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Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of these spicy stories going on

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Speaker 1: right now with David Drucker, senior writer at The Dispatch.

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Speaker 1: Prior to that, of course, he was senior correspondent for

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Speaker 1: The Washington Examiner, and David's also the author of the

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Speaker 1: book In Trump's Shadow, The Battle for twenty twenty four

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Speaker 1: in the Future of the GOP.

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Speaker 2: David, welcome, How are you hey?

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Speaker 3: Good to be here. Thank you.

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Speaker 2: How are you liking working at the Dispatch so far?

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Speaker 3: I really like it, no sarcasm. It's a great gig.

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Speaker 3: I think we do a lot of really good work

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Speaker 3: and they free me up to just pursue and report

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Speaker 3: really good stories.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and you're awesome on there, and one of the

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Speaker 4: reasons I want to have you on today, in addition

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Speaker 4: to the fact that you're probably the best at reporting

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Speaker 4: on stuff like the Republican House Speaker fight. You seem

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Speaker 4: pretty fired up as I was about the failure of

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Speaker 4: the prestige US media on Tuesday, going ahead and announcing

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Speaker 4: that Israeli Israel had bombed a hospital before they knew

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Speaker 4: what was going on, which really pisses me off.

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Speaker 3: Well, because this is pretty typical. I'm not even the

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Speaker 3: biggest look, I'm in the media, so rather than criticize

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Speaker 3: the media, I just try to do my job. But

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Speaker 3: I will say, as an observer of American and Middle

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Speaker 3: East politics for decades, I'm just old enough that now

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Speaker 3: I've been able to observe this for decades. This is

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Speaker 3: par for the course. This might be new to some people,

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Speaker 3: but this always happens. People jump to conclusions what it

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Speaker 3: has to do with Israel, conclusions. They don't jump to

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Speaker 3: what it has to do with other countries and other

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Speaker 3: nonstate actors. And you know, in this case, it's just

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Speaker 3: in the middle of a very volatile situation that has

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Speaker 3: the potential to have a real damaging impact in the

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Speaker 3: region and domestically. But I wasn't surprised because this is again,

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Speaker 3: it's just what.

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Speaker 4: Happens well there. As a number of people have pointed out,

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Speaker 4: one of the problems with that is the media, which

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Speaker 4: usually leans left and supports democratic policies, hurt the president's

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Speaker 4: owned policies as he had to cancel some meetings, hurt

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Speaker 4: the prospect for peace which would help Palestinians. I mean, who,

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Speaker 4: I don't even understand their motivation other than hating on

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Speaker 4: israel I guess.

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Speaker 3: I think, well, I think, look, I think you're some

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Speaker 3: people might be over thinking this. You know, even though

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Speaker 3: the media can and has demonstrated over the years to

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Speaker 3: have a left leaning bias, they're not. There's not some

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Speaker 3: place where they all go meet and decide with the

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Speaker 3: with the party's messages for the day. And so I

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Speaker 3: think this has to do with a worldview, not a

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Speaker 3: political bias necessarily, but just a worldview about how they

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Speaker 3: viewed the Israeli government. And the point I was trying

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Speaker 3: to make, not that anybody cares, was that it's our

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Speaker 3: job as journalists to be skeptical of everything and everyone.

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Speaker 3: But but skepticism doesn't deserve to be dished out equally.

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Speaker 3: In the case of Hamas, which is a terrorist organization

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Speaker 3: that purposely targets civilians. Just stepping back from whatever you

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Speaker 3: opinions of the Israeli Palestinian conflict and dispute, his are.

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Speaker 3: This group is not a normal army that operates according

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Speaker 3: to the law, the international laws of war. They never

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Speaker 3: have and they've even shown a willingness to put their

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Speaker 3: own people in danger just to get Israel to get

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Speaker 3: blamed for one of the misfortunate that then befalls their

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Speaker 3: own people or the death, and that's how they operate.

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Speaker 3: So my response to this isn't you should believe the

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Speaker 3: Israeli government. No, you shouldn't believe the Israeli government, but

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Speaker 3: you should show Hamas more skepticism than you do the

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Speaker 3: Israeli government and just say you don't know and wait

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Speaker 3: until you know and have enough information.

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Speaker 1: Well, my final thought on the topic is if you're

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Speaker 1: going to be completely credulous and print somebody's claims about something,

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Speaker 1: the fact that that somebody was Hamas and they printed

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Speaker 1: those claims as just.

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Speaker 2: Astounding to me.

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Speaker 1: But moving along with David Drucker of The Dispatch, David,

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Speaker 1: I've been referring to the contest to elect a House

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Speaker 1: speaker as a clown show.

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Speaker 2: Is that unnecessarily harsh in your opinion?

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Speaker 3: No, I think you're being disrespectful to clowns. That's an

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Speaker 3: honorable question because you actually make people laugh and do

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Speaker 3: a service.

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Speaker 4: Right, beautiful, somebody will get a balloon animal at the end.

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Speaker 4: I mean, there's benefits to it. So where are we currently.

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Speaker 3: Nowhere? Republicans can't agree amongst themselves on anybody when it

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Speaker 3: comes to delivering two hundred and eighteen votes for the gabble,

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Speaker 3: and so there's a lot of discussion now about elevating

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Speaker 3: or I should say empowering Speaker pro Tem path Patrick McHenry,

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Speaker 3: a North Carolina Republican with a lot of the authority

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Speaker 3: that goes along with being the actual Speaker of the House.

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Speaker 3: Isn't allow the Chamber to get back to work move legislation.

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Speaker 3: We're about a month away from the government running out

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Speaker 3: of money again, or the President this evening is going

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Speaker 3: to pitch a big aid package or Israel, Ukraine and

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Speaker 3: we think Taiwan and possibly some domestic border security money,

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Speaker 3: although it's unclear, but we know that Israel, ad for Israel,

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Speaker 3: and Ukraine are going to be packaged together. At least

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Speaker 3: that's what the President is going to propose, and that's

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Speaker 3: what I think the Senate is going to move on.

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Speaker 3: And so in order to pass this legislation is going

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Speaker 3: to need to be operable, and so Republicans are going

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Speaker 3: to have to figure out what they want to do.

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Speaker 3: I don't know that we're near this McHenry solution, but

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Speaker 3: it's what's being discussed because nobody wants to look I do.

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Speaker 3: I'm talking long here, but The reason Republicans are in

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Speaker 3: this mess is because there are not enough of them.

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Speaker 3: They want to follow their own rules. Their rules say

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Speaker 3: that in an internal conference election, whoever gets the most

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Speaker 3: votes above a certain number is the speaker designate when

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Speaker 3: they're in the and they're all supposed to vote for

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Speaker 3: that person on the floor. It's not that it's binding constitutionally,

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Speaker 3: that that's the rules they have for themselves. They wouldn't

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Speaker 3: honor it with Kevin McCarthy, they wouldn't honor it with

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Speaker 3: Steve's falife, and so now members that always go along

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Speaker 3: because they want to govern and be pragmatic finally said

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Speaker 3: I've had enough. If you don't have to follow the.

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Speaker 1: Rules and needed a lot, well you're a fine psychic,

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Speaker 1: is I was just going to say. The crazy part

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Speaker 1: to me is that you know they can't arrive at

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Speaker 1: a result is too bad, But they can't even arrive

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Speaker 1: at a process. Apparently all of the rules and customers

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Speaker 1: are out the window. So let's move on to what's

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Speaker 1: it look like behind the scenes. I understand there's some

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Speaker 1: serious arm twisting to vote for Jordan, backlash, et cetera.

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Speaker 3: Look, Jordan has been trying to bring his opponents along,

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Speaker 3: but I don't think he can. There's a lot of

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Speaker 3: ill will in the conference right now. We talked about

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Speaker 3: it as being a dysfunctional conference, but it's now also factionalized.

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Speaker 3: There's a lot of ill will. There are a lot

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Speaker 3: of hurt feelings. There's a lot of frustration, and whether

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Speaker 3: or not Jordan is responsible for this or look the

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Speaker 3: other way, or even whether or not he told his

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Speaker 3: allies off of Capitol Hill please stop and they just

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Speaker 3: didn't listen. One of the problems that the Republicans who

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Speaker 3: oppose him have is that they feel like Jordan and

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Speaker 3: his allies were bringing outside pressure to bear and threatening them,

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Speaker 3: threatening them with primary challengers, that they're that these these

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Speaker 3: pro Jordan activists were even sending in death threats and wow,

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Speaker 3: and and it gets to the fact that that's what

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Speaker 3: some members have alleged and and they've really statements for

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Speaker 3: that effect.

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Speaker 4: Well, if I got a death threat, and I thought

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Speaker 4: if I got a death threat, and I thought it

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Speaker 4: came from Jordan's people, especially with his knowledge, yeah I

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Speaker 4: wouldn't be real likely.

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Speaker 2: To vote for him.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well. I think the other thing though, too, is

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Speaker 3: so when conservative activists and somehow Republicans who support Jordan

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Speaker 3: make the case that this is what the voters want.

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Speaker 3: What a lot of House Republicans pier is, Oh, so

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Speaker 3: I'm supposed to do whatever Jordan wants because your voters,

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Speaker 3: my voters like him better than me, and he's going

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Speaker 3: to use that against me. And and members of Congress

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Speaker 3: want to be the stars in their own district. They

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Speaker 3: understand that when there's a president that their voters like,

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Speaker 3: they're under pressure to work with that president or even

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Speaker 3: just support that president without you know, too much, you know,

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Speaker 3: without without too much trouble. But when another when a

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Speaker 3: congressional leader says, do what I say, or your voters

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Speaker 3: are going to be angry. It's as opposed to I'm

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Speaker 3: going to help you succeed in your district. It's just

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Speaker 3: it's not the way you win a congressional leadership race,

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Speaker 3: which was is different than running for office where voters

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Speaker 3: of the constituency versus members of Congress.

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Speaker 1: So how certain are you that the Patrick McHenry move

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Speaker 1: is the next step?

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Speaker 2: Is there just no other road to take at this point?

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Speaker 3: It appears that there's no other road to take at

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Speaker 3: this point, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily the

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Speaker 3: next step versus no step, And it sort of depends

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Speaker 3: on how many House Republicans are willing to go along

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Speaker 3: and do this, because you're going to have a you know,

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Speaker 3: some significant member of the conference, even though it maybe

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Speaker 3: a minority, that's going to oppose doing this, And so

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Speaker 3: the thinking would be that Democrats would join in with this,

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Speaker 3: and you know, mckenry sort of has to be willing,

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Speaker 3: Like I guess he could say forget it, I'm not

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Speaker 3: going to serve. But I think we just kind of

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Speaker 3: need to see whether Jordan calls another vote today. My

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Speaker 3: sources tell me that he's likely likely to lose more votes,

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Speaker 3: that there are more members than we saw in the

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Speaker 3: first two votes that are opposing him, but they want

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Speaker 3: to stagger their vote so that it's clear if that

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Speaker 3: it's like it's going backwards wow, versus even staying the same.

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Speaker 3: But you know, this has been such a volatile, uncertain process.

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Speaker 3: I'm hesitant to make predictions versus just kind of tell

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Speaker 3: you what I'm hearing.

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Speaker 1: So clown show an appropriate poop show, I suppose more appropriate.

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Speaker 1: I'll be going with that in the future. Final question, David,

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Speaker 1: we're chatting about this earlier. Have you heard whether the

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Speaker 1: president's address eight o'clock eastern tonight is going to be

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Speaker 1: live or not.

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Speaker 2: He's an old man, you see.

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Speaker 3: No, it's going to be live. Yeah, No, you don't

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Speaker 3: do it. Office of Dress. It's not live. Yeah. And

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Speaker 3: it's eight eastern five o'clock Pacific, which means, you know,

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Speaker 3: people are you know, theoretically off work or on their

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Speaker 3: way home. It's not home yet. That's why you wait

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Speaker 3: until late o'clock.

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Speaker 2: Well that's pretty late in the day after.

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Speaker 4: That's pretty late in the day after a long trip

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Speaker 4: and a lot of time zones and all that sort

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Speaker 4: of stuff. For him.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well look, I mean, you know, I understand how

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Speaker 3: people feel about his age, but he'd been able to

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Speaker 3: do this before and and so, you know, be interesting

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Speaker 3: to see what's in the speech. The speech just about

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Speaker 3: Israel and Ukraine. He had been planning an address about

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Speaker 3: Ukraine before Hamas attack Israel in October seventh. So now

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Speaker 3: we've got the sort of combined address. I wonder if

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Speaker 3: it's his first Oval address. I have to check. But obviously,

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Speaker 3: you know, presidents use the Old Office for these addresses

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Speaker 3: very sparingly, not to dilute the significance of it and

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Speaker 3: the power of it, and we'll see you know what

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Speaker 3: he says and how Americans react with.

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Speaker 1: David Drucker, Senior writer at The Dispatch. His latest book

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Speaker 1: is In Trump's Shadow, The Battle for twenty twenty four

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Speaker 1: in the Future of the GOP. Good to talk to you, David,

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Speaker 1: Thanks a bunch anytime.

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Speaker 3: Guys, Thank you, Armstrong and Getty.