Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 3: Kevin McCarthy lost the gavel, Now he's leaving Congress. Welcome
Speaker 3: to the fastest show in politics, as the former speaker
Speaker 3: announces plans to call it quits at the end of
Speaker 3: this year, as the new Speaker, Mike Johnson faces, of course,
Speaker 3: enormous challenges, and President Biden adding new pressure today with
Speaker 3: his call to vote on Israel and Ukraine funding. We'll
Speaker 3: put all of this together the latest from both ends
Speaker 3: of Pennsylvania Avenue on another breaking news day in Washington,
Speaker 3: and we'll discuss with Mick mulvaney, the co founder of
Speaker 3: the House Freedom Caucus, former acting Chief of Staff in
Speaker 3: the Trump White House. Israel driving into the south of Gaza.
Speaker 3: Now we're going to look at the job ahead and
Speaker 3: how effective Israel can be from the air with an
Speaker 3: expert on this, retired Air Force General David Deptula, will
Speaker 3: be with us.
Speaker 4: In just moments.
Speaker 3: We'll also have analysis from our panel, of course, as
Speaker 3: you would expect this hour today. We're joined by Republican
Speaker 3: strategist Lisa Camuso Miller and Democratic strategist Brad Howard. So
Speaker 3: let's get started on what we know. It has been
Speaker 3: one of those days. As soon as you wake up
Speaker 3: in Washington, d C. The headlines start flying. You heard
Speaker 3: me mention Kevin McCarthy. Joe Biden just spoke from the
Speaker 3: White House. And that's where we want to start with
Speaker 3: what could be could be an important test vote today
Speaker 3: on Capitol Hill when it comes to funding for Ukraine
Speaker 3: and the rest of the supplemental that the President put
Speaker 3: forth Israel Taiwan border.
Speaker 4: Here's the President moments ago.
Speaker 5: This cannot wait. Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for
Speaker 5: Ukraine before they break for the holiday. Resource as simple
Speaker 5: as that, Frank, I think it's stunning that we've gotten
Speaker 5: to this point in the first place. Well, Congress, Republics
Speaker 5: and congress as are willing to give putin the greatest
Speaker 5: gift he could hope for in our global leadership, not
Speaker 5: just Ukraine, but beyond that.
Speaker 3: As I mentioned, the Senate expected to hold a test
Speaker 3: vote later today on the overall aid package. It is
Speaker 3: expected to fail the president of course knows that. But
Speaker 3: planting a flag again on this issue today one that
Speaker 3: has been rather newsy. As I mentioned, we heard earlier
Speaker 3: from Kevin McCarthy that he's leaving the building. There were
Speaker 3: a lot of questions about whether he was going to
Speaker 3: run for reelection, what his plans might be post speaker.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Some folks may have even thought he might run again.
Speaker 3: But he wrote an op ed earlier today, followed by
Speaker 3: a slick produced video on Twitter, and we'll give you
Speaker 3: a taste Kevin McCarthy waving goodbye.
Speaker 6: Now it is time to pursue my passion in a
Speaker 6: new arena. Well, I'll be departing the house at the
Speaker 6: end of this year. I will never ever give up
Speaker 6: fighting for this country that I love so much.
Speaker 7: To all those who have supported me through the years.
Speaker 6: Especially our constituents, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Speaker 3: And that's it. Almost like a movie trailer. It's well produced.
Speaker 3: You see him on the floor, he's doing this and that.
Speaker 3: Then he's sitting alone in a chair wearing the suit.
Speaker 3: He's got a lave mic on his lapel, and after
Speaker 3: what you just heard, he takes the mic off and drops.
Speaker 6: It now it is time to pursue my passion in
Speaker 6: a new arena.
Speaker 7: Well, I'll be departing the house at the end of
Speaker 7: this year.
Speaker 6: I think here it is this God Bless you and
Speaker 6: God Bless America.
Speaker 4: Yep, that's a wrap and literally drops the mic. That's
Speaker 4: a wrap.
Speaker 3: Not quite as dramatic when it's a lave. If I
Speaker 3: dropped this thing, that would make some noise. I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna know.
Speaker 4: They're telling me in the studio, Joe, don't do it.
Speaker 4: They're expensive. Let's bring in Mick maulvaney.
Speaker 3: I can only imagine what's going through his mind, although
Speaker 3: he might have been on the phone with Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 3: just last night. Insider's insider on the Republican side, certainly
Speaker 3: from the House to the White House.
Speaker 4: Make it's great to see you.
Speaker 3: Everyone's asking what it means to have Kevin McCarthy leave
Speaker 3: the house, and of course, well it's not speaker anymore,
Speaker 3: but it does speak pretty loudly. The day after Patrick
Speaker 3: McHenry announced his plans to not run for reelection, what
Speaker 3: do you make of this?
Speaker 8: Hey, Joe, where do you start? It is that kind
Speaker 8: of day where Matt and your office calls me on
Speaker 8: my cellphone and said, have you seen Twitter? And you're
Speaker 8: sort of what merit that kind of call? So I
Speaker 8: had a couple of those phone calls in the White Houses,
Speaker 8: you can imagine. But anyway, a couple of things not surprising.
Speaker 8: I didn't talk to Kevin last night, but it doesn't
Speaker 8: surprise those of us who who who know. The question
Speaker 8: was that was sort of whether he was gonna do
Speaker 8: this now or wait until the end of the term.
Speaker 8: Keeping in mind that my understanding California laws that Gavin
Speaker 8: Newsome when I'll have the right to set the re
Speaker 8: election date, and why would a Democrat governor rush to
Speaker 8: fill us That looks like it's a Republican seat. So
Speaker 8: this looks like it's going to eat again into the
Speaker 8: very narrow Republican majority. That's one angle here. The other
Speaker 8: angle here is with Kevin's departure. One of the reason
Speaker 8: people were hoping he might stay around was that Kevin
Speaker 8: is the second most successful fundraiser in the history of
Speaker 8: the House, after only Nancy Gelosi and Mike Johnson. You know,
Speaker 8: it seems to be you know, doing a fairly decent
Speaker 8: job in a couple different areas, but He's no Kevin
Speaker 8: McCarthy when it comes to raising doe And we're going
Speaker 8: into a big presidential election year. So where are they
Speaker 8: going to plug the hole on the money? My guess
Speaker 8: is that Kevin's you know, new job is not going
Speaker 8: to involve him raising money for the Republican Party. So
Speaker 8: there's a bunch of different angles here. We could do
Speaker 8: this for an hour, but we'll talk about everyone talking
Speaker 8: about including his videos.
Speaker 3: Well, he's got a lot of money though, Mick, right,
Speaker 3: he could still actually play an interesting role in this
Speaker 3: campaign cycle.
Speaker 4: How will he use the millions he raised?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 8: I would think that Nancy Mace is going to have
Speaker 8: a problem. Matt Gates is going to have a problem.
Speaker 8: Anybody the guy from Tennessee yet have a problem that
Speaker 8: that's that's where this money is going. Might a little
Speaker 8: of it go to help build a Republican majority? Yeah?
Speaker 8: Might still of it go towards subtling some scores? Absolutely?
Speaker 8: And who could blame him? Who could really blame him?
Speaker 8: He was listen like Kevin? Don't like Kevin. He happens
Speaker 8: to be a friend of mine. I like him, but
Speaker 8: he was treated bad as a human being. And you
Speaker 8: know these folks. Even though they're they're Congress people. We
Speaker 8: put them up on a pedal stuff. They're still humans
Speaker 8: and that's got as smart and revenge is going to
Speaker 8: be particularly sweet, I think for Kevin if he's able
Speaker 8: to take any of those folks out.
Speaker 3: Did you say you spoke with him yesterday and either
Speaker 3: way MC, last time you guys talked, where was his head?
Speaker 3: Is this a Washington that's broken or a Washington that
Speaker 3: that doesn't need me?
Speaker 4: What was he thinking?
Speaker 8: No, No, it was, it was It was still angered
Speaker 8: how I've been treated. It was. It was. It was
Speaker 8: a it's a personal thing now between him and Matt Gates.
Speaker 8: And you got a little bit of that when you
Speaker 8: saw him speak to the press and so forth. You know,
Speaker 8: we saw it a little bit less filtered, but still
Speaker 8: the same end result, which is that this had nothing
Speaker 8: to do with the fact that he cut a deal
Speaker 8: with the Senate. This has nothing to do with fact
Speaker 8: that he had a Byparsson deal to keep the government open.
Speaker 8: This was Matt Gates looking for a way to settle
Speaker 8: a score. I don't understand how it started. And if
Speaker 8: Kevin knows, he wasn't sharing it with those of us
Speaker 8: who are close to him. So this was just a
Speaker 8: personal animosity and that's not going away anytime soon.
Speaker 4: Well, it's been a tortured experience for him. I know
Speaker 4: over the past couple of months.
Speaker 3: You go back to October and I just want to
Speaker 3: kind of go through the shades of McCarthy here. You
Speaker 3: heard that very upbeat message he sent today.
Speaker 4: That's a rack. We did the right thing.
Speaker 3: Sounds a lot like some of the things that he
Speaker 3: actually said over the course of time following the fateful
Speaker 3: cr that got him fired.
Speaker 4: Let's work through this. This is the beginning of October
Speaker 4: the third.
Speaker 9: I don't regret standing up for choosing governan over grievance.
Speaker 7: It is my responsibility, it is my job.
Speaker 10: I do not regret negotiating our government designed to find compromise.
Speaker 9: I don't regret my efforts to build coalitions and find solutions.
Speaker 3: And that, by the way, was that was the good day.
Speaker 3: That was the victory lap. After they got the CR passed,
Speaker 3: started to get a little dark.
Speaker 4: This is the thirteenth of what I did was right.
Speaker 6: Keeping government open.
Speaker 9: Can you imagine for one moment the wars that are
Speaker 9: going around the world, and if government was shut down,
Speaker 9: that if our troops were not being paid right now,
Speaker 9: we want them in the aircraft carrier strike team to
Speaker 9: be out there questioning where they're going to be able
Speaker 9: to pay their rent.
Speaker 4: You have fast forward to the twentieth of October, started
Speaker 4: to get a little short in the quarters of the
Speaker 4: capital strategy for him.
Speaker 9: Here we are in a very bad place right now.
Speaker 3: Yet a very bad place right now, Mick. Is the
Speaker 3: Republican Conference still in a bad place because Joe Biden
Speaker 3: just called for Ukraine funding to be passed, and there
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to be a path for anything right now,
Speaker 3: including funding the government.
Speaker 8: Those are two different questions. Let's talk about the biding thing. Yep,
Speaker 8: fair enough finds politics right, I mean, Biden is just
Speaker 8: politics that the House has already passed a bill to
Speaker 8: fund Israel. The White House doesn't like it. But the
Speaker 8: way it's supposed to work is the Senate supposed to
Speaker 8: pass something, and then the House and the Senate supposed
Speaker 8: to conference. This is the old schoolhouse Rock. You know,
Speaker 8: I'm just a bill. I'm only a bill, cetera. So
Speaker 8: that's just politics. The White House doesn't like what the
Speaker 8: House has done, but the House has certainly done something.
Speaker 8: Your first question is a lot more interesting, which is
Speaker 8: is the Republican conference broken?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 8: Yeah, there's no question about it. I've not talked to
Speaker 8: Patrick since his Patrick a good friend of mine, since
Speaker 8: his announcement yesterday. Patrick, technically Joe, as you know, was
Speaker 8: term limited as the Chairman of House Financial Services, but
Speaker 8: was in line for an exemption and probably could have
Speaker 8: stayed if the Republicans were going to keep the majority.
Speaker 8: His departure might tell you a couple of different things.
Speaker 8: Number one, that he thinks that maybe they're going to
Speaker 8: go into minority anyway, and it would be a chairmanship
Speaker 8: that's opened to him. But secondly, and this is I've
Speaker 8: talked with a bunch of folks in folks. I'm hearing Tuscus,
Speaker 8: Alabama for the debate tonight on New Nation. There's a
Speaker 8: bunch of Republican folks here and they're all talking about
Speaker 8: how poisonous the atmosphere is right now in Washington, d C.
Speaker 8: That if there's a Republican who can find the door
Speaker 8: and find a good exit strategy, they're looking for it
Speaker 8: right now. You mentioned Mike Johnson at the outset. You
Speaker 8: didn't mention Bill Johnson, a lesser known member of Congress
Speaker 8: came in with me in twenty ten. He's already accepted
Speaker 8: the job as the president of Youngstown State in his
Speaker 8: home home state of Ohio. It's unclear as to what
Speaker 8: he would be leaving if he leaves in January. That's
Speaker 8: yet another Republican speak seat that is gone in that majority.
Speaker 8: So now, if you're a Republican who has a better
Speaker 8: offer right now on the table, you are seriously considering
Speaker 8: it looking for a way to leave.
Speaker 4: Wow, you must be glad you did that already, Mick.
Speaker 3: A pretty remarkable situation, by the way, Thanks for taking
Speaker 3: Matt's call and looking at Sweter this morning. I look
Speaker 3: forward to your thoughts on the debate tonight. Goodluck down
Speaker 3: there in Tuscaloosa where you've got four it now four
Speaker 3: Republican candidates on the stage, And turn our attention to
Speaker 3: the other major story we're following, and of course that's
Speaker 3: what's happening overseas in Israel and more specifically in Gaza,
Speaker 3: of course, where hostages are still being held by Hamas.
Speaker 3: John Kirby, retired Admiral, speaking for the White House National
Speaker 3: Security Apparatus earlier today on Good Morning America on ABC News.
Speaker 11: We think there's about eight hostages that are Americans. We
Speaker 11: know of at least one woman in that group. We're
Speaker 11: doing everything we can to try to get them released.
Speaker 11: We're constantly engaged with our partners in the region try
Speaker 11: to get this humanitarian pause back in place.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: To give you a sense of where we are, Israel
Speaker 3: is putting numbers on this because we keep asking. IDF
Speaker 3: says it has killed half of Hamas's mid level commanders,
Speaker 3: this at the cost of sixteen thousand, two hundred civilian
Speaker 3: lives since the war began in Gaza. The Wall Street
Speaker 3: Journal putting some other numbers on this today as well,
Speaker 3: Remembering the IDF is vowing to destroy Hamas to ends
Speaker 3: as we know it, and after many weeks of bombing
Speaker 3: in over sixteen thousand civilian lives, the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 3: reports that Hamas is still largely intact. At least five
Speaker 3: thousand militants overall have been killed, leaving the majority of
Speaker 3: the group's thirty thousand members on the field. Now, remembering
Speaker 3: that the Biden administration is urging restraint, calling for more precision,
Speaker 3: you're hearing it from lawmakers now, many of them Democrats,
Speaker 3: on Capitol Hill. You wonder what's going to happen here
Speaker 3: in southern Gaza, and that's why we wanted to talk
Speaker 3: to David Deptula, the retired Lieutenant General, Air Force General
Speaker 3: now dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, former
Speaker 3: Air Force Deputy Chief for Intelligence, Surveillance and Resconnaissance. It's
Speaker 3: good to see you, General, Thanks for coming to talk
Speaker 3: to us. The calls for more precision have been in
Speaker 3: many cases been followed by scenes of absolute destruction, dropping
Speaker 3: bombs on apartment buildings and so forth. And with your
Speaker 3: experience as an airman, I wonder if you can speak
Speaker 3: to what ability Israel has to be more precise.
Speaker 12: Well, Joe, first, a couple of things I think in
Speaker 12: build up to a very good answer to your question
Speaker 12: is it's important to recognize that the military operations being
Speaker 12: conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces are being integrated across
Speaker 12: all war fighting domains. That's air, sea, land, space and
Speaker 12: cyber so it's a multi domain effort. Now, with respect
Speaker 12: to air operations, air operations can be and generally are
Speaker 12: extraordinarily precise. The issue is knowing what the targets are
Speaker 12: to be affected and here's where while ground operations have
Speaker 12: become more prominent, air operations need that information. So one
Speaker 12: of the prime of the ground operations of the Israeli
Speaker 12: Defense forces into Gaza is to gather intelligence about Hamas's tunnels, rockets,
Speaker 12: command and control and so on and so forth that
Speaker 12: can then be destroyed from the air. So both air
Speaker 12: and ground operations are completely integrated. All of that said,
Speaker 12: back to your lead in this is an urban environment,
Speaker 12: so of course buildings are going to be destroyed as
Speaker 12: part of the reason why the Israelis have gone to
Speaker 12: a great length to advise occupants, civilian occupants to move
Speaker 12: prior to their air strikes and then providing warnings additional
Speaker 12: warnings prior to releasing the weapons. So it is a
Speaker 12: very challenging situation. But I think it's also extraordinarily important
Speaker 12: when one's discussing the subject of civilian cas to understand
Speaker 12: the laws of armed conflict. And frankly, it is startling
Speaker 12: to see the lack of understanding of those laws. And
Speaker 12: on the other hand, perhaps it's not so startling as
Speaker 12: a moss is engaged in what's called law fair or
Speaker 12: the misuse of international laws is substitute for traditional military means.
Speaker 12: So let me pause there, and because I could go
Speaker 12: on for quite a while here, but we'll help.
Speaker 3: It does help a lot, because look, you've got a
Speaker 3: lot of people who have never served their country, who
Speaker 3: have never flown a fighter jet like you have, and
Speaker 3: have have never carried a rifle, who are acting like
Speaker 3: experts here in Washington.
Speaker 4: When you hear lawmakers say.
Speaker 3: Hey, you need to cool it with the air attacks,
Speaker 3: stop with the one hundred and fifty five millimeters shells,
Speaker 3: send troops in to be more precise, what do you
Speaker 3: say to them?
Speaker 12: Yeah, oh, once again, I go back to the fact
Speaker 12: that malign disinformation in manipulating perceptions is a fundamental element
Speaker 12: of Hamas's strategy. They're using the fact that disinformation is
Speaker 12: seventy percent more likely to be shared on social media
Speaker 12: the news that's true. I think we saw this to
Speaker 12: remind your audience. A good case in points to damage
Speaker 12: to the Gaza hospital that was caused by a Palestinian
Speaker 12: militant rocket that exploded over it. But it was they
Speaker 12: all blame that as a cast it is in Israeli
Speaker 12: an attack when it wasn't the other one. And to
Speaker 12: be candid, I mean, right, up front, you cited the
Speaker 12: sixteen thousand plus civilian casualties. Those numbers were released by
Speaker 12: Hamas controlled organizations.
Speaker 3: The health not do you not trust those numbers? What
Speaker 3: you do not trust those numbers from the Gaza Health.
Speaker 12: Ministry absolutely not, absolutely not. Note that those number members
Speaker 12: do not separate deaths of Hamas or other terrorists in
Speaker 12: those figures. So the impression given is that they're all innocence,
Speaker 12: which and look, I don't I don't think anybody knows
Speaker 12: because there is no independent source on the ground accounting
Speaker 12: for those numbers. But you know they're treating Hamas deaths
Speaker 12: as if they were part of that. And now let
Speaker 12: me let me continue because this is extraordinarily important, but
Speaker 12: it gets complex. People don't seem to understand that Hamas's
Speaker 12: use of civilians is human see it shields, and they're
Speaker 12: misuse of protected sites like mosques and hospitals or war crimes,
Speaker 12: and that the international Laws of armed conflict put the
Speaker 12: responsibility for the threat to civilian lives on those who
Speaker 12: are putting those civilians in harms way in this case,
Speaker 12: that's Hamas. Hamas intentionally aims to kill civilians.
Speaker 3: To include policies understand that, and that's honestly general. That's
Speaker 3: something that we have aired out extensively on this program.
Speaker 3: But when you hear, I know you don't buy the
Speaker 3: numbers from the Health Ministry, but that sixteen thousand number
Speaker 3: includes five thousand children, presumably not Hamas militants. Maybe you've
Speaker 3: got some folks in their teens. I don't know, but
Speaker 3: there's obviously what some folks see as a disproportionate response here,
Speaker 3: and I'm trying to get to the proportionate response in
Speaker 3: your eyes.
Speaker 12: Well, once again, you and I get it, and I
Speaker 12: understand that. And by the way, I'm not taking you
Speaker 12: or your network on and when I'm speaking about media,
Speaker 12: I'm talking about media in general. There are some who
Speaker 12: are better than others, of which you are better than
Speaker 12: some of the others.
Speaker 4: But well, there's that, I guess it.
Speaker 12: The fact is war is a terrible thing, okay, And
Speaker 12: anyone who thinks there's such a thing as you know,
Speaker 12: immaculate warfare simply has never studied it. So yes, there
Speaker 12: will be unfortunately collateral damage, unintentional civilian casualties. But again,
Speaker 12: what you have to do is look at who's doing
Speaker 12: what Hamas is intentionally using civilians as cover. That is
Speaker 12: a war against humanity. At the same time, let me
Speaker 12: speak to the other point. It's important to note that
Speaker 12: even if Hamas uses human shields, Israel still bound by
Speaker 12: this principle of proportionality, and they do have to take
Speaker 12: all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilian casualty or
Speaker 12: to civilians, and they have a history of doing that.
Speaker 12: But that does not mean that they cannot strike targets
Speaker 12: because of the presence of those human shields.
Speaker 3: While they're clearly going forward with that, and I realized
Speaker 3: that you may not be able to separate them general,
Speaker 3: I really appreciate the difficulty here. As civilians move, Hamas
Speaker 3: follows them and embeds itself with them. And I realize
Speaker 3: that there are no easy answers on this. But that's
Speaker 3: why we wanted to bring you in. I have to
Speaker 3: ask you about Ukraine while you're here, sir. The President's
Speaker 3: talking about it today, and we are told that Ukraine
Speaker 3: is out of time, not only out of money, but
Speaker 3: out of time as we head into the winter here
Speaker 3: without more support from the United States. How dire is
Speaker 3: this situation as we head for the cold Well.
Speaker 12: This is another one that's extraordinarily important, not just for
Speaker 12: the Ukrainians protecting the sovereignty of their nation after having
Speaker 12: been illegally invaded by the Russians, but it's also extraordinarily
Speaker 12: important and is in the best interest of the citizenry
Speaker 12: of the United States of America. Now, I just fortuitously
Speaker 12: I met with the Ukrainian Defense Minister yesterday in a
Speaker 12: small setting and had a discussion on this subject. And
Speaker 12: you know, I won't go into any details except to
Speaker 12: say that it is extraordinarily important at the United States
Speaker 12: support the Ukrainians in their defense not only of their
Speaker 12: own people, but in the peace loving and freedom embracing
Speaker 12: nations of NATO, which includes the United States. They're spilling
Speaker 12: the blood of their sons and daughters to defend their country,
Speaker 12: but they're also defending the principles and the interests of
Speaker 12: the United States so that we don't have to get
Speaker 12: involved by sending our sons and daughters to fight against Putin.
Speaker 12: So aid is extraordinarily important. Essentially, if you were given
Speaker 12: the opportunity or the the proposition that you could bring
Speaker 12: Russia to a halt of its aggression not just against Ukraine,
Speaker 12: but anywhere in NATO for about four percent of the
Speaker 12: military budget. Would you do it? That's a hell of
Speaker 12: a good deal without any US men and women being
Speaker 12: involved on the ground.
Speaker 3: In pretty remarkable, and you have to think you go
Speaker 3: back twenty years, every Republican on Capitol Hill would have
Speaker 3: voted for that General. It's good to have you from
Speaker 3: the cockpit of an F fifteen to our table here
Speaker 3: on Bloomberg Sound On, General David Deptula.
Speaker 4: Many thanks for the insights, sir.
Speaker 3: It's good to have you back with us here on Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: I'm Joe Matthew and Washington the fastest show in politics.
Speaker 3: My gosh, we haven't taken a break yet.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 3: We're going to assemble the panel because I'm sure they're
Speaker 3: going to have strong feelings about everything we just heard
Speaker 3: from Mick mulvaney to General Deptula.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound On podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 1: Listen on demand wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Bloomberg Sound On. I'm
Speaker 3: Joe Matthew, in Washington with a heck of a lot
Speaker 3: to talk about here from the Capitol where we have
Speaker 3: news the White House, and of course overseas Israel and
Speaker 3: Ukraine all popping today with headlines on the terminal, and
Speaker 3: we want to assemble our panel to get into everything
Speaker 3: that we've heard over the last twenty five minutes. Lisa
Speaker 3: Camuso Miller is with US Republican strategist, of course, former
Speaker 3: spokesperson for the r n C and host of the
Speaker 3: Friday Reporter podcast.
Speaker 4: We're big fans of it around here.
Speaker 3: Brad Howard's back to Democratic strategist, former spokesperson for the
Speaker 3: Blue Dog Democrats. Great to see both of you, and
Speaker 3: welcome Lisa. I'll start with you because the Republican Conference
Speaker 3: in the House is something we've focused on a lot
Speaker 3: with Mick mulvaney, one that Kevin McCarthy is running from,
Speaker 3: one that Patrick McHenry is running from.
Speaker 4: Would you be running from it as well?
Speaker 13: Hard to be successful there, Joe. It seems to me
Speaker 13: like the other thing we have to probably consider too,
Speaker 13: is that even though two months ago speak a former Speaker,
Speaker 13: McCarthy said that he was staying that there was work
Speaker 13: to be done, it's also really difficult to not be
Speaker 13: in leadership anymore, step away from that and be just
Speaker 13: a regular rank and file member and not have that
Speaker 13: power that he had for so long worked for and
Speaker 13: then had stripped away from him. So my suspicion is
Speaker 13: that there probably is another really great job in the wings,
Speaker 13: and there'll be more for him to report. Who knows,
Speaker 13: But to me, I think more than anything, what we
Speaker 13: all know to be true is being shown out in
Speaker 13: the fact that these big, big retirements are happening, and
Speaker 13: they're happening almost every day.
Speaker 3: There are Democrats, of course leaving as well, but it
Speaker 3: does seem to be a bit of a Republican story
Speaker 3: at this point. It's an interesting situation that we're in here, Brad,
Speaker 3: and I wonder your thoughts on just what it means
Speaker 3: for the Democratic Conference. There are only four seats away
Speaker 3: from taking control of the House. Does more of this
Speaker 3: end up in a change in power in the House
Speaker 3: of Representatives?
Speaker 10: Well, let me say a couple of things. I think.
Speaker 14: First, more broadly, you know, typically you can determine which
Speaker 14: party thinks they're going to win control of Congress in
Speaker 14: the next election judging by how many retire versus the
Speaker 14: other side.
Speaker 10: It seems to me both sides are fed up.
Speaker 14: This is the moment because you're seeing just about the
Speaker 14: same a number of retirements on the Democratic side as
Speaker 14: you are on the Republican side. And we've had Democrats,
Speaker 14: you know, David Cicillini left mid term, Brian Higgins is
Speaker 14: leading in February's right as well, so you know, but
Speaker 14: this is a big, big problem Speaker Johnson. What I
Speaker 14: find kind of funny about Speaker McCarthy's announcement is he
Speaker 14: doesn't have a job lined up.
Speaker 10: Whe he hasn't announced one yet.
Speaker 14: I suspect like, in a way this is his final
Speaker 14: like job at the folks at Alston me because now
Speaker 14: they've got to have a majority with two seats, and
Speaker 14: then you know, if Bill Johnson leaves and then gets
Speaker 14: down to one seat, you know, at any moment a
Speaker 14: procedure emotion, Democrats could win temporary control of the floor
Speaker 14: with the right number of Republican absences.
Speaker 10: So this is a big problem for Speaker Johnson.
Speaker 14: How he's going to navigate probably one of the toughest
Speaker 14: approbations battles we've seen in a while. In January and
Speaker 14: February with the new staggered cr and from there, and
Speaker 14: so you know, this is a big, big problem with
Speaker 14: their public majority. And I think you're just it's only
Speaker 14: gonna get worse, and you're going to continue to see
Speaker 14: more retirements or resignations as we're seeing.
Speaker 4: Boy, that would be remarkable.
Speaker 3: Lisa should the president today instead of calling on Congress
Speaker 3: to pass Ukraine funding, just sent a message to Mike
Speaker 3: Johnson saying.
Speaker 4: You need me.
Speaker 3: This majority is so thin now. Mike Johnson has to
Speaker 3: know he needs Democrats to do anything.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 13: Yes, I'm sure he does, but also too, I mean,
Speaker 13: just based on his background and how he's performed so far,
Speaker 13: he's doing everything he can to try to maintain that
Speaker 13: power for the Republican majority. But Brad's point is so good, Joe.
Speaker 13: This razor thin margin is going to get eaten slimmer
Speaker 13: in February. Right, We've got Santos's seat will be hopefully
Speaker 13: filed by or filled by mid February, but then that's
Speaker 13: just a two seat majority for the Speaker, and then
Speaker 13: with Higgins and Johnson, potentially by the end of February.
Speaker 13: This is going to be For those of us who
Speaker 13: are watching in the cheap seats. It's going to be
Speaker 13: a show to watch, a show to.
Speaker 3: Watch, and it might be a scary one. Brad, let's
Speaker 3: run odds on this for a minute. With everything that
Speaker 3: we're talking about here, the lack of a deal on
Speaker 3: the border, I know some folks are more optimistic about this,
Speaker 3: including Senator Langford who's leading the negotiations, knowing how many
Speaker 3: legislative days are left and knowing that we're going into
Speaker 3: a campaign cycle. Here, my goodness, you guys are talking
Speaker 3: about what could be a one or two WHO seat majority.
Speaker 3: We're not getting any of this done. Are we funding
Speaker 3: for Ukraine? And to put it a built to avoid
Speaker 3: a government shut down? None of that's going to happen.
Speaker 10: To put this in full perspective, we were only four
Speaker 10: full legislative.
Speaker 14: Days between now and the next government shut down deadline four,
Speaker 14: So you got flying and fly outs because we know
Speaker 14: not much gets done on those.
Speaker 10: So you're right.
Speaker 14: I mean, this is a big, big concern. Thankfully, I
Speaker 14: think everyone should enjoy what should be a relatively peaceful
Speaker 14: holiday season legislatively because next year is going to be
Speaker 14: probably one of the most tumultuous ever. Then you add
Speaker 14: in the presidential election. But what I will say again
Speaker 14: about Kevin McCarthy's departure is there's an image floating around.
Speaker 14: I don't know if everybody remembers the term young guns
Speaker 14: that entered three young Republican leaders that were going to
Speaker 14: lead the Republican majority, which was Eric. They're all gone,
Speaker 14: b Ryan and Kevin McCarthy, and now they're all gone.
Speaker 14: But this was like the future of the Republican Party.
Speaker 14: And I think this is a pivotal moment for the
Speaker 14: future of the Republican Party because you're starting to see
Speaker 14: this big divide between the grassroots of the party, the
Speaker 14: grassroots voters and the people that kind of come in
Speaker 14: and out every now and then, they're not in the
Speaker 14: everyday moment of politics, a big divide between that and
Speaker 14: the establishment that's funded by Sheldon Agelson the super PACs.
Speaker 14: So like how the Republicans negotiate, there very tough dynamic
Speaker 14: is going to be a big challenge for them.
Speaker 3: We've got a great conversation going with our panel Brad
Speaker 3: Howard and Lisa Camuso Miller. If you're just joining us,
Speaker 3: I'm Joe Matthew and Washington. I want to ask you
Speaker 3: both about what we heard from General Deptula, because he
Speaker 3: was strident today and clearly does not think that lawmakers
Speaker 3: or progressive critics of what's happening in Israel have any
Speaker 3: idea of what they're talking about. He doesn't trust the
Speaker 3: numbers from Gaza and Lisa. I wonder how you see
Speaker 3: this impacting in Washington here, because the presidents received a
Speaker 3: lot of criticism for supporting this war in Israel.
Speaker 4: Progressives are upset with him.
Speaker 3: We know that Arab American voters and Muslim American voters
Speaker 3: are both upset with him. But does the General have
Speaker 3: a point about this armchair quarterbacking from here in Washington.
Speaker 13: Yes, I think he does. I mean, I think, more
Speaker 13: than anything that I've said it before, and I'll continue
Speaker 13: to say it, a stable Middle East and a stable
Speaker 13: Europe is to the benefit of a stable United States.
Speaker 13: And so I think, with my limited experience and understanding
Speaker 13: of how this all works, is that we need to
Speaker 13: follow the generals. We need to follow the leaders, the
Speaker 13: folks that know about what needs to happen there. Do
Speaker 13: I think that all kinds of stories and false information
Speaker 13: is happening. Absolutely, I think we need to listen to
Speaker 13: the generals on the ground and do what we can
Speaker 13: to support them. And the more that we sit back
Speaker 13: and play games and politics with support for our allies,
Speaker 13: to me, doesn't make very good sense, not only for
Speaker 13: the war effort, but also for our stable United States.
Speaker 3: We should take on this, Brad. The President needs to
Speaker 3: have a concerted message when it comes to this criticism.
Speaker 3: He's certainly sending one to Israel. What should be the
Speaker 3: message to his critics on Israel? After what you just
Speaker 3: heard from the General? Do you disagree with what he said?
Speaker 10: No?
Speaker 14: I mean, I honestly, I don't understand why anybody would
Speaker 14: believe anything Hamas says when they again lied and used
Speaker 14: you know, the Palastini people as you know, human shields
Speaker 14: from bombings and attacks, and we're forced like preventing them
Speaker 14: from leaving and fleeing you know, war zones. But that aside,
Speaker 14: I think the President of the White House had four big
Speaker 14: like issues they have to deal with with this war,
Speaker 14: which is going to consume probably the remainder of his
Speaker 14: first term.
Speaker 10: The number one is you've got to win the war.
Speaker 14: And you know, I don't think you'll ever fully be
Speaker 14: able to get rid of Hamas, but to really, you know,
Speaker 14: decimate them. I think that's that party number one. But
Speaker 14: beyond that, you've got Israel standing in the world. That's
Speaker 14: going to be a big problem for Blincoln and Secretary
Speaker 14: of State to fix and the president as you know this,
Speaker 14: this has really kind of divided the world about how
Speaker 14: to deal with the issue of Israel. And then back home,
Speaker 14: the president has two big problems domestically. Number one is
Speaker 14: how do you combat the anti Semitism that has exploded
Speaker 14: in the open across the US. And Number two, and
Speaker 14: that is in both parties, but we're starting to see
Speaker 14: it from the very progressive left and in college campuses.
Speaker 14: I think number two, how do you fix the political
Speaker 14: problem the fact.
Speaker 10: That young voters, particularly.
Speaker 14: Young progressive voters, are skeptical of the President's commitment to
Speaker 14: Israel or questioning that commitment, And so he's got to
Speaker 14: win those They're not going to go to Trump necessarily,
Speaker 14: but they may just get out of the process altogether
Speaker 14: or get behind a third party.
Speaker 10: So he's got a lot of problems to fix here
Speaker 10: and address. And I feel confident that he's doing.
Speaker 14: The right things both militarily and diplomatically, but how do
Speaker 14: you address this very complex political problem is going to
Speaker 14: be a tough one.
Speaker 3: With a lot of noise out there. I've got less
Speaker 3: than a minute, Lisa. Is this a Republican problem too,
Speaker 3: or one for Joe Biden only?
Speaker 13: Well, it certainly seems to be that that's where the
Speaker 13: buck will stop with the White House, and so the
Speaker 13: White House I think probably has the burden here. You know,
Speaker 13: there's a lot of blame to go around Joe, There's
Speaker 13: a lot of game playing in the House in terms
Speaker 13: of funding. There's a lot of other voices that are
Speaker 13: out there, and let's be fair. I mean, the former
Speaker 13: president started a big He opened a chasm in the
Speaker 13: unhappiness and the ability for people to criticize other groups
Speaker 13: in a way that has I think opened a door
Speaker 13: to the anti semitism that we've heard all across the globe.
Speaker 1: You're listening to The Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch the
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Speaker 3: Welcome to our two of Bloomberg Sound on. I'm Joe
Speaker 3: Matthew in Washington. Charlie's patented double point kicks us off
Speaker 3: for the hour. Find us on YouTube. You would have
Speaker 3: seen Brad Howard's yule log burning for that whole last hour.
Speaker 3: Search Bloomberg Global News. We'll meet you here in the studio.
Speaker 3: You never call, you never write, I was lamenting. Well,
Speaker 3: it's largely true. She texted a couple of times. You
Speaker 3: deserve credit for that. I hope you had a lovely trip.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the nation's capital.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Of course, I'm referring to the great Kaylee Lions, who's
Speaker 3: back with us today. People are getting tired of hearing
Speaker 3: me talk. So great to see you. Welcome back. You
Speaker 3: came back just in time for a whole bunch of breakers.
Speaker 3: Yeah you come back. Kevin McCarthy leaves. I don't know
Speaker 3: if those are connected, but you were up there on
Speaker 3: the hill earlier today. It was kind of a weird
Speaker 3: feeling in the air, and.
Speaker 15: Yeah, it was quiet, it was cold outside. It was
Speaker 15: kind of doing a weird rain snow thing.
Speaker 3: And is reality setting in that actually nothing's going to
Speaker 3: get done this year or next.
Speaker 15: It felt a little bit bleak. To be honest, A
Speaker 15: number of people just didn't really feel like talking to me,
Speaker 15: and perhaps it was because they didn't have much good
Speaker 15: or positive to say, as it feels like there is
Speaker 15: very much not a lot happening on Capitol Hill, even
Speaker 15: if we're going to see a vote in the Senate
Speaker 15: later today on something that is very likely going to fail,
Speaker 15: or they.
Speaker 3: Had abandonment complex or that like I did with Kaylee
Speaker 3: gone either way, Joe Biden's losing patience Kaylee. He actually
Speaker 3: spoke from the White House earlier today telling everybody to
Speaker 3: get with it. This isn't the vote, but there's an
Speaker 3: important test vote, if we can call it that in
Speaker 3: the Senate on Ukraine. Let's hear from the President a
Speaker 3: bit earlier the message let's get moving.
Speaker 5: This cannot wait. Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for
Speaker 5: Ukraine before they break for the holiday. Resources as simple
Speaker 5: as that. Frank, I think it's stunning that we've gotten
Speaker 5: to this point in the first place. Well, Congress, Republic
Speaker 5: and congress as are willing to give putin the greatest
Speaker 5: gift he could hope for and abandon our global leadership,
Speaker 5: not just Ukraine.
Speaker 10: But beyond that.
Speaker 3: The problem is that vote's going to fail and there
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to be a path for this in any form.
Speaker 3: Senate and houseton't agree. President, unlikely they get the combined
Speaker 3: money he's asking for. And look, not a lot has
Speaker 3: changed since you've left. In reality, we're still talking about
Speaker 3: this hinging on a border deal that has yet to emerge.
Speaker 15: Yeah, exactly, And even the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 15: who very much wants additional Ukraine funding, has made it
Speaker 15: tied to the border issue, and it feels like it's
Speaker 15: just a lot of pieces of a puzzle and no
Speaker 15: one's having much success success and putting it together. Thinking
Speaker 15: we might be against a clock here by your end.
Speaker 15: Unclear whether or not that happens. But come the end
Speaker 15: of the year and the start of the next one, Joe,
Speaker 15: that was just going to look a little different. The
Speaker 15: Republicans are actually going to be working with a smaller
Speaker 15: majority because Kevin McCarthy will be gone.
Speaker 3: If you do the math, mcmuvaney was talking to us
Speaker 3: as well. Watch Bill Johnson. We could be in a
Speaker 3: world where there's like a two or three c majority.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 4: By February March. I don't know how this is.
Speaker 15: I don't and we already thought things were difficult to pass.
Speaker 4: I was feeling optimistic. Yesterday.
Speaker 3: We had Rick Davis and Jim Casler. They kept saying, Joe,
Speaker 3: it's darkest before dawn. All this crazy talk you're hearing
Speaker 3: no one can agree means they're probably on the verge
Speaker 3: of a deal. Then I woke up this morning. I
Speaker 3: don't feel that way anymore, and I think they're lying
Speaker 3: to me. Maybe Terry can help me out here, Terry
Speaker 3: will talk me in off the ledge.
Speaker 4: Terry Hayes. Of course, Pangaea policy is with us live
Speaker 4: from Washington. Now, Terry, what's your thought? Glass? Half full?
Speaker 4: Half empty?
Speaker 16: Here?
Speaker 4: Who do you believe?
Speaker 3: Because with everything that I've been hearing since this morning,
Speaker 3: I'm feeling like nothing gets past this year. We're going
Speaker 3: to shut down Ukraine's not going to get any money.
Speaker 3: Nothing can happen in this Congress?
Speaker 1: Can it?
Speaker 17: On this? Sure? But two things have to happen. First,
Speaker 17: this vote this afternoon, and the Senate has to fail.
Speaker 17: Because that's necessary for a lot of people, including Democratic
Speaker 17: Leader Schumer, to be able to turn to their colleagues
Speaker 17: and say, now, see we can't get this done without
Speaker 17: doing something serious on border security, otherwise it doesn't happen.
Speaker 17: And I can tell you from talking to a number
Speaker 17: of Republicans, including a couple of Senators, over the past
Speaker 17: few days, the way we're Publicans see this is very simple.
Speaker 17: You're either going to get You're either going to have
Speaker 17: something on border, in which case AID gets done. But
Speaker 17: if the Democrats aren't willing to deal on border in
Speaker 17: some substantial way to improve the border, then you know,
Speaker 17: very likely nothing's going to happen for a while. And
Speaker 17: Republicans feel like they have the politics on their side,
Speaker 17: of course, and they also feel like they have the
Speaker 17: public with them because you know, you can, you know,
Speaker 17: you can pull any pull out of your pocket and
Speaker 17: say show that three quarters to eight tenths of the
Speaker 17: American public agree that the border is a terrible problem
Speaker 17: and something needs to be done about it. So this
Speaker 17: is a matter of the sooner Democrats figure out they
Speaker 17: need to do something on the border, and a lot
Speaker 17: of them are talking about this. Even a progressive like
Speaker 17: Peter Welch, a very thoughtful guy, has been talking about
Speaker 17: the need to do something substantial on the border. So
Speaker 17: the sooner they get to that, the sooner you actually
Speaker 17: get a deal.
Speaker 15: Terry, does that actually have to be driven though not
Speaker 15: by Democrats in the Senate or in the House, but
Speaker 15: the White House. As you say, the border is a
Speaker 15: sensitive political issue. We have voters that are going to
Speaker 15: be heading to the polls in less than a year
Speaker 15: to vote for who they would like to be president
Speaker 15: of the United States. Is it Biden that needs to
Speaker 15: be more deeply engaged in this.
Speaker 17: Well, Biden certainly put this on the table first, Kayleie,
Speaker 17: and I'm glad you put it this way. Let's remember
Speaker 17: this is the president's construct. It's the president that said,
Speaker 17: and the White House continues to repeat, Admiral Kirby particularly
Speaker 17: repeat that you know what they want is they want Israel,
Speaker 17: a Ukraine, a they want the Indo Pacific Aid as
Speaker 17: they call it, and they want and they want something
Speaker 17: on the border as well. So this is the president's construct,
Speaker 17: whether whether Democrats like it or not. Number one. Number two,
Speaker 17: what I'd say about the President very simply is that
Speaker 17: he's got little to no political capital to achieve anything.
Speaker 17: You know what the White House and the White House
Speaker 17: actually shows you this what they like to do is
Speaker 17: you know kind of issue the thunderbolts from on high,
Speaker 17: as Biden did most recently on the need to get
Speaker 17: something done on Ukraine. Well, you know, if you know,
Speaker 17: I can hear the Republican response in my head, which is,
Speaker 17: you know, if you'd actually sent the weapons on time,
Speaker 17: if you'd actually you know, told us with some more
Speaker 17: alacrity that we needed aid, you know, as soon as possible,
Speaker 17: rather than just asking for it as part of a package,
Speaker 17: maybe we'd be in a little bit of a different place.
Speaker 17: But they're not, and he's not. But he's not really
Speaker 17: able to move the needle on this. This is going
Speaker 17: to be much more up to Leader Schumer than anybody else.
Speaker 3: Well, so, Terry, what's the lightning bolt that unlocks a
Speaker 3: deal on the border. And I know that's an impossible
Speaker 3: question really to answer. We've been trying to do this
Speaker 3: for twenty or thirty years. But you know, we keep
Speaker 3: hearing that Democrats are open to changes in asylum law,
Speaker 3: that there actually is more progress and there's more common
Speaker 3: ground than we think there is, because they'd all love
Speaker 3: to campaign on this next year, is the fact. But
Speaker 3: when you have Mike Johnson saying take HR two or nothing,
Speaker 3: we can't see to get out of the blocks here.
Speaker 17: What do you think, Well, we're in the uh, we're
Speaker 17: we're in the ask for too much uh phase of
Speaker 17: these negotiations. But then, you know, and in part there's
Speaker 17: I think a lack of communication going on here. Republicans
Speaker 17: continue to ask for too much in h R two
Speaker 17: is you know, from a political perspective, from a deal
Speaker 17: making perspective, certainly too much. But the you know, the
Speaker 17: Republicans keep asking for that in part because they feel
Speaker 17: like they're not getting enough enough signal from the Democratic side.
Speaker 17: Democratic side says they're being open, but but then again
Speaker 17: aren't really putting specifics on the table.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 17: So you know, I point to this as as you
Speaker 17: did in the previous hour. I point to the test
Speaker 17: vote this afternoon, this evening in the Senate as the
Speaker 17: as a forcing event that allows Democratic leadership to say, look,
Speaker 17: we need to get serious on this if we're going
Speaker 17: to get something done, and also allows McConnell, because you know,
Speaker 17: this is gonna this is a Senate game much more
Speaker 17: than a house game. Allows mcconnald to also say to
Speaker 17: his people, look, and now the time's come to get serious.
Speaker 17: Let's get serious and get the best we can get
Speaker 17: by all means. Let's get something, not just money, but
Speaker 17: also let's get let's get some substantive improvements.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 17: But we've got two more weeks after this one and
Speaker 17: we're pretty much done. So let's figure this out. And
Speaker 17: you know, the parties, whatever else you can say about
Speaker 17: the parties, they've been sitting here for ten years doing
Speaker 17: nothing on border and immigration issues, and it's about time,
Speaker 17: you know. So they know, they know their limits, they
Speaker 17: know what they can do, and if there's willingness on
Speaker 17: the Democratic side, I think I think you'll see some
Speaker 17: joining hands in the end. I called this at the
Speaker 17: beginning of the week is about a seventy percent likelihood
Speaker 17: to get done before Christmas. I'll stick with that today, all.
Speaker 15: Right, Terry, fair enough, that's the probability of something happening
Speaker 15: before the Christmas New Year holiday. Speaking of the New Year,
Speaker 15: as Joe and I were chatting about earlier, come the
Speaker 15: new year, there will be one less member of the
Speaker 15: Republican Conference, and it happens to be a former speed
Speaker 15: first who has ever ousted Kevin McCarthy. Today he says
Speaker 15: I'm done. He actually released a video announcement from that,
Speaker 15: let's just take a listen.
Speaker 6: Now it is time to pursue my passion in a
Speaker 6: new arena. Well, I'll be departing the house at the
Speaker 6: end of this year. I will never ever give up
Speaker 6: fighting for this country that I love so much.
Speaker 7: To all those who have supported me through the years.
Speaker 6: Especially our constituents, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Speaker 15: So thank you.
Speaker 4: Good choice of music, you like that, it's quite a campaign.
Speaker 3: Just stick and yeah, did you hear the mic drop?
Speaker 3: You see the mic drop at the end here, Kerry,
Speaker 3: I don't know how you feel about this. You know,
Speaker 3: I've got we have these big, beautiful mics that make
Speaker 3: a racket if we'd be very dramatic, can you do
Speaker 3: that with a lava leer?
Speaker 4: And he takes it off the.
Speaker 6: Here, thank you, God bless you and God bless America.
Speaker 4: Here we go.
Speaker 10: That's a rap.
Speaker 8: Clunk.
Speaker 3: He throws the mic on the floor and he almost
Speaker 3: couldn't hear it nor a lot of electraumaticacy.
Speaker 15: Well, Terry, that's a wrap for Kevin McCarthy. I don't
Speaker 15: know if you find that surprising. But of course this
Speaker 15: follows Patrick McHenry saying he wasn't gonna run again. There's
Speaker 15: been a series of these kinds of announcements. What do
Speaker 15: all of them together say to you?
Speaker 17: A couple of things. Well, you know, the let me
Speaker 17: say briefly about uh mister McCarthy that uh, you know,
Speaker 17: his what he'll be remembered for, in addition to the speakership,
Speaker 17: is he'll be remembered for, uh for being a major
Speaker 17: uh a major fundraiser for the party. Uh, you know,
Speaker 17: as uh mc mulvaney pointed out in the last hour.
Speaker 17: And secondly, he'll be uh, he'll he'll be remembered as
Speaker 17: a as a serious recruiter. I mean, somebody who you know,
Speaker 17: really helped Republicans come back, get a majority and maintain
Speaker 17: a majority for a lot longer than a lot more
Speaker 17: people I thought they would. So, you know, he's had
Speaker 17: a successful political career regardless of what he does next.
Speaker 17: You know what I think about this is, you know,
Speaker 17: let's remember instead of thinking about, you know, what's happening today,
Speaker 17: let's remember what we were talking about a month ago.
Speaker 17: What we were talking about a month ago was Congress's
Speaker 17: inability to deal with, among other things, a a looming
Speaker 17: fiscal crisis that you know, regardless of how the bond
Speaker 17: market has responded in the past couple of weeks, it's
Speaker 17: still it's still a fiscal crisis. Markets are still concerned
Speaker 17: about it. Debt's out of control, deficits out of control.
Speaker 17: That's very much the perception fiscal is uh, you know,
Speaker 17: a fiscal spend is rising and you know, perceived to
Speaker 17: be endless. So what you have, what I see in
Speaker 17: all this is, you know, frankly, a bunch of people
Speaker 17: who are you know, the good people are tired of
Speaker 17: on both sides, who are tired of beating their heads
Speaker 17: against the wall. Uh. But I see ah in the
Speaker 17: increasing irrelevance of Congress in the House, and that's that's
Speaker 17: not a happy thing for me to say. But but
Speaker 17: but it's true. I think you get an awful lot
Speaker 17: of people who are concluding that they could do more
Speaker 17: and be better off in all senses being outside the
Speaker 17: institution of rather than being inside of it. And I
Speaker 17: think that's a bad thing. It's also a bad thing
Speaker 17: when you get people like Patrick McHenry, who, among other things,
Speaker 17: you know, everybody understands this now, you kind of started
Speaker 17: as a firebrand, reinvented himself as a as a substantive
Speaker 17: legislator with respect for the other side and a desire
Speaker 17: to kind of do deals and move the ball forward.
Speaker 17: You know, you get somebody like like mister McHenry leaving.
Speaker 17: What you have is, you know, you're abandoning the place
Speaker 17: to kind of more of the firebrands, more of the
Speaker 17: people who think it's all about Team Red, team Blue exclusively,
Speaker 17: and and you know, frankly, there's a It accentuates the
Speaker 17: divergence between the reletively increasing irrelevant of Washington and you know,
Speaker 17: compared to the kinds of things that the markets are
Speaker 17: concerned about politically and geopolitically, which are very, very fundamental.
Speaker 17: The inability of Congress to deal with this stuff is
Speaker 17: reaching a breaking point, and I think that's a bad thing.
Speaker 3: Well, Terry, we're out of time. But you can't blame them, right,
Speaker 3: Do you blame Kevin McCarthy or Patrick McHenry?
Speaker 4: Wouldn't you do the same thing?
Speaker 17: Heavens no, Heavens no. You know, both have served for
Speaker 17: nearly twenty years, and you know, I'm all in favor
Speaker 17: of fresh blood, but these were people, in a lot
Speaker 17: of ways that were still very much the top of
Speaker 17: their games, So I'm sad.
Speaker 4: I'm sad from that perspective, Hayley.
Speaker 3: Terry Haynes says of benditting the place of the firebrands,
Speaker 3: that maybe we can also say the inmates are running
Speaker 3: the asylum.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think that might be the same, Terry. Great to
Speaker 4: see you.
Speaker 1: You're listening to The Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch the
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Speaker 1: Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 3: They're still talking about the hearing, not the bank CEOs today,
Speaker 3: but the college presidents yesterday. We spent some time on this,
Speaker 3: but twenty four hours later, Kaylee, I feel like this
Speaker 3: has become actually a bigger story. The presidents of Harvard
Speaker 3: mit UPenn grilled on anti Semitism and free speech on campus,
Speaker 3: and it really seems to have come down to one
Speaker 3: exchange in particular, at least Dephonic, though looming large in
Speaker 3: that hearing, A lot of folks learned about her yesterday.
Speaker 3: A lot of folks learned that she went to Harvard. Yes,
Speaker 3: and I think she just kind of popped up on
Speaker 3: a lot of people's radars with some very difficult back
Speaker 3: and forth here with these presidents.
Speaker 15: With each one essentially asking them the very same question,
Speaker 15: and it has ignited on social media. I think it's
Speaker 15: fair to say, Joe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, this is a somewhat extended but I
Speaker 3: feel like we need to play the whole thing.
Speaker 4: This is not edited at all.
Speaker 3: Representatively Stephonic of course, a Republican member of the leadership
Speaker 3: talking with Liz McGill, the president of you Penn.
Speaker 18: Here we go at Penn.
Speaker 19: Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Pen's rules
Speaker 19: or code of conduct?
Speaker 18: Yes?
Speaker 19: Or no?
Speaker 18: If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment.
Speaker 19: Yes, I am asking specifically calling for the genocide of Jews?
Speaker 19: Does that constitute bullying harassment?
Speaker 18: If it is directed and severer pervasive, it is harassment.
Speaker 19: So the answer is yes.
Speaker 18: It is a context dependent decision. Congresswoman.
Speaker 19: It's a context dependent decision. That's your testimony today. Calling
Speaker 19: for the genocide of Jews is, depending upon the context,
Speaker 19: that is not bullying or harassment. This is the easiest
Speaker 19: question to ans answer yes, miss McGill. So is your
Speaker 19: testimony that you will not answer yes.
Speaker 18: If it is, or if the speech becomes conduct it
Speaker 18: can be harassment.
Speaker 19: Yes, conduct meaning committing the act of genocide. The speech
Speaker 19: is not harassment. This is unacceptabless MacGill. I'm going to
Speaker 19: give you one more opportunity for the world to see
Speaker 19: your answer. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate
Speaker 19: pens Code of conduct when it comes to bullying and harassment? Yes?
Speaker 19: Or no.
Speaker 18: It can be harassment.
Speaker 19: The answer is yes.
Speaker 4: Just a tortured exchange.
Speaker 3: She had a very similar one, in fact, with the
Speaker 3: president of Harvard as well, Claudine Gay. Look at Bill
Speaker 3: Ackman's tweet. I just got a call from one of
Speaker 3: Harvard's most respected and generous alums. His first words were,
Speaker 3: Bill promised me it was a deep fake. It was not, Kayley,
Speaker 3: it was not.
Speaker 15: And Bill Lackman is not the only well known Wall
Speaker 15: Street Titan who has come out Major Domo had very
Speaker 15: harsh words for the presidents of these universities.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty amazing, and so we're kind of balancing
Speaker 3: this idea of free speech and hate speech and a
Speaker 3: conversation that we were looking forward to having with John Pushinsky,
Speaker 3: Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh, an
Speaker 3: expert in First Amendment and campus lad just the person
Speaker 3: we need here. Professor, I appreciate your joining us. I'm
Speaker 3: sure you have strong feelings about what we heard yesterday here,
Speaker 3: But my goodness, couldn't these college presidents have been better prepared.
Speaker 16: It sounded to me like they were prepared. But I
Speaker 16: was thinking listening to the exchange and the excerpts I
Speaker 16: heard yesterday, is that represented that Stefanic has very little
Speaker 16: understanding of what the First Amendment means and what it protects.
Speaker 15: Okay, So John, help us make that distinction. When we're
Speaker 15: thinking about First Amendment rights, the right to free speech,
Speaker 15: where is the line?
Speaker 16: First of all, it's important emphasized that the advocacy as
Speaker 16: an academic proposition or as an individual preference of any
Speaker 16: particular group, no matter how abhorrent that advocacy may be,
Speaker 16: is protected speech under the First Amendment. According to a
Speaker 16: long line of Supreme Court cases, the line drawn between
Speaker 16: protected speech and unprotected speech is when the speech becomes
Speaker 16: a true threat, and that means that there has to
Speaker 16: be advocacy to in sight or produce imminent lawless action. So,
Speaker 16: in other words, in the nineteen forties, in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 16: there may have been campus discussions about whether worldwide revolution
Speaker 16: was something that people should work towards, and the discussions
Speaker 16: of overthrowing governments, even by violent means, was deemed to
Speaker 16: be protected because it's only people exploring and discussing what
Speaker 16: they believe, as opposed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action.
Speaker 16: When I teach my First Amendment class, I invite the
Speaker 16: students to think about President Trump standing in front of
Speaker 16: the Capitol or away from the Capitol on the mall,
Speaker 16: telling people, you know, let's go stop the steal, go
Speaker 16: to the Capitol. Whether that is just advocacy or whether
Speaker 16: there was really an incitement to produce imminent lawless action,
Speaker 16: which is the legal line to be drawn. The tough
Speaker 16: problem that a lot of the universities have is that
Speaker 16: there is also a federal statute in this Title six
Speaker 16: that prohibits discrimination on the number of bases, including religion,
Speaker 16: from programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance. So they
Speaker 16: may have statutory duties feather separate and apart from First
Speaker 16: Amendment responsibilities. Also, we should know that the three schools
Speaker 16: who spoke at Congress yesterday, pen, Harvard, and MIT are
Speaker 16: all private universities, in the First Amendment doesn't apply.
Speaker 3: That's where I want to get to with you here,
Speaker 3: because I appreciate the point that you're making, Professor, and
Speaker 3: I apologize for interrupting. You could probably kick me out
Speaker 3: of your class for that. But look, these are presidents
Speaker 3: of private universities talking about their code of conduct right
Speaker 3: their code of ethics here in a congressional hearing. Why
Speaker 3: seek nuance in that case? Why not give them a
Speaker 3: yes or no? This is what people think is wrong
Speaker 3: with these universities.
Speaker 16: Well, because the terms that were being bandied a belt
Speaker 16: don't have definitions that everybody understands the same way. I've
Speaker 16: had debates with people as to what genocide means, and
Speaker 16: there are a lot of people who attach definitions different
Speaker 16: than a un definition of genocide. We heard Representative Stephanic
Speaker 16: or others use the term hate speech, But what does
Speaker 16: that mean? If I say I don't like you and
Speaker 16: you don't belong in my neighborhood, is that hate speech? Now,
Speaker 16: universities have the right to create codes of conduct, but
Speaker 16: they are also academic institutions that traditionally believe in debate
Speaker 16: exploration of ideas. And the fear that I have is
Speaker 16: that if you prohibit certain speech and certain ideas, you
Speaker 16: don't stop those ideas. You don't stop that speech, you
Speaker 16: drive it underground where you have much less control over
Speaker 16: it than when it's out in the open. I mean,
Speaker 16: just as Holmes on the Supreme Court taught us that
Speaker 16: the way to fight bad speech is to counter with
Speaker 16: good speech.
Speaker 15: So, Professor, if I'm understanding you correctly, when you're actually
Speaker 15: looking at the legal matters here, the difficulty in assigning
Speaker 15: specific definitions to a lot of this language, you actually
Speaker 15: think that these college presidents are approaching this in the
Speaker 15: right way, at least from a legal standpoint. You don't
Speaker 15: see much wrong here.
Speaker 16: Well, I'm not sure how. I'm not very familiar with
Speaker 16: what's happening on each of the three campuses, so I
Speaker 16: believed that I can comment on whether they are approaching
Speaker 16: what's happening on their campuses correctly. If there are actual
Speaker 16: threats against individuals, or if people are being intimidated, then
Speaker 16: the universities may have an affirmative duty to take correct
Speaker 16: of action.
Speaker 3: Well, Professor, I don't know what's going to come of
Speaker 3: that hearing yesterday, but it seems to me that lawmakers
Speaker 3: can do whatever they want. And it's really money that
Speaker 3: we're talking about here in donations. Those folks like Bill Ackman,
Speaker 3: who we mentioned a Mitt Romney, who are protesting now
Speaker 3: giving a dollar instead of thousands or a million dollars
Speaker 3: to these schools might in fact affect change. You might
Speaker 3: not want to answer this, but do you think all
Speaker 3: three of these presidents will still have their jobs a
Speaker 3: year from now?
Speaker 16: I don't. It's not questioned whether I want to answer.
Speaker 16: I don't know what the answer is. But I do
Speaker 16: believe that those who withhold donations because they're not happy
Speaker 16: with what's happening are exercising their First Amendment rights to
Speaker 16: express their displeasure with the way the university presidents have
Speaker 16: handled the situation, and that might maybe they bring us
Speaker 16: just means of affecting change. One thing that I am
Speaker 16: concerned about when I hear calls for expelling students or
Speaker 16: from suspending students for exercising an unpopular opinion or view,
Speaker 16: is that it doesn't really solve anything. What I believe
Speaker 16: the more appropriate way to respond would be for the
Speaker 16: universities to create teaching moments, and if someone has violated
Speaker 16: the code of conduct through speech or through participation in
Speaker 16: a demonstration where no one is really threatened, or where
Speaker 16: there is no incitement to imminent modeless action, it might
Speaker 16: be more productive to have a teaching moment with that
Speaker 16: student them to have the students study actual history, to
Speaker 16: write a paper on the issue of what was to
Speaker 16: be done by the world with the Jews after the Holocaust,
Speaker 16: who had no place to go without the thread of
Speaker 16: being killed apart from their traditional historic.
Speaker 4: Come professor, we appreciate your weighing in on this.
Speaker 3: There are obviously no easy answers here, and that's why
Speaker 3: we appreciate your trying to answer them. John Prashinsky, Adjunct
Speaker 3: Professor of Laya University of Pittsburgh with.
Speaker 4: Us here on Bloomberg sound On. We thank you for joining, sir,
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