asking for there to be a delay in this vote.
00:03:50.260 You were in the room, senators only.
00:03:52.120 What happened?
00:03:52.760 So yesterday we had a lunch.
00:03:55.480 We have a lunch.
00:03:56.240 Whenever we're in session, we have lunch together, all the Republican senators, every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
00:04:01.380 But yesterday's lunch was unusual.
00:04:03.340 It lasted three and a half hours.
00:04:05.380 And we had as vigorous a debate as I've ever seen in the United States Senate.
00:04:10.160 I have called publicly for delaying the leadership elections.
00:04:14.900 I think we should delay them till after the Georgia runoff.
00:04:18.680 The Georgia runoff is on December 6th.
00:04:21.240 And the argument that I made in that room yesterday is I said, look, number one, we don't know who's in our conference.
00:04:27.820 Georgia's not decided.
00:04:29.520 And Alaska's not decided.
00:04:31.080 They're still doing ranked choice voting, so we don't know who the next senator from Alaska will be.
00:04:35.440 And this is a serious, contested election.
00:04:39.360 This is a serious choice.
00:04:41.340 And 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.
00:04:54.080 But more fundamentally, it's not just about knowing the conference and knowing who's in it.
00:04:58.460 But we need to have a fundamental debate about the direction of the Republican conference and about Republican leadership.
00:05:07.820 Listen, I'm pissed off.
00:05:10.540 Millions of Americans are pissed off because Election Day should have been an historic victory for Republicans.
00:05:17.880 We should have won a majority in the Senate.
00:05:19.820 We should have won a huge majority in the House.
00:05:22.120 And we didn't.
00:05:23.040 The Democrats kept the Senate.
00:05:25.580 And we have a tiny, tiny majority in the House.
00:05:29.020 And that was a cluster.
00:05:31.460 That was a colossal screw-up.
00:05:34.080 And any rational organization, any rational group, would sit and assess, okay, what went wrong?
00:05:41.400 What did we do wrong?
00:05:43.020 And what do we need to do differently?
00:05:44.660 And 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.
00:05:54.580 But I'm going to tell you what I said.
00:05:56.480 Here's what I said.
00:05:57.500 I said, number one, this blown opportunity is historic.
00:06:02.640 It is a screw-up.
00:06:04.040 And we need to have a serious discussion about why.
00:06:07.560 I said, number two, leadership wants to blame Donald Trump.
00:06:12.020 That's their talking point, is it's all Trump's fault.
00:06:14.840 It's all Trump's fault.
00:06:16.280 Now, there's lots of blame to go around, and all sorts of people bear some of the blame.
00:06:21.340 But the idea that Mitch McConnell and Republican leadership have no portion of the blame, I think, frankly, is ludicrous.
00:06:29.800 And what I argued to my colleagues is I said, listen, I've been in the Senate now 10 years.
00:06:35.540 This is the sixth leadership election I've ever been in.
00:06:37.960 Now, every single leadership election is not actually a debate and a choice over who should be leader.
00:06:47.820 Mitch McConnell's never been challenged in the time I've been in there.
00:06:51.060 In every instance, and we have five new, brand-newly elected Republican senators.
00:06:56.360 All five of them were there in their lunch.
00:06:57.880 It was actually the first lunch they've ever attended.
00:06:59.420 So they came in, and it was an epic gladiatorial battle for their first lunch.
00:07:05.120 We were all joking, sort of, welcome to the Senate, a very functional body.
00:07:11.520 But what I told them is I said, listen, I remember 10 years ago when I was newly elected, and it was the year Obama was reelected.
00:07:17.880 It was a big Democrat year.
00:07:19.380 There were only three new Republicans who'd gotten elected.
00:07:21.820 We had a tiny freshman class, and I go to leadership elections, and deliberately they schedule leadership elections just a few days after the election
00:07:30.480 because 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.
00:07:38.600 And the idea is they can't possibly vote against leadership because they're so brand-new.
00:07:43.300 And 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.
00:07:52.640 And, you know, you think about it when, you know, in junior high or high school when someone was running for student council,
00:08:01.840 the candidate would stand up and give a speech and say, here's what I want to do.
00:08:06.420 If you elect me to student council, if you elect me class president, I'm going to have free chocolate pudding in the cafeteria.
00:08:12.540 And if you're like, oh, I want free chocolate pudding, okay, I'll vote for so-and-so, I kind of expected that.
00:08:17.820 The bizarre thing is the United States Senate doesn't do that.
00:08:21.500 Instead, what happens, and this has happened every single time now for 10 years,
00:08:26.200 is you have a series of senators that give speeches nominating Mitch McConnell,
00:08:31.320 and they describe how Mitch McConnell is the greatest and most handsome and most eloquent and wise human being to have ever lived.
00:08:38.480 And then Mitch stands up, says, thank you, I appreciate it, and the entire conference votes to accept him by acclamation.
00:08:48.040 So there's no actual vote, there's no discussion, there's no agenda, and it's bizarre.
00:08:54.380 And what I argued to my colleagues yesterday is I said, listen, leadership is not accountable to us.
00:09:00.020 There's no agenda.
00:09:00.940 There'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.
00:09:10.700 And 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.
00:09:22.120 There was bill after bill after bill that had every single Democrat on it, and anywhere from 10 to 15 Republicans.
00:09:30.640 And they passed Joe Biden's legislative agenda, one after the other after the other.
00:09:35.440 And I put it out, I said, look, the Democrats don't do that.
00:09:40.840 The Democrats, we had a Republican Senate.
00:09:43.300 You know how many bills were passed in that Republican Senate with all the Republicans and 10 to 15 Democrats?
00:09:48.700 Zero.
00:09:49.600 None.
00:09:50.040 The Democrats actually have discipline to say, we don't support your agenda, and we will block it.
00:09:55.740 And I said, we have a reason to ask, why does our leadership want to stand up and pass the Democrat agenda?
00:10:05.160 I also pointed out, I said, look, for the last two years, we had a 50-50 Senate, the most narrow Senate imaginable.
00:10:11.360 We won zero conservative victories because our leadership would not use the leverage to get anything.
00:10:18.360 And I asked our leadership, I said, it's perfectly reasonable for the conference to ask, what are you willing to fight on?
00:10:30.340 And maybe the answer is nothing, but we've got the next two years.
00:10:33.880 Now, in the minority, there are only two lever points that the minority has to force a fight.
00:10:41.380 One is government funding, either continuing resolution or an omnibus.
00:10:45.340 The other is the debt ceiling.
00:10:47.460 Those are the two things that take 60 votes to pass.
00:10:50.540 And they're the only places historically that a minority has been able to get leverage to get the majority to agree to concessions.
00:10:58.860 Now, the view of Mitch McConnell over the last two years, and I said, listen, we need to have a real discussion.
00:11:06.120 Is there something we're willing to fight on?
00:11:08.260 I said, look, we're getting ready to take up the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act.
00:11:14.340 Are we willing to fight to say no serviceman or woman can be fired because they declined to take the COVID vaccine?
00:11:24.280 I believe yes.
00:11:25.560 But we will only have a chance in that fight if Republicans will stand together and say, we will not give you 60 votes to take this up.
00:11:34.280 If we're not, if 10 Republicans will say, oh, we're going to give you the votes, then you know what? 0.94
00:11:39.880 Seal Team 6, you're screwed.
00:11:41.880 You're getting fired by Joe Biden and the Democrats because Republicans were not willing to fight. 0.99
00:11:46.780 And I said, all right, fine.
00:11:48.060 Go ahead.
00:11:48.840 No, something that I think was so shocking was Mitch McConnell had his press conference, and you mentioned this.
00:11:54.580 And 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.
00:12:05.780 And he said this.
00:12:08.180 Candidates knew what they were for, expressed it quite clearly.
00:12:13.620 It's pretty obvious, and all of you have been writing about it, what happened.
00:12:17.160 I mean, that's what he thought about hardcore conservative candidates.
00:12:43.120 Make no mistake, he's talking in code there.
00:12:46.180 But 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.
00:12:54.820 But 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.
00:13:04.080 He says that is you being involved in chaos and excessive negative attacks.
00:13:08.340 He says that's the reason why we lost the opportunity to win back the Senate.
00:13:13.700 So, 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?
00:13:25.920 Divisive.
00:13:26.400 You're being mean.
00:13:27.600 That to show you're mature, you should just surrender the country and roll over.
00:13:32.320 And what I raised to my colleagues, I said, for Pete's sake, look, I don't think you should fight everything.
00:13:38.520 If you fight a thousand things all at once, you're not actually fighting anything.
00:13:43.120 You should set priorities.
00:13:44.460 You 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.
00:13:52.360 So, 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.
00:14:03.740 That's a good fight to have.
00:14:05.100 How 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?
00:14:13.840 We're not going to fund it.
00:14:15.200 Now, here's what's going to happen.
00:14:16.260 If 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.
00:14:23.560 And the press is going to say, you mean Republicans are shutting down the government.
00:14:27.140 And if passed his prologue, Mitch McConnell is going to say, you mean Republicans are shutting down the government.
00:14:33.220 Our leadership echoes the message of the Democrats and the left.
00:14:38.220 And I just raised, I said, look, the conference has a right to know.
00:14:43.400 Now, 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?
00:14:58.400 And as I said, the two historically have been either funding the continuing resolution of the omnibus or the debt ceiling.
00:15:06.140 And by the way, history has shown those levers work.
00:15:09.580 So, 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.
00:15:17.920 And Obama screamed, you're shutting down the government, you're shutting down the government.
00:15:21.680 But actually, for a moment, Republicans discovered a backbone.
00:15:25.780 And the Budget Control Act resulted in the greatest fiscal restraint you and I have seen in our lifetime.
00:15:32.440 And they did it in a fight over the debt ceiling.
00:15:34.980 Go back previously, Graham Rudman.
00:15:39.580 Graham Rudman was the most significant long-term spending restraint that has ever passed into law.
00:15:45.720 They 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.
00:15:56.540 But what is different, Ben, is our leadership believes there is nothing worth actually fighting for, that we should surrender on everything.
00:16:08.240 And I pointed out, I said, look, we ought to have this very real debate.
00:16:12.000 I also pointed out, there's a reason why most Republicans don't get amendments on bills.
00:16:17.860 Because 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.
00:16:30.580 We don't even get to read them because they're thousands of pages.
00:16:33.400 And they give it to you as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.
00:16:36.160 I said, the Senate used to operate with freedom of amendment.
00:16:41.740 Historically, the two prerogatives of a senator were unlimited debate and unlimited amendment.
00:16:47.920 And 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.
00:16:55.160 I know Lamar well.
00:16:57.320 Lamar described to me a Senate where he said the Senate majority leader would take up a bill, whatever bill was on the floor,
00:17:03.380 and would say, we're going to go through all the amendments.
00:17:06.540 And senators would file 300 amendments.
00:17:11.340 And the majority leader would say, fine, we're going to start working through them.
00:17:14.620 And you'd work through a few, work through a few, and then you'd get to about Thursday afternoon.
00:17:19.780 And the phrase they use in the Senate is, jet fumes get in the air, which means senators start wanting to go home to their states.
00:17:26.580 And suddenly the 300 amendments would become 100 amendments, would become 50 amendments, would become 30 amendments.
00:17:31.460 People would say, well, I don't need my amendment voted on.
00:17:34.460 I want to get home.
00:17:36.060 And then the majority leader would move through and process the 30 amendments that remained.
00:17:40.140 And they'd finish Thursday night or Friday afternoon or Friday night or Saturday.
00:17:44.580 But they'd finish, and everyone would get an amendment.
00:17:47.820 You wonder how you get these multi-trillion dollar spending bills, how you stop them.
00:17:51.880 Well, 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.
00:17:56.920 And you force votes on everything.
00:17:58.880 But our leadership doesn't want that.
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00:19:59.580 Senator, let's talk real quick about this part of this press conference.
00:20:03.520 And 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.
00:20:24.640 But this is what he said, kind of laughing at the idea of anyone challenging him on anything.
00:20:30.340 Well, as you notice, we had a rather lengthy and fulsome discussion, not only of the election, but the way forward.
00:20:38.940 And I think it's pretty obvious we may or may not be voting tomorrow.
00:20:47.580 Well, but I think the outcome is pretty clear.
00:20:55.340 I want to repeat again, I have the votes.
00:20:59.280 I will be elected.
00:21:00.800 The only issue is whether we do it sooner or later, and I think we'll probably have another discussion about that tomorrow.
00:21:11.220 It's almost like the fix is in.
00:21:13.080 He'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.
00:21:21.300 And 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.
00:21:31.680 I dare you because, quote, I have the votes, whether it's now or later.
00:21:36.780 Well, that is very much his approach.
00:21:38.680 I've got to say, Mitch got up, and what he focused on entirely was money, and his super PAC had over $300 million in there.
00:21:46.440 So his initial speech, he got up, and he pointed to the new guys, and he said, I spent $30 million for you.
00:21:51.320 I spent $40 million for you.
00:21:52.860 I spent $50 million for you.
00:21:54.560 That was the whole speech, which is basically it's like the godfather going, you know, I did a favor for you.
00:22:05.620 And 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.
00:22:14.040 That's basically what he stood up and said.
00:22:16.720 Well, and it's also a threat, though, in your future career, because you and I talked about this the other day.
00:22:20.980 You 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.
00:22:30.420 So, 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.
00:22:37.100 And if you don't, you'll never get a dime from me, even though I'm in your own party.
00:22:41.280 Yep.
00:22:41.580 He spent $0 on my race, despite having the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history at the time.
00:22:47.340 In 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.
00:22:57.460 He spent $0 on Mike Lee's race this cycle, despite the fact that he faced a very real race.
00:23:03.080 If you're a conservative and you stand up to Mitch, you get zeroed out.
00:23:07.260 He pulled the cash out from Blake Masters in Arizona, arguably cost us winning the Arizona seat.
00:23:13.460 He pulled the cash out from General Balduck in New Hampshire, potentially cost us that seat as well.
00:23:20.520 And so it is all about cash and power.
00:23:27.260 And my view is we ought to actually have leadership that lays out a vision of what we stand for.
00:23:35.320 And by the way, so the way this works is there were, I don't know, about 20 senators who spoke.
00:23:42.960 And 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. 0.99
00:23:54.160 The other half the senators are allies of Mitch McConnell, and they stood up and gave speeches.
00:24:00.380 We've got to vote tomorrow, and it's incredibly important we reelect Mitch.
00:24:03.900 And 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. 0.92
00:24:14.240 And I've got to say, I stood up and I said, OK, that is the dumbest argument I've ever heard. 0.89
00:24:20.820 I was just down in Georgia. 0.96
00:24:22.440 I did the first big rally in the runoff with Herschel.
00:24:26.140 You want to talk about how to demoralize conservatives in Georgia?
00:24:30.160 Have all of us come back today and say, you know what?
00:24:33.480 We got clobbered in this election, but we learned nothing, and we're going to reelect the exact same leadership
00:24:38.640 and 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.
00:24:47.440 And I'll point out something else.
00:24:48.680 Well, and it's not just that, though.
00:24:49.760 It also sends a message to voters that we've already moved on past and accepted, quote, defeat.
00:24:57.580 And so it really doesn't matter if you give, you work, you door knock, you make phone calls,
00:25:05.000 you do whatever it is on Herschel Walker's campaign because Washington has already admitted defeat and we just move on.
00:25:12.960 Well, and there's another argument I made.
00:25:14.800 I said, you want an example of this right now?
00:25:17.300 The Democrats this week are prepared to take up their bill embracing gay marriage,
00:25:24.000 and they plan to pass it with all the Democrats.
00:25:26.580 And there's a very good chance you'll get at least 10 Republicans supporting them.
00:25:30.620 I said, you people say you want to win Georgia.
00:25:33.120 You want the Republicans in the Senate to embrace gay marriage.
00:25:38.120 And by the way, it's not just gay marriage.
00:25:40.300 This bill is designed to empower the Biden IRS to go after churches, to go after universities,
00:25:49.880 to go after schools, K through 12 schools, to go after charities, Christian charities, Jewish charities, Muslim charities,
00:25:59.260 any charity that believes marriage is the union of one man and one woman, any charity that does not embrace same-sex marriage,
00:26:08.580 this bill is designed to strip their 501c3 status, to persecute the churches and universities and schools and charities.
00:26:17.840 And I said, you think you're helping Herschel Walker by kicking evangelical Christians in Georgia in the teeth? 0.87
00:26:27.120 You ought to call this whole damn thing an in-kind contribution to Raphael Warnock because it's designed to drive down our turnout. 0.96
00:26:34.320 Now, they don't want to engage in that, and our leadership, God forbid, would actually try to stop a bill that unifies all the Democrats, 0.97
00:26:44.200 100% of the Democrats support it, and that divides our party brutally.
00:26:48.860 That doesn't make any sense to me.
00:26:51.040 And 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.
00:27:03.180 Well, let's talk about money very quickly.
00:27:05.660 Was 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?
00:27:17.160 Oh, look, he'll spend money in Georgia.
00:27:20.080 Of course they will, because Georgia matters, and he will spend money in Georgia.
00:27:25.160 But what he's not interested in doing is changing how leadership occurs.
00:27:30.440 Now, let me give you some good news on this, Ben.
00:27:33.880 I've been in the Senate 10 years.
00:27:37.080 We have never had a discussion about leadership like we just had yesterday.
00:27:42.800 A three-and-a-half-hour, bare-knuckles, serious discussion of the failures of leadership and how we need to do better.
00:27:51.540 That's a step forward.
00:27:52.800 I'm encouraged by that.
00:27:54.680 This morning at 930, we're going to go and have leadership elections.
00:27:58.520 They will be in the historic Senate chamber in the Capitol.
00:28:03.360 The very first thing that will happen, I will stand up,
00:28:06.040 and I will make a motion to delay the elections until after the Georgia runoff.
00:28:12.740 I don't know whether it will pass or not.
00:28:16.020 There are about 10 senators or so who have publicly supported delaying the election.
00:28:21.240 There are about 10 senators or so who have publicly opposed it.
00:28:25.480 The remaining 30-ish Republican senators haven't said.
00:28:30.900 Mitch seems serenely confident that he has the votes,
00:28:37.540 and it is true that almost all of my colleagues are dependent on Mitch for their campaign cash.
00:28:43.780 So maybe he has the votes.
00:28:45.760 Some of my colleagues are resting serene, saying, well, the vote will be a secret ballot.
00:28:52.340 So I won't be held accountable for how I vote.
00:28:55.500 Well, I'll tell you what.
00:28:57.080 I'm going to tell people how I vote.
00:28:59.060 I'm going to vote to delay the elections.
00:29:02.260 And everyone who votes to do that will tell the press and tell their constituents how they vote,
00:29:07.320 which means any senator who says, I'm not going to tell you how they vote,
00:29:11.340 they just told you how they voted.
00:29:13.280 They voted not to delay the election.
00:29:15.060 They voted with Mitch.
00:29:16.700 And I think that is an unfortunate vote.
00:29:21.420 I hope that the majority takes the reasonable decision, delays the election,
00:29:27.740 and doesn't just do it, not just to give Herschel Walker and whoever the senator is from Alaska the opportunity to participate,
00:29:34.220 but in order to have a month-long debate about, as a conference, how do we want to operate?
00:29:41.900 Do we want to be a one-person dictatorship?
00:29:46.080 Or do we want members of the conference to actually have input in, okay, this issue matters enough to fight, let's fight together?
00:29:54.460 I don't know how that will play out, but we will find out later today.
00:29:58.220 Lastly, on this issue, for people that are listening that do still want to get in the fight,
00:30:02.540 how important it is for them to call their senators.
00:30:05.080 Is that going to make an impact?
00:30:06.700 Can it still make an impact to call your senator right now and say,
00:30:10.360 I want you to delay this leadership vote until after the runoff in Georgia?
00:30:16.820 Well, I'll tell you the window, we're meeting to vote at 9.30 Wednesday morning.
00:30:24.300 So if you're listening to this after 9.30 on Wednesday morning, East Coast time,
00:30:28.940 and most people will be listening to this after 9.30 Wednesday morning,
00:30:33.300 it's probably too late to call your senators at that point,
00:30:36.400 because we're going to be physically in the room casting the votes.
00:30:41.560 I will say this has been an important fight to have,
00:30:44.440 and I will tell you in the middle of it, so leadership spent a lot of time
00:30:49.320 trying to blame, number one, Donald Trump,
00:30:51.860 but number two, trying to really stick it to Rick Scott,
00:30:55.080 who was the head of the NRSC, the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
00:30:59.360 And I called out leadership.
00:31:01.260 I said, listen, it is staff for the Republican leader
00:31:04.560 who is planting article after article in the press, slamming Rick Scott,
00:31:11.320 because they want to blame Rick Scott and say it's all Rick Scott's fault,
00:31:13.780 and not Mitch McConnell's.
00:31:17.500 And I said, for one thing, why is the Republican leader
00:31:20.740 spending more time attacking Republicans in the conference than Democrats?
00:31:25.080 Like, that is not kosher.
00:31:27.860 That is not playing fair to plant nasty stories,
00:31:32.900 slamming the people that you allegedly represent and are working for.
00:31:38.160 But I think that helped prod Rick.
00:31:45.120 So at the lunch, he stood up and said, okay, I'm going to run.
00:31:49.140 And so Rick has announced that he intends to run for majority leader today.
00:31:54.180 So starting at 930 this morning,
00:31:57.000 I assume Mitch is going to give some form of a speech
00:32:00.580 saying why Republicans should vote for him.
00:32:03.400 And then Rick Scott, Rick is promising to run a more collaborative leadership,
00:32:08.840 to actually listen to members,
00:32:11.240 to take the views of the conference
00:32:13.880 and follow the views of the conference
00:32:17.320 rather than just dropping multi-thousand-page spending bills
00:32:20.800 on the conference an hour ahead of time
00:32:24.160 and giving it as a take it or leave it.
00:32:26.300 I don't know how that outcome will resolve.
00:32:29.060 I think the odds are high.
00:32:31.440 Mitch McConnell gets re-elected.
00:32:32.840 Why?
00:32:33.500 Because he's the biggest donor to almost every single member in the conference.
00:32:37.960 But it's an exercise of money and brute power.
00:32:41.580 And I do think this election is significant
00:32:44.100 because I'll tell you, every member of the Republican conference,
00:32:47.740 when he or she goes home to their home states,
00:32:51.680 is going to be asked by the voters,
00:32:54.020 who did you vote for?
00:32:56.020 And, look, it's no secret,
00:33:01.260 I'm not going to vote to re-elect Mitch McConnell
00:33:04.300 because I think the current model hasn't worked.
00:33:09.020 Yeah, it's broken,
00:33:10.360 and the American people, I think, obviously are with you
00:33:12.760 with an approval rating of 7% among Republicans.
00:33:15.900 That's where Mitch McConnell is right now.
00:33:18.300 And, Ben, one important thing to keep in mind,
00:33:21.680 the way I have laid out this case among the conference,
00:33:26.560 I haven't been personal, I haven't been nasty,
00:33:28.900 I haven't been attacking Mitch McConnell personally.
00:33:31.840 What I've been saying is the American people have elected us
00:33:36.080 expecting us to stand and fight, 0.56
00:33:38.180 expecting us to actually give a damn 0.55
00:33:41.140 about what we told the voters we would give a damn about
00:33:43.560 and lead smart, strategic fights.
00:33:46.840 And my complaint is we haven't been doing that.
00:33:50.000 My complaint is about the substance of the leadership.
00:33:53.020 It's not a personal attack.
00:33:54.680 It's that we need to behave differently
00:33:56.980 if we're going to win these fights.
00:33:58.660 Let me tell you something amazing, Ben.
00:34:01.180 The Democrats' leadership election
00:34:03.180 is the second week of December.
00:34:05.760 So they've delayed their own leadership election
00:34:08.520 until after the Georgia runoffs.
00:34:10.460 How in the hell is it the case
00:34:12.480 that the Republican leadership 0.98
00:34:15.420 respects the voters less than Chuck friggin' Schumer? 0.88
00:34:19.500 Yeah, it's incredible. 0.83
00:34:20.740 That makes no sense.
00:34:21.880 Well, it goes back to the fix that's in,
00:34:23.760 and you could hear it in McConnell's voice saying,
00:34:25.760 I have the votes, I have the votes,
00:34:27.960 whether it's now or later, I have the votes.
00:34:32.180 Senator, it's really fun to get the behind-the-scenes look here
00:34:35.880 at what actually happens when it comes to McConnell,
00:34:39.600 and this is why I love doing this podcast with you.
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