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 an investigation by the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: has been unable to determine who leaked the ruling overturning Row.
Speaker 1: We have a show that spills a ton of team
Speaker 1: your times. Michael S. Schmidt details the extensive annoyance Trump's
Speaker 1: chief of staff John Kelly had to deal with. Then
Speaker 1: Politico's Rachel Bade talks about the slim chance Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: is a long serving speaker. First, we have the host
Speaker 1: of MSNBC's The Lawrence O'Donnell Show, Lawrence O'Donnell. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to past politics. Lawrence O'Donnell. Oh, it is great to
Speaker 1: be back. This is the coolest thing I do. I
Speaker 1: was saying you were like a fan favorite. Besides having
Speaker 1: a tell Asian program, you worked in the Senate. You
Speaker 1: have a really good sense of what the history here is,
Speaker 1: and I think that all of us sort of forget,
Speaker 1: and especially right now. I mean, I'm curious to know,
Speaker 1: like the the the Senate you worked in, those guys
Speaker 1: would just be so horrified by what's happening in Congress
Speaker 1: right now. Yeahent of them would be, with the possible
Speaker 1: exception of Jesse Holmes, but really at minimum of nine
Speaker 1: of the senators that I worked around in those days,
Speaker 1: including this is a name lost to history. Malcolm Wallap,
Speaker 1: who was by far the most conservative Republican Senator of
Speaker 1: the ninety nineties, would be horrified by all of this
Speaker 1: because he was a decent person who had, you know,
Speaker 1: a sense of fairness and all that, and what made
Speaker 1: him the most conservative Republican there was. He was the
Speaker 1: closest thing to a Libertarian in the Senate at the
Speaker 1: time and still, you know, a thinking human being. It
Speaker 1: wasn't this nutty call family version. But he would be
Speaker 1: sickened by this. And Bob Dole, who was the Republican
Speaker 1: leader of the Senate, you know, during my time there,
Speaker 1: this is everything he feared about his own party, and
Speaker 1: he saw it beginning with new Ingrich and new Ingdrich
Speaker 1: hated Bob Dole. New Ingdrich called Bob Dole the tax
Speaker 1: collector for the welfare state. Because Bob Dole did not
Speaker 1: try to completely degrade the tax system of America. It's
Speaker 1: a horror beyond anyone's wildest imagining. Here's the fun fact.
Speaker 1: We all thought, anyone working in the Congress and the
Speaker 1: Senate in the early or at any point in the
Speaker 1: we thought, this is as bad as it can get.
Speaker 1: Isn't it too bad that we got to work here
Speaker 1: at the worst time? You know, is ging Rich Republicanism
Speaker 1: is getting a foothold, and it was already becoming a roadblocker.
Speaker 1: You know, Gingrich Republicanism roadblocked what we were trying to
Speaker 1: do on healthcare reform back then that Hillary Clinton was
Speaker 1: pushing for the White House, a kind of more complex
Speaker 1: version of what Obamacare eventually became. If it were not
Speaker 1: for Gingrich Republicanism, Bob Dole would have been able to
Speaker 1: reach a compromise with us in the Senate that would
Speaker 1: have produced legislation in that would have looked an awful
Speaker 1: lot like Obamacare, And so you would have had a
Speaker 1: version of Obamacare in place from onward were it not
Speaker 1: for this creeping gingridgi ism. And now those look like
Speaker 1: the glory days. I often think about this. I just
Speaker 1: wrote a piece today about McCarthy's problem with Santos is
Speaker 1: not Santos, It's that Santos is not that different than
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green or Paul Gossar, I mean, was it
Speaker 1: really a weak Republican party that allowed itself to be
Speaker 1: kidnapped and held itself for ransom? Or is that too simplistic.
Speaker 1: One of the problems on the Republican side of politics
Speaker 1: beginning of the nineteen nineties was their language became ever
Speaker 1: more extreme, because even then, even before social media, new
Speaker 1: Gingrich noticed that extremism gets noticed. And when you're working,
Speaker 1: you know, in a body of four hundred and thirty five,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're in the minority, which the Republicans
Speaker 1: were for forty years before, getting noticed is difficult. And
Speaker 1: ding Ridge got noticed by being inflammatory. And once that happens,
Speaker 1: there's only one direction that's going to go forever. And
Speaker 1: so so here you are, you know, twenty five years later,
Speaker 1: and the extremist language just becomes more and more and
Speaker 1: more and more extreme. And it was during the Reagan
Speaker 1: period when they started to try to make and succeeded
Speaker 1: in making liberal a dirty word. And prior to that,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't you could stand up and and
Speaker 1: say liberal or or conservative and mean it critically. You
Speaker 1: weren't saying that liberals themselves as human beings, you know,
Speaker 1: where evil or Conservatives themselves as human beings were evil.
Speaker 1: That that really wasn't implicit in the kinds of criticisms
Speaker 1: that each side would offer about the other. And in
Speaker 1: those days when uh, you know, a liberal senator or
Speaker 1: a conservative senator would rise in the Senate or right
Speaker 1: after his opponent spoke and I say his because they
Speaker 1: were pretty much all men um and they would do
Speaker 1: that thing you know that looks incredibly phony, you know,
Speaker 1: like my distinguished friend from Missouri. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: They meant it. They meant it right, And so that
Speaker 1: defined the dialogue. Then it wasn't this vicious attack thing.
Speaker 1: What King Ridge invented was the complete demonization of the person.
Speaker 1: So they were not satisfied with criticizing the idea. They
Speaker 1: were going after the demonization of the person. Because once
Speaker 1: you've demonized the person, every single thing that comes from
Speaker 1: that person is dismissable. And so Republicans went hardcore down
Speaker 1: that road of of demonizing the people and and and
Speaker 1: that's where they are now, right So so they don't
Speaker 1: have to All you have to do is say the
Speaker 1: word Hillary. In that world, that's it. You're done, you know,
Speaker 1: because they've completely demonized her and many others so that
Speaker 1: you don't have to think about what they said. Here
Speaker 1: is a moment of in the United States Senate and
Speaker 1: the spring of how different that world was then. Because
Speaker 1: Leon Panetta, who was then the White House Chief of Staff,
Speaker 1: came up to the Democrats policy luncheon, which I used
Speaker 1: to attend because there's only there's only two or three
Speaker 1: staff members who were allowed in that room, but the
Speaker 1: staff director of the Finance Committee has kind of a
Speaker 1: permanent past to be in that room, so I was
Speaker 1: always in that room. And he had a strategy for
Speaker 1: for the healthcare bill that the Democrats were trying to
Speaker 1: bring or have brought to the Senate floor and we're
Speaker 1: struggling with on the Senate floor where it ultimately died.
Speaker 1: And his strategy was and he didn't like delivering this message,
Speaker 1: I know because I know Leon, and but the White
Speaker 1: House decision, the Clinton White House decision, was the strategy
Speaker 1: of the day, and the Senate should be demonized Doll
Speaker 1: so that all the Senators were to go out there
Speaker 1: that day and demonized Bob Dole for opposing what Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton was trying to do. In the Senate floor, and
Speaker 1: so there was that was greeted generally with silence, and
Speaker 1: I think Ted Kennedy and a couple others were ready
Speaker 1: to do it, but we were floor managing the bill.
Speaker 1: Senator Morning him was And so the first thing that
Speaker 1: happened after the lunch is we went out onto the
Speaker 1: Senate floor and Bob Carey of Nebraska, Democratic Senator of
Speaker 1: Nebraska asked to be recognized, and Senator Morning and immediately
Speaker 1: recognized him. And Bub Carrey, who left half of the
Speaker 1: leg in Vietnam, got up and did a ten minute
Speaker 1: speech in praise of Bob Dole, who is a fellow
Speaker 1: wounded warrior from World War Two like Bub carry is.
Speaker 1: And then after his ten minute praise of Bob Dole,
Speaker 1: he went on into his welfare, his his his healthcare
Speaker 1: argument of the day, and Bob Dole was not demonized
Speaker 1: on the Senate floor because that's not where our politics was.
Speaker 1: And now that's all our politics, and it goes both ways,
Speaker 1: I mean, and by the way, it's become legitimate, there
Speaker 1: are some demons to put mildly on the Republican side
Speaker 1: of our politics. Oh yeah. It's so interesting though, because
Speaker 1: one of the things I keep thinking about is will
Speaker 1: this because we're we're seeing already the McCarthy McCarthy's House
Speaker 1: of Representatives, this hundred and eighteen Congress is going to
Speaker 1: be filled with lunatics running oversight, I mean, running really
Speaker 1: important committees. So my question is will this backfire the
Speaker 1: way that Clinton investigations backfired or will this work the
Speaker 1: way Benghazi worked on Hillary? Well, I think we're the
Speaker 1: point where investigations probably don't have any real effect. Is
Speaker 1: a kind of a stunning polling number about this um,
Speaker 1: which is if you look at the most important investigation
Speaker 1: of our lifetimes, and by the way, I include, since
Speaker 1: since we're talking about our lifetimes, I include the war
Speaker 1: in Commission investigation of the assassination of President County, and
Speaker 1: that the January six Committee is the most important investigation
Speaker 1: of our lifetimes, and I believe the most important investigation
Speaker 1: ever conducted by Congress in its history. And Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: polling numbers were unchanged for the entire run of those
Speaker 1: of that investigation, didn't didn't change, but varied by about
Speaker 1: one point the entire time. Okay, so that tells you this,
Speaker 1: And by the way, that's not what happened when Richard
Speaker 1: Nixon was being investigated by by Congress, Richard Nixon's numbers
Speaker 1: were going down consistently with the findings of the investigations
Speaker 1: and the revelations of the investigations, which is what you'd
Speaker 1: expect from a logical society. There's an indication in that
Speaker 1: that it doesn't matter what you do in investigations. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how many pictures of Hunter Biden's penis Republicans
Speaker 1: put up on the big screen and study in their earrings.
Speaker 1: That it's not going to change any minds one way
Speaker 1: or the other. And you know, in terms of damage
Speaker 1: to the government, it's kind of the least damaging thing
Speaker 1: they can do is run a bunch of pointless and
Speaker 1: silly investigations. We're certainly going to see a lot of that.
Speaker 1: And what I think is interesting, And we actually had
Speaker 1: a poster on here who talked about this last episode,
Speaker 1: which is that Trump has lost three elections for Republicans, right,
Speaker 1: and what we saw on this mid term especially which
Speaker 1: I was very heartened by and I think you were
Speaker 1: heartened by this too, But maybe I'm projecting, but that
Speaker 1: the voters did not like these crazy candidates like Carry
Speaker 1: Lake unless it was a ruby red state. The voters
Speaker 1: really rejected these trumpy candidates. So you would think that
Speaker 1: a Republican party that was acting smartly would you know,
Speaker 1: start to try to take the pain and change their track.
Speaker 1: But that's not happening, no, And that's what every party did.
Speaker 1: You know, after elections, you know, after Reagan wiped up
Speaker 1: the Democrats, they all started moving in a more conservative direction.
Speaker 1: I mean, you went from having maybe a couple of
Speaker 1: dozen Democrats opposed to the death penalty, for example, and
Speaker 1: the Senate in the nineteen seventies, by the end of
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties they were all in favor of it.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of adjusting in that direction. And
Speaker 1: after Michael Dukakus lost there was a lot of adjusting
Speaker 1: because of that. And on the Republican side, they used
Speaker 1: to try to do the same thing. That's just gone
Speaker 1: from a politics that is no longer in search of
Speaker 1: that voter in the middle. And you know, there's a
Speaker 1: really important thing that I think it's it's in everyone's analysis,
Speaker 1: and it's so built in. I think that many people
Speaker 1: have not quite noticed what they're doing. But the republic Plicans,
Speaker 1: the Trump Republicans, certainly, and Trump do not now and
Speaker 1: never have had a plan to win the most votes
Speaker 1: for president. That's not even in the mix. They don't.
Speaker 1: They trump calculation would include the possibility of coming in
Speaker 1: even farther behind the Democrat than he has in his
Speaker 1: previous two runs. And it's entirely about the electoral college,
Speaker 1: about the election. And so because you're you're not trying
Speaker 1: to get to the middle, you're not trying to win
Speaker 1: the most votes, then you don't have to get to
Speaker 1: the middle. You know, you just have to make sure
Speaker 1: everybody in the South and North Dakota, you know, turns out,
Speaker 1: which they're gonna do. And it's just an electoral college strategy.
Speaker 1: It's not about winning the most votes. And once you
Speaker 1: drop off of trying to win the most votes and
Speaker 1: you still get to win the election, that's when you
Speaker 1: get the kind of you know, non corrective postures that
Speaker 1: you're seeing on the Republican side. Eventually, they're they're going
Speaker 1: to have to take the pain. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they are. I don't see exactly why they would. The
Speaker 1: other thing that's happening is the general and specific intelligence
Speaker 1: level within the operatives of the Republican party is declining dramatically. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you know, kelln McCarthy is many things, including the
Speaker 1: single stupidest Speaker of the House in the history of
Speaker 1: the conference. And so no one can expect Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: to figure anything out. You know, if you're trying to
Speaker 1: figure something out and you've got to talk to a Republican,
Speaker 1: call Mitch McConnell, I don't know who your second call is.
Speaker 1: That that's how thin the strategic thinking bench is. And
Speaker 1: Mitch mcconllein is not going to live forever. So you know,
Speaker 1: Bill Crystal was astonishingly powerful influencer before the term influencer
Speaker 1: was invented in the ninety nineties in the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: He had been Dan Quayle's chief of staff as Vice president,
Speaker 1: and Bill's father was a respected conservative thinker, and Bill Crystal,
Speaker 1: out of office kind of not even in our politics,
Speaker 1: wrote a memo circulated in Washington about why the Republicans
Speaker 1: should oppose the Clinton healthcare plan and not offer an
Speaker 1: alternative to it, but just oppose it and vote it down.
Speaker 1: And that memo became the controlling strategic approach to healthcare. Eventually,
Speaker 1: even Bob Dole had to go along with it, and
Speaker 1: that kind of thing is impossible. Now, I mean, what
Speaker 1: match slap is going to write a memo that there
Speaker 1: that Here, hey guys, here's how to here's how to it,
Speaker 1: Here's how to adjust your behavior. Match match Slap is
Speaker 1: gonna right that. Now, here's how to adjust your approach
Speaker 1: to convincing people to do what you want them to do.
Speaker 1: There's no one, there's no brain left and no strategic
Speaker 1: brain left in and around the Republican Party to adjust
Speaker 1: to any so interesting. Thank you, Lawrence, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Michael Aschmidt is a reporter at The New York Times
Speaker 1: and author of Donald Trump Versus the United States Welcome
Speaker 1: Too Fast Politics. Mike Schmidt, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me. Let's first talk about the paperback publication of
Speaker 1: your book, and then we will talk of other things
Speaker 1: the book Donald Trump v the United States Inside the
Speaker 1: Struggle to stop the President. First, I want to ask you,
Speaker 1: which I think is like the question I always want
Speaker 1: to ask is like, what's this isn't actually a really
Speaker 1: annoying question? So get ready. What stuff did you find
Speaker 1: out after the book came out that you wish you
Speaker 1: could have put in there. So what I did was
Speaker 1: is that as the book was coming out, I sort
Speaker 1: of realized that there was there was not a hole
Speaker 1: in it, but there was a part of it that
Speaker 1: could be built onto it that I had sort of
Speaker 1: not told, and that was the story of John Kelly.
Speaker 1: And I had written a book about the attempts to
Speaker 1: stop Donald Trump, and it mainly focused on Don McGann
Speaker 1: and on Jim Comey. And as I got done, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, if I had all the time in the
Speaker 1: world and all the energy, I would have written more
Speaker 1: about Kelly. So what I decided to do is that
Speaker 1: I took a lot of time and I went out
Speaker 1: and I tried to tell his story. And instead of
Speaker 1: the paperback coming out a year after the book comes out,
Speaker 1: we deleted and I did a twelve thousand word biography
Speaker 1: on Kelly and his times with Trump. Because I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I wrote this book. I'm probably not
Speaker 1: going to write a book about John Kelly, but I
Speaker 1: think his story is important, and it's another way to
Speaker 1: go out and talk about the book again and talk
Speaker 1: about the work that I did and tell what I
Speaker 1: think is an important story. So I did this crazy thing,
Speaker 1: and we've had this whole then, you know, addition onto
Speaker 1: the book these twelve thou words, and uh here I am,
Speaker 1: you know, talking about it again. I think telling it
Speaker 1: an important story. One of my kids is like super
Speaker 1: into military. We were actually talking about this, and I
Speaker 1: want to ask you someone like John Kelly. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like what happened to him is kind of
Speaker 1: the worst thing that can ever happen to a career
Speaker 1: military man. I think that's right now. I don't think
Speaker 1: that that there's part of it where you Kelly should
Speaker 1: not be sort of let off the hook. And it's
Speaker 1: not my job to sort of hold people accountable to
Speaker 1: tell their stories. But I think an important part of
Speaker 1: his story is that he did end up in Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's orbit, and he had sort of a miscalculation about Trump.
Speaker 1: He thought that Trump's rhetoric was more about politics, and
Speaker 1: that when Trump got to Washington, he was going to
Speaker 1: be sobered by the job and sobered by the process,
Speaker 1: and was going to be four was to behave in
Speaker 1: a way that was not like what he was on
Speaker 1: the campaign trail. And John Kelly, being sort of a
Speaker 1: career military person, said well, I'd work for Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: and I'd work for any president to ask me to
Speaker 1: do anything, And because of that finds himself in Trump's orbit,
Speaker 1: thinking that the institutions will bound Trump, will bind Trump.
Speaker 1: And obviously that turns out not to be true. But
Speaker 1: but Kelly finds himself in Trump's orbit. Then you know,
Speaker 1: he's his secretary of the part of phone land Security,
Speaker 1: and Trump sort of snookers him into becoming his chief
Speaker 1: of staff and he's in the White House in July
Speaker 1: of two thousand seventeen and he says, oh shit, this
Speaker 1: is far worse than I thought it was. I thought
Speaker 1: that Trump needed process and he needed to be better staffed.
Speaker 1: And he says, oh my gosh, this person is worse
Speaker 1: than I ever could have imagined. He later told people,
Speaker 1: I didn't know they made people like that. Now, Kelly
Speaker 1: could have quit at that point. He could have and
Speaker 1: you know what, screw this, I'm out of here. And
Speaker 1: he could have done that, but he said, look, I
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna quit on the battlefield. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: quit in the Oval office. And he basically takes as
Speaker 1: much pain as he can for the next eighteen months
Speaker 1: to try and contain an unbound president right and me
Speaker 1: and and then he finds himself in this absolute partisan disaster.
Speaker 1: So I think Kelly going to the White House, for
Speaker 1: Kelly was like crossing a line that he never wanted
Speaker 1: to cross. He looks down on partisan politics. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think you would say I look down on it,
Speaker 1: but he does not think highly of partisan politics, right. Well,
Speaker 1: the whole idea of these guys is that they consider
Speaker 1: themselves to be beyond it. And here he is basically
Speaker 1: going to work for the most political creature of all time,
Speaker 1: you know, someone who doesn't have fundamental beliefs and is
Speaker 1: literally just the political creature. And I think that really
Speaker 1: he bothered him, but he realized he was so far
Speaker 1: in at that point that he wasn't going to quit.
Speaker 1: But the White House was such a much more political
Speaker 1: place than the Department of Homeland Security, even though the
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security where he was was also political.
Speaker 1: But it was a cabinet post. It's, in Kelly's eyes,
Speaker 1: it's a national security job. It's probably the most thankless
Speaker 1: cabinet post because it's got the most difficult issues and
Speaker 1: it has the lead, doesn't have the prestige of being
Speaker 1: Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense. So to him,
Speaker 1: he finds himself with Trump, who's like the most political thing,
Speaker 1: and like Kelly doesn't have political aims. He's not Don
Speaker 1: McGann trying to remake the federal court system. Right, He's
Speaker 1: not you know, a liberal like uh, maybe a Gary
Speaker 1: Cohen who found himself in Trump's orbit and thought they
Speaker 1: could you know, do something good in the area of expertise.
Speaker 1: He's like a national security guy who's like a political
Speaker 1: and now finds himself with a president United States who
Speaker 1: is is for stupider than he thought, far more immoral
Speaker 1: than he thought, lazier than he thought, and more dangerous
Speaker 1: than he thought. And he says, oh, you know, holy shit,
Speaker 1: if I thought this was a problem before I got
Speaker 1: in here, this is much worse than I ever could
Speaker 1: have imagined. It does seem to me like a case
Speaker 1: of everything Trump touches does if you think about the
Speaker 1: post nine eleven generation of military officers, right, Kelly was
Speaker 1: a guy who had fought in the invasion of Iraq.
Speaker 1: He had done another tour in Iraq. He had been
Speaker 1: the top military advisor to the Defense Secretary, which is
Speaker 1: a very elite, prestigious role in the military where you're
Speaker 1: essentially the the military officer chief of staff to the
Speaker 1: Defense Secretary. He had been the head of Central Command
Speaker 1: and had sat in the Oval Office or the Situation
Speaker 1: Room in the White House with Obama and told Obama
Speaker 1: things he didn't want to hear about the border and
Speaker 1: about what Kelly thought the threats were to the United States.
Speaker 1: He was one of a handful of four star marine generals.
Speaker 1: The Marines are different than the Army. They do not
Speaker 1: have so many generals. The army has lots and lots
Speaker 1: of generals. At its height, the Marines had six four
Speaker 1: star marine generals. And on top of all of this,
Speaker 1: he's the highest ranking military officer to lose a child
Speaker 1: on the battlefield in the post nine eleven wards. His
Speaker 1: son was killed in Afghanistan. So he comes to this
Speaker 1: with as a stellar a military record as there could be.
Speaker 1: And it's it's a it's a And you know, John
Speaker 1: Kelly was not a controversial general that ran his mouth
Speaker 1: to rolling stone. John Kelly was not um an troversial
Speaker 1: general who became a huge media figure and then had
Speaker 1: to plead guilty to mishandling classified information. Like David Petres.
Speaker 1: He was a post nine eleven four star Marine general
Speaker 1: and he has to battle with Trump and walks out
Speaker 1: of it with the muck of Trump all over him.
Speaker 1: And unlike a political character, doesn't go out and tell
Speaker 1: a story. John Kelly has written a book. Have you
Speaker 1: ever seen John Kelly on television? So he's not that
Speaker 1: type of character. So he's not gonna go out and
Speaker 1: sort of craft his message. He's gonna say, look, I
Speaker 1: served my country, you know, thanks a lot. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: you know, received to cutting down trees or clearing brush
Speaker 1: or whatever he does, and you know, talking to military
Speaker 1: groups and law enforcement groups about leadership. I mean, these
Speaker 1: are not political characters. But at the same time, his
Speaker 1: legacy and history has been infused by someone who he hate,
Speaker 1: Saint Donald Trump, and so he's he's conflicted by that. Um.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk to you about one of
Speaker 1: the scoops in this addendum, which is this idea that
Speaker 1: Kelly may have stopped him from bombing North Korea. And
Speaker 1: it certainly seemed with a lot of the reporting that
Speaker 1: we saw coming out of the Trump White House, that
Speaker 1: Trump had a very itchy nuke finger that he was
Speaker 1: not able to use. Can you talk about this? So
Speaker 1: I think that this is and this is like one
Speaker 1: of these examples were like the the the success of
Speaker 1: what Kelly's done here will never weigh as much as
Speaker 1: if he had been a failure. If he this had
Speaker 1: been a failure, then this would have been like one
Speaker 1: of the defining things of Trump's presidency, if not American history.
Speaker 1: And basically what happens is that when Kelly comes in,
Speaker 1: he realizes that not only is Trump, you know, far
Speaker 1: worse than he thought he was, but that the biggest
Speaker 1: problem he has. And if you remember, at the time,
Speaker 1: we think the biggest problems are the Mueller investigation, or
Speaker 1: Trump obstructing justice or his ties to Russia. Kelly is
Speaker 1: completely convinced the biggest problem is the fact that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump may put the United States at war with North
Speaker 1: Korea because his public rhetoric is signaling that he wants
Speaker 1: to use force. He's also saying that in private, the
Speaker 1: North Koreans are responding with tests and with their own rhetoric,
Speaker 1: and Kelly, being a student of history, thinks signals can
Speaker 1: easily be misread. You have two people here who need
Speaker 1: to appear strong, and if there is one thing that
Speaker 1: goes wrong, and let's say the North Korean's launch a
Speaker 1: missile somewhere towards the United States and we have to
Speaker 1: shoot it down. We're gonna have to respond, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we're gonna be at war, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna be at war with Donald Trump as our president.
Speaker 1: And Donald Trump looking trying to look strong, and he's
Speaker 1: his holy shit, it this could be awful. So what
Speaker 1: he does is he says, he's like, I gotta get
Speaker 1: a handle on this, and he tries to to use
Speaker 1: process to sort of like get this back on track,
Speaker 1: and he brings in the other generals and they brief
Speaker 1: Trump and they say, look, if you do this, you
Speaker 1: know you know, here the options we have, and here
Speaker 1: are the consequences, and thousands of people could die if
Speaker 1: there was a conflict. And that doesn't get through to Trump,
Speaker 1: and Kelly tells Trump, you're going to destroy the economy
Speaker 1: that you created, and that doesn't get through to Trump,
Speaker 1: and Kelly, sort of searching for for some way to
Speaker 1: get through to Trump, finally appeals to his ego and says, look,
Speaker 1: you're the ultimate dealmaker. Every president back to Eisenhower, has
Speaker 1: never been able to cut the greatest deal in the
Speaker 1: world with the North Koreans. You can do this. Why
Speaker 1: don't you engage directly with Kim? You are the dealmaker,
Speaker 1: You're so good at this. And Kelly does this knowing
Speaker 1: that it's not gonna lead to a d nuclearized North Korea,
Speaker 1: but it is going to ratchet back the public rhetoric
Speaker 1: and the public and private rhetoric about war. And if
Speaker 1: you remember Trump saying little rocket Man, fire and fury,
Speaker 1: I mean, these are very famous moments in the Trump presidency.
Speaker 1: And they're famous because Trump is looking like he has
Speaker 1: an itchy trigger finger, and like from the United States, like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's one thing if Trump is an itchy trigger finger,
Speaker 1: but if you're North Korea, you're like, holy sh it,
Speaker 1: this guy is really gonna do this. In the North
Speaker 1: Koreans are obsessed with the United States, and here's the
Speaker 1: president who says I'm gonna bomb you. So Kelly is
Speaker 1: terrified they're gonna take some sort of move, and by
Speaker 1: doing that, he moves Trump off that rhetoric. Because if
Speaker 1: you look at the ark of the Trump presidency, one
Speaker 1: of the greatest unanswered questions is like, how do we
Speaker 1: go from fire and fury and little rocket Man and
Speaker 1: my buttons bigger than yours to the love letters, like
Speaker 1: how did you get there? It's like and it was
Speaker 1: one of these things that sort of happened, and we
Speaker 1: didn't know the story in between. And look, I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons we got there, but one
Speaker 1: of them was because John Kelly in one on ones
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump. John Kelly, who probably spent more one
Speaker 1: on one time with Trump than anyone else in seventeen
Speaker 1: and eighteen, is saying, you're the greatest dealmaker in the world.
Speaker 1: You can do this, And Kelly's trying to charm him
Speaker 1: into charming Kim to stop this rhetoric, and he's successful
Speaker 1: at it. It's so interesting. So were there other places
Speaker 1: in which Kelly was able to kind of trip Trump
Speaker 1: into not going to war on war? No, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think Kelly spends a lot of his time just
Speaker 1: trying to get through the day with Trump in terms
Speaker 1: of military stuff. I don't know what else Kelly was
Speaker 1: able to talk Trump off of. I know he talked
Speaker 1: to him a lot about the border and trying to
Speaker 1: stop Trump from doing these outrageous things at the border,
Speaker 1: putting alligators in the water, hutting people on the legs right,
Speaker 1: and also bombing right, yeah, and using force against Mexico
Speaker 1: and pointing the finger at someone else. Had told Kelly
Speaker 1: that he wanted to use a nuclear weapon. He cavalierly said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't we use a nuclear weapon against North Korean?
Speaker 1: Just blame another country. And Kelly says that you can't
Speaker 1: do that. It's to be very difficult to do that.
Speaker 1: You can't just point the finger at someone else. But
Speaker 1: Kelly's battle was it just a day to day battle
Speaker 1: with Trump to get through the day. And most presidencies
Speaker 1: are like planned out, like months, you know, weeks in advance,
Speaker 1: and Kelly just tried to get through the day. He
Speaker 1: would just be prepared for Trump to come down sometime
Speaker 1: late in the morning from the residents and be obsessed
Speaker 1: with something he saw on television and let that dominate
Speaker 1: the rest of his day and just try and get
Speaker 1: through that day without Trump breaking the law, doing something unethical,
Speaker 1: damaging himself for damaging the country. That was the day
Speaker 1: today goal of John Kelly. He didn't have the ability
Speaker 1: to think any further ahead than that. You had a
Speaker 1: scoop that d J had talked to Mike Pence uh
Speaker 1: in November remember November. What do you think is happening
Speaker 1: with the d o J. At some point d o
Speaker 1: J reaches out to Pence's side to say, we're gonna
Speaker 1: want to talk to pens and that begins what will
Speaker 1: be a lengthy process in which the Justice Department tries
Speaker 1: to talk to Pence. What will happen is that Trump's
Speaker 1: lawyers will come in to try and stop that block
Speaker 1: that you know, narrow the questions because of executive privilege,
Speaker 1: and it will go on for some time. We've seen
Speaker 1: similar fights like this in terms of getting the cooperation
Speaker 1: of people like Pence's chief of staff, Mark Short. It
Speaker 1: does not mean that pent is gonna go flying into
Speaker 1: a grand jury tomorrow, um, but it means that they're
Speaker 1: on that process, and they're on that track. It's just
Speaker 1: a sign of how long and slow these things take.
Speaker 1: I don't think there is a more deliberative slow body
Speaker 1: than the United States Justice Department. And I realized that
Speaker 1: leaves a lot of people frustrated on all sides. But
Speaker 1: we're just on a slow track here in which it
Speaker 1: will go along and go along for months and months
Speaker 1: and months until we really have any clarity about what
Speaker 1: they're doing. So we do have now two different special counsels,
Speaker 1: one dealing with the Biden papers, one dealing with the
Speaker 1: very different case of all of the Trump papers. I
Speaker 1: do feel like the more Trump tweets, but he's not
Speaker 1: tweeting anymore truths, the more Trump truths about the documents,
Speaker 1: the more it actually hurts him, right like he was
Speaker 1: true thing about all the empty folders. I think it
Speaker 1: is a good point because I think some of the
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom has been and I've said this myself, that
Speaker 1: the fact that Biden did this makes it more difficult
Speaker 1: to prosecute Trump, because the question of of prosecuting a
Speaker 1: former president or someone who's running for president is so
Speaker 1: extraordinary that it's not just that you have to explain
Speaker 1: it to a jury. You're gonna have to explain it
Speaker 1: to the American people, and the American people are gonna
Speaker 1: have to in a digestible way, understand why you're doing
Speaker 1: what you're doing. And if Biden's Justice Department, while Biden
Speaker 1: and Trump are running against each other, charges Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: just think about like how extraordinary that would be. And
Speaker 1: the first reaction to people as well, well, didn't Joe
Speaker 1: Biden do that? And it's a difficult thing to explain
Speaker 1: to the public. I can see the Justice Department having
Speaker 1: real pause about that because it will be politicizing in
Speaker 1: the department in a way that I'm sure someone like
Speaker 1: Marrick Garland will be very concerned about. At the same time,
Speaker 1: if Donald Trump continues to talk and act in a
Speaker 1: way that is in your face, above the law, admitting
Speaker 1: to crimes, looking like he's interfering with the investigation, he
Speaker 1: puts the Department continuously in this position of like, okay, so, like,
Speaker 1: I understand, you aren't going to prosecute for these things.
Speaker 1: But he went on to admit to all of them,
Speaker 1: and he interfered in the investigation and through sand in
Speaker 1: the gears of it in the process. And I think
Speaker 1: that that if you're Donald Trump's lawyer and Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is listening to you, you know, Donald Trump stops talking,
Speaker 1: that has never happened, um, and that doesn't that that
Speaker 1: just doesn't happen. So but when I saw his comments yesterday,
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, you know, if he keeps this up,
Speaker 1: he makes it even harder on the Department. And I
Speaker 1: know people will say, look, you know, the public, you
Speaker 1: know what goes on in the public rhetoric should not
Speaker 1: affect what the Department's going to do. But like, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, this is such a big
Speaker 1: decision to charge someone like Trump, that everything that goes
Speaker 1: on publicly will have some sort of role in it
Speaker 1: and it can't help him, right, No, I mean, it
Speaker 1: does seem like he's hurting himself. Mike Schmidt. I hope
Speaker 1: he will come back. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I know you, our dear listeners are very busy and
Speaker 1: you don't have time to sort through the hundreds of
Speaker 1: pieces pundentry each week. This is why every week I
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Speaker 1: our mailing list. That's Fast politics pod dot com. Rachel
Speaker 1: Baide is a senior Washington correspondent and politico and author
Speaker 1: of Unchecked. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Rachel, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me on. Molly. I have been dying to talk
Speaker 1: to you about this Congress, and every time I read playbook,
Speaker 1: I'm like I have to talk to her. I just
Speaker 1: dying because it's like every day is to have a Congress.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know Congress has had historically. We just
Speaker 1: had Lawrence and we talked a lot about history. There's
Speaker 1: been crazy ship that's happened in Congress before, but I
Speaker 1: feel like what's happening now is theatrical on a whole
Speaker 1: other level. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be like
Speaker 1: watching a wrestling match every single day for reporters. It's fun.
Speaker 1: I covered the last House Republican majority under President Obama
Speaker 1: and that had a lot of fireworks. But this is
Speaker 1: going to be like something we've never seen, at least
Speaker 1: in recent years. Let's just talk about what this sort
Speaker 1: of stage is. McCarthy has the speakership fourteen votes, got
Speaker 1: it on the fifteen. But this is what I don't understand.
Speaker 1: And maybe this is a stupid question, but I'm sure
Speaker 1: my dad will appreciate this. McCarthy got it on the
Speaker 1: fifteen vote, and people like Matt Gates never voted from
Speaker 1: McCarthy right, He just changed his vote to present. But yet,
Speaker 1: you know, like he didn't go after Matt Gates for
Speaker 1: not supporting him. He doesn't have the power to do that.
Speaker 1: He's going to be an incredibly weak speaker because of
Speaker 1: this very slim margin he has in the House right now,
Speaker 1: being able to only lose five Republicans at any given time.
Speaker 1: And because of that, Conservatives, you know, he basically had
Speaker 1: to give away the store. He gave them a lot
Speaker 1: of plush committee assignments, which we sort of saw the
Speaker 1: results of that this week we can talk more in
Speaker 1: detail about that. One of the sort of bigger things
Speaker 1: he gave them was three seats on the House Rules Committee,
Speaker 1: And that might seem like very wonky in terms of
Speaker 1: like technical language for listeners, but it's really important because
Speaker 1: while he got the gavel, he gave away the House.
Speaker 1: That panel sets the rules for the floor and basically
Speaker 1: dictates what any given bill looks like, no matter what
Speaker 1: it looks like coming out of committee. So Conservatives now
Speaker 1: run the place. McCarthy is speaker in name only, and
Speaker 1: because of that, he doesn't have the ability to punish
Speaker 1: these guys, because if he does, they could motion to
Speaker 1: house him at any moment, and they could easily get
Speaker 1: the votes to send him packing from Washington. This is
Speaker 1: a lot different than Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who, yes, she
Speaker 1: had a little bit of a rebellion on her hands
Speaker 1: when she tried to become when she became speaker again
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, but she not only you know, won
Speaker 1: her critics, she also punished them. And that relates to
Speaker 1: your question. And you know, people because of that, we're
Speaker 1: afraid to cross her. Yeah, that was my question. Talk
Speaker 1: to us about this rules committee and then the other thing.
Speaker 1: I just want you to answer for me because this
Speaker 1: is something I've read about, but I haven't gotten to
Speaker 1: ask any congressional reporters, so you're more than just a
Speaker 1: congressional reporter. But we still don't know the extent of
Speaker 1: the things that McCarthy promised. I'll start there on that.
Speaker 1: So there's been a lot of controversy because a lot
Speaker 1: of Republicans who have been loyal to McCarthy have sort
Speaker 1: of been privately squawking about everything he has given. These conservatives,
Speaker 1: I mean, they say they have been loyal to him,
Speaker 1: they weren't trying to use their vote to leverage you know,
Speaker 1: plumb committee posts, etcetera. But the most sort of sensitive
Speaker 1: issue is this question of who's sitting on what committees.
Speaker 1: I remember there was this meeting that happened right off
Speaker 1: the floor when one of the Conservatives was trying to
Speaker 1: get a subcommittee gattle on the House Appropriations Committee, which
Speaker 1: obviously dictates where government money has spent, a very powerful
Speaker 1: panel um and one of the Conservatives wanted to lead
Speaker 1: one of those subcommittees. And you know k Granger, who's
Speaker 1: the chairwoman of that panel, and all her cardinals subcommittee
Speaker 1: chairman who already have those positions met off the floor
Speaker 1: and we're like, McCarthy cannot do this. He's going to
Speaker 1: have a problem with us if he does this. McCarthy
Speaker 1: came out and said he has not promised any gabbles
Speaker 1: for this position and for these votes. But we saw
Speaker 1: one of those members get a subcommittee gabble one of
Speaker 1: those conservatives this week, and so there are a lot
Speaker 1: of members who are, frankly, they don't trust McCarthy. They
Speaker 1: feel like he he has said a lot of things
Speaker 1: publicly over the years and then done different things privately.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of distrust right now, and people
Speaker 1: are upset that a lot of these conservatives ended up
Speaker 1: on these plush panels when they feel like they didn't
Speaker 1: earn them. Yeah, that's going to be a problem from
Speaker 1: McCarthy because he's going to need that when he wants
Speaker 1: to pass up right, that's exactly right. And also, you
Speaker 1: know you mentioned the Rules Committee and wanting to know
Speaker 1: more about that. The reason that panel is significant is because,
Speaker 1: like I said, they sort of dictate what bills look
Speaker 1: like that come to the floor, whether they're allowed to
Speaker 1: have certain amendments or not. It's basically always been seen
Speaker 1: as the quote Speakers Committee sort of stocked full of
Speaker 1: the speaker's most loyal allies who will basically do the
Speaker 1: bidding of leadership. And it's been like that for decades,
Speaker 1: since the nineteen sixties or something. What McCarthy did was
Speaker 1: give conservatives all the power by putting them on these panels.
Speaker 1: And that means chairmen and chairwomen who are you know,
Speaker 1: passing bills and committee and then sending them the Rules Panel.
Speaker 1: They have different views than a lot of these conservatives.
Speaker 1: You know, they might be more pragmatic, more moderate. But
Speaker 1: now these conservatives can take those bills and totally change
Speaker 1: them to look like what they want to look like.
Speaker 1: And so that's going to cause again a lot of
Speaker 1: internal drama amongst McCarthy's members. So who is on this
Speaker 1: House Rules Committee? They're determining all that. This week we're
Speaker 1: going to see at least three conservatives, and that's going
Speaker 1: to be enough to basically have a veto power over everything.
Speaker 1: And then one of the thing I would say about
Speaker 1: the Rules Panel, its job is not only to decide
Speaker 1: what legislation comes to the floor. Its job is also
Speaker 1: to decide what doesn't come to the floor. And that's
Speaker 1: is just as important because there's a lot of moderate
Speaker 1: members who don't want to take votes on, you know,
Speaker 1: issues that the base really loves. For instance, with Democrats,
Speaker 1: it was Medicare for All. Pelosi specifically made sure no
Speaker 1: amendment ever came to the floor on Medicare for all
Speaker 1: because she didn't want to put her front liners in
Speaker 1: these very difficult positions. But now conservatives are going to
Speaker 1: make Republicans in districts that Biden one take a whole
Speaker 1: host of votes on really controversial things that the base loves,
Speaker 1: but that would really hurt them politically. So again something
Speaker 1: to keep an eye on going forward. Oh, that is
Speaker 1: so interesting, right, that makes a lot of sense. And
Speaker 1: there are a bunch of new Congress people right who
Speaker 1: came from Biden districts. That's right. And now they're going
Speaker 1: to be having to take these votes that are no
Speaker 1: doubt going to be used in ads against them, which
Speaker 1: could potentially make them lose the House in the fall.
Speaker 1: So again McCarthy putting his ambition to be speaker over
Speaker 1: perhaps the good of the majority in a lot of
Speaker 1: people's views. So I want to talk about the dead
Speaker 1: ceiling because that feels like a sort of a kind
Speaker 1: of anvil. If this is an episode of um road Runner,
Speaker 1: that anvil is right over McCarthy's had, and also all
Speaker 1: of our heads, can you explain to us sort of
Speaker 1: where that is right now? Well, everybody's trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how they're gonna find a way to get out
Speaker 1: of this. I mean, McCarthy has basically drawn this line
Speaker 1: in the Sands saying that they are not going to
Speaker 1: raise the dead ceiling unless they get Republicans get some
Speaker 1: sort of mandatory cuts, cuts to mandatory spending like Social Security, UH, Medicaid, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But obviously Democrats control the Senate and the White House
Speaker 1: and they're not going to go for that. And so
Speaker 1: the problem Republicans have is, for three times under Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: they raised the debts sailing without any cuts and without
Speaker 1: even having a discussion about demands for these spending cuts
Speaker 1: now that you know they don't have power anymore, or
Speaker 1: they only have the House, they want to make these
Speaker 1: demands when they passed up their own opportunity to do
Speaker 1: something about this. And so number one, it looks you know, hypocritical.
Speaker 1: Number two, with Democrats not being willing to make these cuts,
Speaker 1: we could potentially see a default on the debt, which
Speaker 1: you know, the ex deadline everybody calls it, that's going
Speaker 1: to come up in June. And so you know, McCarthy
Speaker 1: is facing this threat of being outsted as speaker from
Speaker 1: conservatives if he were to just put a clean debt
Speaker 1: limit bill on the floor to you know, raise the
Speaker 1: debt ceiling without any cuts. And so it's going to
Speaker 1: be up to a band of moderate Republicans to join
Speaker 1: with Democrats and the House to basically do this end
Speaker 1: run around McCarthy, uh to try to raise the debt
Speaker 1: ceiling and avoid this sort of economic calamity that is
Speaker 1: we're looking at right now, and that that's not easy
Speaker 1: to do, you know, it's own simple, but you know
Speaker 1: a lot of these Republicans, if they're willing to do that,
Speaker 1: the chances are. They're going to face their own primaries
Speaker 1: back home. They're going to get you know, assailed by
Speaker 1: people like Sean Hannity, Moore, Ingram, and so it's not
Speaker 1: as easy as it sounds for these guys. And so
Speaker 1: it's going to be ugly. And I think like for
Speaker 1: the first time in a long time, reporters on the
Speaker 1: Hill are concerned that it's not only going to be
Speaker 1: you know, a downgrading of the US credit rating like
Speaker 1: we saw a couple of years ago amid the sprinksmanship,
Speaker 1: it could actually be a default of some sort, and
Speaker 1: that could have devastating consequences on every single American in
Speaker 1: various forms. I mean, that does seem like a real
Speaker 1: danger that could be imminent. That's right. And one of
Speaker 1: the big headlines that came out this week was that
Speaker 1: House Republicans, McCarthy and these conservatives, they're trying to put
Speaker 1: together this plan to quote prioritize payments when we hit
Speaker 1: the X States. So basically say, okay, if we're hitting
Speaker 1: up against default, yes, Janet Yellen at the Treasury Department,
Speaker 1: you're going to pay our creditors, You're going to pay
Speaker 1: Social Security, You're going to pay for the military but
Speaker 1: you're going to stop all this other funding, and basically
Speaker 1: that would be across the board, cut to all these
Speaker 1: programs from you know, food stamps, housing assistance to even
Speaker 1: you know, for Republicans who care about the border, it
Speaker 1: would even be border security that would get cut. So
Speaker 1: the problem with this is Jack lu the previous Treasury
Speaker 1: secretary under Obama, he called this quote default by another name,
Speaker 1: because you're still not paying bills that you've already authorized
Speaker 1: spending for. And so it's it won't solve any problems.
Speaker 1: It likely will still result on the credit DOWNRD. And
Speaker 1: not only that, but Democrats will never pass a bill
Speaker 1: lining up this sort of strategy. They just won't go
Speaker 1: for it. You're gonna hit a sort of brinksmanship. I also,
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, and again you know this better
Speaker 1: than I do, but it does seem like McCarthy is
Speaker 1: having a very hard time getting his people to even
Speaker 1: do things he wants. So how is he going to
Speaker 1: get that to sort of come along with something that
Speaker 1: he's sort of on the fence about anyway? Right? I mean,
Speaker 1: getting these cuts past It's not the clearest thing to
Speaker 1: do anyway, you know, And there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of dissent about what to cut him, how to cut it,
Speaker 1: and ultimately, if he can't get elected speaker, how can
Speaker 1: he do more complicated bills? He can't. And so I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the question, you know Republicans are
Speaker 1: asking right now privately, is how long will he be Speaker?
Speaker 1: And what manner is he going to go out in
Speaker 1: terms of leaving the House McCarthy. You know, if he's
Speaker 1: being realistic, should be thinking in legacy mode. What sort
Speaker 1: of legacy does they want to leave? What's the last
Speaker 1: thing he wants to do in Congress? And you know,
Speaker 1: if he's thinking that way, perhaps he sort of falls
Speaker 1: on his sword and says, look, Conservatives, like we we
Speaker 1: put up a good fight. Democrats are not going to
Speaker 1: do this. We have to raise a dat ceiling and
Speaker 1: tries to lead a portion of his conference to vote
Speaker 1: with Democrats raise a dance ceiling before something terrible happens
Speaker 1: to the economy, and then he would of course be outsted.
Speaker 1: They would motion to vacate and they would have to
Speaker 1: elect a new speaker, or he could do what we've
Speaker 1: sort of seen him do in the past few months
Speaker 1: and actually the past couple of years, which is he
Speaker 1: sort of leans on his moderate Republican members to do
Speaker 1: the hard job, right, and he plays the antagonist. He
Speaker 1: was on the side of conservatives, so it gives them
Speaker 1: sort of a wink and a nod to go ahead
Speaker 1: and team up with Democrats or say something publicly that
Speaker 1: would help him. We saw him do this in the
Speaker 1: speaker's race quite effectively. Actually, it was moderate Republicans who
Speaker 1: were saying, look, if we don't have McCarthy, we could
Speaker 1: potentially see a speaker Hakim Jeffreys, which was never going
Speaker 1: to happen, but it was a talking point that helped
Speaker 1: McCarthy and so they certainly circulated it. So will those
Speaker 1: moderate Republicans take the weeknd the nod from McCarthy joined
Speaker 1: with Democrats, But again, they're gonna get pummeled, so it's
Speaker 1: not easy. He's basically pushing these members out to do
Speaker 1: the dirty work for him to try to save his speakership.
Speaker 1: So crazy, I mean, he's really gotten himself in an
Speaker 1: impossible situation. Yeah me, and it's going to be tough.
Speaker 1: And I mean, even if I think the dead ceiling,
Speaker 1: the fact that it's coming in June now, which was
Speaker 1: one of the big headlines that this week. It doesn't
Speaker 1: give lawmakers a lot of time to figure this out.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think originally we are thinking we're going
Speaker 1: to hit the dead ceiling in the fall, sometime around
Speaker 1: like September October. That timeline means things are these conversations
Speaker 1: need to happen right now. There has been a little
Speaker 1: bit of talk about a quote discharge petition where five
Speaker 1: Republicans will team up with all Democrats in the House
Speaker 1: to force a vote on a clean dead ceiling bill,
Speaker 1: but even that has complications. It takes forever to do
Speaker 1: and they would basically have to start the process like
Speaker 1: in the next couple of days if they want to
Speaker 1: do this before that June ex deadline. So it's it's
Speaker 1: really not looking good and it's anyways gas as where
Speaker 1: this could go. One last thing I would mention on
Speaker 1: the dead ceiling is Joe Mansion, who is in Davis,
Speaker 1: I believe this week, who would hope So he floated
Speaker 1: this idea of a quote rescue committee with McCarthy a
Speaker 1: pair recently, basically suggesting to him, you guys raise the
Speaker 1: debt ceiling with us, and we will form this panel
Speaker 1: where they will look at mandatory spending, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And come up with ways to make them solvent in
Speaker 1: the long run. And you know we'll do that together.
Speaker 1: But the problem is this has been tried before with
Speaker 1: the super Committee in Tleven and it failed up busmally,
Speaker 1: So why would it work now when Washington is even
Speaker 1: more partisan that we've ever seen. It's really hard to
Speaker 1: predict where this is going to go. But that's something
Speaker 1: else to keep an eye on. That could give them
Speaker 1: a good cover though those Republicans right, if they wanted
Speaker 1: to sign on it could. It certainly could, but probably
Speaker 1: not enough of a cover to keep Matt Gates from
Speaker 1: filing a motion to vacate Ken McCarthy and booting him
Speaker 1: from Washington. My question is the talented Mr Santos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he every day, he's single day there's I mean,
Speaker 1: Drudge has like a little section on him. Now. I know.
Speaker 1: I feel like every Washington publication probably just needs his
Speaker 1: subhead somewhere on their website latest Santo's drama. It's just
Speaker 1: it's crazy. I mean I remember this week reading that store.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw that story about the
Speaker 1: dog or the scarf, the dog, scamming a wounded veteran
Speaker 1: and his assistant dog who needed emergency surgery, raising money
Speaker 1: for that surgery, and then stealing the funds and not
Speaker 1: letting the dog. You know, the dog ends up. It's
Speaker 1: just horrible, like, how do you do this? How do
Speaker 1: you do this? So what's going to happen to this guy?
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there's going to be a ton of
Speaker 1: federal investigations, but the realities those things take time, and
Speaker 1: House McCarthy, because of his very slim majority, he's not
Speaker 1: going to move to punish the sky in any way
Speaker 1: center for him. He's seated on a committee. I think
Speaker 1: it's a small business committee, given that he's lied about
Speaker 1: everything when he past, right, McCarthy sort of line on
Speaker 1: this is, you know, Republicans or anybody who's acute as
Speaker 1: if something, you know, an investigation has to play out,
Speaker 1: there will be a House Ethics Committee investigation as well.
Speaker 1: But again, that panel rarely rebukes members and takes forever
Speaker 1: to do anything. So this guy is going to be
Speaker 1: in Congress for what Yeah, can you just explain one
Speaker 1: last thing and then I promise I'll let you go.
Speaker 1: There was talk about McCarthy stripping the Ethics I mean,
Speaker 1: the Ethics Committee, by the way, has never found anyone,
Speaker 1: has never punished anyone ever, so I mean not ever.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's not famous for its uh you know,
Speaker 1: swift justice. But is that being stripped or now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there's just outside sort of congressional ethics watchdog who
Speaker 1: in the past has made referrals to the Ethics Committee,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them have actually gone places, although
Speaker 1: like you said, the Committee rarely punishes anyone because they're
Speaker 1: run by lawmakers who don't want to be punished themselves.
Speaker 1: So there's that conflict. Basically, McCarthy is deactivating that sort
Speaker 1: of outside watchdog group, and so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: concern about who's going to be telling the public about
Speaker 1: some of these things that are not happening. I mean,
Speaker 1: in theory, this group could still do their investigations and
Speaker 1: go public and try to sort of force some sort
Speaker 1: of public action on members. But the fact that there's
Speaker 1: no longer going to be this partnership, I mean, leaves
Speaker 1: Congress open for a lot of um, a lot of
Speaker 1: misuse and abuse. So it's going to be a problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Rachel I hope you will come back.
Speaker 1: I will anytime. Molly John Fast, Jesse Cannon Trump. You're
Speaker 1: always wondering. Is it the cognitive decline? Is it having
Speaker 1: no filter? Is he just a moron? Tell us what
Speaker 1: happened and what your take is. We're talking about the
Speaker 1: ee Gene Carol case. E Gene Carol, friend of the
Speaker 1: show and friend of mine and friend of my mother's
Speaker 1: a long time ago, is pressing charges against Trump. They
Speaker 1: are going to trial, actually quite soon. During one of
Speaker 1: the depositions, Trump made this mistake confusing a picture of
Speaker 1: ee Gene with a picture of Marla Maples, who we
Speaker 1: should note for those who don't remember ancient history, as
Speaker 1: his former wife. One of Trump's typical, very classy defenses
Speaker 1: was that he would not rape Egean because she wasn't
Speaker 1: hot enough. This is, like, by the way, his favorite
Speaker 1: defense because it's both misogynistic and misogynistic and also misogynistic.
Speaker 1: This confusion of Eugene Carol and Marla Maples actually shows
Speaker 1: that he thought she was his wife. Ergo, he did
Speaker 1: find her attractive enough to want to engage with, and
Speaker 1: thus he gets a hearty fuck you from us. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is our moment of fun Gray yet again, forever
Speaker 1: and ever and always a true King, true King. That's
Speaker 1: it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and Friday to your the best minds in politics makes
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening. H