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Speaker 2: As we cross into Saturday, the government set the shutdown
Speaker 2: unless something amazing happens here, following a weekend in which
Speaker 2: we saw more job boning, more commentary on Sunday morning television,
Speaker 2: but no progress really in negotiations around a funding bill.
Speaker 2: Everybody went home last Thursday and they're not going to
Speaker 2: be back till tonight tomorrow, when things get back on track.
Speaker 2: Interesting bit of polling coming out of Goldman Sacks a
Speaker 2: survey from the Investment Bank. Small businesses worried about a shutdown.
Speaker 2: Ninety one percent tell Goldman it's important to avoid a shutdown.
Speaker 2: Seventy percent say their business would be negatively impacted. Ninety
Speaker 2: three percent believe their revenue would take a hit, even
Speaker 2: as lawmakers say, don't fear the shutdown. At least some
Speaker 2: of them some troublemakers at least, according to Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 2: in his Republican Conference. We're going to get to that
Speaker 2: as well. But let's stick with the polling data and
Speaker 2: a perplexed Washington over the weekend based on the latest
Speaker 2: we heard about here on not only the Republican primary trail,
Speaker 2: but more importantly, a potential general election matchup. New York
Speaker 2: Times crunches them together into the headline. Polls show low
Speaker 2: approval writings for Biden and Trump coasting in primary. That
Speaker 2: would be fair, mister Biden faring better than mister Trump
Speaker 2: when it comes to personal favorability. In this poll, thirty
Speaker 2: nine percent say they have very positive or somewhat positive
Speaker 2: opinion of him. Thirty five percent the same of Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: But it's that hypothetical matchup that freaked everybody out. In
Speaker 2: the Washington Post ABC News poll, a ten point blowout
Speaker 2: for Donald Trump over Joe Biden. An outlier say some
Speaker 2: certainly Larry Sabadeow, I don't know if you saw his
Speaker 2: take on this. We're going to get into all of
Speaker 2: it with Eli Yoakley in just a moment. I have
Speaker 2: to pull up the Sabaeoa cut though, because it's quite
Speaker 2: remarkable from of course, the University of Virginia. Larry Sabadoah
Speaker 2: tweets ignore the Washington Post ABC poll it's a ridiculous outlier.
Speaker 2: My question, how could you even publish a poll so
Speaker 2: absurd on its face will be a lingering embarrassment for you.
Speaker 2: How do you really feel? Separately? NBC News out with
Speaker 2: a poll shows President at fifty six approval, the highest
Speaker 2: in this poll, but again, fifty six percent of voters
Speaker 2: disapprove of his performance in the other We're going to
Speaker 2: try to make sense of this what people actually think
Speaker 2: of a shutdown and the impeachment proceedings they're about to
Speaker 2: begin this week in the US House right now with
Speaker 2: Eli Yoakley, politics analyst at Morning Consult. Eli, it's great
Speaker 2: to have you back on Bloomberg Radio and here on
Speaker 2: YouTube our conversation. Thanks for turning your camera on. I
Speaker 2: hope everyone joins us on YouTube when they get a chance.
Speaker 2: What your thought about this before we move on to
Speaker 2: your own numbs, This idea of an outlier, This is
Speaker 2: part of the business that you're in when you're polling
Speaker 2: the American public. But do you think twice about publishing
Speaker 2: something that just appears to be from another solar system?
Speaker 3: You know, I think a lot of people like the
Speaker 3: transparency aspect of putting out numbers. If you get them.
Speaker 3: I think we've heard of other polsters doing this. I mean,
Speaker 3: when you read the Washington Post piece on this, they
Speaker 3: were pretty clear about the outlier nature of this survey.
Speaker 3: I mean, most of the polling we've seen about this contest,
Speaker 3: this hypothetical matchup between Donald Trump and Joe Biden has
Speaker 3: been pretty close. Sometimes one of them has a two
Speaker 3: or three point lead, usually within the margin of arabic
Speaker 3: you know, here, Morning Constant, We've been tracking this every
Speaker 3: day since early December, and the numbers just really haven't
Speaker 3: shifted much. It's been a tight contest. A lot of
Speaker 3: voters aren't tuned into this yet, and so you know,
Speaker 3: I think whenever we get a September a year out
Speaker 3: survey like this as an outlier, it might not be
Speaker 3: time yet to light your hair on fire. Yeah, if
Speaker 3: you're a different right.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of hair on fire though already.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if you can just explain to our
Speaker 2: viewers and listeners here how you get an outlier. This
Speaker 2: has been a pretty reliable pull, it's considered high quality,
Speaker 2: a good sample. But sometimes people tell you things I've
Speaker 2: heard about projecting, for instance, or maybe the order of questioning.
Speaker 2: Do you buy into any of that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean sometimes it's just you get a weird sample,
Speaker 3: a weird set of voters that might look on paper
Speaker 3: like the people you're supposed to be talking about. But
Speaker 3: art you know that in survey research science they talk
Speaker 3: about confidence intervals. A lot of time there's a ninety
Speaker 3: five percent confidence interval that you could repeat this over
Speaker 3: and over again, but every once in a while there's
Speaker 3: that five chance that the numbers are off.
Speaker 2: About that. Well, let's talk about what you're learning. That's
Speaker 2: why you're here, Eli, and your thoughts about this precarious
Speaker 2: week that we are just now beginning the idea of
Speaker 2: an impeachment inquiry. I know that you've run numbers on this,
Speaker 2: and we're going to see the first hearing in the
Speaker 2: US House open this week with the Oversight Committee. The chair,
Speaker 2: Jim Comer says, it's going to be more of a
Speaker 2: refresher to bring everybody speaking of baseline back up to
Speaker 2: where we are. What do Americans think of this exercise?
Speaker 3: You know, right now, the impeachment enquiry is pretty popular.
Speaker 3: About half of voters supported, forty two percent don't support it.
Speaker 3: A good number of Republicans Democrats think it's okay to
Speaker 3: open this investigation. I think some of that might be,
Speaker 3: you know, just do it to clear the air. But
Speaker 3: there is some dissatisfaction among the President's base with him generally.
Speaker 3: We've seen this in even some of our primary tracking,
Speaker 3: about two and ten Democrats would support the different candidates
Speaker 3: in the race. You know, the Democratic support for this
Speaker 3: is much higher than the Republican support was for Trump's
Speaker 3: impeachment back in twenty nineteen. You know, people do see
Speaker 3: political motivation from Congress shocking, right, but it's a little
Speaker 3: bit less than the kinds of the share is He's
Speaker 3: is saying when it comes to Trump investigations.
Speaker 2: Forty eight percent all voters, forty seven percent independence. That
Speaker 2: tracks pretty closely for what it's worth here. I wonder
Speaker 2: how these numbers might move once we get into the
Speaker 2: process eli to people care about whether there's hard evidence
Speaker 2: in this case, It's possible.
Speaker 3: I mean, sometimes these we saw during the Trump impeachment investigation.
Speaker 3: These numbers move every once in a while. But look,
Speaker 3: the views on Joe Biden are pretty solid at this point.
Speaker 3: They're not great, and nothing has really made them worse,
Speaker 3: and nothing's really made them better, and so I think
Speaker 3: that Republicans are going to see a chance to do this. Clearly,
Speaker 3: this is something that excites their base. But you know
Speaker 3: a lot of folks just aren't paying attention to what's
Speaker 3: happening on Capitol Hill right now. You know, we're less
Speaker 3: than a week from our government shutdown. In one in
Speaker 3: five voters say they've heard a lot about this. If
Speaker 3: folks aren't as a tune of this as people in
Speaker 3: Washington and our.
Speaker 2: Well, tell me more about that, because we've got lawmakers
Speaker 2: in some cases saying that, you know, a shut down
Speaker 2: is a good thing. People are getting used to this,
Speaker 2: they think it's part of the legislative process. In many cases,
Speaker 2: we're obsessed with blame game here in Washington. What have
Speaker 2: people outside the Beltway think?
Speaker 3: Well, I think we're much released pulling on this tomorrow,
Speaker 3: but the electric's pretty divided on who to blame for this.
Speaker 3: But they're just not paying attention. I mean, this is
Speaker 3: a major major issue for the economy. As you mentioned,
Speaker 3: a lot of business folks are very concerned about this,
Speaker 3: but every day people just aren't really tuned in. I
Speaker 3: think that goes that's helping the GOP obviously just given
Speaker 3: the dysfunction that is happening in Washington, you know, out
Speaker 3: in the country. Since twenty twenty, the share of voters
Speaker 3: who say the GOP is competent to government has increased.
Speaker 3: It's almost tied with Democrats right now. We got this survey,
Speaker 3: you know, last week as this shutdown debate was you know,
Speaker 3: taking your stage. I think that is a key piece
Speaker 3: of evidence that folks aren't attune to this despite their
Speaker 3: prioritization and a lot of surveys of you know, reducing
Speaker 3: the federal deficit.
Speaker 2: Spending time with Eli Yoakley at Morning Consult here on
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Sound On, I'm Joe Matthew in Washington. I do
Speaker 2: want to move to the campaign trail for a moment
Speaker 2: with you. I see your latest numbers from Morning Consult
Speaker 2: pro Donald Trump fifty nine. Ronda Santis is still in
Speaker 2: second place in this poll, but he's down to thirteen
Speaker 2: percent now, Ramaswami ten and Nikki Haley six. Mike Pence
Speaker 2: rounds things out at five percent. Nobody else would make
Speaker 2: the debate stage from here based on this pole, Eli,
Speaker 2: is that the way we should be viewing this debate
Speaker 2: this week. They're out in Seeming Valley. This is going
Speaker 2: to be the biggest collection of candidates we see from
Speaker 2: here on out.
Speaker 3: I think that's probably right. We're not seeing anybody. It's
Speaker 3: that three percent threshold that the RNC is set for
Speaker 3: this debate. So I think that stage is pretty well set.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: The challenge here for the campaign is what is the
Speaker 3: point of this? I mean, Donald Trump is not on stage.
Speaker 3: He's backed by almost six to ten Republican primary voters.
Speaker 3: Without him there, there's just not a lot of interests
Speaker 3: among the Republican electorate. We saw Nikki Haley get a
Speaker 3: bit of a boost after the first debate that has
Speaker 3: sustained a bit. I think expectations are higher for her
Speaker 3: at this point, but to what end. I mean, you're
Speaker 3: playing over a few points here and there at this
Speaker 3: point when it comes to the folks on stage, Donald
Speaker 3: Trump's absence has definitely taken away a lot of attention
Speaker 3: from some of the folks challenging him for the nomination.
Speaker 2: So this is pretty rude of him not to attend
Speaker 2: these debates. We've only had one of them and we're
Speaker 2: already calling this a good idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, maybe I'll eat my words on Thursday morning,
Speaker 3: when something very dramatic and interesting and a campaign shuddering
Speaker 3: happened on Wednesday night. Possibly, But you know, I think
Speaker 3: his play to go out to Detroit stand with some
Speaker 3: working class voters who are a big part of his coalition.
Speaker 3: Maybe not the rest of the Republican candidate's coalitions, but
Speaker 3: definitely is I think is a shrewd move. It's put
Speaker 3: Joe Biden sort of on the defense when it comes
Speaker 3: to his handling of union issues and this core group
Speaker 3: of voters the Democratic Party has been losing in recent years. Yeah, Trump,
Speaker 3: if you had sixty percent, would you go up on
Speaker 3: stage and let yourself get attacked by all these people?
Speaker 3: I mean, it makes sense, and I think he learned
Speaker 3: from the last one that it didn't hurt him.
Speaker 2: He sure did learn that, and he's, I guess, holding
Speaker 2: by his word that he's not going to attend any
Speaker 2: of them, which would be quite remarkable until the general that's,
Speaker 2: by the way, when some people think Joe Biden will
Speaker 2: refuse to go to the debate based on what we
Speaker 2: already saw here, based on his legal challenges. Anyway, Eli,
Speaker 2: it's good to have you. Thank you for joining Eli Jokley,
Speaker 2: political analyst at morning Consults. Always a great conversation as
Speaker 2: we assemble our political panel. Genie Shanzano is with us
Speaker 2: here on a Monday Bloomberg Politics contributor, Democratic analyst Gooin
Speaker 2: today by Lester Munson, Republican strategist and co head of
Speaker 2: the international practice at BGR Government Affairs. Great to have
Speaker 2: you both with us here. Genie, I think that we've
Speaker 2: established that number one. This debate will be I guess, entertaining,
Speaker 2: if not informative this week, but will not be moving
Speaker 2: the needle for a lot of voters because Donald Trump
Speaker 2: is not there. This is a shrewd move on his part.
Speaker 5: In your view, it is, you know, when you are
Speaker 5: leading by this much in the Republican polls, he is
Speaker 5: little incentive to go there.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: The idea with debates is if you're leading, the most
Speaker 5: you can do is harm yourself. So it wouldn't make
Speaker 5: sense for him to attend. I still think it's an
Speaker 5: important debate because clearly we want to see who is
Speaker 5: going to be that number two. Should Donald Trump's numbers
Speaker 5: not fold nationally the way they seem to be, but
Speaker 5: particularly as we look in the poles where his margin
Speaker 5: is much less significant than the national polls suggest. So
Speaker 5: for those reasons, I think the fight for number two
Speaker 5: is critical and the debate, as you mentioned, Joe, it's
Speaker 5: going to be entertaining either way. So I'm excited for
Speaker 5: Wednesday night.
Speaker 2: This is going to be a wild week, Jennie. Before
Speaker 2: I bring in Lester and I want to give him
Speaker 2: a time on this. Do you see this Washington Post
Speaker 2: ABC News poll as an outlier? Is it junk as
Speaker 2: some suggest, specifically the hypothetical matchup that shows Trump ten
Speaker 2: points over Biden.
Speaker 5: Yeah. You know, it's troubling that they've had two polls
Speaker 5: that they themselves describe as an outlier, and I wish
Speaker 5: they would give a little more context to that. So
Speaker 5: for that reason, I do think we want to put
Speaker 5: an asterisk around it. But I give the Post an
Speaker 5: ABC credit because they have been doing that. They drew
Speaker 5: attention to this. They put out the numbers and they
Speaker 5: said this may not be accurate. And as Eli was
Speaker 5: just talking about, the confidence level is critical. You mentioned
Speaker 5: context effects, right, So many things make polls difficult to
Speaker 5: talk about in a thirty second news piece, and that's
Speaker 5: where we all have to be careful about overstating any
Speaker 5: lead either direction.
Speaker 2: Lester, We'll have more time for this, but are you
Speaker 2: going to believe me or your Lion poll or what
Speaker 2: do you make of this calling your own survey and outlier.
Speaker 7: Well, it is kind of an outlier. I mean, the
Speaker 7: average of all these polls shows a much more evenly
Speaker 7: divided race. So I think it's it's fine to call
Speaker 7: it an outlier. That doesn't mean it's wrong, and it
Speaker 7: doesn't mean it's an indicator of some changes we're seeing.
Speaker 7: So I think I think it's still a valuable poll
Speaker 7: and we should be paying attention to it.
Speaker 2: Well, there you go with clutch analysis from Jeanie and Leicester.
Speaker 2: There were us for the hour. We're going to drill
Speaker 2: down more on the campaign as we had for the debate,
Speaker 2: what people think about a shutdown, what the likely outcomes
Speaker 2: are here, and just what's going to happen in Detroit
Speaker 2: this week. I'm Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg.
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Speaker 2: Well, call it an outlier if you will. But the
Speaker 2: new poll that we're talking about from the Washington Post
Speaker 2: ABC News does have some content some results here that
Speaker 2: are consistent with what we've seen across the board, and
Speaker 2: that has to do as well with age more often
Speaker 2: a problem for Joe Biden. He would, of course, as
Speaker 2: we're reminded by the Post b eighty two. At the
Speaker 2: start of a second term. Overall, seventy four percent of
Speaker 2: adults say Joe Biden would be too well to serve
Speaker 2: another term. Fifty percent say that of Trump. I believe
Speaker 2: they're only what four years removed. Joe Biden knows this,
Speaker 2: as he made clear in his speech last week.
Speaker 8: A lot of people are focused on my age. Well,
Speaker 8: I get it, believe me, I know better than anyone.
Speaker 8: But there's something else I know.
Speaker 9: Well.
Speaker 8: I came to all this nation was flat in.
Speaker 9: US back I knew what to do.
Speaker 8: I vaccinated the nation and rebuilt the economy. When Russia
Speaker 8: inveni Ukraine, I knew what to do. I rebuilt NATO
Speaker 8: and brought our alliance to rally the world and above all,
Speaker 8: when democracy was saying I knew what to do, but
Speaker 8: you know what, I wish I could say the threat
Speaker 8: to our democracy has ended with our victory in twenty twenty.
Speaker 9: But it didn't.
Speaker 8: Our democracy is still at stake. Don't kid yourself.
Speaker 9: So we have more work to do.
Speaker 8: You and I.
Speaker 2: So that's the pitch. Let's reassemble our panel for their
Speaker 2: take on this. Genie Shanzano is with us. Of course,
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Politics contributor and Democratic analyst Lester Munson is here
Speaker 2: as well, Republican strategist at BGR Group. Genie is not
Speaker 2: going to do it for you? Is that the argument
Speaker 2: that Joe Biden just laid out there that will carry
Speaker 2: him to win another election?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I mean I wouldn't say that's it, because the polls
Speaker 5: aren't looking as if he can just rest on his laurels.
Speaker 2: But when it comes to the age issue, though specifically
Speaker 2: on the ash, yeah, you know.
Speaker 5: You know. One thing I have to say is that
Speaker 5: when you listen closely to Donald Trump, and he has
Speaker 5: been asked in the Megan Kelly interview for instance, recently
Speaker 5: about the age issue, he does go there the way
Speaker 5: some other folks do, because he knows, to your point,
Speaker 5: he's about three years younger than Joe Biden, so it's
Speaker 5: not a particularly effective argument for him to make. What
Speaker 5: he does try to say about Joe Biden is that
Speaker 5: he's corrupt, he's crazy, he's incompetent. But you know what
Speaker 5: this is somebody who over the weekend was calling for
Speaker 5: the execution of Mark Milly. This is somebody who is
Speaker 5: saying he's going to take over media outlets and shut
Speaker 5: them down. He's going to shut down the federal government.
Speaker 5: All Senate Dennivercrofts should resign because of Menendez. The list
Speaker 5: of crazy from Donald Trump goes on and on, and
Speaker 5: he puts it out there himself. So I think what
Speaker 5: Biden needs to do is to accept the age issue.
Speaker 5: Nothing he can do about that but focus in very
Speaker 5: very carefully on the craziness and the chaos that is
Speaker 5: Donald Trump. He beat him in twenty twenty. He can
Speaker 5: do it again, but it is going to be a
Speaker 5: tight race either way. But that's what I think he
Speaker 5: has to do, because again, Donald Trump isn't focusing on age,
Speaker 5: He's focusing on other issues that Biden has a clear
Speaker 5: response for.
Speaker 2: We just got a breaking news headline that I need
Speaker 2: to hear from both of you on here. Lester, your
Speaker 2: thoughts on this. We're hearing from Moody's. And this was
Speaker 2: one of the first thoughts I had this morning when
Speaker 2: I woke up, is this is this another downgrade that's
Speaker 2: coming here? If we're walking into week after week with
Speaker 2: no path in sight and a government shutdown widely expected,
Speaker 2: isn't that the point here? Moody says a shutdown would
Speaker 2: be negative for our credit rating? Lester, is that going
Speaker 2: to be the next chapter here? Is that what might
Speaker 2: motivate lawmakers to find a path?
Speaker 7: I don't think so. Moody's has done this. There have
Speaker 7: been threats of these downgrades before, and actual downgrades before.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure it really changes the behavior of politicians.
Speaker 7: I think Republicans see, of course, the chaos and their
Speaker 7: own party, but they also see that voters are about
Speaker 7: as likely to blame Biden and the Democrats for the
Speaker 7: chaos as they are Republicans, And so I think there's
Speaker 7: not there's not There's nothing dispositive here that's going to
Speaker 7: push the fiscal conservative rebels into a into a different spot.
Speaker 7: Short of working out the math on the budget that
Speaker 7: they find acceptable.
Speaker 2: It's just the endless threat of shutdowns the fiscal cliffs though, right, Genie,
Speaker 2: this is what we heard from Fitch when we did
Speaker 2: get a downgrade the first of August. Nothing's changed. You
Speaker 2: could argue it's been actually getting worse. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you consider what's happening now, I wonder if we could
Speaker 2: actually avoid a default if we have the same set
Speaker 2: of circumstances. I'm amazed that we got through that. Based
Speaker 2: on what we're seeing this week with Kevin McCarthy not
Speaker 2: even being able to get bills to the floor for debate.
Speaker 2: Are we set for another downgrade?
Speaker 5: This has been my fear all along, and we've talked
Speaker 5: about this, and I think that Fitch statement when they
Speaker 5: downgraded was so clear and should and I agree with
Speaker 5: Lester it won't, but it should impact the thinking of
Speaker 5: every reasonable person in a position of power to avert
Speaker 5: a shutdown. They made the case that if you can't
Speaker 5: do the basic act of governance, if you can't simply
Speaker 5: keep your house in order and budget in a reasonable way,
Speaker 5: how can we say you are a safe bet.
Speaker 3: You're not.
Speaker 5: And that's the fear here. They should listen to this
Speaker 5: statement by Moody's and I am glad Moodies put this out,
Speaker 5: by the way, because this is the reality we keep
Speaker 5: hearing from Republicans. Oh it doesn't matter, shutdown doesn't matter.
Speaker 5: Nobody will feel it, nobody will even know. Yes we will.
Speaker 5: This is troublesome and chaotic and problematic. It'll impact all
Speaker 5: of our lives. They don't care because they are trying
Speaker 5: to do the bidding of Donald Trump. This, you know,
Speaker 5: Caluk is of conservative chaotic people. But the rest of
Speaker 5: us who are thinking Republicans and Democrats and moderates and
Speaker 5: independents should care because it is bad way to run
Speaker 5: your house wherever you live, including the US government.
Speaker 2: Lester, I'd like to hear from you on what's going
Speaker 2: to happen in the next few days. You're speaker McCarthy.
Speaker 2: This is yesterday, CNN gets him in the hallways or
Speaker 2: on his vest on a Sunday, got to go to
Speaker 2: work again, and a you know, potential shutdown weekend. We
Speaker 2: was talking here is CNN reporter asks me about the
Speaker 2: holdouts periods.
Speaker 10: Well, if you're holding out now, you're trying to get
Speaker 10: a person into a shutdown. You've been stopping the bills
Speaker 10: from ever coming up. I don't know how you stand
Speaker 10: up and then say, well, he hasn't brought him up.
Speaker 10: The only reason they haven't come up. They've been now
Speaker 10: a committee, people have read them. I've been asking for
Speaker 10: amendments since back to July, so we can bring them up.
Speaker 10: But if you can't pass the rule, it's hard to
Speaker 10: bring it up. It's almost that they want to walk
Speaker 10: you into a shutdown then blame me for the shutdown.
Speaker 4: It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 2: Doesn't make a lot of sense still to him, Lester,
Speaker 2: how about you, what do you think is coming?
Speaker 7: Well, let's just get a little grounded here. Being the
Speaker 7: leader of the House Republicans is not an easy job.
Speaker 7: They do not take These folks do not take direction.
Speaker 7: They don't like group activities. They want to go their
Speaker 7: own way. It's like it's hurting cats. Pick your metaphor.
Speaker 7: These folks are hard to get all in the same
Speaker 7: place at the same time. And Kevin McCarthy knows that.
Speaker 7: And there's I think we're gonna look at a shutdown
Speaker 7: here for at least a few days, and there could
Speaker 7: you know, the most likely scenario is probably working out
Speaker 7: some sort of compromise on the spending issues in the
Speaker 7: late of night, and people are tired and exhausted and
Speaker 7: finally cave in and agree on the path forward. I
Speaker 7: will say one thing on behalf of the rebels here,
Speaker 7: and I am slightly sympathetic to them. The fiscal situation
Speaker 7: of the US government is terrible. The budget deficit at
Speaker 7: two trillion dollars is at an absurdly high level. And
Speaker 7: while their solutions may not solve the issue, they are
Speaker 7: motivated by what they see as a crisis in US
Speaker 7: government's federal governments spending, and they're not wrong. There is
Speaker 7: a big problem that needs to be addressed. Their solution
Speaker 7: may not quite get us there, but at least that's
Speaker 7: what they're talking about. It does seem like that sentiment
Speaker 7: is going to get more and more traction going forward
Speaker 7: if we keep if we keep on seeing things like
Speaker 7: a two trillion dollar budget deficit when we're not really
Speaker 7: doing surplus emergency surplus spending to fix the economy because
Speaker 7: of COVID. This is just this is mostly a h
Speaker 7: a regular federal government budget that has a two trillion
Speaker 7: dollars deficit. It's it is alarming.
Speaker 2: It's and that's a that's an important point, Lester. Of course,
Speaker 2: we're not going to get to that until we really
Speaker 2: start dealing with the budget as a whole. We're still
Speaker 2: nibbled around the edges in this conversation. We can and
Speaker 2: figure that out. The question is, though, is the Senate
Speaker 2: gonna come to the rescue this week, or, as some
Speaker 2: would say, will the Senate jam the House? I guess
Speaker 2: it depends which chamber you're in, but that could be
Speaker 2: the case. It is possible they're going to come back tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I'll have five days to work on this and we'll
Speaker 2: pick it up next with Jeannie and Lester here on
Speaker 2: the Fastest Show in Politics. The headline though, on the
Speaker 2: terminal government shut down negative for US credit rating. We
Speaker 2: just heard from Moodies. There you have it.
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Speaker 2: We've got to eat our whaedis here. You see what's
Speaker 2: coming up this week? You get one more night of rest. Yeah,
Speaker 2: everyone piles back in. Of course, lawmakers back in town tomorrow,
Speaker 2: potential shutdown end of the week. But before that, we've
Speaker 2: got a Republican presidential debate. We've got our first impeachment
Speaker 2: hearing in the House. Yep, we've got a guy named
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, another guy named Donald Trump visiting the picket
Speaker 2: line in an historic strike that continues to this moment.
Speaker 11: Yeah, Biden up first tomorrow, joining workers on the picket line,
Speaker 11: which we think is the first president in history to
Speaker 11: do so, quickly followed thereafter by Trump in Detroit simultaneously,
Speaker 11: with that debate happening on Wednesday. Thursday's the impeachment in
Speaker 11: quiry Friday. We're really just going to be racing against
Speaker 11: the clock because the strike the clock strikes midnight on Saturday,
Speaker 11: and then it might be game over for at least
Speaker 11: a little while for the US government.
Speaker 2: Yes, so we're spending the program today setting the baseline
Speaker 2: for everything that you are going to experience. We'll do
Speaker 2: this together, of course, over the course of the weekend.
Speaker 2: We need to start with Jack Fitzpatrick of Bloomberg, govern
Speaker 2: Our Congress whisperer. Here are appropriations expert who I can
Speaker 2: only imagine it has been rather busy even though there's
Speaker 2: not a lot going on in town here. Jack, it's
Speaker 2: great to see you. We're hearing talk about a couple
Speaker 2: of different things here. You've got a continuing resolution that
Speaker 2: may come from the House or the Senate depending on
Speaker 2: how this week goes. I'd love your thought on this,
Speaker 2: whether that in itself in principle gets Kevin McCarthy fired
Speaker 2: or prompts someone to try to fire him. And then
Speaker 2: the idea of getting I believe four appropriations for spending
Speaker 2: bills he wants to get on the floor this week,
Speaker 2: maybe pass them and get a little bit of negotiating leverage. Jack,
Speaker 2: Is any of this going to happen? Or do we
Speaker 2: all go home at the end of the week with
Speaker 2: nothing to show for it.
Speaker 6: I don't think all of that happens.
Speaker 9: For one though.
Speaker 6: On the continuing resolution to just avoid a shut down,
Speaker 6: both chambers are working separately on something, so we may
Speaker 6: see two competing versions. There's still a lot of questions
Speaker 6: about the timing there, how McCarthy gets support for a
Speaker 6: stopgap measure to avoid a shut down from the hardline conservatives.
Speaker 9: And then also last.
Speaker 6: Week, Chuck Schumer made a procedural motion to set the
Speaker 6: stage for the Senate's own continuing resolution, but they'll need
Speaker 6: bipartisan support and realistically they'll probably want and maybe need
Speaker 6: unanimous consent to bring something forward in time for it
Speaker 6: to be relevant. So there are some competing priorities there.
Speaker 6: And then you mentioned the four government funding bills that
Speaker 6: the House is trying to bring up. They got or
Speaker 6: at least it looks like they'll probably have support for
Speaker 6: the rule for all of them, But the idea of
Speaker 6: getting four done within one week with as many amendments,
Speaker 6: those hundreds of amendments that they approved, is not realistic.
Speaker 6: So I think they're giving themselves a number of options
Speaker 6: and they'll figure out which ones they can actually move
Speaker 6: forward on floor votes.
Speaker 11: Well, considering how hard it was to get the rule
Speaker 11: passed on the Defense bill, or how hard it has
Speaker 11: continually proven to be remains an issue there. Of course,
Speaker 11: is Ukraine funding and Jack, as you talk about unanimous
Speaker 11: can being needed in the Senate. If there's anything in
Speaker 11: regard to Ukraine, isn't Ran Paul for example, going to
Speaker 11: hold things up?
Speaker 6: That is a very good question.
Speaker 9: On Ukraine.
Speaker 6: We haven't heard individual demands yet on pulling out Ukraine
Speaker 6: aid from a Senate stopgap measure. There's a really big
Speaker 6: sort of looming question about what exactly Conservatives want and need.
Speaker 6: In terms of Ukraine. For example, there was discussion about
Speaker 6: pulling the usual Ukraine aid out of the government funding
Speaker 6: bills that the House is bringing up and then allowing
Speaker 6: a standalone vote on that. Leadership kind of changed their
Speaker 6: minds and said we'll leave it in there, but we'll
Speaker 6: give you a standalone vote on pulling it out. And
Speaker 6: just after that Marjorie Taylor Green said that wasn't enough.
Speaker 6: It's a very unclear picture in terms of what machinations
Speaker 6: have to happen to satisfy the hardline conservatives. But there
Speaker 6: have been a lot more demands in the House than
Speaker 6: the Senate so far on that.
Speaker 2: I hope you're sleeping okay at night, Jack, I mean
Speaker 2: we must wake up and have to like defrag your.
Speaker 6: Brain every day with all of this, I won't feel
Speaker 6: over the next week.
Speaker 1: Government.
Speaker 2: I understand. Thanks for the time, sir. As always, he
Speaker 2: does this for a living appropriations specifically, so Kayley, this
Speaker 2: is the perfect opportunity to talk with ck mulveney. You
Speaker 2: now imagine a world in which you've run omb, you
Speaker 2: co founded the Freedom Caucus, and you helped to run
Speaker 2: the White House as chief of staff. All the touchstones
Speaker 2: involved here, and of course that would be McK mulvaney.
Speaker 4: There's never a bad time to talk to me. There's
Speaker 4: a bad time to talk to you and Kayley, but
Speaker 4: maybe this week.
Speaker 2: That out. We're always looking. That's why we do it
Speaker 2: every week at this time. By god, I don't think
Speaker 2: that's weekly around here.
Speaker 4: Like this, but anything else going on to Washington, there's.
Speaker 2: A just well I could throw a debate at you,
Speaker 2: or a strike or a couple of other things.
Speaker 4: What do you wanna know about the shutdown?
Speaker 2: Well, Moody's is upset about it. They say this reflects
Speaker 2: poorly on our credit. And of course remember Fitch said
Speaker 2: it's times like these that you know, you guys have
Speaker 2: no credibility. I guess, so we're going to get a
Speaker 2: downgrade along with a shutdown.
Speaker 4: You know, listen that let me nice folks over there,
Speaker 4: no question about I'm sure they do a really really
Speaker 4: nice job. Of course I remember about the financial crisis.
Speaker 4: Maybe they know the things they should have been paying
Speaker 4: attention too closer. But look, we're going to pay our debt.
Speaker 4: That's what they should care about, right, There's no question. Now,
Speaker 4: I recognize the fact that during the debt sealing discussion,
Speaker 4: this was that was a legitimate question. You know, are
Speaker 4: we going to be able to borrow debt or what
Speaker 4: are we able to finance the debt, et cetera. That's
Speaker 4: not even on the table. Only about fifteen percent of
Speaker 4: the government on a dollar basis, okay, term is measured
Speaker 4: by money. Only about fifteen percent shuts down during a
Speaker 4: lapse in appropriation. That's the legal term. Shutdown is a
Speaker 4: made up term by the media. The term is lapse
Speaker 4: in appropriation. And most of the government trundles on, including
Speaker 4: Social Security, Medicare, at, Medicaid payments, on the debt, those
Speaker 4: types of things. So I get Moody's, I get S
Speaker 4: and P sort of weighing in. To me, that's sort
Speaker 4: of sticking the toes in the political waters, which is
Speaker 4: not really where I like to see them operating.
Speaker 11: But it is politics that they are referring to in
Speaker 11: the Moody statement. They say that it's about intensifying political
Speaker 11: polarization that continues to put US fiscal policy making, put
Speaker 11: on US fiscal policy making during a period of declining
Speaker 11: fiscal strength.
Speaker 4: And I get that declining fiscal strength worries me.
Speaker 2: It really doesn't.
Speaker 4: If they were to come out and say, look, we're
Speaker 4: thirty three trillion dollars in debt. That's why we're looking
Speaker 4: at a downgrade. I get that. The fact that we're
Speaker 4: not doing policy. What policy do they care about other
Speaker 4: than us paying our debt? Should they care about Ukraine policy,
Speaker 4: Should they care about border policy, Should they care about
Speaker 4: any policy? Does that go to the financial wherewith all
Speaker 4: of the nation. I don't know. Actually I do know,
Speaker 4: and the answer is no, it doesn't. But I'm being
Speaker 4: nice to them.
Speaker 2: It was interesting to read the client note from Libby
Speaker 2: Cantrill at Pemical this morning, who was making the distinction
Speaker 2: between a partial shutdown and a full shutdown. In this case,
Speaker 2: Your point is, or has been, though, that decisions can
Speaker 2: be made along the way that might might make those
Speaker 2: a little bit gray area. How do you see that.
Speaker 4: Partial shutdown full shutdown? There is no such thing as
Speaker 4: a full government shutdown. You might have had it if
Speaker 4: we had breached the debt selling. I don't know. It's
Speaker 4: one of the things you and I talked about at
Speaker 4: the time, which is that that's sort of an unknown territory.
Speaker 4: But huge pieces of the government will continue on because
Speaker 4: they're off budget, they have under other funding sources. So
Speaker 4: a full government shutdown in this context means anything that
Speaker 4: gets a direct appropriation from Congress. For example, the CFPB
Speaker 4: will continue to operate because they don't get appropriations from Congress. Right,
Speaker 4: So there's a part of the government that doesn't shut down.
Speaker 4: The military is still allowed to do a lot of
Speaker 4: things even during a full government shutdown. Congress can still
Speaker 4: function even during a so called full government shutdown. So
Speaker 4: the full partial depends on really the significance there is,
Speaker 4: whether or not it's individual. In twenty eighteen nineteen, for example,
Speaker 4: we had passed the Defense Appropriation Bill, okay, so that
Speaker 4: part of the government didn't shut down. That's a partial situation.
Speaker 4: When other folks who did not have other parts of
Speaker 4: the government that did not have their appropriations bill passed,
Speaker 4: they shut down, that's a partial government shutdown. But again,
Speaker 4: when people back home think something shuts down, it ceases
Speaker 4: to operate, and that's not the way it works. But
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, you asked me a different question, which was, yeah,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of latitude. And my favorite example is
Speaker 4: in the two thousand and I think it was thirteen
Speaker 4: during the Obama administration. I was in Congress. The Obama
Speaker 4: administration chose they have the latitude to do this, to
Speaker 4: close the national monuments, and in fact, they put signs
Speaker 4: around them saying closed because of.
Speaker 2: The shutfront page as it was.
Speaker 4: By the way, if you go back and look at
Speaker 4: the signs and do this, and I've done this, it's
Speaker 4: funny because it actually looks like a Trump tweets. Every
Speaker 4: third word is all caps. It's just bizarre. During twenty
Speaker 4: eighteen nineteen, when we ran the shutdown, and by we,
Speaker 4: I mean the Office Management Budget that I was running
Speaker 4: for President Trump at the time, we chose to leave
Speaker 4: those monuments open, and we have the ability to do that,
Speaker 4: We had a latitude to do that. So what a
Speaker 4: shutdown looks like can depend in large part on who's
Speaker 4: running the Office of Management Budget and the executive branch
Speaker 4: at that time. I expect with a Biden team running
Speaker 4: OMB that it's going to look really, really nasty once
Speaker 4: it happens.
Speaker 11: Okay, so that's assuming that it does happen, which is
Speaker 11: looking likely.
Speaker 2: By the day, we're going to be more constructive than
Speaker 2: I am.
Speaker 11: Aren't you how realistically it might be avoided? Do you
Speaker 11: think there is any path to that? Specifically for Speaker McCarthy,
Speaker 11: what's his way out of this?
Speaker 4: Well, it's a way out that he doesn't want, and
Speaker 4: it's a way out that I think the people who
Speaker 4: have been here long enough know, which is that the
Speaker 4: way out is for the Senate to take a bill
Speaker 4: are talking now, I think about taking the FAA reuff
Speaker 4: and turning that into a cr which they have the
Speaker 4: right to do, and then they send that down to
Speaker 4: the House. Okay, so that's a bipartisan bill coming out
Speaker 4: written by Democrats, supported by some Republicans out of the Senate,
Speaker 4: going to the House, and then all the Democrats and
Speaker 4: a handful of Republicans sign a discharge petition bypassing McCarthy's
Speaker 4: control of the House, and they vote on it and
Speaker 4: it passes. That is one real possibility, and that's why
Speaker 4: I think McCarthy and even members of the Freedom Caucus
Speaker 4: Chip Roy's pulling He doesn't have any hair, so he's
Speaker 4: not pulling it out. But they're frustrated because they they
Speaker 4: they've seen this, this this act before. They know how
Speaker 4: it ends. If this is what happens, if the House
Speaker 4: can't pass anything, they'll end up in terms of the
Speaker 4: begetting jammed by the Senate. The Senate will send them
Speaker 4: something and it can bypass the ordinary course of business
Speaker 4: by going to this just discharge petition and can become
Speaker 4: law with a House ever not really ever having a
Speaker 4: chance to put its its its seal of approval or
Speaker 4: stamp on the on the legislation.
Speaker 2: Then the narrative says the next day or the next moment,
Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy gets fired.
Speaker 4: But why I mean in that circumstance, I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: very sympathetic to Kevin on this. I'm not sympathetic on
Speaker 4: the spending. Okay, I'm a big fan of the of
Speaker 4: the deal that the HFC cut with the Main Street
Speaker 4: Caucus that would reduce spending, the eight percent reduction. That
Speaker 4: that's that's the Freedom Caucus doing what it was set
Speaker 4: up to do, try and figure out a way to
Speaker 4: use leverage to move things to the right. Okay, And
Speaker 4: I like that, and then Kevin actually supports that. But
Speaker 4: on Kevin, Kevin's major complaint right now is so Matt
Speaker 4: Gates wants to fire me because I can't get anything passed.
Speaker 4: But the reason I can't pass anything is because I'm
Speaker 4: at Gates. I mean, that's I am sympathetic to that,
Speaker 4: because that's just that's that's absurd.
Speaker 11: Well, it's not just Matt Gates, though, there is just
Speaker 11: a handful of these individuals. What would your message be
Speaker 11: to them right now? Those specific members.
Speaker 4: Get out of the Freedom Caucus? Okay, because there's a
Speaker 4: rule in the Freedom Caucus. I wrote the rules for
Speaker 4: the Freedom Caucus when we started, okay, and we had
Speaker 4: some written down and some that weren't written down. And
Speaker 4: the one that wasn't written down was you had to
Speaker 4: be able to vote against a procedural motion a rule okay,
Speaker 4: because that was the most mutinous thing you could you
Speaker 4: could possibly we could think of at the time. Or
Speaker 4: you had to vote for a short term cr because
Speaker 4: that was the most obsequish you could do to leadership. Okay.
Speaker 4: But we would do either of those things if we
Speaker 4: thought we were moving the ball to the right. Freedom
Speaker 4: Caucus has done its job here. Chip Roy has done
Speaker 4: his job as the policy chair. They've worked with the
Speaker 4: moderates and the Party to come up with a good
Speaker 4: compromise that could pass the House if these other folks
Speaker 4: would come along for the ride. But Kevin mcarthy's not
Speaker 4: dealing with a caucus now. He's dealing with a bunch
Speaker 4: of individuals caucuses of one. And the situation he finds
Speaker 4: himself in is Kaylee, you say you won't vote for
Speaker 4: it unless you get X, and Joe you won't vote
Speaker 4: for it unless you get negative X. Well, those two
Speaker 4: things are mutually exclusive, right, And that's where Kevin, that's
Speaker 4: where he finds himself. And when he does manage to
Speaker 4: pick up a voter too. I think he picked up
Speaker 4: a couple of congressmen last week on a rule vote.
Speaker 4: He loses another two because of what he gave to
Speaker 4: the two to try to get them to go along.
Speaker 4: So it's a very difficult situation for him to be in.
Speaker 4: What I would tell them is, look, I get it.
Speaker 4: I understand the debt probably better than they do, right.
Speaker 4: I understand that we worry about it. But doing it
Speaker 4: this way is going to make things worse. My bet
Speaker 4: is and I'll take this bet right now. If you
Speaker 4: guys want this, the spending deal at the end of
Speaker 4: the day that passes out of Washington, d C will
Speaker 4: exceed the cap set by the debt ceiling discussion.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 4: And that's that's right, That's how the town works. One
Speaker 4: you give the Democrats in the Senate the upper hand,
Speaker 4: they will spend above that cap.
Speaker 2: We heard from Donald Trump, your former boss, on this.
Speaker 2: This is our amazingly remaining moment unless you get everything,
Speaker 2: shut it down, he writes in a much longer post
Speaker 2: on social to what extent is he influencing the outcome
Speaker 2: of this?
Speaker 4: You know, I think he's probably got a lot of
Speaker 4: influence over Gates and Marjorie Taylor Green and those kinds
Speaker 4: of although she is you know, they're not agreeing on it,
Speaker 4: and they're not agreeing on it. So listen. The bottom
Speaker 4: line from my perspective on Trump is this is that
Speaker 4: this has no impact at all on his criminal proceedings.
Speaker 4: The Department of Justice will continue to prosecute him. So
Speaker 4: everybody thinks they're doing Donald Trump a favor politically by
Speaker 4: by by voting or by preventing the government from funding itself.
Speaker 4: They don't understand how government works.
Speaker 2: Boy, we covered a lot there that was good. Always.
Speaker 4: I'm a Southern who can talk fast at times.
Speaker 2: Now, well, I love this never pulling a punch either.
Speaker 2: Mick mulvaney, Great to have you back in Washington and
Speaker 2: at the table. I'm Joe Matthew with Kaylee Lyons. Thanks
Speaker 2: for being with us on sound On. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to the Bloomberg Sound On podcast, catch
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Speaker 1: Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 2: With regard to the shutdown, and it's not because of
Speaker 2: lawmakers coming back to town or announcing anything breaking here, Kaylee,
Speaker 2: Moody's has piped up now and there's a question about
Speaker 2: whether Moodies might join Fitch and Bess and p yep
Speaker 2: with a downgrade, telling us that a government shutdown, which
Speaker 2: of course many people expect this week, would reflect negatively
Speaker 2: on America's credit rating. And it's not a shock or
Speaker 2: it's very similar language to the warning that we got
Speaker 2: from Fitch back in August, isn't it.
Speaker 11: Yeah, When Fitch did decide to downgrade after the debt
Speaker 11: sealing deal was all buttoned up. None of us really
Speaker 11: saw it coming. Is that hold on? We're still paying attention.
Speaker 11: And the kind of political discord that you see in
Speaker 11: Washington does affect the fiscal outlook. And that's essentially what
Speaker 11: we're hearing from Moodies today. To quote the release, a
Speaker 11: government shutdown would demonstrate the significant constraints that intensifying political
Speaker 11: polarization continue to put on us fiscal policy making. The
Speaker 11: politics matter to the credit worthiness of the US.
Speaker 2: Well, that's right, and it could infect result in action.
Speaker 2: Who knows. This is a shot across the bow at least. Kayley. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And it's where we begin with Congressman Brian Style delighted
Speaker 2: to say the congressman is back with us. It's been
Speaker 2: a minute. Republican from Wisconsin serves on the House Financial
Speaker 2: Services Committee, Chair of the Administration Committee. Congressman, you're sitting
Speaker 2: there listening to us, and it's good to see you.
Speaker 2: Welcome back. Does this make you not want to come
Speaker 2: back to the capital?
Speaker 9: We ultimately we got to get a deal done. At
Speaker 9: the end of the day.
Speaker 12: When you hear the credit rating agencies asking questions like
Speaker 12: they are, I think it reminds all of us that
Speaker 12: our system is completely broken.
Speaker 9: We're spending way more than we're bringing in.
Speaker 12: And when the credit rating agencies, if they do move
Speaker 12: on this in borrowing costs increase for the federal government,
Speaker 12: that's real money. We have a thirty trillion dollar debt,
Speaker 12: you know, half a percentage point of credit risk or
Speaker 12: fifty basis points. That's one hundred and fifty billion dollars
Speaker 12: a year when fully baked in. So these are real
Speaker 12: dollars we're dealing with. It's why the whole system has
Speaker 12: to be reworked in Washington.
Speaker 11: Okay, Well, as we talk about how much time Washington
Speaker 11: realistically has to rework, Congressman, you're up against a clock
Speaker 11: Saturday at midnight, coming back to DC tomorrow. The Senate
Speaker 11: is as well, where do you put the odds of
Speaker 11: you averting a shut down?
Speaker 12: You in your colleagues, it's the darkest before the dawn,
Speaker 12: and it's not down yet. I'm optimistic that at the
Speaker 12: end of the day we're going to get there. There's
Speaker 12: nothing like a deadline in Washington to be able to
Speaker 12: get a deal done. I feel like sometimes it's a
Speaker 12: bunch of college students working on a term paper waiting
Speaker 12: till the final hour.
Speaker 9: It's no way to run a railroad.
Speaker 12: But that's a little bit of the reality of what
Speaker 12: we're dealing with in Washington. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail
Speaker 12: and we can prevent a shutdown. No one wins in
Speaker 12: the event of a shutdown.
Speaker 2: So imagine a couple college guys come over from a
Speaker 2: different dorm, Congressman, and they've got a paper they've already written.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering just where your head is today on the
Speaker 2: idea of the Senate showing up with a continuing resolution
Speaker 2: that the House might adopt. Does that save the day
Speaker 2: or present more challenges for your body?
Speaker 12: Well, I don't think that's our best case scenario. It's
Speaker 12: why a group of us in the House pushed hard
Speaker 12: last week to move forward to conservative continuing resolution, a
Speaker 12: stopgap measure that would have reduced government spending. Put an
Speaker 12: impetust Tom who has forward on these appropriations bills and
Speaker 12: also work on the core policy of securing the US
Speaker 12: Mexico border. So I'd rather see the House come back
Speaker 12: here tomorrow, move that forward, and let the Senate react.
Speaker 12: I am concerned that the Senate is going to come
Speaker 12: forward with a continuing resolution, a stopgap measure that'll have
Speaker 12: additional funding, and that's a worse position to.
Speaker 11: Be in as we talk about what you could receive
Speaker 11: from Democrats. Obviously Democrats controlled the Senate, but in regard
Speaker 11: to working with Democrats in the House, Congressman, is that
Speaker 11: something that you would supp if Speaker McCarthy did have
Speaker 11: to resort to that.
Speaker 9: Well, hopefully we can't avoid that.
Speaker 12: I'd love to see us move forward with the conservative
Speaker 12: continuing resolution, but again, no one wins in the situation
Speaker 12: where the federal government is shut down, and so coming
Speaker 12: into the final days of funding, I'm still optimistic that
Speaker 12: we're going to reach an agreement to give us a
Speaker 12: stopgap measure to truly move forward next year's appropriations bills. Again,
Speaker 12: it's kind of in that home stretch where deals can
Speaker 12: be struck in Congress. Again, it's not a good way
Speaker 12: to run the operation, but it's better than letting the
Speaker 12: government shut down.
Speaker 2: Are you disappointed in some of your Republican colleagues for
Speaker 2: actually calling for a shutdown? Congressman, I know that not
Speaker 2: all Republicans in the House agree on the next steps here.
Speaker 12: I firmly disagree with my colleagues that don't think a
Speaker 12: shutdown is going to cause real significant problems or more importantly,
Speaker 12: give leverage to the Democrats to allow them to continue
Speaker 12: reckless spending. And so I'm of the firm belief that
Speaker 12: we have to get a stopgap measure in place to
Speaker 12: give time to get our appropriation bills across the line.
Speaker 12: And I disagree with those of my colleagues they're calling
Speaker 12: for a shutdown or saying that it would.
Speaker 9: Ultimately, in the end of the day, be a good
Speaker 9: strategic move.
Speaker 11: So when we're talking about your colleagues, increasingly, Congressmen, we're
Speaker 11: talking about just a handful of individuals that may take
Speaker 11: issue with different components of what the wider spending picture
Speaker 11: looks like, or just take issue with the Speaker himself.
Speaker 11: Do you think that we could potentially be faced with
Speaker 11: a situation in the House of Representatives where Speaker McCarthy
Speaker 11: has to make a choice between continuing to fund the
Speaker 11: government and keeping his job. What's your read on this.
Speaker 12: Well, ultimately the end of the day, I think what
Speaker 12: we're seeing as conservatives unified around the strategy of reducing
Speaker 12: government spending and addressing the unsecured US Mexico border while
Speaker 12: we're having is a big conversation about what those tactics are.
Speaker 12: I don't think the tactic of shutting down the government
Speaker 12: at the end of the day achieves the goal of
Speaker 12: addressing the reckless spending or securing the US Mexico border.
Speaker 12: There's a handful of my colleagues that disagree with that.
Speaker 12: I just think that that moves us in the wrong direction.
Speaker 12: It would ultimately give Levyridge to Democrats in the Senate
Speaker 12: and President Joe Biden. And so I'm going to work
Speaker 12: tirelessly throughout this week until the deadline here on Saturday
Speaker 12: to make sure that we avoid a situation of a shutdown,
Speaker 12: and to do that would kind of core conservative principles
Speaker 12: at play Congress.
Speaker 2: But if somebody put me to sleep halfway through the
Speaker 2: summer and woke me up today, I'd be really confused.
Speaker 2: Because we thought there was a debt sealing deal that
Speaker 2: had been struck between the Speaker and the President that
Speaker 2: would avoid all of the drama that we seem to
Speaker 2: be going through right now. I wonder if you're disappointed
Speaker 2: that that deal didn't hold, and I would ask you
Speaker 2: as well, would that pass today? What a Speaker McCarthy said, no,
Speaker 2: we have a deal. Let's bring it back on the
Speaker 2: floor for a vote.
Speaker 12: Well, a little bit frustratingly, some people view that deal
Speaker 12: that is literally written on paper a little bit differently,
Speaker 12: and so I think that's one aspect here.
Speaker 9: But the devil is always in the detail.
Speaker 12: On these spending bills, it's not only how much you
Speaker 12: are spending, but also what you're spending it on. And
Speaker 12: when we're actually passing the appropriations bills, the bills that
Speaker 12: actually authorize the spending of federal government money, the fight
Speaker 12: is broader than just the top line number. It also
Speaker 12: involves the programs that are underlying our federal government spending.
Speaker 12: And so when we get into the details about border
Speaker 12: security and about some of the core policies that we
Speaker 12: need to make sure we're putting forward to truly unleash
Speaker 12: American energy and grow the US economy, that gets a
Speaker 12: little bit stickier than it does on simply agreeing to
Speaker 12: just the top line number.
Speaker 11: Congressman, what about spending related to policy abroad? There are
Speaker 11: a few specific members, frankly, in both the House and
Speaker 11: the Senate who take particular issue with including Ukraine funding
Speaker 11: in these spending packages. Is that irresponsible?
Speaker 12: Well, I think at the end of the day, any
Speaker 12: bill that's going to get across the line is going
Speaker 12: to require a majority vote in the House and the
Speaker 12: Senate be signed by President Biden. I'd like to see
Speaker 12: us have a standalone legislation on a lot of these
Speaker 12: key items. I don't know if we'll have the opportunity
Speaker 12: to do that in the House or not. People have
Speaker 12: divergent views as it relates for American support of Ukraine,
Speaker 12: but I'd like to see us have standalone votes and
Speaker 12: a much broader conversation about the US security interest in
Speaker 12: the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Speaker 2: There's a quote from Neil Bradley at the Chamber of
Speaker 2: Commerce that Kayley showed me, Congressman, a government shutdown is
Speaker 2: not inevitable. He writes, this is an op ed in
Speaker 2: the USA today. It is a choice, and it is
Speaker 2: among the dumbest decisions Washington can make. Do you agree
Speaker 2: with him?
Speaker 9: Broadly speaking?
Speaker 12: I don't think anything good comes out of a federal
Speaker 12: government shutdown. It causes heartache for a lot of hardworking
Speaker 12: Americans who work for the federal government, whether or not
Speaker 12: that's in the military or border patrol agents, and also
Speaker 12: I think politically at the end of the day often
Speaker 12: results in more spending, and so it's a really reckless
Speaker 12: way to operate and rarely achieves the goal of addressing
Speaker 12: the spending levels in Washington.
Speaker 2: Back in town later today or tomorrow.
Speaker 12: I'll be back to DC late late tonight, maybe early
Speaker 12: morning tomorrow. I'm currently in Wisconsin. It's always good to
Speaker 12: be home talking to rational people before we head back
Speaker 12: to DC.
Speaker 11: Sure after a Packers win as well, that's a good point.
Speaker 2: You got to put that away.
Speaker 12: That was a great comeback, can't You can't complain when
Speaker 12: Jordan Loved delivers a comeback like that in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 9: Hopefully there's more to come for our Green Bay Packers.
Speaker 2: Maybe he can come to Washington with you and help
Speaker 2: us out here. We'll try to be rational when you
Speaker 2: come back to see us. Congressman, thanks for being here
Speaker 2: as always. Congressman Brian's style Republican from Wisconsin. He like
Speaker 2: many getting on an airplane, I think, yep, we'll be
Speaker 2: traffic and nowhere to park against tomorrow.
Speaker 11: I can't wait.
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