Speaker 1: Today on a special edition of The Big Take Shutdown averted.
Speaker 2: On this vote, they as are three hundred and thirty five,
Speaker 2: then a's are ninety one, two thirds being in the affirmative,
Speaker 2: the rules are suspended. The bill has passed, and with
Speaker 2: that objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.
Speaker 1: Congress defies expectations the US House there passing a stopgap
Speaker 1: funding bill late Saturday to keep the government running. The
Speaker 1: Senate followed with just hours to spare, and as many predicted,
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy is already facing a challenge to his speakershift.
Speaker 3: I do intend to file a motion of vacate against
Speaker 3: Speaker McCarthy this week. I think we need to move
Speaker 3: on with new leadership that can be trustworthy.
Speaker 1: Congressman Matt Gates, the Republican from Florida, making clear on
Speaker 1: CNN among other networks that he will make good on
Speaker 1: his promise to try to oust the Speaker for passing
Speaker 1: a continuing resolution with the help of Democrats. Speaker McCarthy
Speaker 1: unfazed when asked about Gates on CBS's Faced Nation.
Speaker 4: He's more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something.
Speaker 4: He wanted to push us into a shutdown, even threatening
Speaker 4: his own district with all the military people there who
Speaker 4: would not be paid, only because he wants to take
Speaker 4: this motion, so be it. Bring it on, Let's get
Speaker 4: over with it, and let's start governing.
Speaker 1: Bring it on. The legislation includes sixteen billion dollars in
Speaker 1: disaster relief funding and no aid for Ukraine. It funds
Speaker 1: the government until November seventeenth. What happens after that remains
Speaker 1: a big question, much like Kevin McCarthy's future as speaker.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Matthew, host of sound On in Balance of
Speaker 1: Power on Bloomberg Radio and Television, stepping in for West
Speaker 1: Ksova today, and I'm joined by two reporters who have
Speaker 1: lived this process every day the past weeks. Dare I
Speaker 1: say months? Bloomberg Politics reporter Laura Davison and Jack Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 1: Congress reporter at Bloomberg Government. Thanks for both of you
Speaker 1: being here. We're lucky to have you, and Jack, I'll
Speaker 1: start with you. Kevin McCarthy surprised a lot of people here.
Speaker 1: Senator John Cornyn said he pulled a rabbit out of
Speaker 1: the hat. What made him finally call the bluff of
Speaker 1: his right flank.
Speaker 2: I mean, this was always an option to depend on
Speaker 2: Democratic votes. It was just assumed by many lawmakers that
Speaker 2: he wouldn't do that at this point. Even right before
Speaker 2: the deadline, there were members like Steve Womack, incidentally, whose
Speaker 2: voice that was calling the final vote and banging the
Speaker 2: final gavel, saying he expected a shut down, and then
Speaker 2: the pressure would start, maybe a discharge petition would force
Speaker 2: McCarthy's hand. Evidently he got fed up with the pressure
Speaker 2: from a fairly small group of the hard right members.
Speaker 2: And it's not shocking that he had to depend on
Speaker 2: Democratic votes, but the quickness and the immediacy and the
Speaker 2: sudden nature of him turning away from the right flank
Speaker 2: and doing a with Democrats was shocking, to be honest.
Speaker 1: Laura, we thought we'd be gathering together today to talk
Speaker 1: about his shutdown. Lover hate this speaker, and we have
Speaker 1: both in Washington. We do have to acknowledge this man
Speaker 1: has repeatedly defied expectations.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the deal that came together over the course of
Speaker 5: really just a couple hours yesterday is somewhat reminiscent of
Speaker 5: the vote or series of votes in which McCarthy was
Speaker 5: elected speaker back in January. It was fifteen votes multiple days,
Speaker 5: and really, you know, even when the vote started that
Speaker 5: eventually elected McCarthy, it was not clear at all that
Speaker 5: he was going to become speaker on that ballot. So
Speaker 5: this is kind of how Washington works. Congress is notorious
Speaker 5: for waiting till the very last moment. This is a
Speaker 5: prime example of, you know, where they basically had everyone
Speaker 5: convinced everyone in the federal government was preparing for a shutdown.
Speaker 5: I know even some federal workers who were thinking that
Speaker 5: they we might have a week or two off work,
Speaker 5: and they were making other plans that you know, was
Speaker 5: averted really just over the course of McCarthy basically changing
Speaker 5: his mind and say, Nope, We're going to put forward
Speaker 5: a stopgap measure, and I'm going to basically dare and
Speaker 5: challenge Matt Gates and the right flank to try to
Speaker 5: get rid of me.
Speaker 1: So I'm left with two big questions here that I
Speaker 1: want to explore with you both. I suspect you both
Speaker 1: have ideas. One did we simply prolong a shutdown to
Speaker 1: November seventeenth, And two will Kevin McCarthy still be speaker
Speaker 1: by then? What do you think? Jack?
Speaker 2: Well, First, you know, it's going to be tough to
Speaker 2: strike a funding deal. But the idea that on November seventeenth,
Speaker 2: we're going to be right back in the same place
Speaker 2: we were a few days ago, I think is wrong
Speaker 2: because the political calculus has to have changed now that
Speaker 2: Speaker McCarthy ripped off the band aid and said, you
Speaker 2: know what, I don't need to endlessly deal with the
Speaker 2: threats from Matt Gates and other hard right members. I
Speaker 2: don't know how to predict how many Democratic votes he's
Speaker 2: going to seek in the funding bills, how quick they
Speaker 2: can move that along. But something in the political calculus
Speaker 2: clearly changed and it's impossible to reset that. Will he
Speaker 2: survive this round? I mean, Matt Gates tweeted earlier today
Speaker 2: that he thinks that McCarthy will get Democratic support and
Speaker 2: he will stay on as Speaker, even as Gates is
Speaker 2: trying to recruit more people to go after him. How
Speaker 2: many Democratic votes does he get? This is very, very
Speaker 2: unpredictable also, But it's not quite as simple as saying
Speaker 2: that McCarthy lost lost the support of the right and
Speaker 2: so he's gone. He's got options to rely on. But
Speaker 2: there are a lot of questions that McCarthy has to
Speaker 2: figure out answers to over the next month or so.
Speaker 1: What's your thought, Laura, do we still face another shutdown
Speaker 1: before the end of this year and will Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: be holding the gavel when it happens.
Speaker 5: I tend to agree with Jack that a lot in
Speaker 5: the political calculus will change between now and November seven team,
Speaker 5: and it's unlikely that we're going to be, you know,
Speaker 5: at six o'clock in the evening in the Capitol on
Speaker 5: November sixteenth, you know, scrambling to see if there's a
Speaker 5: cr deal that comes together, or you know, heading kareeming
Speaker 5: into a shutdown, and there will be a lot that
Speaker 5: will change and a lot that will can be done,
Speaker 5: deals can be cut.
Speaker 6: To avoid the situation we're in right now.
Speaker 5: I'll also note that's the week before Thanksgiving, and these
Speaker 5: big holidays where people want to get out of Washington
Speaker 5: do a lot to get people to the table to
Speaker 5: make a deal. Whether McCarthy is that person who is
Speaker 5: negotiating with with Senate Democrats, as Jack said, remains to
Speaker 5: be seen. There are a couple things here that are
Speaker 5: that are important to realize. One, if you're a Democrat,
Speaker 5: the question you're asking yourself, is you know it's going
Speaker 5: to be a Republican it's going to be speaker, you know,
Speaker 5: is McCarthy.
Speaker 6: Better than somebody else?
Speaker 5: And saying the question that will be posed to the
Speaker 5: Conservatives who are trying to get rid of him, are,
Speaker 5: if not McCarthy, who can it be. We saw just
Speaker 5: how hard it was earlier this year, how it is
Speaker 5: to get the Republican caucust to poalesce around one person.
Speaker 5: Tom Emmer is a name that has been floated. He's
Speaker 5: a member of leadership, well respected, but he's not a
Speaker 5: hardline Freedom Caucus person. This may not be the people
Speaker 5: who are trying to get rid of McCarthy. If they
Speaker 5: put Emma in his place, they're going to end up
Speaker 5: with roughly sort of the same person, the same politics,
Speaker 5: and a lot of the same world we've here. So
Speaker 5: this is a real tricky gambit, both for Democrats and
Speaker 5: for people like Matt Gates who want to see McCarthy gone.
Speaker 5: You know, are they just extracting a pound of flash
Speaker 5: and then have no plan on the other side, or
Speaker 5: is there someone that can rise to the top and
Speaker 5: that really remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: Great questions here Jacket's interesting. The House bill passed three
Speaker 1: point thirty five to ninety one, ninety republican knows. I
Speaker 1: suspect there are not ninety Republicans, though, who share Matt
Speaker 1: Gates's feeling that the speaker should be fired. And when
Speaker 1: he was asked about this on ABC This Week on
Speaker 1: Sunday Morning, Matt Gates suggested that this might be some
Speaker 1: sort of a proxy for Democratic support for Kevin McCarthy,
Speaker 1: as if he was exposing a deal that he had
Speaker 1: made with the Democrats. Listen to how he put it.
Speaker 3: I actually think Democrats are going to bail out Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 3: So this is an exercise to show the American people
Speaker 3: who really governs you and how that governing occurs. So
Speaker 3: I'm on a mission to change it. Where we're evaluating
Speaker 3: these bills independently. Kevin McCarthy is off making a secret
Speaker 3: deal on Ukraine as he's baiting Republicans to vote for
Speaker 3: a continuing resolution that doesn't include Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, Jack, that doesn't sound like a Matt Gates
Speaker 1: who actually thinks Kevin McCarthy's going to get fired, does it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: I think that's an attempt by Gates to gin up
Speaker 2: as much opposition to McCarthy as possible among the right flank.
Speaker 2: He might be reaching a bit on the Ukraine thing.
Speaker 2: He is referring to a statement that came out from
Speaker 2: Democratic leaders saying they expect a standalone vote on a
Speaker 2: measure to offer that Ukraine aid that was kept out
Speaker 2: of the stop gap. It's not proof that there is
Speaker 2: a backroom deal on Ukraine. If anything, it might be
Speaker 2: the opposite, because pulling out Ukraine fund funding was the
Speaker 2: one kind of victory that the Conservatives got out of
Speaker 2: Republican leadership on this. Really, Gates is ginning up as
Speaker 2: much opposition to McCarthy as possible right now, and saying
Speaker 2: that he is doing backroom deals with Democrats helps him
Speaker 2: do that. It's very possible that Democrats help McCarthy and
Speaker 2: they don't even have to vote for him. They can
Speaker 2: vote at present and not cast a vote for someone.
Speaker 2: But it's not quite as simple as I think the
Speaker 2: quote unquote uniparty kind of conspiracy theories that might start
Speaker 2: floating out there.
Speaker 1: Coming up on a special edition of The Big Take,
Speaker 1: the debate over Ukraine funding and why a member of
Speaker 1: the House pulled a fire alarm and the throes of
Speaker 1: votes this weekend. We'll have more ahead with Jack Fitzpatrick
Speaker 1: and Laura Davison straight ahead on the big President Biden
Speaker 1: signed the stopgap funding measure to keep the government open
Speaker 1: over the weekend, with just minutes to spare before the
Speaker 1: midnight deadline.
Speaker 7: I strongly urge my Republican friends in Congress not to wait.
Speaker 7: Don't waste time as you did all summer. Pass a
Speaker 7: year long budget agreement. Honor the deal we made a
Speaker 7: few months ago.
Speaker 1: Of course, that would be the debt sealing deal, which
Speaker 1: has been relitigated ever since. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington
Speaker 1: in for Wescusilva today, and I'm joined by Jack Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 1: Congress reporter at Bloomberg Government, along with Laura Davison, Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Politics reporter. What's your thought here lower on the way forward?
Speaker 1: Because Ukraine is still going to be a major sticking point.
Speaker 1: The White House, of course has put forth a supplemental
Speaker 1: request for billions of dollars in additional aid for Ukraine,
Speaker 1: and it's one of the big sticking points that brought
Speaker 1: us to the verge of a shutdown. This buys time
Speaker 1: until November seventeenth, as we've discussed, but the debate around
Speaker 1: Ukraine won't likely change much between now and then.
Speaker 4: Will It.
Speaker 6: Won't.
Speaker 5: And this is really a debate that the Republican Party
Speaker 5: is having with itself. You just had to look at
Speaker 5: the both what happened in Congress this week as well
Speaker 5: as the Republican debate in California, where you have Republicans
Speaker 5: really split on a you know, kind of an older guard,
Speaker 5: the more hawkish faction of the party that's saying, look,
Speaker 5: we need to support Ukraine because it's really protecting us
Speaker 5: against Russia and you know, and sort of not gone
Speaker 5: from their China, Whereas you have some of the more
Speaker 5: members of the Freedom Caucus, you know, political newcomers like
Speaker 5: the vek Aramaswami coming in saying, look, we don't need
Speaker 5: to be focused on that, We need to be focused
Speaker 5: on our southern borders.
Speaker 6: We need to spend money elsewhere.
Speaker 5: So that's the debate that's going to play out over
Speaker 5: the next several weeks. You have Democrats and also some
Speaker 5: old guard Republicans, you know, including Mitch McConnell who's saying, look,
Speaker 5: Ukraine spending is important. This is going to be a
Speaker 5: really really tricky thing that they're going to have to
Speaker 5: figure out both the amount of money, how it's allocated,
Speaker 5: and it's really uncertain kind of when how this will happen,
Speaker 5: particularly if the House is really tied up with some
Speaker 5: sort of complicated measure of trying to get rid of
Speaker 5: McCarthy in a debate about that.
Speaker 1: The Senate bill, the cr that passed the Senate jack
Speaker 1: was eighty eight to nine after Senator Michael Bennett actually
Speaker 1: had it held up for a couple of hours over
Speaker 1: this very issue of Ukraine funding. And it seems he's
Speaker 1: cut a deal here, or at least there's been an
Speaker 1: informal agreement to vote separately on Ukraine aid, something Senator
Speaker 1: Lindsay Graham has also pursued what happens to the president's
Speaker 1: supplement or request here for Ukraine.
Speaker 2: The path in the House is a lot more complicated
Speaker 2: than the Senate. A lot of Senators still support Ukraine aid,
Speaker 2: and really on a bipartisan basis in the House too,
Speaker 2: But the House is where the majority of the Republican
Speaker 2: Party seemed to pretty suddenly turn against aid for Ukraine.
Speaker 2: We saw over a series of amendment votes over the
Speaker 2: last week the shift a very clear shift, in which case,
Speaker 2: the latest vote in the House on three hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars just a small portion of training aid to Ukraine
Speaker 2: ended up with only one hundred and one House Republicans
Speaker 2: in support and one hundred and seventeen House Republicans against.
Speaker 2: Now we have Speaker McCarthy saying that he supports sending aid,
Speaker 2: but it has to be tied to border securities and
Speaker 2: immigration measures. The Conservative things on presumably asylum restrictions and
Speaker 2: the border wall and those to tie those together would
Speaker 2: be very, very difficult. Whereas Yes, in the Senate, maybe
Speaker 2: there's some skepticism among Republicans, but vowing a standalone vote
Speaker 2: is pretty straightforward. So really looking at McCarthy and the
Speaker 2: decisions he makes on how to pair this to border issues,
Speaker 2: that's the really complicating factor.
Speaker 1: Well, Laura, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, was effectively
Speaker 1: overruled on this by the leadership, the Republican leadership when
Speaker 1: it came to the Continuing Resolution. I know that he
Speaker 1: and many others to Jack's points, support funding the war
Speaker 1: effort in Ukraine, But as this becomes more difficult, here,
Speaker 1: could we be in a world where that supplemental request
Speaker 1: is not granted.
Speaker 5: It's certainly possible. Every time a must pass bill like
Speaker 5: the CR leaves the station without something attached to it,
Speaker 5: that's just another sort of sign that there's a possibility
Speaker 5: that this never happens.
Speaker 6: There's all sorts of.
Speaker 5: The floors of Congress are littered with a bunch of
Speaker 5: proposals that got left behind and then suddenly there wasn't
Speaker 5: political momentum to move them forward. Ukraine is certainly special
Speaker 5: and that it does have bipartisan support, you know, strong
Speaker 5: by partisan support in the Senate.
Speaker 6: The House is where it's trickier.
Speaker 5: This is though, this could be a highly complicating factor,
Speaker 5: both as we look to potentially a shutdown in mid
Speaker 5: November or you know, trying to break things out and
Speaker 5: move them their own is always tricky. Bundling things together
Speaker 5: builds coalitions in Congress. But this is a highly visible
Speaker 5: issue and an issue that a lot of people are against.
Speaker 5: You even look at polling, and this is what a
Speaker 5: lot of conservative Republicans are looking at saying, look, my
Speaker 5: district doesn't care about Ukraine funding. And so that's the
Speaker 5: kind of thing that really causes lawmakers to dig their
Speaker 5: heels in and say no, I'm not voting for that.
Speaker 1: I'm spending time with Laura Davison, Bloomberg Politics reporter, and
Speaker 1: Jack Fitzpatrick, Congress reporter at Bloomberg Government. I want to
Speaker 1: ask you lastly about a bit of drama that I
Speaker 1: haven't mentioned yet that unfolded over this weekend of voting,
Speaker 1: and that's Congressman Jameel Bowman, the Democrat from New York,
Speaker 1: made a decision to pull a fire alarm and was
Speaker 1: caught on security camera doing so. He says it was
Speaker 1: a mistake that he was trying to open a door.
Speaker 1: Republicans say it was a move to delay a vote
Speaker 1: on the cr Of course, none of us here know
Speaker 1: the answer to that yet, but Speaker McCarthy didn't speak
Speaker 1: about it afterwards.
Speaker 8: I was really appalled watching Democrats' actions today to delay it,
Speaker 8: to get into a shutdown. But when we found that
Speaker 8: an individual elected to Congress would pull a fire alarm,
Speaker 8: that's a new low. We watched how people have been
Speaker 8: treated if they've done something wrong in this capital. Be
Speaker 8: interesting to see how he is treated on what he
Speaker 8: was trying to obstruct.
Speaker 4: When it came to the American public.
Speaker 1: Jack, there've already been calls for Bowman's expulsion before he
Speaker 1: even had a chance to apologize or tell his side
Speaker 1: of the story. What's going to happen next with this?
Speaker 2: Pere McCarthy directly said he wants the Ethics Committee to
Speaker 2: look into it. The Capitol Police got in touch with
Speaker 2: Jamal Bowman to ask what happened. It is a crime
Speaker 2: to purposefully pull a fire alarm, especially in a federal
Speaker 2: building if there's not a fire, so there's going to
Speaker 2: be some investigation. There are going to be questions that
Speaker 2: he's going to have to answer. He put out a
Speaker 2: statement saying that the door that he usually walks out
Speaker 2: of was locked and it does have a sign on
Speaker 2: it saying a bit of a confusing message about how
Speaker 2: to get out, and it may set off an alarm.
Speaker 2: It would be surprising for anyone to pull a fire
Speaker 2: alarm separately to try to open that door. But he's
Speaker 2: going to try to make his case because he did
Speaker 2: say clearly he was confused by the signage on the
Speaker 2: door that is usually not unlocked. But it will probably
Speaker 2: involve the Ethics Committee, and as I mentioned, the Capitol
Speaker 2: Police are at least asking questions about it.
Speaker 1: As well, yeah, the Capitol Police saying it's investigating the incidents.
Speaker 1: It took place at twelve five pm on the second floor,
Speaker 1: prompting an evacuation order, pulling a firearm of fire alarm,
Speaker 1: I should say, as a misdemeanor in some jurisdictions. And
Speaker 1: he did meet Congressman Bowman with the Sergeant at Arms
Speaker 1: and Capitol Police to explain what happened. All right, So
Speaker 1: here we are we averted a shutdown I'm curious your
Speaker 1: thoughts on the way forward here, of course, Laura. Are
Speaker 1: the odds the same lower or higher for a shutdown
Speaker 1: as we head for November seventeenth?
Speaker 5: The odds are lower, but they're not as near zero
Speaker 5: as I think everyone would like.
Speaker 2: What do you think, Jack, The odds are lower, and
Speaker 2: the big fights are how Republican leadership figures out how
Speaker 2: to move forward and conduct a whip count on all
Speaker 2: of the tough policy issues that they did not solve.
Speaker 2: This is not a real funding deal. It just gets
Speaker 2: them to November seventeenth. Republican leadership clearly does not want
Speaker 2: a shutdown, so I would say the odds are lower,
Speaker 2: but there are a ton of tough questions for them
Speaker 2: to answer in not very much time.
Speaker 1: Well, many thanks for listening to us here at The
Speaker 1: Big Take, and thanks to Jack Fitzpatrick and Laura Davison
Speaker 1: here at Bloomberg for their insights our daily podcast from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen, and
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you. Email us questions or
Speaker 1: comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. Our producers
Speaker 1: on today's show were James Mahoney and Juan Torres. I'm
Speaker 1: Joe Matthew in Washington. Join us again tomorrow for another
Speaker 1: Big Take