Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly john Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Matt Gates says he misses Speaker
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy. We have such an interesting show for you today.
Speaker 1: Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy talks to us about the bill
Speaker 1: he spent three months negotiating, which Mike Johnson declared dead
Speaker 1: on arrival without reading. Then we'll talk to the dailyb
Speaker 1: smat Fuller about the chaos in the house under our speaker,
Speaker 1: Mega Mike Johnson. But first we have slight senior editor,
Speaker 1: the author of Lady Justice, Women, The Law and the
Speaker 1: Battle to Save America, Dahlia Lithwick.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Dahlia, Hello, friend, what fun it is to ride through
Speaker 3: the one court open slay.
Speaker 1: Hi, So we both listened to this incredibly.
Speaker 2: I don't know sort of it. I mean, you are
Speaker 2: the expert here.
Speaker 1: I was surprised at how little any of the justices
Speaker 1: were buying today.
Speaker 3: Well, they were buying very little that Jonathan Mitchell was
Speaker 3: selling on the Trump side, until it became clear they
Speaker 3: were buying even less of what Jason Murray was selling.
Speaker 3: So listening to the first half, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 3: Mitchell is conceding every point he doesn't need to concede,
Speaker 3: and he's giving away the farm, and what's he doing?
Speaker 3: And then after Murray sat down, I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: somehow Mitchell has snatched victory from the jazz of defeat.
Speaker 2: It was really strange.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you listen to a lot more
Speaker 1: Supreme Court arguments than I do, but I was gobsmacked
Speaker 1: by how it seemed like Trump's lawyer was not a
Speaker 1: very good lawyer and kind of fight wo the justices
Speaker 1: a little bet. But then the justices were, even the
Speaker 1: liberal justices. We're not having anything from what the Colorado
Speaker 1: solicitor or general or any of that crew we're trying
Speaker 1: to sound.
Speaker 3: I think that the play here that Jonathan Mitchell. Let's
Speaker 3: remember that guy is the architect of SB eight, right.
Speaker 3: You remember the vigilante bill in Texas that overturned Row
Speaker 3: even before Rowe was overturned. So I think what he
Speaker 3: did and his brief was very weird, and it focused
Speaker 3: on this officer thing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It was like, we're not going to make our strongest argument,
Speaker 3: which came up a couple times today, which is maybe,
Speaker 3: you know, a five day trial in Colorado shouldn't be
Speaker 3: like the baseline that everyone has to agree proved he insurrected.
Speaker 3: And that was a strong argument. The dissenters on the
Speaker 3: Colorado Supreme Court were fussed about that. But that isn't
Speaker 3: the issue Jonathan Mitchell presses. What he presses is this
Speaker 3: officer thing, right, Trump isn't contemplated as an officer under
Speaker 3: section three of the fourteenth Amendment. What's kind of interesting
Speaker 3: is that that was an elegant out for the court
Speaker 3: to decide this case on a really technical, you know,
Speaker 3: originalist text and meaning they could have just had this arcane,
Speaker 3: kind of bruined style, let's just like parse the text.
Speaker 3: What was weird And I think what you're reacting to
Speaker 3: is the degree to which a court that was given
Speaker 3: the opportunity to do that and loves to do that
Speaker 3: instead just dove in head first on the pragmatic political
Speaker 3: how is this going to affect people? Argument? And so
Speaker 3: the whole second half of the argument was stuff like
Speaker 3: the Chief Justice complaining that what he called the plain
Speaker 3: consequences right, that states are going to disqualify democrats and
Speaker 3: then others are going to disqualify Trump, and it's going
Speaker 3: to be this patchwork, and you know, Elena Kagan at
Speaker 3: one point said, I'm just going to ask this bold question,
Speaker 3: why should a single state get to decide who gets
Speaker 3: to be president of the US. So there's a way
Speaker 3: in which, given the gift of deciding this in a
Speaker 3: really court ish way, they kind of just decided it
Speaker 3: in the manner of nine people who are super worried
Speaker 3: about looking dumb.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't laugh, because it was really depressing. And it
Speaker 1: seemed as if like the liberal justices were I mean,
Speaker 1: with the exception of Sodomyer, who seemed actually quite infuriated,
Speaker 1: I thought at times, the rest of them seemed sort
Speaker 1: of on board with this idea that they were just
Speaker 1: not going to touch it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think Justice Kagan made it really
Speaker 3: plain that she did not want to be part of
Speaker 3: unloosing kind of a disaster on the nation. And I
Speaker 3: think Katanji Brown Jackson was all in on this officer
Speaker 3: officer question and essentially said, like, if I do straight
Speaker 3: up originalist reading, I don't think that the drafters of
Speaker 3: the fourteenth Amendment meant to include you know, the president
Speaker 3: and the vice president I think they were going after,
Speaker 3: you know, lesser officers, Confederate officers who were infiltrating state legislatures.
Speaker 3: She basically conceded to the argument, which, by the way,
Speaker 3: I think is just kind of a bad argument. But
Speaker 3: it was the argument that the Trump folks hung the
Speaker 3: entire thing on. So I think you're going to get
Speaker 3: I almost want to say unanimous. I agree with you that.
Speaker 3: I think so Mayor hated this whole thing, and she
Speaker 3: hated them. Essentially, this was giving a get out of
Speaker 3: jail free card to presidents who foment insurrections, who've never
Speaker 3: held another office before. But I think otherwise you're going
Speaker 3: to get six seven eight votes either for this officer
Speaker 3: officer thing or for this you know, we can't have
Speaker 3: a lack of uniformity and therefore we need an enabling
Speaker 3: statute from Congress. But it was not liberal conservative. I
Speaker 3: think it was just I don't want to touch this
Speaker 3: hot potato. How about you?
Speaker 2: I hate it to move on. That's what it was.
Speaker 1: But it's so interesting because the officer officer think is
Speaker 1: so fucking stupid, and also like the whole idea that
Speaker 1: the fourteenth Amendment is somehow that that would mean that
Speaker 1: they could have elected Jefferson Davis.
Speaker 3: Right, and the idea that they would be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're not going to let anybody who was a former
Speaker 3: Confederate or you know, who aided and embedded or enabled
Speaker 3: an insurrection, you know, have high office except the president
Speaker 3: and the vice president. That would be okay, it defies logic.
Speaker 3: You can read the historians briefs about this. On my
Speaker 3: podcast last week, I had an amazing historian who just
Speaker 3: debunked the crap out of these arguments. But I think
Speaker 3: maybe your point is, and it's correct. I think when
Speaker 3: it the rubber hits the road, text and history isn't
Speaker 3: the whole shooting match.
Speaker 2: It never was.
Speaker 3: And the fact that Jonathan Mitchell, Trump's attorney just conceded
Speaker 3: that he was his whole case on this in Regriffin case,
Speaker 3: which is not a Supreme Court precedent and which was
Speaker 3: like later retracted by Sam and Chase who wrote it,
Speaker 3: you know when he's like, yeah, it's not binding, it's
Speaker 3: not president, it wasn't a Supreme Court decision, but it's
Speaker 3: the best thing we have.
Speaker 2: It's a terrible decision.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just a very political decision for somebody who
Speaker 3: was on the side of the Confederates.
Speaker 2: But I think maybe.
Speaker 3: If we try to back out of like the catastrophe
Speaker 3: that was oral argument. Maybe I want to put the
Speaker 3: best possible spin on this because I have to, because
Speaker 3: it's sobbing.
Speaker 2: And I think the best possible spin.
Speaker 3: Is to say that. On February eighth of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: the United States Supreme Court discovered humility. I discovered that
Speaker 3: even though it like wants to weigh in on what
Speaker 3: the Clean Air Act is and the Clean Water Act,
Speaker 3: and vaccine policy and immigration policy and you know, re
Speaker 3: asking questions about FDA approval of mifipristone, it's the expert
Speaker 3: on all things. But apparently today it learned it doesn't
Speaker 3: want to be the decider. And maybe if next week
Speaker 3: it can say and thus we summarily affirm the DC
Speaker 3: Circuit opinion finding that Trump is not immune from criminal consequences.
Speaker 3: I could be on board for the newly humble Roberts Court.
Speaker 2: How about you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want them to go back and put rowback
Speaker 1: on the books. I mean, these fuckers, you know, states
Speaker 1: don't have the right to decide except.
Speaker 2: When we like what they're designed.
Speaker 3: We can vivisect the Voting Rights Act because of the
Speaker 3: dignity of states.
Speaker 2: Except for the dignity of.
Speaker 3: Colorado that wants to take an insurrectionist of the ballot.
Speaker 3: That's like not interesting. I think we just have to
Speaker 3: like look at this as a template of like hypocrisy.
Speaker 3: Suddenly when there's consequences for the court itself, everything goes away.
Speaker 3: I guess I would just say the other thing that
Speaker 3: is kind of interesting. I was really struck by how
Speaker 3: little we talked about the insurrection today. I mean, it
Speaker 3: was like the biggest admission. I thought it was astonishing
Speaker 3: that the person who said the sentence you know, yes,
Speaker 3: it was a riot, quote a shameful, criminal, violent event
Speaker 3: came from Jonathan Mitchell, Trump's lawyer. Now, like hold on
Speaker 3: to the fact that he called it criminal, that's kind
Speaker 3: of useful. But I think that the fact that nobody
Speaker 3: else wanted to talk about it, and in fact we
Speaker 3: heard Justice is fretting about like, oh God, are we
Speaker 3: going to have to adjudicate what insurrections are going forward?
Speaker 2: Like, oh, that would be awkward.
Speaker 3: So the fact that, I guess I was really struck
Speaker 3: by the fact that the argument Colorado was making is
Speaker 3: of course, this is a case of first impression.
Speaker 4: Of course there's no case law.
Speaker 3: Of course this is crazy because we don't have presidents
Speaker 3: fomenting insurrections a whole lot therefore exigent need for the
Speaker 3: Court to act, and the Court sort of responding to
Speaker 3: that with this kind of slightly cowering, Oh, this is
Speaker 3: a case of first impression, and we don't have any doctrine,
Speaker 3: and we don't want to be the ones who decide this.
Speaker 3: And so there's a weird way in which the enormity
Speaker 3: and singularity of the events of January sixth are the
Speaker 3: thing that both demand that the Court to be brave
Speaker 3: and also the thing that the Court is going to
Speaker 3: hide behind and say this isn't for us to decide.
Speaker 2: It kicks us back to this idea that we have.
Speaker 1: At every single point Republicans have taken the opportunity, and
Speaker 1: not even Republicans everyone, I mean not everyone, but largely
Speaker 1: most of our institutions have refused to hold Trump accountable.
Speaker 1: At every point, the Republicans in the Senate, maybe we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be doing this, this one, that one, I mean,
Speaker 1: at every point, they really have kicked the can or
Speaker 1: been too scared to right.
Speaker 3: Right, it's a huge three dimensional game of checks and
Speaker 3: balances chicken, right, where everybody is saying like, we don't
Speaker 3: have to do it, do it through impeachment. And then
Speaker 3: the Republicans who voted not to impeach, we're like, we
Speaker 3: don't have to do it, do it through a criminal trial. Right.
Speaker 3: Then we get to the criminal trial and Trump's lawyers
Speaker 3: are arguing, you should have done it through impeachment, right,
Speaker 3: And then Merrick Garland is too slow, and then you
Speaker 3: know Donald Trump is gaming the appellate system to push
Speaker 3: this thing to the election. And it just the vibe
Speaker 3: is very much that like, how did we build this
Speaker 3: entire infrastructure of checks and balances if nobody wants to
Speaker 3: check and nobody wants to balance, and nobody wants to
Speaker 3: put their.
Speaker 2: Skin in the game.
Speaker 3: I think that what I would say. And I've been
Speaker 3: thinking about this a lot, because if I'm right, and
Speaker 3: the court decides to do the kind of split the
Speaker 3: baby solemnonic thing where Colorado loses here but Trump loses
Speaker 3: next week on immunity, and then the court will say,
Speaker 3: look at how temperate and moderate we are, and then
Speaker 3: we have to play out how soon can Jack Smith,
Speaker 3: you know, get that trial done in Judge Tanya Chuckkins
Speaker 3: Court in DC. It does raise this question of will
Speaker 3: that be enough?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Like, is that going to be the thing that checks
Speaker 3: Donald Trump? Where it brings accountability? And here, Molly is
Speaker 3: where I just get stuck on the My god, we
Speaker 3: already had a January sixth investigation, we already had an impeachment,
Speaker 3: we already had, you know, Egene two times we are
Speaker 3: waiting for. It's like this thing keeps bonking us on the.
Speaker 5: Head like he did it.
Speaker 2: He did it, we all saw it.
Speaker 3: We all saw it, and then we're mad that the
Speaker 3: next level of accountability didn't happen. But like I keep
Speaker 3: finding myself asking, what is going to change when either
Speaker 3: you know, he gets thrown off the ballot, which I
Speaker 3: guess is not going to happen after today, or what
Speaker 3: is going to change when there's an actual criminal conviction
Speaker 3: at the hands of Jack Smith. Are folks going to
Speaker 3: then say, oh, he is exactly the thing.
Speaker 2: He purports to be.
Speaker 3: And when he says he's in turning people in camps
Speaker 3: and weaponizing the Justice Department against his enemies, maybe we
Speaker 3: should take him seriously. I think My slight answer to
Speaker 3: your question is what other thing needs to happen in
Speaker 3: order to persuade us to hold him to account? And
Speaker 3: that's the thing that ultimately fails is that we want
Speaker 3: this like Deis x Mackinna, you know, like to come
Speaker 3: in a like Congo line and fix it. And I'm
Speaker 3: just like, it's come, it's come, it's come. We've seen it.
Speaker 3: So why are we expecting the next thing to change
Speaker 3: people's minds?
Speaker 2: It's so crazy.
Speaker 1: When we say the guardrails have hold, what I think
Speaker 1: we mean is that they actually haven't held right.
Speaker 2: I mean in a certain way. I mean, this guy
Speaker 2: could be president again.
Speaker 3: He could very well be president again. And I think
Speaker 3: it's worth recalling that every single time any of these
Speaker 3: attempts to hold him to account fails, he turns around
Speaker 3: and says, look, which hunt, Which hunt? You know, it's
Speaker 3: a conspiracy. I'm going after Hunter Biden or whatever he says.
Speaker 3: So you know, there's a kind of a slipstream in
Speaker 3: which he monetizes this and he uses it to say, Look,
Speaker 3: the system has clearly been weaponized against me, and that's
Speaker 3: why I'm going to weaponize it against you.
Speaker 2: I think that.
Speaker 3: The only thing we can say. I wrote a piece
Speaker 3: about this a couple of weeks ago, and it made
Speaker 3: people feel pissy. But it's just like, we just keep
Speaker 3: expecting one trial, one impeachment, one investigation to be the
Speaker 3: thing that saves us. And I just think we need
Speaker 3: to start to take responsibility for the fact that we're
Speaker 3: just going to have to be the thing that saves
Speaker 3: us because we're going to just have to vote the
Speaker 3: shit out of this problem.
Speaker 2: I don't know what else to say.
Speaker 3: I think that if the Supreme Court had an opportunity
Speaker 3: to day to say, this is precisely what the drafters
Speaker 3: of the Fourteenth Amendment contemplated, and of course it's shocking
Speaker 3: and scary, and of course it's a huge political move
Speaker 3: and there are terrible risks involved. But someone's got to
Speaker 3: kind of pony up and do it like that wasn't
Speaker 3: what the Court did today, It's not what it's going
Speaker 3: to do. So I think the question is then, and
Speaker 3: I think it's a little bit of what you're asking, like,
Speaker 3: how do we pony up right? Like what do we
Speaker 3: do in response to this? And I think it just
Speaker 3: has to be this has to be a route.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really sounds like I'm really depressed. Let's talk
Speaker 1: for two more seconds about just the other. There's this
Speaker 1: immunity case that's going to come up in front of
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court too, which is the king, you know,
Speaker 1: is Trump king or just a citizen? That probably will
Speaker 1: get a different response from the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: Right. That would be if the Supreme Court cared about
Speaker 3: its YELP ratings, that's the thing it would do. It
Speaker 3: would say, Okay, we completely bailed on the Colorado disqualification case,
Speaker 3: but to pay you back, we are going to affirm
Speaker 3: the DC Circuit that held entirely reasonably and I would say,
Speaker 3: unassailably that Donald Trump is not, in fact the king
Speaker 3: of the world, so I think, and the way the
Speaker 3: DC Circuit structured its order this earlier this week, the
Speaker 3: Court has to act very quickly, and the Court will likely,
Speaker 3: I think, want to act quickly because this is another
Speaker 3: urgent national election matter, right, it matters hugely. So the
Speaker 3: question is, really is the Court going to do the
Speaker 3: same thing it did in this Colorado case, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, expedited briefing, expedited argument, decide this thing fast
Speaker 3: enough that this case could presumably, you know, go to
Speaker 3: trial on some like you know, good timeline rather than
Speaker 3: the evil timeline when it goes to trial next October.
Speaker 2: And I think that is an.
Speaker 3: Easier case for the court to step into because there
Speaker 3: is lots of case law, there is lots of doctrine,
Speaker 3: because the DC Circuit so clearly got it right. And
Speaker 3: the alternative is saying that Donald Trump could order like
Speaker 3: seal team to come in and execute his political rival.
Speaker 3: So I just don't think there's a plausible argument that
Speaker 3: Donald Trump could prevail even with this court.
Speaker 2: So I think that's probably the way we're going to go.
Speaker 3: And then I think we're back to your earlier question,
Speaker 3: which is can this happen in time to affect things?
Speaker 3: And like that's a time space continual question, it's not
Speaker 3: a legal question. Oh, those big sides, they reverberate in
Speaker 3: my ears.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you. Thanks really a dude, thank you for everything
Speaker 2: you do.
Speaker 1: Did you know Rick Wilson and I are bringing together
Speaker 1: some friends for a general election kickoff party at City
Speaker 1: Winery in New York on March sixth. We're going to
Speaker 1: be chatting right after Super Tuesday about what's going on
Speaker 1: and it is going to probably be the one fun.
Speaker 2: Night for the next eighty days.
Speaker 1: If you're in the New York area, please come by
Speaker 1: and join us. You can go to City Winery's website
Speaker 1: and grab a ticket. Chris Murphy is the junior Senator
Speaker 1: from the great state of Connecticut.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Senator Murfey.
Speaker 1: You negotiated a border deal, YEP, I did with Lankford.
Speaker 2: And Kirsten Cinema. Give us two seconds of what.
Speaker 5: That was like. It's four months of my life that
Speaker 5: I'm never getting back. A lot of time with two
Speaker 5: very complicated characters, but I love them both dearly. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean listen to Relegance appointed James Lankford to negotiate
Speaker 5: this border deal because he's our lner. Maybe I thought
Speaker 5: he was never going to get a deal. Maybe that
Speaker 5: was why this ended up happening the way that it happened.
Speaker 5: But we did get a deal. We spent four months
Speaker 5: working through every possible way to get the border under control.
Speaker 5: We found a compromise which includes a lot of good
Speaker 5: things for immigrants and some expansions of legal pathways, and
Speaker 5: also contained some real tough tools for the president to
Speaker 5: stop you know, ten thousand people from showing up every
Speaker 5: day in an unplanned way at the border.
Speaker 4: We got that deal.
Speaker 5: We released the text on Sunday night, and within twenty
Speaker 5: four hours, Imaga Wright burned it to the ground, and
Speaker 5: every single Republican that told us they were going to
Speaker 5: vote for the thing ran for the hills because they
Speaker 5: decided that they wanted the border to be chaotic, and
Speaker 5: they couldn't imagine a world in which the border isn't
Speaker 5: chaotic because that's kind of like their oxygen.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting because first of all, there has been
Speaker 1: no border legislation. Right, there was a swing and a
Speaker 1: miss in twenty thirteen. Right, there hasn't been anything in
Speaker 1: more than twenty years.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, I mean arguably forty years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's no legislation. Ergo, there's no money. Ergo Ice.
Speaker 1: Now you'll remember Ice as Donald Trump's favorite group of
Speaker 1: civil servants. I guess Ice is a civil servant. Sure
Speaker 1: Ice is now. Ice wanted this deal, right, I.
Speaker 5: Don't think Ice had in the pigion on the bill.
Speaker 5: I know there's a lot of acronyms in this world,
Speaker 5: but the Border Patrol Union, which are the folks who
Speaker 5: are actually on the border, not the people doing the
Speaker 5: enforcement in the interior. The Border Patrol Union, which are
Speaker 5: a super conservative group of cats who have always supported
Speaker 5: Donald Trump, endorse this bill, as did the Immigration Lawyers Association,
Speaker 5: which is a pretty progressive group of individuals who represent
Speaker 5: immigrants every single day. So this was like a true
Speaker 5: old fashioned DC compromise in which theill some groups on
Speaker 5: the left support it. So groups of the rights supported it.
Speaker 5: Democrats were going to vote against it, some Republicans were
Speaker 5: going to vote against it.
Speaker 4: We just didn't think that.
Speaker 5: Every single Republican was going to vote against it, which
Speaker 5: is essentially what happened.
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson even before the text so the text wasn't
Speaker 1: released until Sunday, right yep, nineteen pages released on Sunday,
Speaker 1: the week before Mike to the Speaker of the House
Speaker 1: called it dead un arrival.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And then like that night Senator Mike Lee was like,
Speaker 5: this is riculous. We need seventy two hours to read this,
Speaker 5: and like literally three minutes later he was like, this
Speaker 5: bill is terrible and I've gooing for But if they
Speaker 5: were not giving this bill a serious look, they didn't
Speaker 5: sit and have a very nuanced policy focused discussion on
Speaker 5: the merits of the bill. No, they decide that they
Speaker 5: couldn't live in a world in which the border was fixed,
Speaker 5: Like what would they do on the weekends. They couldn't
Speaker 5: go down to the border and pretend to be border
Speaker 5: patrol agents and put on camouflage and bring the TV
Speaker 5: cameras with them. They live for the border being a nightmare,
Speaker 5: and they wanted to preserve it because that was their
Speaker 5: only path of victory in November. So I think it's
Speaker 5: a real political problem for them because I think the
Speaker 5: whole country has seen that they're not sincere about closing
Speaker 5: the border, and I think they're going to have to
Speaker 5: live with the consequences of a bad policy decision and
Speaker 5: a bad political decision.
Speaker 1: One of the I think important parts of the story
Speaker 1: that we did not start on that a lot of
Speaker 1: our listeners probably know though, is that all of this
Speaker 1: started because Magarreld decided they would only do foreign aid
Speaker 1: if Democrats addressed the board correct.
Speaker 5: So in the fall we try to pass funding for
Speaker 5: Ukraine militarian assistants in Israel, and the Republicans say, no way.
Speaker 5: Even though we support that, we are not going to
Speaker 5: vote for the foreign aid we support unless you get
Speaker 5: a bipartisan deal on the border. And I ended up
Speaker 5: being the Democratic negotiator. You know what, Early on, I said,
Speaker 5: are you sure you want to go down this road?
Speaker 5: Do you understand that any bipartisan bill that we reach
Speaker 5: is going to be opposed by Donald Trump?
Speaker 4: You're ready to go to war with Donald Trump? Really?
Speaker 5: They said, yeah, we're willing to go to war with
Speaker 5: Donald Trump. As it turns out they were. We did
Speaker 5: exactly what they asked. We partnered together border or form.
Speaker 5: We got the deal with Langford and with Senator McConnell.
Speaker 5: He was part of our negotiations. And then as soon
Speaker 5: as they had the chance to combine them both together,
Speaker 5: they said, never mind, we don't want the border stuff.
Speaker 5: Put the Ukraine build back on the floor and we'll
Speaker 5: vote for that. And as you and I are talking today,
Speaker 5: it looks like we're headed towards passage of the Ukraine
Speaker 5: funding by itself. We could have done that back in
Speaker 5: the fall when Ukraine wasn't like losing the war on
Speaker 5: some days.
Speaker 2: So this is just Ukraine, or it's Ukraine Taiwan in Israel.
Speaker 5: Ukraine Taiwan, Israel and humanitarian funding significant. You have ten
Speaker 5: billion dollars for Gaza. So this is not a small package.
Speaker 5: It's a big package. Just got a bunch of fentanyl
Speaker 5: funding in it. It will be very good when it passes,
Speaker 5: but we could have passed that four months ago.
Speaker 1: It passes in the Senate likely because you need sixty
Speaker 1: votes and it seems like there's a Susan Collins as
Speaker 1: there are people there that are not Tom Kin.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've already passed one procedural vote and fourteen Republicans
Speaker 5: joined all the Democrats.
Speaker 2: But you still need two more to get to sixty.
Speaker 5: Right on the procedural vote, we've already reached sixty. So
Speaker 5: as long as that group of fourteen Republicans hangs with us,
Speaker 5: will pass it in the on file passages.
Speaker 1: What we've learned over the last week is that the
Speaker 1: Senate is almost as fucked up as.
Speaker 4: The House, but not quite well.
Speaker 5: I don't know, it's pretty god to im close right now.
Speaker 5: The difference was that the Senate Republicans would occasionally break
Speaker 5: from Trump. Now they've made clear they will not. Right,
Speaker 5: they used to have leadership. I mean the Senate Republicans,
Speaker 5: you know, had a pretty strong leader. Senator McConnell, and
Speaker 5: I actually do appreciate the role Center McConnell played in
Speaker 5: these border negotiations. He was a big part of the team,
Speaker 5: a staff was really excellent to work with. But you know,
Speaker 5: he signed off on that border deal and he voted
Speaker 5: against it, and he got four.
Speaker 4: Republicans voted for it.
Speaker 5: So there's a real big leadership crisis in the Republican
Speaker 5: Senate caucus right now, which I don't like.
Speaker 4: I'm not rooting for it.
Speaker 5: It's bad for the country and Democrats and the Senate
Speaker 5: to have this vacuum of leadership in the center of
Speaker 5: Republican caucus.
Speaker 4: But it does exist. It's real.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder. I mean, here's Mitch McConnell. He has
Speaker 1: done things for Republicans. You know, keeping that Supreme Court
Speaker 1: seat open is the kind of thing I mean, it's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine a Democrat doing that. I mean, he
Speaker 1: really did things that were so incredibly craven and organized.
Speaker 2: His reward is basically just nothing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was nine.
Speaker 5: This is a longer conversation, but I do think that
Speaker 5: Mitch mcconaughell, after January sixth, is a different guy. He
Speaker 5: has been more willing to get stuff done after January
Speaker 5: sixth I still deeply disagree with him on many many issues,
Speaker 5: but he's not the same guy.
Speaker 1: So this will then go to the House of Representatives,
Speaker 1: where Mike Johnson enjoys a one vote majority and failed
Speaker 1: to pass both a standalone Israel Aid and his own
Speaker 1: impeachment of Secretary my Orcus. So the way the House works,
Speaker 1: it can't go to the floor because the Rules Committee
Speaker 1: is filled with maga.
Speaker 2: How can this possibly pass? There?
Speaker 4: Yeah, a couple different ways.
Speaker 5: It could go on something called suspension of the rules,
Speaker 5: which allows him to go straight to the floor, but
Speaker 5: he's got to get what two thirds of the votes
Speaker 5: that would be part non possible for this package. Or second,
Speaker 5: it's got to come to the floor through something called
Speaker 5: a discharge petition, which is when a majority of the
Speaker 5: members sign a petition, they can force a bill to
Speaker 5: the floor even if the majority leader, even if the
Speaker 5: Speaker doesn't want it to come to the floor. That
Speaker 5: could be a possibility. Those are both long shots. Admittedly,
Speaker 5: you know, the state of the Johnson leadership effort is
Speaker 5: in crisis. Not a great time to have a big
Speaker 5: bill like the Ukraine Israel Humanitarian Bill coming over to
Speaker 5: the house. But there are a couple narrow pathways to
Speaker 5: get it done there. But let's just like admit the stakes.
Speaker 5: You and I, you know, sometimes talk about this stuff
Speaker 5: as if it's all theater.
Speaker 4: It's not.
Speaker 5: This is the future of the world. If Ukraine loses
Speaker 5: this war, it literally resets the globe for the next
Speaker 5: one hundred years. It basically tells big nations that they
Speaker 5: can invade neighbors and get away with it. And guess what,
Speaker 5: Russia will do more of it, China will start and
Speaker 5: we will be in a fundamentally different place than any
Speaker 5: of us have recognized or known since World War Two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like if Vladimir Putin is able to
Speaker 1: take Ukraine, it will make everything different and it will
Speaker 1: put Europe in a terrible position.
Speaker 4: It is not certain that Putin will keep going right.
Speaker 5: You don't want to sort of assume dominoes all the time,
Speaker 5: but history does tend to repeat itself, and once a
Speaker 5: country feels that they have the green light. Are we
Speaker 5: sure that we would defend NATO if we wouldn't defend Ukraine.
Speaker 5: I worry that the Republican Party would be signaling that
Speaker 5: they're just out of the business of collective defense, and
Speaker 5: you would all of a sudden see a.
Speaker 4: World of war.
Speaker 5: It would eventually get the United States dragged in if
Speaker 5: not right at the outside.
Speaker 4: I don't mean to be.
Speaker 5: Hyperbolel like, I just I do think there are some
Speaker 5: real disaster scenarios if ukraated falls and falls easily because
Speaker 5: the United States abandoned.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think about Reagan.
Speaker 1: You know, we grew up during Reagan and like the
Speaker 1: idea that this Republican Party now, I mean, even Bush,
Speaker 1: they were so into nation building.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there does have to be a smart balance between
Speaker 5: overdoing it right, I mean, and recognizing when a clear
Speaker 5: line has been crossed. Here, this to me is a
Speaker 5: clear line. This is an adversary Russia marching into Europe
Speaker 5: of that kind of I thought it had always been
Speaker 5: the line we all recognize. You don't have to settle
Speaker 5: everybody's problems around the world. I frankly ran as somebody thought,
Speaker 5: a lot of the wars we've been engaged in were
Speaker 5: pretty ill thought out, whether it be the way in
Speaker 5: which we did Afghanistan, the whole mess Interaq. I frankly
Speaker 5: almost helped construct the anti Yemen war movement from the
Speaker 5: ground up, So I'll hold out my I wore modifies
Speaker 5: against anybody's. But Ukraine is worth saving, and I think
Speaker 5: that's the way that most Americans feel about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there are no American troops on the ground,
Speaker 1: or very few. This is not the same kind of
Speaker 1: war as the Gulf War.
Speaker 5: Pretty reasonable investment, right, Ukraine's are not asking us to
Speaker 5: fight and die for them. They are asking us to
Speaker 5: help pay for them to fight and die. And this
Speaker 5: is frankly saving a lot of American lives later.
Speaker 1: On, right, One of the things I want you to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about, because it's sort of interesting,
Speaker 1: is the way the munitions have been made has been
Speaker 1: part of the Inflation Reduction Act, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, listen, this has been a big ongoing issue.
Speaker 5: You know, we are so relying on a small handful
Speaker 5: of weapons and munitions makers to make what we need
Speaker 5: and what Ukraine needs that when you have a surge
Speaker 5: and demand, it's really hard to meet it. These is
Speaker 5: not like back in World War Two when we could
Speaker 5: turn one hundred different companies overnight into weapons makers. We
Speaker 5: don't have the ability to do that. So, you know,
Speaker 5: as I am always very wary of massive investments, in
Speaker 5: the defense industrial complex. But it is true that we
Speaker 5: have seen a big exposure here of our ability to
Speaker 5: keep up with conflict around the world, and we are
Speaker 5: going to have to figure out why we have become
Speaker 5: so very quickly short changed on the amount of ammunition
Speaker 5: that Ukraine needs and make sure that we never get
Speaker 5: in this situation again. So I don't know that that's
Speaker 5: a big part of the Inflation Reduction Act, but it
Speaker 5: is a pretty big effort that's underway generally in Congress
Speaker 5: to try to.
Speaker 4: Make sure that Ukraine has what it needs now and
Speaker 4: to make.
Speaker 5: Sure that the future we have redundant capabilities for important
Speaker 5: things like ammunition and artillery shells.
Speaker 1: Let's go into the Inflation Reduction Act though for a minute,
Speaker 1: because like one of the reasons why Trump was so
Speaker 1: panicked about the border was because he sees that this
Speaker 1: inflation was transitory and that the economy, while not every
Speaker 1: consumer is feeling it, the economy is broadly stabilizing, and
Speaker 1: so this would mean that the Inflation Act actually reduced inflation,
Speaker 1: that inflation was transittory, likely because of the pandemic and
Speaker 1: the supply chain issues, and that Secretary Yellen and Biden
Speaker 1: were right.
Speaker 5: Most all credible economists said we'd be at a recession
Speaker 5: by now.
Speaker 2: Except Paul Krugman, right.
Speaker 5: And Joe Biden and his team went to work on
Speaker 5: the policy is necessary to keep us out of a recession.
Speaker 5: People were deeply skeptical that Joe Biden could do that,
Speaker 5: but he did. And you saw the job growth rate
Speaker 5: last month. It is just stunning how many jobs have
Speaker 5: been created under President Biden, more than any other president
Speaker 5: in their first term. It is true that Donald Trump
Speaker 5: was hoping that the economy would be in the tank.
Speaker 4: It is not.
Speaker 5: It is growing by leaps and bounds. We have structurally
Speaker 5: low unemployment. Everybody who wants a job out there can
Speaker 5: get one by and large. But there are also other
Speaker 5: really important things happening in this economy. One of them
Speaker 5: that people didn't see happening either is crime coming down
Speaker 5: by stunningly large.
Speaker 2: Percentages except in Washington, d s.
Speaker 4: Well, but there's always outliars.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, but I gotcha.
Speaker 5: But listen, that's what Republicans will say, Well, there's this.
Speaker 4: One city where crime is going up. Well, that is true.
Speaker 5: You know, crime is going up in New Haven and
Speaker 5: it's going up in Washington, but it's not going up
Speaker 5: in Hartford, and it's not going up in Bridgeport, and
Speaker 5: it's coming way down in Baltimore. But overall, homicides in
Speaker 5: our cities have come down by twelve percent since last year.
Speaker 5: That is the biggest one year drop in the history
Speaker 5: of the country.
Speaker 4: So inflation coming down, crime coming down.
Speaker 5: Jobs going up, growth going up, that's a pretty good
Speaker 5: record for an incumbent president to run on. And it
Speaker 5: is true that Republicans said, okay, what do we have left, Like,
Speaker 5: let's you know, look onto the Cocona shells. What do
Speaker 5: we have to run on? And the immigration? All right,
Speaker 5: the border is a mess. Let's run on that. And
Speaker 5: we called their bluff.
Speaker 4: We said, okay, will agree to some pretty tough.
Speaker 5: Changes of the border if you will too, and they
Speaker 5: would because they know that they can't run in the economy.
Speaker 4: They can't run on inflation, they can't.
Speaker 5: Run on a crime.
Speaker 4: So they want to run on the border.
Speaker 5: And the only way they can run on the border
Speaker 5: is to keep the border a mess. But I think
Speaker 5: they're not going to get away with I think Americans
Speaker 5: are going to know what just happened that they refuse
Speaker 5: to fix the border because they want it to do.
Speaker 2: And when you talk to constituents you come from very blue.
Speaker 1: State, do you feel like they are really seeing what's
Speaker 1: happening or has Ben Shapiro shaped the narratives so much
Speaker 1: that and Fox News?
Speaker 2: I mean, do you feel like they're informed or not?
Speaker 5: I think there's a couple of things happening. One most
Speaker 5: of the is, you know, Molly, most Americans are not
Speaker 5: plugged in at all. They're just living their lives. They
Speaker 5: don't know what's happening in Washington, and they know what's
Speaker 5: happening lives. And people definitely feel that things are better,
Speaker 5: but not good enough. People out there are working, Unemployment
Speaker 5: is really low, but they're still having trouble saving for college,
Speaker 5: and rent is too high, so there's still paying out
Speaker 5: there in a very in a very real way.
Speaker 4: And so we need to sort of do both right.
Speaker 5: We've got to take credit for how much better things are,
Speaker 5: but also be cognizant of the fact that that's going
Speaker 5: to fall flat with some folks. And then that very
Speaker 5: siloed media and information infrastructure is also there are a
Speaker 5: bunch of people even in kinetic and in blue kinetic
Speaker 5: get all their news from conservative news sources, and really
Speaker 5: do believe that Joe Biden has done nothing to help
Speaker 5: the economy. And that's a hard thing to solve for.
Speaker 5: But I think people are feeling better. I sense that
Speaker 5: back in Connecticut, and I think increasingly they know that
Speaker 5: Joe Biden has a lot to do with that.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Senator Murphy.
Speaker 4: Thanks Boby.
Speaker 1: Matt Fuller is the Washington bureau chief at The Daily Beast.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, too fast, politics smaller?
Speaker 4: How are you, lolly?
Speaker 2: You know I'm living the dream, so let's talk. I
Speaker 2: mean that, of course I wrong. Call you you got.
Speaker 2: I don't fucking know what.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that the United States House of
Speaker 1: Representatives that the Republican who is the Speaker.
Speaker 2: Of the House right now, Mike Johnson, does not know how.
Speaker 4: To count discuss this is a common affliction for Republican speakers.
Speaker 4: He's not the first to be struck by this counting problem.
Speaker 4: He had two votes on Tuesday that failed. The first
Speaker 4: was this Alejandro mayorchest the Department of homelyan Security secretary impeachment.
Speaker 4: This one is maybe less a problem of counting one, two, three, four,
Speaker 4: and more that Democrats might have out maneuvered Johnson a bit.
Speaker 4: They had votes earlier in the day and they knew
Speaker 4: it was going to be close. They knew they were
Speaker 4: going to lose three Republicans, but it looked like there
Speaker 4: was going to be some dem absences. There's a couple
Speaker 4: of Republican absences.
Speaker 2: So al Green was having surgery.
Speaker 4: Having surgery, but a pretty serious situation, and he came
Speaker 4: back straight from the hospital, Hubert onto the out floor,
Speaker 4: would wheeled in and he cast what ended up being
Speaker 4: the deciding vote, and they were deadlocked at two fifteen
Speaker 4: to fifteen. They had a fourth Republican vote no, just
Speaker 4: for procedural purposes that they can bring it back up
Speaker 4: a little easier. But yeah, I'll be It's one of
Speaker 4: those things where you start questioning, why are you guys
Speaker 4: really bringing this up when you don't have the votes.
Speaker 4: I mean, you could bring this up in a week
Speaker 4: or two when Steve Scalice, the majority leader, he's back,
Speaker 4: he's currently undergoing cancer treating himself. You could just kind
Speaker 4: of spring it on people on a faster day where
Speaker 4: it's very clear that Democrats don't have the numbers. They're
Speaker 4: expressing confidence that they were going to get it done.
Speaker 4: The truth twist, they were counting on Democrats to make
Speaker 4: sure they got it done, and that's just never a
Speaker 4: gamble you want to make.
Speaker 2: So they were counting on Democrats to vote to impeach
Speaker 2: my orc As.
Speaker 4: They were counting on Democrats, a few Democrats to not
Speaker 4: show up. And right now we're in a situation where
Speaker 4: the margin is so close. He basically have three votes
Speaker 4: to spare, and if there's one extra dem Apps or
Speaker 4: one extra Republican absence, it can mean quite a bit
Speaker 4: to the actual margin. I mean again, they were tied
Speaker 4: at two fifteen two fifteen, and they lost by one vote,
Speaker 4: and that one vote was really Al Green or really
Speaker 4: any other Republican. I mean, you could say Kevin McCarthy resigning,
Speaker 4: or George Santos as he did he explicitly said do
Speaker 4: you miss me yet? That would have also been the
Speaker 4: deciding factor. But they were counting on Democrats to not
Speaker 4: show up, particularly Al Green, and when he did, they
Speaker 4: were kind of screwed, right, And that is.
Speaker 1: Why Marjorie Taylor Green gave this really weird speech where
Speaker 1: she said they're hiding members from us. That was what
Speaker 1: she was referring to she was not having a fever
Speaker 1: dream they.
Speaker 4: Were hiding in the comet ping pong basementner or manning
Speaker 4: back Jewish space lasers or anything. No, she's right to
Speaker 4: an extent. Democrats kind of played this one close to
Speaker 4: their chest.
Speaker 2: Good for them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it feels like a move that Nancy Pelosi would
Speaker 4: have done. Again. You have Democrats show up to the
Speaker 4: first vote, they get account of that, they look at
Speaker 4: the numbers, they say, here's what we can lose. As
Speaker 4: long as you know, the same people show up, we're
Speaker 4: going to be good. And then it's just a matter
Speaker 4: that Al Green decided, no, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: make it to this vote, and he, for the time being,
Speaker 4: saved may Orchis from this impeachment. It's obviously an embarrassing
Speaker 4: little situation for Mike Johnston, but it is one they
Speaker 4: will rectify at some point. I do expect them to
Speaker 4: have the numbers and get you an impeachment at some point.
Speaker 4: But it's just adding to the sort of tactical failures
Speaker 4: of Mike Johnson. I mean, right after that vote, they
Speaker 4: have Israel Aid. Because Republicans are having these issues with
Speaker 4: their own conference where members are taking down rules. A
Speaker 4: rule basically just sets up consideration for the bill. It
Speaker 4: usually determines how long they can debate it, how many amendments, whatever.
Speaker 4: And they've not been able to adop for many rules
Speaker 4: because it's just a partisant vote. Democrats vote no, Republicans
Speaker 4: vote yes. When Democrats are in charge, Democrats vote yes,
Speaker 4: Republicans vote no, and the sacredness of the rule kind
Speaker 4: of fell apart earlier this year. That happened under Kevin McCarthy,
Speaker 4: but it's been a constant pain in their side, particularly
Speaker 4: under Mike Johnson, where these Conservatives who are just mad
Speaker 4: about everything are voting against rules and taking them down
Speaker 4: and basically just taking over the floor. They're blocking consideration
Speaker 4: of anything. So you had a bunch of Republicans who
Speaker 4: were saying, I'm not voting for an Israel bill that's
Speaker 4: not offset with cuts elsewhere, I will vote down the rule.
Speaker 4: You also have the Rules Committee, the actual Republicans on
Speaker 4: the Rules Committee who determined this, who might not voted
Speaker 4: out of the committee. So that's another hard wrinkle there.
Speaker 1: You have a very maga Rules Committee, which was Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy who set that up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean that was partly to get the speakership,
Speaker 4: Kevin McCarthy kind of agreed to putting some of these
Speaker 4: hardline members like Chip Roy on the Rules Committee. So
Speaker 4: you know, now Mike Johnson's living with that reality and
Speaker 4: he's trying to pass bills to just circumvent the Rules
Speaker 4: Committee by suspension, which requires two thirds a majority. That
Speaker 4: number also changes with how many absences and people show up,
Speaker 4: but let's say it's usually around two hundred and eighty votes.
Speaker 4: I think they came up with about two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty for the Israel bills, so they are well short.
Speaker 4: And that's also going to your point, that's a real
Speaker 4: counting problem. There's not really many excuses on that one.
Speaker 4: You can say, you know, Democrats out maneuvered Republicans on
Speaker 4: the Majorca's impeachment, but the fact that the Israel bill failed,
Speaker 4: that that truly is just counting. There's no one hiding them.
Speaker 4: So that one that's just a true failure of math.
Speaker 1: But also with this Israel bill, the sort of activists
Speaker 1: thought the bill was bad and didn't want it to
Speaker 1: pass either.
Speaker 4: Part of the problem is Republicans are trying to stake
Speaker 4: up this position where only Israel passes and Democrats are
Speaker 4: on the other side of this saying, well, we're not
Speaker 4: going to just do Israel only. Maybe Republicans could force
Speaker 4: their hand on this a bit, but they very strongly
Speaker 4: want Ukraine and Taiwan as part of that deal with
Speaker 4: Israel's aid. If you just passed Israel, it's gonna it's
Speaker 4: gonna get held up. And if you decide that you know,
Speaker 4: we're gonna move forward with Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, then
Speaker 4: it's it's gonna go through. And that's the reality that
Speaker 4: we're living in now. You can like it or dislike it,
Speaker 4: and there's plenty of members who dislike it. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, just passing Israel is basically a gambit to
Speaker 4: challenge Senate Democrats to hold that up vote no, to
Speaker 4: not take up the vote. This afternoon, the Senate looks
Speaker 4: like it's fine to pass this sweeping Israel, Ukraine Taiwan bill,
Speaker 4: And now you know, the ball is sort of in
Speaker 4: Mike Johnson's court. Is he going to allow that larger
Speaker 4: package to go The fact that he was unable to
Speaker 4: pass the Israel only bill makes it more challenging for
Speaker 4: him to say, no, we have.
Speaker 1: On this episode Chris Murphy, who was also talking to
Speaker 1: me about procedurally how this would work. I know this
Speaker 1: is West Wing fanfic, but right now Mike Johnson only
Speaker 1: has a one vote major.
Speaker 4: I think he's got closer to three. The actual breakdown
Speaker 4: is two nineteen to two twelve, which, again, it matters
Speaker 4: a great deal if you have an absence or two
Speaker 4: on either side, but you're looking at a three or
Speaker 4: four vote majority. Again, it depends on how many members
Speaker 4: actually show up. That is a very narrow, paper thin majority,
Speaker 4: and anytime you have you're relying on, you know, a
Speaker 4: few votes. If someone put a motion to vacate on
Speaker 4: the floor right now, I'm not sure Mike Johnson would
Speaker 4: survive that. He might survive it with some Democrats not
Speaker 4: voting again, that would lower the threshold for him. But
Speaker 4: this is a truth that Kevin McCarthy understood. Is the
Speaker 4: truth that John Bayner, Paul Ryan, they all understood. The
Speaker 4: second that you rely on Democratic votes to hold your position,
Speaker 4: you really don't have that position anymore. Every negotiation you
Speaker 4: go through, Democrats are going to be holding this over
Speaker 4: your head, saying, hey, someone's gonna bring up a motion
Speaker 4: to VAK and maybe this time we're not going to care.
Speaker 4: We're gonna let it go through. So as much as
Speaker 4: Democrats have said, you know, we would protect Mike Johnson
Speaker 4: if say, he put Ukraine funding on the floor and
Speaker 4: he faced the motion to VAK, which he's had that
Speaker 4: promise from Marjorie Tilergreen that if he does do that,
Speaker 4: she will make a motion to vacate against Mike Johnson.
Speaker 4: He kind of knows he's living in a very precarious
Speaker 4: position here. And you know, yeah, Democrats can say we'll
Speaker 4: help you out, we'll vote for you, or well, we
Speaker 4: just won't vote and we'll lower that threshold. But the
Speaker 4: reality is again like as soon as you are relying
Speaker 4: on democratic votes, it's kind of over for you. And
Speaker 4: again McCarthy also understood this, which is why he didn't
Speaker 4: really seek out help from Democrat and that everyone was
Speaker 4: always questioning why didn't he go to He keep jeffries,
Speaker 4: why you know he's facing this motion of VAKA in
Speaker 4: October over a continuing resolution just keeping the government lights
Speaker 4: on for a few weeks.
Speaker 1: We don't know that he didn't, right, I mean, there
Speaker 1: was some talk that he may have. It's just that
Speaker 1: Democrats really hated him by that point because he lied
Speaker 1: to them so many times.
Speaker 4: We can't dephysically say yeah, but the reporting has been
Speaker 4: them from McCarthy and from Jefferies that he didn't do that.
Speaker 4: I guess you never quite know the truth, but we
Speaker 4: do know no Democrats supported him. You're right, I'm not
Speaker 4: sure that even if he had asked, Democrats would help him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they really hated McCarthy in a way, they don't
Speaker 1: hate Johnson.
Speaker 4: That might be true right now. I think Mike Johnson
Speaker 4: at the moment is sort of a curiosity. No one
Speaker 4: really knew this guy very well. He was kind of
Speaker 4: a quiet member of Congress.
Speaker 1: People liked him, you know, from what I understand. People
Speaker 1: thought that he was honest and not a liar.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, he is very quickly developing a reputation as
Speaker 4: a liar or really as someone who kind of talks
Speaker 4: out of both sides of his mouth. And again, this
Speaker 4: is just kind of a reality of governing in a
Speaker 4: very slim Republican majority, where you're always trying to appease people.
Speaker 4: You're always dealing with today's problems today and worry about
Speaker 4: tomorrow's problems Tomorrow. We published Peace that was basically about
Speaker 4: the five stages of grief that Mike Johnson is going
Speaker 4: through into speakership. And this is true of every Republican
Speaker 4: speaker that I've covered for now close to fifteen years.
Speaker 4: You always have this major denial phase. That's the one
Speaker 4: that really sets up all the other problems because it's
Speaker 4: always we're going to get appropriations bills passed, We're going
Speaker 4: to get our numbers passed. We're going to pass this
Speaker 4: Israel Aid only bill. We're going to force the Democratic
Speaker 4: Senate to do this. The President's going to sign our bill.
Speaker 4: And they're living in denial, and a lot of the
Speaker 4: leaders know that they have to go through the motions.
Speaker 4: They have to sort of illustrate to the conference that
Speaker 4: they tried. While Republicans really hate is giving in and
Speaker 4: not even trying here that complain all the time, what
Speaker 4: it leads to is actually setting up expectations that they
Speaker 4: can't meet. And Mike Johnson has done that over and
Speaker 4: over again, whether that's I'm not going to pass a
Speaker 4: CR again, We're not. I'm done with CRS, no more CRS,
Speaker 4: no more continuing resolutions, and then he has to rely
Speaker 4: on continuing resolution after continuing resolution or we're going to
Speaker 4: get major spending cuts. You know, I want to address
Speaker 4: this debt. We got to tackle this. And then, of course,
Speaker 4: what does that do well, It sets you up for
Speaker 4: when it's the same spending bill that was established earlier
Speaker 4: in the year by Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden and
Speaker 4: you're adopting those same numbers. Now Republicans are like, wait
Speaker 4: a minute, didn't you say we were going to cut
Speaker 4: those things. I understand the realities of being the speaker,
Speaker 4: which is that you kind of have to tell people
Speaker 4: what they want to hear to some extent, and give
Speaker 4: yourself room to do what you have to do. But
Speaker 4: Mike Johnson has continually stepped on rakes that no one
Speaker 4: knew existed and Israel aid and trying to pass that
Speaker 4: by suspension. That's a great example. May Orciss. You know,
Speaker 4: impeachment has to be on this Tuesday. It didn't have
Speaker 4: to be that Tuesday. He could have brought it up
Speaker 4: on a day when he knew there was a bunch
Speaker 4: of Democrats gone and done it that way. So he's
Speaker 4: finding ways to lose that. Kevin McCarthy might have navigated
Speaker 4: a little bit better and I think he's at that
Speaker 4: point now where Republicans are really starting to get frustrated
Speaker 4: with him.
Speaker 2: So interesting.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you definitely saw a lot of Republicans saying
Speaker 1: that this was embarrassing and they were frustrated, and et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Just plays out for me. There's a special
Speaker 1: election next week for the Santo seat. We don't know
Speaker 1: where that goes. There's polling that's all over the place.
Speaker 1: And then there are other specials coming up too, right.
Speaker 4: Right there are and again you have Santo's seat open,
Speaker 4: Bill Johnson Ohio, You're going to have Kevin McCarthy seat.
Speaker 4: It's going to be a fragile majority. I think Republicans
Speaker 4: will hold on to it. Of course, I don't know
Speaker 4: that at any point in this in this Congress they've
Speaker 4: actually been at full four thirty five. Usually someone dies.
Speaker 4: That's kind of a weird thing about Congress too, is
Speaker 4: in a body of full of old people, there's usually
Speaker 4: a few deaths. So yeah, it's going to be a
Speaker 4: precarious majority. The fact is, and this is one of
Speaker 4: those things that Republicans don't want to acknowledge that if
Speaker 4: you want to actually pass bill that are going to
Speaker 4: get signed into law. You're going to have to work
Speaker 4: with Democrats. You're not going to pass bills and just
Speaker 4: force it down the sentence throat and take Biden by
Speaker 4: the hand and make them sign it. That's always been true,
Speaker 4: and they've never wanted to acknowledge that. Again, that's that's
Speaker 4: sort of the denial phase that they're still in. And
Speaker 4: you hear from Republicans time and time again, it's just
Speaker 4: so true that you know, why won't he lead?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: I was hearing that so much during Obama, Why won't
Speaker 4: he lead? And they're just saying it now they're Republican speakers.
Speaker 4: Why will Mike Johnson Lee? Why can't we lead? And
Speaker 4: it's just the reality of governing that you have to
Speaker 4: work with the other side. They don't have the votes
Speaker 4: to just pass messaging bills and force it on the
Speaker 4: Senate in some way. And I think may Orcus is
Speaker 4: actually a good illustration of this. You have a bunch
Speaker 4: of Republicans who are just sort of reactionary, like they're
Speaker 4: allergic to saying yes, okay. Tom McClintock was one of
Speaker 4: the three real Republican votes to he we went against
Speaker 4: may Orcus that guy, there's nothing that says to me, Oh,
Speaker 4: you know, he's a principal man on this, and he's
Speaker 4: going to you know, vote against it because of this,
Speaker 4: And he's just someone who likes to say no, right,
Speaker 4: And Ken Buck is a sort of principal guy who's
Speaker 4: you know, in the last stage of his commercial career
Speaker 4: and is like thinking about a lot of things and
Speaker 4: wondering if this was the right thing or that was
Speaker 4: the wrong thing. He's prone to say no too. And
Speaker 4: then you have Mike Gallagher, who is more of the
Speaker 4: more moderate guys who's basically saying this is terrible precedent.
Speaker 4: Guys like can't you see that Democrats are just going
Speaker 4: to turn around and start peaching our guys. Those are
Speaker 4: all good arguments. The reality is, when you have a
Speaker 4: Republican majority full of people who love to say no,
Speaker 4: who are actually incentivized by their party basis say no,
Speaker 4: you're going to have people who say no relying on
Speaker 4: when it comes down to we need everyone to say yes.
Speaker 4: That's a really tough proposition and I think, you know,
Speaker 4: Mike Johnson is learning that very quickly.
Speaker 1: Well, it also seems like the MAGA wing is able
Speaker 1: to intimidate people to get what they want.
Speaker 2: But the MAGA wing is not very organized.
Speaker 1: So like if the MAGA wing had wanted my orcis impede,
Speaker 1: I mean they're the closest Republicans have to a vote
Speaker 1: whipping organization, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they are.
Speaker 2: They killed that border bill.
Speaker 4: Well, that was very quick, and again that was kind
Speaker 4: of a systemic opposition because you know, basically, Donald Trump
Speaker 4: said I don't want to give Biden a political win,
Speaker 4: and as amazing of an explanation as it is, Republicans
Speaker 4: bought it, and we're basically repeating it on Capitol Hill
Speaker 4: saying we can't give him a political win, which is
Speaker 4: you know, again like they're out there yelling about the
Speaker 4: crisis at the border, and here's a bipartisan bill addressing
Speaker 4: that crisis, and you're saying, I don't want to take
Speaker 4: half a loaf, I don't want to take a step
Speaker 4: toward a solution. I want to preserve this vote for
Speaker 4: my president, Donald Trump. But majorcus Yeah, that's a great example.
Speaker 4: The MAGA wing was, you know, forced told that we
Speaker 4: need to impeach this guy. This is part of us
Speaker 4: addressing the crisis. That were even though it wouldn't address anything.
Speaker 4: The Senate is not going to actually uphold this impeachment
Speaker 4: and prosecute him in the Senate with guys like Clay
Speaker 4: Higgins and whatnot. That's not going to happen. But yeah,
Speaker 4: they're they're trying to get in line. They're trying to
Speaker 4: go after guys like Mike Gallagher. You have this Trump operative.
Speaker 4: Alex Brucewitz announced yesterday he's forming an exploratory committee to
Speaker 4: primary Mike Gallagher.
Speaker 2: Does he even live in Wisconsin?
Speaker 4: ALUs bruce Witz is from rip On, Wisconsin, with the
Speaker 4: good supposed birthplace of the GOP. It is outside of
Speaker 4: the district, but it's not far outside of it. I
Speaker 4: think it's about thirty minutes outside the district.
Speaker 2: This is pretty close.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's close enough for him to mount a primary
Speaker 4: campaign to some extent. I don't know that he'll eventually run.
Speaker 4: I don't know that he would win. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 4: he wouldn't. But I think the message is clear that
Speaker 4: if you cross the MAGA crowd, we will come after you.
Speaker 4: There will be repercussions, and they are trying to convey
Speaker 4: that message.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Matt.
Speaker 4: Fuller, thank you.
Speaker 2: No moment Jesse Cannon, h joink Fast.
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, we have to talk about Curtis siewa man who
Speaker 6: is known as living in a three hundred and twenty
Speaker 6: square foot studio apartment with fifteen cats and wearing a
Speaker 6: costume will he arrasses people on the streets in New
Speaker 6: York in a racist way. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 2: Actually give an opinion here?
Speaker 6: I feel like I've hated this guy for three or
Speaker 6: four decades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was actually going to say that, because we're
Speaker 1: both New York City people, we can attest that we
Speaker 1: both have hated Curtis Ywaw. I've hated him as long
Speaker 1: as I've hated Rudy Giuliani. I mean, he's very much
Speaker 1: of that vintage Curtis Leewa is trying to stage to
Speaker 1: come back. Obsessed with the refugees coming over the border.
Speaker 1: Group found someone claimed that they were a refugee.
Speaker 2: Turned out the guy he was not illegal.
Speaker 1: Again, illegal as you know, a horrible word, but he
Speaker 1: was in fact just a guy from the Bronx who
Speaker 1: spoke Spanish. Curtis Leiwa and his people in ridiculous Red
Speaker 1: Beanies all beat him up. Was on Sean Hattie's show,
Speaker 1: it was in fact not taken down.
Speaker 2: It is still up from the Washington Examiner on x and.
Speaker 1: So this stupid, racist fuckering is our moment of fuckword.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.