Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with
Speaker 2: you and Senator You're still.
Speaker 1: Stuck in Washington, d C as we speak.
Speaker 2: Usually everybody's going home right now, but it's midnight and
Speaker 2: you're still there.
Speaker 3: Well, it is eleven thirty two pm right now, Thursday night.
Speaker 3: I am usually home in Texas, getting ready to go
Speaker 3: to bed in my own bed with my wife and kids.
Speaker 4: I am in Washington, d C. Right now.
Speaker 3: It looks like there's a very good chance me we
Speaker 3: may be in Washington, d C. On Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.
Speaker 3: We could be in d C on Christmas Day. We
Speaker 3: are twenty four hours away from a government shutdown. At
Speaker 3: this point, the path ahead appears very uncertain. We're gonna
Speaker 3: break that down. We're gonna explain what is going on,
Speaker 3: what is a continuing resolution, what does this mean, and
Speaker 3: how does this likely get resolved.
Speaker 4: We're gonna explain that coming up.
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Speaker 2: an interesting conversation center about what's happening in Washington.
Speaker 1: And look, there's.
Speaker 2: The politics of it that everybody's obsessed with and pointing fingers.
Speaker 2: I love doing this show because I think we can
Speaker 2: look at it a little bit differently. I want people
Speaker 2: to understand, starting off with what is actually being fought over,
Speaker 2: and that is a CR. Can you explain in layman's
Speaker 2: terms what a CR is? Why we keep having these
Speaker 2: over Christmas time? And is this the normal way that
Speaker 2: government does work or is this abnormal?
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, it's a very good question.
Speaker 3: People are very confused about it. And let me do
Speaker 3: my best to explain number one, what this fight fight
Speaker 3: is about. Then and then some basic principles to think
Speaker 3: about it, because there are a lot of people who
Speaker 3: are right now yelling, but it's hard to understand what's
Speaker 3: going on. So for the federal government to operate, Congress
Speaker 3: has to appropriate funds. Appropriating funds is voting to spend money.
Speaker 3: Unless Congress appropriates funds, money can't be spent. Now, there
Speaker 3: are three principal ways money gets appropriated. The first and
Speaker 3: the best one is Congress actually passing appropriation bills through
Speaker 3: the regular order, through the process of legislating. They're typically
Speaker 3: thirteen appropriations bills. For each of them may major cabinet
Speaker 3: areas and subject matters, and the way it should operate
Speaker 3: as Congress takes up an appropriation bill, the House passes that,
Speaker 3: the Senate passes at the President signs it. That's the
Speaker 3: way it normally works. It almost never works that way anymore,
Speaker 3: especially when you have what we have now, which is
Speaker 3: divided government. We have right now a Republican House barely
Speaker 3: a very very small Republican majority in the House. We
Speaker 3: have a Democrat Senate and Democrat President. And so as
Speaker 3: a result, appropriations bills will not pass, and they will
Speaker 3: not pass because the Republican House and the Democrats Senate
Speaker 3: fundamentally disagree on what should be in those appropriation bills.
Speaker 3: There's a second way you fund the government, and that's
Speaker 3: through what's called an omnibus, or sometimes you call it
Speaker 3: a minibus. Basically, what that is is a bunch of
Speaker 3: appropriation bills jammed together. So instead of thirteen separate bills,
Speaker 3: you can get an omnibus would be all thirteen. A
Speaker 3: minibus is sometimes say four or five, six of them,
Speaker 3: but it is a specific appropriation for a portion of
Speaker 3: government that frequently how things are done, all crammed together. Again,
Speaker 3: we can't get agreement. Doing it in divided government is
Speaker 3: very difficult, and I will point out that Joe Biden
Speaker 3: and the Democrats are providing the zero leadership to do
Speaker 3: anything other than embracing radical positions that of course Republicans
Speaker 3: in the House aren't going to agree with. So the
Speaker 3: third way, and they are really only three, is what's
Speaker 3: called a continuing resolution. So a continuing resolution typically does
Speaker 3: not specify how how money will be appropriated. It simply
Speaker 3: says what we're doing now, let's continue going forward, and
Speaker 3: a continuing resolution is typically for a set period of time.
Speaker 3: A continuing resolution is usually abbreviated a CR, and a
Speaker 3: CR basically said a continued resolution basically says what we're
Speaker 3: spending today, keep spending tomorrow, and you sometimes will get
Speaker 3: You can get a long term CR, like you could
Speaker 3: get say a year long CR that says for the
Speaker 3: next year, we're just going to spend what we're spending
Speaker 3: right now. You can get a short term CR. Sometimes
Speaker 3: crs are short, as short as a day or two
Speaker 3: or a week or more. Now, why is this fight happening.
Speaker 3: This fight is happening because at midnight Friday night, funding
Speaker 3: for the government expires, and that was set in the
Speaker 3: last funding battle. Congress funded it through midnight Friday night.
Speaker 3: That means at twelve oh one am on Saturday, funding
Speaker 3: for the government will expire. Now, if we get to
Speaker 3: twelve oh one am, and I got to say sitting
Speaker 3: here right now, that seems like a very likely outcome
Speaker 3: that we're going to get to twelve oh one without
Speaker 3: this being resolved, the result will be a quote unquote
Speaker 3: government shutdown. Now, what does a government shutdown mean? Well,
Speaker 3: that phrase is overstated because much of government does not
Speaker 3: shut down. Number One mandatory spending. Mandatory spending is government
Speaker 3: spending that is written that is automatically spent, that doesn't
Speaker 3: need to be appropriated, mandatory spending is not affected. What
Speaker 3: does that mean. It means so security checks will go
Speaker 3: out regardless. It means Medicare will go out regardless, It
Speaker 3: means Medicaid will go out regardless. It means anything that
Speaker 3: is written as mandatory spending happens regardless, because you don't
Speaker 3: need appropriations. That's just written to automatically be spent. What
Speaker 3: else does it mean, Well, if you have a government shutdown,
Speaker 3: it is existing law that even in the case of
Speaker 3: a shutdown, when Congress has not appropriated funds, essential services continue. So,
Speaker 3: for example, if at twelve oh one am on Friday,
Speaker 3: we have a government shutdown, the military is not going
Speaker 3: to suddenly cease to operate. We have soldiers and sailors
Speaker 3: and airmen and marines who are deployed in harm's way.
Speaker 3: The military is the very definition of essential services, so
Speaker 3: they'll continue to defend this nation. It means that there
Speaker 3: are a host of positions throughout government that are deemed essential,
Speaker 3: and by the way, that's decided typically agency by agency.
Speaker 4: It is up to.
Speaker 3: Each agency to decide how many, which ones of their
Speaker 3: employees are essential. At some cabinet departments. You take it
Speaker 3: to a cabinet department like the Commerce Department. Historically you
Speaker 3: have seventy percent or more of the employees that are
Speaker 3: deemed non essential. If you're deemed non essential, when there's
Speaker 3: a government shutdown, you stay home, you don't go to work,
Speaker 3: you don't do anything. And by the way, typically all
Speaker 3: government employees stop being paid. So one of the consequences
Speaker 3: of a shutdown is if you're a federal government employee,
Speaker 3: your paycheck doesn't come.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Sometimes Congress will make exceptions so for example and pass shutdowns.
Speaker 3: We have made exceptions with some frequency for active duty military,
Speaker 3: but that actually takes Congress moving in and legislating and saying,
Speaker 3: you know what, We're going to pay our soldiers, sailors, airmen,
Speaker 3: and marines. But if Congress doesn't act, they don't get paid.
Speaker 3: In the last big shutdown we had when Trump was president,
Speaker 3: I went to the Senate Flora and fought to pay
Speaker 3: coast guardsmen. Look, the Coastguard was saving people who were drowning,
Speaker 3: they were guarding our border, they were working, and they
Speaker 3: weren't being paid. And the Democrats stood up and objected
Speaker 3: to paying Coast guardsmen during the shutdown. So the basic
Speaker 3: principle is, the vast majority of federal government employees don't
Speaker 3: get paid during a shutdown. And by the way, if
Speaker 3: you're a young enlisted man, I mean you might need
Speaker 3: like your paycheck to pay your rent next month, you
Speaker 3: might need your paycheck to pay your food. Like many
Speaker 3: of these these government employees are not wealthy and they
Speaker 3: are living paycheck to paycheck, So having the paycheck stop
Speaker 3: puts real burdens, particularly on the load to median income
Speaker 3: federal workers. On top of that, when the shutdown ends,
Speaker 3: the federal workers all get paid, they get paid back pay.
Speaker 3: So what we end up doing is having a significant
Speaker 3: chunk of federal workers not work for a period of time,
Speaker 3: and then they don't get paid during that period of time,
Speaker 3: and then after the fact they get paid on the
Speaker 3: back end. So we waste a bunch of government money.
Speaker 3: That's what's at stake. Now, how do we think through
Speaker 3: this fight? What does it mean? I'm going to suggest
Speaker 3: four key principles that are important. I want to start
Speaker 3: with one that almost no one talking about this is
Speaker 3: talking about. But it's a very simple one. Count to eighteen.
Speaker 3: I want to repeat that Ben, count to eighteen. To
Speaker 3: eighteen is a majority of the House of Representatives. The
Speaker 3: House Representatives has four hundred and thirty five representatives. Two
Speaker 3: hundred eighteen is half of it. Unless you have absences
Speaker 3: or vacancies. Nothing can pass the House without two hundred
Speaker 3: and eighteen votes. So we have seen. There have been
Speaker 3: two different attempts so far by House leadership to pass
Speaker 3: a CR continuing resolution. The first attempt was a continuing
Speaker 3: resolution that extended until the middle of March, and it
Speaker 3: included a variety of different programs. Now, I want you
Speaker 3: to understand. I want you to imagine for a second, Ben,
Speaker 3: that you wake up tomorrow morning and your name is
Speaker 3: Mike Johnson. You're the Speaker of the House. I want
Speaker 3: you to engage in some simple math. You need to
Speaker 3: get to eighteen.
Speaker 2: Okay, if you don't get to two eight in my life,
Speaker 2: I don't think I want to get to that name
Speaker 2: in the morning, because I know how stressful that job's
Speaker 2: got to be.
Speaker 3: So I want to walk through just the simple reality
Speaker 3: that Mike is facing.
Speaker 4: He needs to eighteen.
Speaker 3: Now, a continuing resolution continues funding the current discussion is
Speaker 3: through mid March. On top of that, you've got a
Speaker 3: significant number of House members who are insisting at least
Speaker 3: two things be included in the continuing Resolution. Number one
Speaker 3: is one hundred and ten billion dollars in funding for
Speaker 3: farmers and ranchers and ag that have just been hammered
Speaker 3: across this country. So if you don't add that money
Speaker 3: for farmers and ranchers and ags, you lose's dozens of Republicans,
Speaker 3: you lose a ton of votes if you don't have
Speaker 3: ag there. So you're sitting there going, Okay, we need
Speaker 3: to take care of our farmers and ranchers. We need
Speaker 3: to have that money. Secondly, you've got disaster relief, and
Speaker 3: in particular two states that have been just hammered by
Speaker 3: disasters recently, Florida and North Carolina. Now the Florida and
Speaker 3: North Carolina members are saying, if you do not have
Speaker 3: disaster relief in this bill, I'm voting no. So here's
Speaker 3: the challenge. The first version, Mike Johnson sits down, he
Speaker 3: extends government funding, he puts funding for farmers and ranchers
Speaker 3: in there, he puts disaster relief in there. Now, there
Speaker 3: are a significant number of Republicans who is a matter
Speaker 3: of principles say they will never ever ever vote for
Speaker 3: continuing resolution. So if you're only looking to Republicans, you
Speaker 3: can't get to two eighteen because they're a bunch of them.
Speaker 3: They're going to vote no, no matter what. They're just
Speaker 3: like no, no, no, I will not vote yes. No.
Speaker 3: So you're Mike Johnson, you've got to get to get
Speaker 3: to eighteen. You look at Republicans. There are not two
Speaker 3: hundred and eighteen Republicans who will vote yes. Your only
Speaker 3: choice is to get Democrat votes. If you've got to
Speaker 3: get to to eighteen, where you'd like to start is
Speaker 3: give me two hunterd eighteen Republicans. There are not I
Speaker 3: don't believe there are two hundred eighteen Republicans who will
Speaker 3: vote vote for any CR. That means you must get Democrats. Now, Democrats,
Speaker 3: let's look at something like relief for farmers and ranchers.
Speaker 3: Most Democrats today, the Democrats by and large don't care
Speaker 3: about farmers and ranchers. So the Democrats are like, I'm
Speaker 3: not going to vote for aid for farmers and ranchers.
Speaker 3: Why would I do that? And Florida and North Carolina
Speaker 3: are both Republican states, so Most of the Democrats are like,
Speaker 3: why would I give disaster relief to Florida and North Carolina.
Speaker 3: I'm not from there, I'm a liberal New Yorker. Why
Speaker 3: would I help out Florida? And So what happens is
Speaker 3: the Democrats say, Okay, if you want my vote, I
Speaker 3: need X, Y, and Z. Now these are demands made
Speaker 3: by Democrat members of Congress. So they're bad, they're bad policies,
Speaker 3: they're terrible. And so the first bill that Mike Johnson
Speaker 3: rolled out had some elements in it that were really bad. Now,
Speaker 3: I don't like elements that are bad, But what is
Speaker 3: Mike Johnson supposed to do? If there were two hundred
Speaker 3: and eighteen Republican votes there, he would not have to
Speaker 3: agree to really bad Democrat provisions. There are a bunch
Speaker 3: of Republicans who are like, hell, no, no matter what,
Speaker 3: I won't vote for you. So Mike Johnson, on the
Speaker 3: first version, I think, felt he had no choice but
Speaker 3: get the Democrat votes to pass it. Now, when he
Speaker 3: rolled it out, Twitter went crazy and a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of people criticized it and they said, they're Democrat provisions
Speaker 3: in here that are terrible. Now, mind you just remember
Speaker 3: the very simple principal, count to two eighteen. If you
Speaker 3: can get to two eighteen and a better bill, awesome,
Speaker 3: And by the way, to eighteen doesn't even get it
Speaker 3: done because you've also got to get it to pass
Speaker 3: the Senate, which Chuck Schumer and the Democrats control. But
Speaker 3: let's just focus on the House. If you can't get
Speaker 3: to two eighteen, nothing will pass. All right, let me
Speaker 3: talk about a second principle. I've got four principles that
Speaker 3: I want to lay out. Number one is count to
Speaker 3: tow eighteen. And just remember this because almost all of
Speaker 3: the commentary is ignoring the fact that nothing will pass
Speaker 3: unless you can get to to eighteen. And by the way,
Speaker 3: so the first bill, Johnson had a cr through mid March,
Speaker 3: had far made, had disaster relief, and had a bunch
Speaker 3: of gives he had to give to Democrats because he
Speaker 3: had to get Democrat votes to get it to pass.
Speaker 3: Twitter went crazy, blasted him, you terrible rhino. How could
Speaker 3: you possibly propose? Democrat asks, Well, the answer would be
Speaker 3: because he's got to get to eighteen, and so the
Speaker 3: first one crashed and burned. Then Trump wants to raise
Speaker 3: the death ceiling. Now, what's the death ceiling. Let's talk
Speaker 3: about that, because there's sort of two elements in these battles.
Speaker 3: One is funding the government. The other is the debt ceiling,
Speaker 3: which is a cap on how much the federal government
Speaker 3: can borrow. Now, every president hates the death ceiling. When
Speaker 3: Trump is president, he's got to raise the debt ceiling
Speaker 3: because if he doesn't raise the death ceiling, we will
Speaker 3: run into the death ceiling. And if we did not
Speaker 3: actually raise it, the United States would default on its debt,
Speaker 3: which would be disastrous for this country. So Trump wants
Speaker 3: to raise the death ceiling. Now, Trump is also angry
Speaker 3: with Kevin McCarthy, the former Speaker of the House, because
Speaker 3: he extended the dead ceiling. The death ceiling is scheduled
Speaker 3: to expire next summer. I think June or July it remember,
Speaker 3: but next summer. So so six months into the Trump presidency,
Speaker 3: the dead ceilings scheduled to hit, and Trump is very
Speaker 3: focused on He's mad at McCarthy, very mad at McCarthy
Speaker 3: that six months into his presidency, he is going to
Speaker 3: hit the deat ceiling because he's got to raise it.
Speaker 3: And that's true of every president. And so Trump is demanding,
Speaker 3: he wants as part of this continuing the resolution raising
Speaker 3: the debt ceiling. So he demanded that. Well, Mike Johnson
Speaker 3: came back as a second version, and he came back
Speaker 3: with what was called a skinny cr. So it included
Speaker 3: funding for the government through mid March. It included farm relief,
Speaker 3: and it included disaster relief. So those are the asks,
Speaker 3: principally a republican's. And because Trump demanded it, it suspended
Speaker 3: the debt ceiling for two years. So it gave two
Speaker 3: of the four years of the Trump presidency no debt ceiling,
Speaker 3: which is what Trump is is insisting being this bill.
Speaker 3: So this second bill was by and large the bill
Speaker 3: that was being demanded by Republicans. Well, we had a
Speaker 3: vote tonight. What was the vote result, Ben.
Speaker 1: It didn't pass.
Speaker 3: Okay, As I said, rule number one is count to
Speaker 3: two eighteen. The vote was one hundred and seventy four
Speaker 3: to two hundred and thirty five. Now I'm going to
Speaker 3: make a simple observation. One hundred and seventy four is
Speaker 3: not to eighteen. One hundred and seventy four of the
Speaker 3: s is two thirty five ofre the nos. The breakdown.
Speaker 3: Every Democrat but two voted no. Look, the Democrats want
Speaker 3: Trump to fail, so they're all happy to vote no.
Speaker 3: There were only two Democrats who voted yes. Now we
Speaker 3: still had the Republican votes to pass it. Well, what happened.
Speaker 3: Thirty eight Republicans voted no. You cannot get to to
Speaker 3: eighteen in this narrow Congress. If thirty eight Republicans vote no,
Speaker 3: you end up with one hundred and seventy four, which
Speaker 3: is where we were. So as we're sitting here tonight,
Speaker 3: I don't know what the hell's going to happen, but
Speaker 3: on the death sailing. And to be clear, this skinny
Speaker 3: proposal was almost exactly what President Trump demanded. He put
Speaker 3: out a statement urging every Republican vote for this now.
Speaker 3: He was unequivocal the Great Deal. Vote for it now
Speaker 3: because it had almost entirely what was asked for by
Speaker 3: Republicans and it had very few of the things asked
Speaker 3: for by Democrats. And it didn't just fail.
Speaker 4: It failed.
Speaker 3: One hundred and seventy four is way way way below
Speaker 3: two eighteen. And to be clear, it failed because thirty
Speaker 3: eight Republicans voted no. So what's next. Let me move
Speaker 3: to the second principle. I told you I got four
Speaker 3: principles to think through this. Here's the second principle. Funding
Speaker 3: should be about leverage. Listen, we're living in a time
Speaker 3: right now. You spent a lot of time on Twitter.
Speaker 3: I spent alle a lot of time on Twitter. I
Speaker 3: get that sense. You're frustrated with Washington. Washington's the swamp.
Speaker 3: You don't like government, just shut it down ra In
Speaker 3: my view, Now, listen, there are some Republicans. There are
Speaker 3: swampy Republicans Mitch McConnell are terrified of a government shutdown,
Speaker 3: who on every battle over government spending, they want to
Speaker 3: surrender on everything because they think the government shutting down
Speaker 3: is the end of the universe. That view is wrong.
Speaker 3: The government shutting down is not the end of the universe. However,
Speaker 3: I think you should use battles over government funding as
Speaker 3: leverage to get something. So if you think back to
Speaker 3: twelve years ago when I was a brand new baby
Speaker 3: senator and I led a filibuster against Obamacare, and we
Speaker 3: had a government shutdown, and I was painted by the
Speaker 3: media as the point of the government shutdown. To be clear,
Speaker 3: my position was not shut the government down, Raar. My
Speaker 3: position was we should fund the entirety of the federal government,
Speaker 3: but don't fund Obamacare, that we should use funding as leverage.
Speaker 3: And I had a very detailed and laid out plan
Speaker 3: to get to victory. Now we failed in twenty thirteen
Speaker 3: with that objective, in significant part because Republican leadership Mitch
Speaker 3: McConnell and John Bayner waged war against me. They joined
Speaker 3: with the Democrats and said, nope, we want to fund
Speaker 3: all of Obamacare.
Speaker 4: To hell with you.
Speaker 3: And when you're fighting the Democrats and leadership in your
Speaker 3: own party, you lose. But I will say to everyone tweeting,
Speaker 3: shut it down, shut it down, shut it down. I
Speaker 3: get you're on your phone. That feels good. What do
Speaker 3: I care shut it down? Well, let me tell you
Speaker 3: when you have a shutdown.
Speaker 4: Number one, if you.
Speaker 3: Have a bunch of soldiers stationed abroad who are not
Speaker 3: getting paid, who are not able to feed their families,
Speaker 3: that ain't good. By the way, it is also important
Speaker 3: to recognize so the last big shutdown we had was
Speaker 3: when Trump was president. So when Trump's president, if you
Speaker 3: have a shutdown and you want to navigate through it,
Speaker 3: and by the way, Chuck Schumer forced the last shutdown
Speaker 3: when Trump was president. His administration was able to mitigate
Speaker 3: the harms of the shutdown because they wanted to. If
Speaker 3: we have a shutdown twenty four hours from now, Joe
Speaker 3: Biden the Democrats will do everything they can to make
Speaker 3: it as painful as possible.
Speaker 4: So it means a.
Speaker 3: Crap tout of federal workers will not get paid going
Speaker 3: into Christmas. That doesn't make him thrilled. And by the way,
Speaker 3: it's not just federal workers that we're not big fans of.
Speaker 3: It's not bureaucrats that are regulating the hell out of
Speaker 3: business and destroying jobs. They're among them. But it's also prosecutors.
Speaker 3: It is also border patrol agents, it is also marines,
Speaker 3: I mean is it's coast guardsmen. It's a lot of
Speaker 3: people who are good people doing great work who get
Speaker 3: their pay cut off. But Biden will also implement the
Speaker 3: policies in ways. So for example, what will they do.
Speaker 3: They'll shut down every national park in America. So maybe
Speaker 3: you and your family over Christmas break, we're planning to
Speaker 3: go see a national park. Maybe you're planning to go
Speaker 3: see the Smithsonian. Now Christmas is not a huge time
Speaker 3: for that, but shutting down the museum, shutting down the
Speaker 3: national parks, it is one hundred percent Biden will do that,
Speaker 3: and that is done to inflict maximum pain. Let's say
Speaker 3: you're taking your family on vacation and you want your
Speaker 3: passport processed. Well, you know what, Biden's going to shut
Speaker 3: that down. You're not going to get your passport processed.
Speaker 3: Every consumer face it hurt.
Speaker 2: They're saying they want to make it hurt, and they
Speaker 2: want you to blame Republicans, and they want you to say,
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 1: What they did, this is their fault, and it's a
Speaker 1: blame game.
Speaker 3: It is a blame game, and they want to make
Speaker 3: it painful, and they want to blame Republicans. So I
Speaker 3: will just say to everyone, and look, I'm reading Twitter.
Speaker 3: I'm reading people that I like it, agree with the
Speaker 3: or just like shut it down, shut it down, shut
Speaker 3: it down. That I get. There's a lot about government
Speaker 3: that frustrates the heck out of me. But let me
Speaker 3: just ask, Okay, what's the endgame. Do you really think
Speaker 3: if we have a government shutdown for the next month
Speaker 3: and Trump arrives on January twentieth with the government shutdown
Speaker 3: for a month, that that helps Trump? Do you really
Speaker 3: think that helps the incoming administration? By the way, come
Speaker 3: January twentieth, it stays shut down. You still got to
Speaker 3: get to two eighteen. There are people around Trump will say, well, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: everyone will blame the shutdown on Joe Biden. I promise
Speaker 3: you they won't in significant part because when it's Republicans
Speaker 3: screaming we want to shut down, it's actually not ridiculous
Speaker 3: of Democrats to say, well, if the Republicans want to
Speaker 3: shut down, then it's the Republican shutdown. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: not an insane thing to say. The media will say it,
Speaker 3: the Democrats will say it. And when you have Republicans screaming,
Speaker 3: I want to shut down, that becomes not a.
Speaker 4: Very difficult narrative to tell.
Speaker 3: So if you're arguing, who cares about the shutdown, let's
Speaker 3: shut it down, let me just ask what are you
Speaker 3: trying to accomplish with that? What's the leverage you're trying
Speaker 3: to get, and what's the endgame? When does the shut
Speaker 3: down end? Or do you really think we should never
Speaker 3: pay our active duty military again? And I don't think
Speaker 3: there are many people And that's one of the dangers
Speaker 3: of people just yelling when they don't actually look at well,
Speaker 3: what does this mean?
Speaker 4: And let me be clear, I have been.
Speaker 3: Vigorous in saying we should use funding as leverage, but
Speaker 3: leverage for an achievable, concrete, discrete outcome. I'm not hearing
Speaker 3: anyone who's saying shut it down. Shut it down. Now,
Speaker 3: some people are saying, all right, here's what we should
Speaker 3: get leverage for. We should get leverage for Trump's demand
Speaker 3: that we suspend the debt ceiling. And here's the third
Speaker 3: principle I want to say. There are some people are
Speaker 3: arguing for eliminating the death ceiling permanently, altogether, just getting
Speaker 3: rid of the dead ceiling, never again having to worry
Speaker 3: about it. And by the way, one of the plans
Speaker 3: that's discussed is, well, the Democrats have always wanted to
Speaker 3: eliminate the death ceiling, so let's just do that, and
Speaker 3: that's how we get out of this.
Speaker 4: I pray that is not the endgame here.
Speaker 3: Eliminating the debt ceiling would be the single worst step
Speaker 3: we could possibly take if you care about spending or
Speaker 3: deficits or debt.
Speaker 4: Now, why is that?
Speaker 3: Okay, let's do a little history. Historically, the debt ceiling
Speaker 3: has been the single greatest leverage Republicans have had to
Speaker 3: force spending restraint. Now, this has only happened, and it's
Speaker 3: only worked against the opposing party. So one of the
Speaker 3: challenges with the death ceiling is when your own party
Speaker 3: is in power. Trump wants the dead ceiling raised. Every
Speaker 3: president wants the dead ceiling raised. Republicans, as a general matter,
Speaker 3: are not willing to exert massive leverage on their own
Speaker 3: part party's president and force spending restraints. So when Trump
Speaker 3: was president the first time, the debt ceiling was not
Speaker 3: leverage against Trump because Republicans didn't want to do that.
Speaker 4: I understand that.
Speaker 3: But when Democrats are in the White House, Republicans the
Speaker 3: debt ceiling is the single most effective lever point that
Speaker 3: has been used against Democrats to force spending restraints. And
Speaker 3: I want to point to a couple of examples. Number one,
Speaker 3: Graham Rudman Hollings. Graham Rudman Hollings, passed decades ago, remains
Speaker 3: the single most effective spending restraint that has ever been
Speaker 3: passed into law. Phil Graham, former Senator from Texas, was
Speaker 3: the lead author. How did that get passed? It got
Speaker 3: passed because of the debt ceiling. Got passed because Republicans
Speaker 3: forced it and said we won't raise the debt ceiling
Speaker 3: unless you pass meaningful structural reform to.
Speaker 4: Reign in spending. And Graham Hollings.
Speaker 3: Was in effect for many years and had a very
Speaker 3: positive effect reigning in the growth of spending. I'll point
Speaker 3: to a second example twenty ten, the Budget Control Act.
Speaker 3: Twenty ten, Barack Obama was president and Republicans used the
Speaker 3: debt ceiling to force Barack Obama to agree to something
Speaker 3: called the Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act again
Speaker 3: significantly constrain the growth of federal spending. It was only
Speaker 3: through the debt ceiling we got that. Now the argument
Speaker 3: and by the way, today we the Republican senators, we
Speaker 3: all had lunch.
Speaker 1: JD.
Speaker 3: Vance came to express his views. To the lunch, there
Speaker 3: were a number of Republicans saying, well, we should just
Speaker 3: get rid of the debt ceiling now. And I'll tell
Speaker 3: you I expressed my views. If we get rid of
Speaker 3: the debt ceiling, it would be utterly disastrous. If you
Speaker 3: care remotely about government spending, eliminate the debt ceiling would
Speaker 3: be a massive mistake. And I just put it up.
Speaker 3: If we get rid of the debt ceiling, there will
Speaker 3: come another Democrat president. I get the urge to live
Speaker 3: in the moment of we're in charge.
Speaker 4: Wuha.
Speaker 3: But unfortunately, there will come another time when the American
Speaker 3: people elect a Democrat. And for anyone who has an
Speaker 3: attention span beyond twelve seconds, you recognize throughout history that
Speaker 3: politics has been a pendulum and it goes from one
Speaker 3: party to the other. So we will get another Democrat president.
Speaker 3: And I told my colleagues today at lunch, I said,
Speaker 3: all right, you get rid of the death ceiling. Get
Speaker 3: ready for President Elizabeth Warren. And if you don't like
Speaker 3: a thirty six trillion dollar debt, get ready for a
Speaker 3: fifty trillion dollar debt. Because the Democrats, Elizabeth Warren wants
Speaker 3: to eliminate the death ceiling. AOC wants to eliminate the
Speaker 3: death ceiling. Chuck Schumer wants to eliminate the debt ceiling
Speaker 3: because they want to spend us into oblivion. So I
Speaker 3: will say, one potential way out of this is to
Speaker 3: cut an absolute deal with the Democrats that gets rid
Speaker 3: of the debt ceiling. Forever, we will have given away
Speaker 3: what history has proven. And by the way, I'll go
Speaker 3: go back. I'll go back to about a decade I
Speaker 3: don't have the most recent stats, but about a decade ago,
Speaker 3: it was the case that of the previous fifty one
Speaker 3: times Congress had raised the debt ceiling, twenty eight of
Speaker 3: those times that had attached meaningful conditions to the death ceiling.
Speaker 3: So it's leverage. Remember my principal number two. As you
Speaker 3: was spending for leverage, this is related on principal number three.
Speaker 3: The death ceiling is about getting leverage for concessions. Now
Speaker 3: here's the problem I mentioned to you. There are a
Speaker 3: bunch of Republicans in the House who say they'll never
Speaker 3: vote for continued resolution. There are also a bunch of
Speaker 3: Republicans in the House who say they will never ever
Speaker 3: ever vote to raise the debt ceiling. I got to
Speaker 3: tell you, I don't think that makes any sense. I've
Speaker 3: never said it, and I consider myself very much a
Speaker 3: fiscal conservative. But forty percent of every dollar the federal
Speaker 3: government spends is borrowed unless you're prepared to slash the
Speaker 3: federal government budget by forty percent tomorrow. And by the way,
Speaker 3: there is literally no serious person on planet Earth who
Speaker 3: is prepared to do that and is able to do that.
Speaker 3: Even if you would with a magic wand do that.
Speaker 3: There's no way to make that happen. Unless you're prepared
Speaker 3: to do that. The death ceiling will have to be raised.
Speaker 3: My position has always been I'm willing to vote to
Speaker 3: raise the death ceiling if we are getting concessions that
Speaker 3: are raining in the out of control spending that's bankrupting
Speaker 3: our country. However, in the House there are a bunch
Speaker 3: of Republicans who simply say, I will never ever ever
Speaker 3: vote to raise the dead ceiling, no matter what. It
Speaker 3: doesn't matter what we get. My answer is no, that
Speaker 3: is a real problem. Let me make one final principle.
Speaker 3: Mike Johnson, who's the Speaker of the House. There are
Speaker 3: a bunch of voices on TV, a bunch of voices
Speaker 3: on talk radio, a bunch of voices on Twitter saying
Speaker 3: get rid of Mike Johnson, throw them overboard. I'm going
Speaker 3: to tell you something that I believe is an absolute fact.
Speaker 3: Mike Johnson is the single most conservative Speaker of the
Speaker 3: House that will ever be Speaker of the House in
Speaker 3: our lifetime. He is undoubtedly the most conservative Speaker of
Speaker 3: the House we have ever had in our lifetime. It's
Speaker 3: not even close. It's not even arguable and I'm here
Speaker 3: to tell you listen, Mike Johnson may lose his job
Speaker 3: over this. He has a very perilous It's a tiny
Speaker 3: majority in the House. You've got a bunch of House
Speaker 3: members saying I'm going to vote against him. I will
Speaker 3: tell you this, If Mike Johnson has toppled a Speaker
Speaker 3: of the House, and he might be Kevin McCarthy was
Speaker 3: Mike Johnson is orders of magnitude more conservative than Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 3: It's not even close. If Mike Johnson is toppled as
Speaker 3: Speaker of the House, we will end up with a
Speaker 3: Speaker of the House who is much much more liberal
Speaker 3: than Mike Johnson. I think that is indisputable. I know
Speaker 3: Mike Well. He's a good man. He's a decent man.
Speaker 3: He's a strong Christian, he is a man of humility.
Speaker 3: And everyone on Twitter is saying, but he gave the
Speaker 3: Democrats concessions. I want to go back to the first principle.
Speaker 3: I said, count to two eighteen. If Mike Johnson could
Speaker 3: draft a bill that makes it out of the House
Speaker 3: with two hundred and eighteen Republicans, he would I don't
Speaker 3: believe that is possible. There's certainly nothing to indicate its possible.
Speaker 4: Right now.
Speaker 3: If you cannot get to too eighteen with Republicans because
Speaker 3: a bunch of Republicans say I will not vote for
Speaker 3: anything you propose no matter what, then Mike Johnson is
Speaker 3: forced to get Democrat votes. To get Democrat votes, he
Speaker 3: must give Democrats things they want. And so I don't
Speaker 3: know what will happen. I think there's a reasonable chance
Speaker 3: somehow out of this we get some very short term
Speaker 3: cr a week or two or three, and then in
Speaker 3: mid January we're back in the middle of this mess.
Speaker 3: And that's possible. I'll tell you in the Senate, we're
Speaker 3: all sitting there. We have no idea what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: I got to tell you I feel for Mike Johnson.
Speaker 3: I think he is trying with all his might.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 3: I would just encourage you to focus on listen. I
Speaker 3: think we need people to be serious about changing the
Speaker 3: direction of the battleship of government, and to do so,
Speaker 3: you actually need a strategy that can get the votes
Speaker 3: to prevail. If you can't get the votes, it's easy
Speaker 3: to tweet about it. I mean that's from the cheap
Speaker 3: seats thirty eight Republicans voted No. One hundred and seventy
Speaker 3: four is not to eighteen, and so I don't know
Speaker 3: what the result is here. I think it is chaotic.
Speaker 3: We will get through this one way or another. But
Speaker 3: the fundamental structural dynamics, and it's one of the things
Speaker 3: bok Going forward into the next year. I'm really optimistic
Speaker 3: about the Trump presidency. I'm really optimistic about a Republican
Speaker 3: Senate in the House. But I'll tell you the Senate's
Speaker 3: going to be a lot easier. We've got fifty three
Speaker 3: Republicans coming in next year. By the way, we still
Speaker 3: have a Democrat Senate today, so I haven't even this
Speaker 3: whole discussion has ignored the fact that you've got to
Speaker 3: get Chuck Schumer and the Democrats to agree with whatever
Speaker 3: you do, which is even harder. But next year we'll
Speaker 3: have fifty three Republicans in the Senate. Fifty three is
Speaker 3: a big enough majority that we can lose three votes
Speaker 3: and still get things done. So I think the Senate
Speaker 3: will be able to pass pretty good legislation, not fantastic,
Speaker 3: not wonderful, but surprisingly good. The House worries me enormously
Speaker 3: next year because the majority is so excruciatingly small that
Speaker 3: if you lose a handful of votes, you cannot get
Speaker 3: to two eighteen. And so I think Mike Johnson is
Speaker 3: trying to work miracles right now. But the single heart
Speaker 3: artist challenge of the next two years in terms of
Speaker 3: passing good legislation is going to be getting to two
Speaker 3: eighteen in the House, and I don't know what the
Speaker 3: answer is to that.
Speaker 2: I will say this, I really really hope that people
Speaker 2: that are listening to this listen to what you had
Speaker 2: to say, and they understand that we do this show
Speaker 2: not to just go out there as you described it
Speaker 2: and throw things out there from the cheap seats without
Speaker 2: doing the math. And I think most people listen to
Speaker 2: show want to know what's really happening, and I hope
Speaker 2: that this gives them at least a map to understand
Speaker 2: the reality of a situation instead of just gaining Twitter followers,
Speaker 2: because you take a position knowing that people are going
Speaker 2: to retweet it and knowing that people are going to
Speaker 2: like it in general, and then you're going to build
Speaker 2: your populator, because there's a lot of people that are
Speaker 2: doing that right now. But like you said, the number
Speaker 2: comes down to the number and two eighteen is the number,
Speaker 2: and we're nowhere close to that.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 2: I want to take a moment to talk about something
Speaker 2: that's incredibly important, and that is this, Do you have
Speaker 2: a firearm?
Speaker 1: Do you carry a firearm? Well?
Speaker 2: Are you protected if you ever have to use that firearm.
Speaker 2: I asked that question because I know exactly what happens
Speaker 2: when you're involved in a shooting. I had to use
Speaker 2: my firearm to save my life, and I can tell
Speaker 2: you the way that I was treated after I use
Speaker 2: that firearm was like, maybe I was a criminal, Maybe
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Speaker 2: don't forget. We do this show three days a week.
Speaker 2: Hit that subscribe out download button uh and on those
Speaker 2: in between days, grab my podcast to Ben ferguson Podcasts.
Speaker 2: I'll keep you updated, and when we get a deal done,
Speaker 2: I promise you will be here for you. We'll explain it.
Speaker 2: If we don't get a deal done. Right now there's
Speaker 2: a government shutdown. We'll explain that as well, even in
Speaker 2: more detail, and how we got to where that point is.
Speaker 2: But the center, I will see you back here in
Speaker 2: a couple of days