Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: It is Verdictra Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
Speaker 2: and history was made. Kevin McCarthy becomes the first House
Speaker 2: Speaker in American history to be voted out of the
Speaker 2: speaker's job. The vote to sixteen to two ten to
Speaker 2: vacate the chair. Eight Republicans voted with the Democrats to
Speaker 2: remove him. Those Republicans Biggs, Bucks, Birchant, Crane, Gates, good Mace,
Speaker 2: and Rosendale Center.
Speaker 1: This is obviously a day of history.
Speaker 2: It's somewhat not shocking to me because there's been a
Speaker 2: lot of this, you know, bickering back and forth since
Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy got the job. We saw how long it
Speaker 2: took him to get the job.
Speaker 3: Your reaction, well, it's obviously a big, big deal.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And I have to say my sentiments today are are conflicted.
Speaker 3: I think I feel like a lot of Republicans, like
Speaker 3: a lot of conservatives across the country. I think some
Speaker 3: of the hyperbolic sentiments on both sides of the spectrum
Speaker 3: are exactly that they're hyperbolic. I think some of the
Speaker 3: folks celebrating and dancing on the graves are too excited
Speaker 3: about this. I think some of the folks mourning and
Speaker 3: saying the republic is ending are too much in despair.
Speaker 3: My reaction is as follows Number one. As I look
Speaker 3: at the state of the country, House, Republicans are about
Speaker 3: the only thing to be encouraged by. I mean, we've
Speaker 3: got a disastrous executive branch led by Joe Biden and
Speaker 3: other zealots on the left who are doing enormous damage
Speaker 3: to this country. We've got a Senate that is a
Speaker 3: train wreck. The Chuck Schumer Democrats are disastrous. And so
Speaker 3: the lone point of hope and optimism in the elected
Speaker 3: spears is the Republican House. And so I have to
Speaker 3: admit I am sad to see the Republican House in
Speaker 3: utter disarray and chaos. That makes me disappointed. When we
Speaker 3: are fighting each other, that means we're not unified and
Speaker 3: fighting the bad guys. We're not unified and fighting the
Speaker 3: people who are destroying this country. At the same time,
Speaker 3: I'm in the place that a lot of people are.
Speaker 3: I don't know what comes next. I don't know. It
Speaker 3: certainly appears as you and I it is just before
Speaker 3: midnight Tuesday night. At this point, I have no idea
Speaker 3: who the next Speaker of the House is going to
Speaker 3: be It appears right now, it's not going to be
Speaker 3: Kevin McCarthy. I don't know if it's someone else. What
Speaker 3: I hope is, whoever the Speaker of the House is
Speaker 3: is going to be a strong conservative leader. And listen,
Speaker 3: my job is to represent thirty million Texans in the Senate.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to stay out of House leadership elections.
Speaker 3: I'm going to trust that to the members of the House.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to put my thumb on any particular
Speaker 3: candidate on one side or the other, but I will say,
Speaker 3: whoever the speaker is, hope we have a speaker that
Speaker 3: is a strong conservative leader. And looking forward, what should
Speaker 3: we be doing for the remaining three months of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three and for next year. I think we ought
Speaker 3: to be fighting for bold conservative principles. We ought to
Speaker 3: be taking on the Democrats. We ought to be on
Speaker 3: the offense. We ought to be on the aggressive. We
Speaker 3: ought to be prosecuting the case that the Biden agenda
Speaker 3: is a train wreck, that it's not working, that it's
Speaker 3: hurting millions of Americans, and that there is a better alternative. Now, Listen,
Speaker 3: I've been arguing for over a year that the House
Speaker 3: Republicans should be more aggressive than they have been. So,
Speaker 3: for example, I believe we should have impeached Alejandro Majorcas.
Speaker 3: I think we should have done so by now. We've
Speaker 3: talked a lot on this podcast about the utter disaster
Speaker 3: that our southern border has been. I think it's a
Speaker 3: mistake that the House has not impeached Mayorcus yet. That
Speaker 3: should be an early and top priority of whoever the
Speaker 3: next Speaker is. I think we should have impeached Merrick Garland.
Speaker 3: I think the absolute lawlessness and politicization of the Department
Speaker 3: of Justice and the FBI merits impeachment. And my hope
Speaker 3: is whoever the next speaker is makes those one and
Speaker 3: two very early on their priority lists. I think those
Speaker 3: are issues that unify Republicans. They unify conservatives, they unify
Speaker 3: a lot of Americans who don't want lawless chaos and
Speaker 3: death and sexual assault and drug overdoses and disaster in
Speaker 3: our southern border. I think they unify people who don't
Speaker 3: want to see law enforcement turned into a political weapon.
Speaker 3: I think being on offense is a winning place to be,
Speaker 3: and beyond that, when it comes to spending, I hope
Speaker 3: that the House is passing appropriations bills that rein in
Speaker 3: the out of control spending from the Democrats that are
Speaker 3: causing rampant inflation that's hurting Americans across the country. I
Speaker 3: think the key to winning used to have bold, optimistic,
Speaker 3: positive conservative leadership, and I believe that good policy is
Speaker 3: good politics. So whoever the next Speaker is, I hope
Speaker 3: that's what we do.
Speaker 2: There's also the politics of picking the next guy, and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people saying, I don't know if
Speaker 2: i'd want this job right now if there's this type
Speaker 2: of fighting. There's been several members that I talked to
Speaker 2: that said there's ideas of picking someone that could be
Speaker 2: a unifier just to say, hey, I'm not gonna run again,
Speaker 2: but as a unifier to finish out the term. Steve
Speaker 2: Scalise's name, for example, has been brought up in that
Speaker 2: capacity of saying, hey, this may be a person that
Speaker 2: could bring us together. This someone that's saying I'm not
Speaker 2: I don't have the intent to be the speaker after this.
Speaker 2: Finishing this term, you guys can pick somebody else afterwards,
Speaker 2: but let's come back together. Is that a strategy that
Speaker 2: Republicans should at least look.
Speaker 3: At look the idea that we should have a speaker
Speaker 3: that's a placeholder. I don't find that very persuasive. We
Speaker 3: have a majority, let's have a leader who actually leads. Now,
Speaker 3: I'm not saying the job is easy. The job is
Speaker 3: unbelievably hard, particularly when you have such a narrow majority.
Speaker 3: You have a four vote majority. That means any five
Speaker 3: Republicans get a wild hair and you could have a
Speaker 3: revolt on your hand. And the problem is you can
Speaker 3: have it from the right, from the left, from the middle.
Speaker 3: You can have it parochially, you can have it geographically,
Speaker 3: you can have it on any damn basis it is.
Speaker 3: I've joked, I'm not sure there are many people I
Speaker 3: dislike enough to wish that they would be Speaker of
Speaker 3: the House.
Speaker 4: It is an insanely difficult job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great way of putting it.
Speaker 2: By the way, it's like you wouldn't wish this on
Speaker 2: your worst enemy in a sense.
Speaker 3: And it's also very different when you're a Republican. So listen,
Speaker 3: Nancy Pelosi was the speaker on an incredibly narrow Democrat majority.
Speaker 3: But Democrats and Republicans are different in many respects. But
Speaker 3: in Congress, one of the biggest respects is Democrats follow orders.
Speaker 3: They are collectivists, they are statists. They are good with authority.
Speaker 3: Whatever the authority says, they cracked the whip, and every
Speaker 3: one of them obeys, and like lemmings, they march off
Speaker 3: the cliff. That's what Democrats do. That's the strength of theirs.
Speaker 3: That's a weakness of theirs. On the Republican side, we're
Speaker 3: a bunch of individualists. In the Senate, We've got forty
Speaker 3: nine Republicans. We got forty nine Republicans. We have fifty
Speaker 3: five different agendas. Like it is incoherent. We're at each
Speaker 3: other's throats. And part of the challenge with the leadership
Speaker 3: battle in the House is it's not clear what the
Speaker 3: demand of the conference is. So look, we had a battle.
Speaker 3: We came inches from a shutdown, and one of the
Speaker 3: challenges was knowing, okay, what is the demand of House
Speaker 3: Republicans to prevent a shutdown to actually fund government? And
Speaker 3: if there was a clearly articulated, explicit demand, I don't
Speaker 3: know what it was. The demands fell roughly into two
Speaker 3: broad buckets. One was some modicum of fiscal restraint. And look,
Speaker 3: you and I believe passionately in that we've seen the
Speaker 3: most wildly irresponsible federal government spending in history in the
Speaker 3: last two and a half years under Democrat control. It's
Speaker 3: driving rampant inflation, it's hurting millions of Americans, and so
Speaker 3: reining in we've seen a forty percent increase in discretionary
Speaker 3: spending in the last three years. COVID was an excuse
Speaker 3: for the socialist to bankrupt this country, and so the
Speaker 3: principle of let's have some reasonable monicum of fiscal restraint,
Speaker 3: that's a good principle. The second broad bucket was doing
Speaker 3: something significant, meaningful to rein in the utter chaos and
Speaker 3: disaster of southern border. Now I agree emphatically with that.
Speaker 3: It's the worst illegal immigration or a nation's history. That's
Speaker 3: a good objective. The problem was, after articulating those two
Speaker 3: broad buckets, what the specific ask is if you can
Speaker 3: articulate it, Ben, you're playing closer attention than I am,
Speaker 3: because I don't know, and it's because you had lots
Speaker 3: of agendas that were all over the place. Now, I
Speaker 3: will say there were some leaders in the House, and
Speaker 3: I'm gonna give a shout out to Chip Roy in particular,
Speaker 3: as you know Chip was my old chief of staff.
Speaker 3: He was my very first chief of staff. He's now
Speaker 3: a congressman from Texas. I think Chip has done an
Speaker 3: excellent job trying to fight for He was fighting for
Speaker 3: Continuing Resolution that was a significant cut and discretionary spending
Speaker 3: that had significant steps to rein in the southern border,
Speaker 3: and unfortunately they couldn't get a majority of Republicans to support.
Speaker 1: It, which is, by the way, disappointed.
Speaker 3: That was maddening, it was insane, It made no sense.
Speaker 3: I was proud of the job Chip did. I think
Speaker 3: we need to have a clear and real vision for
Speaker 3: Republicans and conservatives in the House. Maybe it will come
Speaker 3: out of this. So I'm not as despondent as some
Speaker 3: you see some voices on TV saying burn them all down.
Speaker 3: Everyone who dared to pose McCarthy needs to be, you know, excommunicated,
Speaker 3: and we need to salt their fields. I'm like, easy,
Speaker 3: does it, guys. We don't have a big enough majority
Speaker 3: to be salting anyone's fields. Let's actually focus on what matters,
Speaker 3: which is saving this country. And I hope that's what's next.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it is, but I hope it is.
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Speaker 2: just perspective question. There does seem to be a frustration.
Speaker 2: And I'm in New York today and I'm up here,
Speaker 2: and I'm.
Speaker 3: You know, I always knew you were a secret lefty.
Speaker 2: Look that's right, that's right, Yeah, hanging in Manhattan, but
Speaker 2: up here doing TV.
Speaker 4: All right, all right, Ben, did you mug anyone today?
Speaker 1: No? I did not, and I made sure that I had.
Speaker 1: I stayed away from all the crazies.
Speaker 2: I walked from Fox News back to my hotel, back
Speaker 2: to Fox News, back to my hotel.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not.
Speaker 4: When in Rome? When in Rome? Apparently that's what you
Speaker 4: got to do in New York.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just part of like the life here, right,
Speaker 2: you just randomly fucked people.
Speaker 3: But but you did at least spray some graffiti on
Speaker 3: the subway. Well, I mean, I mean you got to
Speaker 3: do a little bit.
Speaker 2: I did, verdict, right, just so people would know where
Speaker 2: to download it. That's all another big deal. It's just
Speaker 2: an ad sign. But but I was here and there
Speaker 2: was people that were asking and it was the same
Speaker 2: conversation within Fox. And it's interesting when there's big news
Speaker 2: days to kind of see how people react to it.
Speaker 2: And we were in the green room, we were chatting
Speaker 2: about this, and there's several other people and I'll keep
Speaker 2: them remaining nameless, but there was a there was a
Speaker 2: consensus of why is it the Democrats do such a
Speaker 2: great job of arguing and fighting and yelling on the
Speaker 2: House side behind closed doors, and they come out more united,
Speaker 2: and then it seems like Republicans are having a lot
Speaker 2: of out of fighting outside of the of the of
Speaker 2: the closed door meetings and the chambers and on social
Speaker 2: media and on Twitter. I mean, you had an example,
Speaker 2: you had a bring it on tweet from Kevin McCarthy,
Speaker 2: and then you had we did or I did from
Speaker 2: Matt Gates in response like Okay, let's go. You don't
Speaker 2: see that from Democrats, And I ask you from a
Speaker 2: perspective on the Senate side, the Senate seems to work
Speaker 2: in a very different way where there's people that disagree,
Speaker 2: you deal with it. All the time, but it doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to play out the same way that it does
Speaker 2: on the House side, and I think that can actually
Speaker 2: hurt us as conservatives. You and I want your perspective
Speaker 2: because you're there every day.
Speaker 3: Look, there are different times. There's no doubt that the
Speaker 3: House and the Senate are very different bodies. You know,
Speaker 3: there's an old joke from House Republicans, which which is
Speaker 3: that the Democrats are opponents, but the Senate is the enemy.
Speaker 4: There's some truth to that.
Speaker 3: I get that that there is a bicmeeral tension that
Speaker 3: is real. The House is more chaotic, it is less unified,
Speaker 3: it is all over the place. It's four hundred and
Speaker 3: thirty five people and so and often the people have
Speaker 3: not been there very long. You have people from all
Speaker 3: disparate walks of life, and there's an ethos where they're nasty,
Speaker 3: nastier to each other. My sense, and I've never served
Speaker 3: in the House, but my sense is that they literally,
Speaker 3: like in the hallways, we'll say f you to each other.
Speaker 3: In the Senate, that doesn't happen. The Senate is number one.
Speaker 3: It's just an older body. Listen, I'm fifty two years
Speaker 3: old and I'm like a young chickadee in the Senate.
Speaker 3: I've joked, if you ever want to feel young, go
Speaker 3: to the US Senate. The median age is like one hundred.
Speaker 4: And forty two. You'll feel sprite.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's some truth to that, but there's also
Speaker 3: just a sense people are there longer. It's a smaller body.
Speaker 3: They're only one hundred of us. And whoever you're fighting today,
Speaker 3: you may need their vote tomorrow. And so you know,
Speaker 3: even the most partisan Democrat are not typically nasty to
Speaker 3: you just one on one because the institution, you have
Speaker 3: to work with each other going forward. The challenge right
Speaker 3: now in the House is among the multiple multiple rebels.
Speaker 3: There's no natural and uniform and consensus leader.
Speaker 4: Listen.
Speaker 3: In the Senate, we had a leadership challenge in November,
Speaker 3: and I was the point of the spear on the
Speaker 3: leadership challenge. In November of last year, we had the
Speaker 3: first leadership challenge in sixteen years to Mitch McConnell's leader.
Speaker 2: And you got to go back to your speech because
Speaker 2: you're gonna forget this, and it was I remember how
Speaker 2: and people may have missed this on Verdict when you
Speaker 2: stood up talking about how important was to pick the
Speaker 2: right leader. Can you go back to that day, because
Speaker 2: this is part of that fighting and the grand debate
Speaker 2: is I would call it behind closed doors.
Speaker 3: Well, sure, if you look to November of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: we had the first leadership challenge to Mitch McConnell in history.
Speaker 3: He's been leader of Republicans for sixteen years, have never
Speaker 3: been a leadership challenge. We had that in November twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two. I was the point of the spear. I
Speaker 3: led that challenge. And the way Republican leadership challenges work
Speaker 3: and Republican leadership elections work, they happen the week after
Speaker 3: the general election. So the general election happened, and immediately
Speaker 3: the next week, the very first thing that happens, we
Speaker 3: have leadership elections. Now there's a reason for that. You
Speaker 3: have all these brand new baby freshman senators. They come
Speaker 3: to Washington and they don't know what they're doing. They're
Speaker 3: putting little bitty basement offices before they moved into their
Speaker 3: real offices. They have no idea what's going on. And
Speaker 3: leadership schedules the elections so fast because they don't want
Speaker 3: any freshmen to get any up at the ideas and
Speaker 3: decide to challenge any of the leadership. They wanted to
Speaker 3: shut up and vote before they figured out where the
Speaker 3: men's room is. The week after the election, you come
Speaker 3: together to vote. I remember in twenty twelve, I was
Speaker 3: newly elected. I show up and I'm like, wow, okay,
Speaker 3: a Senate leadership election. This is kind of cool. This
Speaker 3: is going to be interesting. We're going to see debates
Speaker 3: about what should we as Senate Republicans be doing. What's
Speaker 3: our agenda, what's our vision, what's our plan. I went
Speaker 3: really looking forward to it. I got admit, man, I
Speaker 3: was flabbergasted. I sat down. So the leadership election is
Speaker 3: always held in the historic Senate Chamber. So that's where
Speaker 3: the Senate used to meet for one hundred years in
Speaker 3: the capital. It's a much smaller, billion room than the
Speaker 3: Senate floor, and it's where we go for our leadership elections.
Speaker 3: And you know, I expected each of the candidates for
Speaker 3: leadership to stand up and give a speech and say
Speaker 3: here's what I want to do if you elect me.
Speaker 4: That doesn't happen.
Speaker 3: I mean, think back to when you and I were
Speaker 3: in junior high someone was running for president of the
Speaker 3: student council in Junior High. They'd stand up and say, okay,
Speaker 3: elect me president of the student council, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to get chocolate ice cream in the cafeteria. And the
Speaker 3: students say, hey, I want chocolate ice cream in the cafeteria. Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going to vote for Ben Great. None of that happens. Instead,
Speaker 3: the way a Senate leadership election works as you have
Speaker 3: three or four senators stand up and give nominating speeches
Speaker 3: praising the incumbent leadership, and I just I mean we're
Speaker 3: talking effusive, ass kissing, puffing, empty speeches about how amazing
Speaker 3: the existing leaders are, one after the other after the other.
Speaker 3: And then leadership gets elected by acclamation and the leader
Speaker 3: gets up and says, thank you very much. All right,
Speaker 3: moving forward, and there's no there's not a word of
Speaker 3: like what we're going to do, what we believe, what
Speaker 3: we're like, what the plan is. None of that happens.
Speaker 3: I remember the first time I'm sitting there and going
Speaker 3: this is weird. All right, Well, let's fast forward to
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two. We have the leadership elections, and the
Speaker 3: very first salvo in the battle is is I made
Speaker 3: a motion to delay the elections a month to delay
Speaker 3: them until after the Georgia runoff. So you remember there
Speaker 3: was a runoff for who was good the next senator
Speaker 3: from Georgia.
Speaker 1: In Georgia with herschel Wamer, we had no idea what
Speaker 1: was going to happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I stood up and I said two things
Speaker 3: to my colleagues. I said, number one, listen, if herschel
Speaker 3: Walker wins, he deserves to say and who our leader is,
Speaker 3: if he's going to be one of the senators, he
Speaker 3: deserves to have input in this. So we ought to
Speaker 3: wait until December sixth until we know who the next
Speaker 3: Senator from.
Speaker 4: Georgia is going to be.
Speaker 3: But I said, secondly, we just came out of an
Speaker 3: election in twenty twenty two where we got our ass kicked.
Speaker 3: And I said, listen, given the absolute disaster that is
Speaker 3: the Biden administration, the Biden agenda, the Biden record, we
Speaker 3: should have had a phenomenal election. We should have won
Speaker 3: the Senate. We should have won a big, big majority
Speaker 3: in the House. We should be resurgent right now. Instead,
Speaker 3: we lost the Senate. In fact, we lost ground. We
Speaker 3: ended up losing a seat in the Senate and we
Speaker 3: won a tiny, minuscule fore vote majority in the House.
Speaker 3: And what I s said to the conference, I said, listen,
Speaker 3: in any ordinary organization and any company in America, if
Speaker 3: I'm working for a private company and I'm in charge
Speaker 3: of a division and I lost one hundred million dollars,
Speaker 3: my boss wouldn't be like, hey, great, great job, ted
Speaker 3: keep doing what you're doing. They'd be like, no, what
Speaker 3: the hell's wrong. Let's talk about what you screwed up
Speaker 3: and let's go fix it, because it's not okay to
Speaker 3: lose one hundred million dollars. Well, we just got clobbered
Speaker 3: in the last election. I said, we ought to spend
Speaker 3: the next month talking about and debating what we did
Speaker 3: right and what we did wrong. And I pointed out further,
Speaker 3: I said, listen, we just spent the last two years
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two with a handful
Speaker 3: of Republicans joining with the Democrats to pass the Democrat agenda.
Speaker 3: I said, listen, maybe that's a good idea. I don't
Speaker 3: think it is, but but maybe you could argue it's
Speaker 3: a good idea. But I can say, at a minimum,
Speaker 3: what is indisputable is the Democrats don't do this. We
Speaker 3: had two years with a Republican President Donald Trump in
Speaker 3: a Republican House and a Republican Senate, and there was
Speaker 3: not a single bill, not one that the Democrats joined
Speaker 3: with the Republicans to pass the Republican agenda. So they
Speaker 3: never ever ever do it, and we spent two years
Speaker 3: doing it. Now seems to me that was a really
Speaker 3: bad electoral strategy. But we had to discuss that, and
Speaker 3: if you disagree, let's talk about it. And then what
Speaker 3: I did secondly, I mean, I mean my speech was
Speaker 3: forty five minutes long right at the outset. What I
Speaker 3: did secondly is I turned to Mitch McConnell in the
Speaker 3: historic Senate Chamber and I said, Mitch, over the next
Speaker 3: two years, what are you prepared to fight on? Is
Speaker 3: there anything you're prepared to fight on? I said, listen,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of things. I think we ought
Speaker 3: to stand up and fight. I think the biggest reason
Speaker 3: we got clobbered is we didn't stand and fight nearly enough.
Speaker 3: We didn't stand for anything, and that's why we didn't win.
Speaker 3: But I said, you tell us, there may be a
Speaker 3: dozen things I think we should fight on. Maybe you
Speaker 3: disagree with me, you don't think we should fight or
Speaker 3: a dozen things, But is there one over the next
Speaker 3: two years, or is the position a Republican leadership. We
Speaker 3: will surrender, we will roll over, we will grab our
Speaker 3: ankles on everything. If that's your position, okay, but let's
Speaker 3: be honest about it, all right. The end of my
Speaker 3: forty five minute speech, Mitch McConnell stands up and he
Speaker 3: gives a speech to the conference. He doesn't address a
Speaker 3: single question I've asked. He doesn't say anything he's willing
Speaker 3: to fight on. Instead, he points at a series of
Speaker 3: senators and he goes, oh, I gave twenty million to
Speaker 3: your campaign. I gave twenty five million to your campaign.
Speaker 3: I gave thirty million to your campaign. I gave thirty
Speaker 3: five million to your campaign.
Speaker 1: That was his whole speech.
Speaker 3: It was essentially, shut up, I spent the money, Now
Speaker 3: you vote for me. That was the leadership election we
Speaker 3: ended up voting. I needed twenty five votes to prevail.
Speaker 3: There were forty nine of us, so twenty five would win.
Speaker 3: I got sixteen, so I fell nine short. Now, on
Speaker 3: one level, that's frustrating. On another level, those are the
Speaker 3: first sixteen votes ever cast against Mitch. After that, Rick Scott,
Speaker 3: my colleague from Florida ran for leader against Mitch. I
Speaker 3: voted for Rick. Rick got ten votes, so ten votes. Again,
Speaker 3: those were the first ten votes cast against Mitch, but
Speaker 3: the high water mark were the sixteen that voted in
Speaker 3: favor of my motion delay the leadership election. That's frustrating
Speaker 3: at one level, but it is also signs that people
Speaker 3: are recognizing we need to change what we're doing, and
Speaker 3: I hear that across Texas all the time. I'm not
Speaker 3: saying we need to burn the place to the ground.
Speaker 3: I'm saying we need positive, organized, coherent, serious conservative leadership
Speaker 3: with real objectives, realtories, and a vision that is clearly
Speaker 3: articulated to the American people. I think that's what a
Speaker 3: lot of House Republicans are feeling right now, and I
Speaker 3: think that's what conservatives across the country are feeling.
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Speaker 2: com slash verdict. One more question on this, and that
Speaker 2: is timing. Now, how quick should Republicans move to pick
Speaker 2: the new speaker. That the longer this drags out, I
Speaker 2: think the wors it is. I think it's a bad
Speaker 2: news cycle. I mean, hell, you know, I still the
Speaker 2: timing and this is just me as a media guy.
Speaker 2: I was yelling at the TV today when this happened, going,
Speaker 2: you're making history getting rid of the speaker for the
Speaker 2: first time in history of this country. And you couldn't
Speaker 2: have waited maybe one or two more days and at
Speaker 2: least had the media and the coverage beyond Hunter Biden
Speaker 2: being in federal court today, But you gave them an
Speaker 2: out and we didn't have to cover that story. He
Speaker 2: was in federal court today and that just got disappeared.
Speaker 2: You're going through an impeachment inquiry. I don't know what
Speaker 2: ramifications this may have on that, but how quick should
Speaker 2: the Republicans move to fill this spot?
Speaker 3: Well, listen, the timing was driven by the individual who
Speaker 3: made the motion to vacate, and so if there was
Speaker 3: a systematic strategy behind it, I'm not aware of it.
Speaker 3: That's part of the challenge is that you don't have
Speaker 3: a clear, consistent demand.
Speaker 4: That leads to a victory.
Speaker 3: We'll see what happens. I hope that we do. That's
Speaker 3: a hard thing to get in part because very few
Speaker 3: House members will defer to each other, and so you've
Speaker 3: got lots of people putting out lots of ideas that
Speaker 3: are all out there.
Speaker 4: In the cacophony.
Speaker 3: I don't know how long the House will take. And listen,
Speaker 3: I've never served in the House. I'm not remotely an
Speaker 3: expert on House procedure. I think they will have a battle.
Speaker 3: They're different people right now that seem to be putting
Speaker 3: themselves forward to be potential speakers. I'm seeing coverage on
Speaker 3: the news that Steve Scalise is making a run at it.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's true. That's at least what
Speaker 3: was reported on Fox. I was on Hannity tonight. Jim
Speaker 3: Jordan was on right before me. It sure seemed like
Speaker 3: Sean Hannity was trying to talk Jim Jordan into doing it.
Speaker 3: Jim was noncommittal. He said, that's going to be up
Speaker 3: for the conference to decide. I don't know if somebody
Speaker 3: else will be in the mix. I have no idea.
Speaker 3: I will stay out of it. That's a decision for
Speaker 3: House Republicans to decide. What I hope is whoever the
Speaker 3: speaker is, and I don't know if they go back
Speaker 3: to Kevin McCarthy again that you know, we had what
Speaker 3: four hundred and thirty two votes for Kevin back at
Speaker 3: the beginning of this conference, so maybe Kevin comes back.
Speaker 3: That's possible too. Whoever the speaker is. I hope we
Speaker 3: have a clear, positive conservative vision, and I do think
Speaker 3: we would be better off. As I mentioned at the
Speaker 3: outset of this pod, if House Republicans had started off
Speaker 3: by impeaching Alejandro Majorcis, the results today.
Speaker 4: Might have been different.
Speaker 3: If we were in the midst of impeaching Merrick Garland,
Speaker 3: the results might have been different. I do think the
Speaker 3: combination of number one, the debt ceiling fight, where where
Speaker 3: Conservatives did not get much of anything, and then a
Speaker 3: clean cr I do think there was a frustration that
Speaker 3: was manifested in votes, and so I think the way
Speaker 3: you win elections is by having serious principle fights that matter.
Speaker 4: It's not easy to do.
Speaker 3: In the House, so I'm not diminishing how difficult it is,
Speaker 3: but I think that's the path to victory.
Speaker 2: I want to move to something else that obviously got
Speaker 2: pushed back in the headlines, but it still is important.
Speaker 2: The crime wave that we're seeing is not just sweeping
Speaker 2: the nation, but now it's affecting democratic leaders and leaders
Speaker 2: in the liberal movement like we haven't seen before, and
Speaker 2: it's happening way more often.
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2: You have a Democratic Representative, Henry Queller, who was carjacked
Speaker 2: at gunpoint in DC. This comes as in just the past,
Speaker 2: well it was in a twenty four hour period. You
Speaker 2: had a liberal gay reporter that was shot and killed
Speaker 2: in his home in Philly. You had a far left
Speaker 2: activist that was stabbed to death by a deranged stranger
Speaker 2: in Brooklyn in front of his girlfriend. You had this
Speaker 2: Democratic congressman who was carjacked at gunpoint in DC by
Speaker 2: four African American men. And yet we have Democrats who
Speaker 2: have a soft on crime policies that aren't just hurting
Speaker 2: their neighborhoods that I mentioned these different spots, but it's
Speaker 2: hurting people in Texas as well. And almost every House
Speaker 2: Democrat voted against the Republican efforts to stop the DC
Speaker 2: Week on Crime bill, which specifically would have reduced carjacking penalties.
Speaker 2: This is something that the Democrats, I mean they voted
Speaker 2: for its Aldred for example, voted with the Dems on
Speaker 2: this one.
Speaker 1: It's shocking to me.
Speaker 3: Well, listen, crime is out of control in this country,
Speaker 3: and it's an issue that has people understandably very concerned.
Speaker 3: I watched tonight the video of the liberal activists in
Speaker 3: New York at four in the morning being stabbed to
Speaker 3: death on the streets of New York by a guy
Speaker 3: that certainly appears deranged. It was horrific to watch. You're right,
Speaker 3: the news of the left wing journalist in Philadelphia who
Speaker 3: was shot I think seven times in his own home
Speaker 3: and killed in the past few days. Look, Henry Quayar
Speaker 3: is a Democrat congressman from Texas. I know Henry well.
Speaker 3: Henry represents Laredo up to San Antonio. Henry is the
Speaker 3: most conservative of the Texas Democrats. I worked hand in
Speaker 3: hand with Henry, for example, on the Texas Bridges. We've
Speaker 3: talked on this podcast before about four bridges from Texas
Speaker 3: to Mexico that Henry and I teamed up in and
Speaker 3: won big legislative victories to build new bridges to Mexico
Speaker 3: for legal commerce, to expand bridges. Henry, as I said,
Speaker 3: is by far the most conservative of the Texas Democrats. Well,
Speaker 3: in the last couple of days, Henry was coming to
Speaker 3: his apartment in DC. It was nine thirty at night
Speaker 3: and he was getting out of his car and it
Speaker 3: was carjacked. He was carjacked by four individuals. They put
Speaker 3: a gun in his face, they stole the car, they
Speaker 3: stole his luggage. Presumably I haven't spoken to Henry since
Speaker 3: it happened, but you have to assume that with a
Speaker 3: gun in his face, he was afraid for his life.
Speaker 3: I mean, that is frightening. My understanding is Henry lives
Speaker 3: at an apartment building where there were multiple members of
Speaker 3: Congress who lived there. That there are apparently multiple members
Speaker 3: of congressional leadership who live there, which means there are
Speaker 3: a lot of Capitol police around there. And at nine
Speaker 3: thirty at night he was carjacked on the streets of DC.
Speaker 3: And then that reflects the crime wave that is sweeping
Speaker 3: this country.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: The DC City Council, which is populated by left wing Democrats,
Speaker 3: they voted to lower the penalties for violent crimes, including carjackings.
Speaker 3: In particular, they voted to lower the sentence from twenty
Speaker 3: one years to seven years, and they voted to lower
Speaker 3: the sentence from forty years if armed to fifteen years,
Speaker 3: and under the revised code, carjacking is now divided into
Speaker 3: three gradations dependent on severity, with the lowest penalties for
Speaker 3: an unarmed defense ranging from four to eighteen years, and
Speaker 3: the highest penalties from an armed defense ranging from twelve
Speaker 3: to twenty four years. Now in the Congress, thankfully, the
Speaker 3: Congress has the ability to rescind any legislation in the
Speaker 3: District of Columbia. And the reason for that is the
Speaker 3: Constitution gives Congress total authority over DC. Unlike a state.
Speaker 3: We can't rescind laws in Texas or any other state.
Speaker 3: But DC is a federal district in Congress has plenary
Speaker 3: authority over it. And so in Congress we voted to
Speaker 3: rescind these softened crime laws that lessen the penalties for
Speaker 3: violent crimes. And the results are are horrific, as we're
Speaker 3: seeing carjacking, murders crime rates skyrocketing in d C and
Speaker 3: all across the country.
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Speaker 2: was asked about part of this, and I want to
Speaker 2: play that for everybody.
Speaker 1: Take a listen.
Speaker 5: If a member of Congress is not safe on the
Speaker 5: streets of the nation's capital, who is.
Speaker 6: Look, we're grateful and relieved that the congressman is unharmed.
Speaker 6: We understand what communities are going through across the country,
Speaker 6: not just in DC. That's why the President took action
Speaker 6: very early on in his administration to get the American
Speaker 6: Rescue Plan done without the help of Republicans. That's why
Speaker 6: every time he puts forward his budget he makes sure
Speaker 6: there are billions of dollars to deal with crime. That's
Speaker 6: just a fact. All you got to look is what
Speaker 6: the President has been able to do this past two years.
Speaker 6: There's always going to be work, more work to be done.
Speaker 6: But the fact is the president has taken action.
Speaker 1: He hasn't taken action, He's done the opposite of that.
Speaker 3: She didn't have an answer to that. Holy crap. If
Speaker 3: a Democrat congressman is getting carjacked on the streets of
Speaker 3: DC at nine thirty pm. What the heck is the answer?
Speaker 3: And she's like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to answer that. And what was her answer, Well, you know,
Speaker 3: Joe Biden spending a ton of money, mind you, not
Speaker 3: actually putting criminals in jail, not supporting police, not doing
Speaker 3: anything to stop crime. But he's shoveling a whole lot
Speaker 3: of cash at Democrat special interest groups. He's shoveling a
Speaker 3: whole lot of cash at deficit spending that's causing rampant inflation.
Speaker 3: That is her answer. It's an utter non sequitur. And
Speaker 3: by the way, it's not just Henry quaar Angie Craig,
Speaker 3: who is a Democrat Member of Congress from Minnesota, was
Speaker 3: assaulted in the apartment of her DC her DC apartment
Speaker 3: in February of this year.
Speaker 4: And this is a.
Speaker 3: Pattern that is happening over and over and over again.
Speaker 3: Let me give you some stats. Carjackings in DC are
Speaker 3: up one hundred and nine percent, robberies are up sixty
Speaker 3: eight percent, theft is up twenty two percent, homicides are
Speaker 3: up thirty eight percent, and the city is on pace
Speaker 3: for the deadliest year in two decades. Not only that
Speaker 3: nine of the top ten cities with the highest homicide
Speaker 3: rights are run by Democrats, Twenty seven of the top
Speaker 3: thirty cities with the highest murder rates are run by Democrats.
Speaker 3: This is a pattern, and you're saying Kareem John Pierre
Speaker 3: and the Biden White House utterly dodging responsibilities for their
Speaker 3: soft on crime policies that are endangering people all across
Speaker 3: the country.
Speaker 2: Want to ask question for you, will Democrats move on
Speaker 2: this because even the White House presbytery was asked a
Speaker 2: question of follow up where she could have kind of
Speaker 2: gotten a redo.
Speaker 1: I got to play it. It's too good, not too If.
Speaker 5: President Biden's policies are helping bring crime down, would he
Speaker 5: be comfortable with somebody borrowing his corvette and parking it
Speaker 5: on the street overnight in Southeast DC.
Speaker 6: I'm not gonna get into hypotheticals. I'm just gonna get
Speaker 6: into the facts about what this president has done. In
Speaker 6: this president, I mean, she's still screwed it up.
Speaker 3: Look, of course, not nobody. Would you park your corvette
Speaker 3: on the street. It's gonna get robbed, it's gonna get
Speaker 3: broken into, it's gonna get keyed, It's gonna get vandalized.
Speaker 3: She can't answer that question, and so you know what
Speaker 3: she's counting on. Look, that was a question from Fox News,
Speaker 3: so Fox will cover it. Ben, you worked for years
Speaker 3: at CNN. Did CNN cover that exchange?
Speaker 1: Hell?
Speaker 3: No, MSNBC, no, ABC, NBCCBS, Nope.
Speaker 4: They know that.
Speaker 3: The corporate media, they are the puppets for the administration.
Speaker 3: They are the propagandas for the administration, they will repeat
Speaker 3: the regime line. And so look, any sane person would
Speaker 3: say no to the question, would you be happy with
Speaker 3: your your your classic corvette parked on the streets of DC?
Speaker 4: Of course not.
Speaker 3: Because crime is out of control and the problem is Look,
Speaker 3: let me underscore that again. When the DC City Council
Speaker 3: looked at skyrocketing crime rates and said, you know what,
Speaker 3: the answer here is, let's lower the penalties on violent crime.
Speaker 3: That's the best solution. We've got too many murderers, too
Speaker 3: many murders, too many carjackings. Let's send people to jail
Speaker 3: for shorter times for murder and carjacking. That's a great idea.
Speaker 3: In Congress, thankfully we overturn that. Why do you think
Speaker 3: crime is out of control?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a democratic party, and this is certainly going
Speaker 2: to be an issue with the president sho election.
Speaker 3: Dark Ben, Ben, hold on, Before we wrap up, I
Speaker 3: want to ask you a final question.
Speaker 1: I'm ready.
Speaker 3: If you're standing by a doorway and you see a
Speaker 3: little red box that is three inches by four inches
Speaker 3: and it says the word fire on it, and it
Speaker 3: says pull this for the fire alarm, my question to
Speaker 3: you is is that a doorknob?
Speaker 2: That is not a doorknob and that is not a
Speaker 2: way to exit the building.
Speaker 4: But how do you know? How do you know? Ben? Seriously?
Speaker 4: I mean, look, it's not like.
Speaker 2: That insurrectionism one oh one, right, Like, don't you immediately
Speaker 2: lock that person up forever?
Speaker 3: Well, let me ask you this. It's not like you
Speaker 3: were a high school principal. It's not like you were
Speaker 3: a high school principal in a high school that had
Speaker 3: fire alarms. It's not like you were a high school
Speaker 3: principal in a high school that had fire alarms that
Speaker 3: had a policy that said, if you, a student pulls
Speaker 3: the fire alarm, you will be expelled. Jamal Bowman, the
Speaker 3: Democrat congressman, was a principal at a high school that
Speaker 3: had a policy that if you Ben Ferguson, a student
Speaker 3: in his high school pulled the fire alarm, you would
Speaker 3: be expelled.
Speaker 4: And yet what did Jamal Bowman do?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm going to pull the fire alarm because I
Speaker 3: want to stop the Republican vote.
Speaker 4: And why is it? His claim?
Speaker 3: If you believe him, his defense is I'm dumber than
Speaker 3: a box of rocks, and I think a fire alarm
Speaker 3: is a doorknob. That is his defense, and that's the
Speaker 3: best interpretation he can hope for.
Speaker 2: By the way, I have to ask now, because you
Speaker 2: brought it up, if a Republican would have done that,
Speaker 2: how fast would they have been kicked out of Congress?
Speaker 1: And would they have a mug shot at this point?
Speaker 3: To be honest, I don't think they'd be kicked out
Speaker 3: of Congress, but I think they might have a mug shot.
Speaker 4: And my guess is.
Speaker 3: Look, kicking people out of Congress is pretty severe. My
Speaker 3: guess is the votes won't be there for that. My
Speaker 3: prediction is they will censure him. I think the votes
Speaker 3: will be there for censuring him. But it is a
Speaker 3: criminal offense in the District of Columbia to pull a
Speaker 3: fire alarm fraudulently, and he is on video doing that,
Speaker 3: but he is counting on the corporate media to ignore
Speaker 3: the fact that he was willing to pull a fire
Speaker 3: alarm to try to stop the Congress from voting on
Speaker 3: a provision that he didn't like, which, mind you, was
Speaker 3: a provision to fund the government, and he wanted to
Speaker 3: force a government shut down, so he pulled a fire
Speaker 3: alarm to cause it to happen. But again, he knew
Speaker 3: the corporate media would cover for him, and they're doing
Speaker 3: it right now.
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