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Speaker 1: This week, the House of Representatives nearly averted a government

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Speaker 1: shutdown by passing a temporary spending bill. It doesn't make

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Speaker 1: anyone entirely happy, but the bill will likely get President

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden's signature before the midnight deadline on Friday. This

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Speaker 1: will only delay the inevitable. In January, we'll face another

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Speaker 1: funding showdown. This is not how the world's most powerful

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Speaker 1: country is designed to work. Last month, former House Speaker

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Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy tried to pass a stopgap spending bill that

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Speaker 1: would bring Democrats on board, and he lost his speakership

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Speaker 1: over it.

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Speaker 2: Republicans are scrambling to secure the next House Speaker after

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Speaker 2: the unprecedented unseating of Kevin McCarthy.

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Speaker 1: The race for a new speaker devolved into chaos and

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Speaker 1: played out right in front of us on cable news.

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Speaker 1: The fourth nominee but forward by the Republicans in three weeks.

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Speaker 2: There simply is no obvious, workable way forward for the part.

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Speaker 1: I've been in Washington for a long time and even

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Speaker 1: I was in shock. But to Denver Riggleman, a former

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Speaker 1: Republican congressman, none of it came as a surprise.

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Speaker 2: If you're not following exactly what the base wants to do.

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Speaker 2: You're gonna have a street fight every two years.

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Speaker 1: When he was in Congress back in twenty nineteen, he

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Speaker 1: found himself in a similar situation.

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Speaker 2: I thought I was a new type of Republican. I

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Speaker 2: was told I was a new type of Republican. But

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Speaker 2: if you're not on the team all the way, sometimes

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Speaker 2: they're going to find a way to eject you.

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Speaker 1: Just last week, Senator Joe Manchin, who's a conservative Democrat,

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Speaker 1: decided not to seek reelection. Every incentive in Washington is

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Speaker 1: designed to make our politics extreme, and Wriggleman's own story

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Speaker 1: really feels like an allegory for how we got to

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Speaker 1: the dysfunction that we see today. It's the same kind

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Speaker 1: that drove people like Mitt Romney and now Mansion out

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Speaker 1: of Congress Denver. Riggleman was in Congress for exactly two years,

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Speaker 1: and the story of his brief and explosive tenure raises

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Speaker 1: an important question. It's an urgent one as we look

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Speaker 1: towards twenty twenty four. Is there a place for moderate

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Speaker 1: voices in our two party system? And if not, how

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Speaker 1: will our leaders ever be able to compromise. I'm Senior

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Speaker 1: Washington correspondent Seleiah Mosen. This is the big take from

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg News. I first met Rigglemann shortly after he was

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Speaker 1: sworn in. That was back in twenty nineteen. He sat

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Speaker 1: next to me at the White House Correspondence dinner that spring,

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Speaker 1: and he kept me laughing all evening.

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Speaker 2: I would rather stick a pencil through my eyeball into

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Speaker 2: my frontal lobe than ever go to another fund craiser.

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Speaker 1: That's just how he talks. So before the dinner was over,

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Speaker 1: I handed Wrigglebin my phone to get his number. I

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Speaker 1: wanted to stay in touch. I was really curious how

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Speaker 1: things would work out for this guy, because he was

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Speaker 1: a rare breed in Congress. He was elected as a

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Speaker 1: moderate republic Wrigglemann's career in politics started in twenty eighteen.

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Speaker 1: He was a veteran who served his country after nine

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Speaker 1: to eleven, and years later he wanted to serve again,

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Speaker 1: this time in the House of Representatives. He ran to

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Speaker 1: represent Virginia's fifth congressional district.

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Speaker 2: Virginia's fifth district was bigger than New Jersey. You know,

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Speaker 2: It's over ten thousand square miles. Looked like a dragon

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Speaker 2: riding a scooter. It's pretty much how it was jerry mandered.

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Speaker 1: Like his fellow Republicans, he supported small government. He also

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Speaker 1: supported the Second Amendment, border security, and tax cuts, but

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Speaker 1: unlike many in his party, he also supported things like

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Speaker 1: legalizing marijuana and providing exceptions for abortion. To Wriggleman, having

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Speaker 1: different views on certain issues was part of his strength

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Speaker 1: as a candidate. He saw himself as a moderate who

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Speaker 1: could bring in more voters for the party, and at

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Speaker 1: the start it seemed like he could make it work

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Speaker 1: that despite his less conventional views on some issues, he

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Speaker 1: be the type of candidate his party was looking for.

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Speaker 1: Take his campaign ads.

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Speaker 2: When my country called, I answered him. I enlisted in

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Speaker 2: the Air Force of twenty two, climbed through the ranks,

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Speaker 2: and became.

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Speaker 1: He touted his experience as a veteran and as a

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Speaker 1: small business owner.

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Speaker 2: Today I owned two successful companies. I know how to

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Speaker 2: create jobs and keep our nation safe.

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Speaker 1: As he campaigned, he tried to prove just how much

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Speaker 1: of a loyal Republican he really was. He even promised

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Speaker 1: to join the House Freedom Caucus, that's the most conservative

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Speaker 1: group of Republicans in Congress. But he also promised voters

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Speaker 1: on the debate stage that he'd vote with his conscience,

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Speaker 1: not his party.

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Speaker 2: That's a good thing about being an independent thinking guys.

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Speaker 2: I can be in the Freedom Caucus and I can

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Speaker 2: vote the way that I want to.

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Speaker 1: And even though his opponent raised more money, Riggleman won

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Speaker 1: the election. That night, A local NBC reporter tuned in

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Speaker 1: from his watch party as the results poured in. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can hear that. The applause again. The supporter is

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Speaker 1: very happy here. But when Wriggleman got to Washington, he

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Speaker 1: quickly realized he wasn't going to be as welcomed by

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Speaker 1: his fellow Republicans in Congress.

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Speaker 2: I think, really the crazy started as soon as my

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Speaker 2: first day that I went into a Freedom Caucus meeting

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Speaker 2: and realized I was probably not in the right place.

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Speaker 1: In January twenty nineteen, when Wriggleman was sworn into Congress,

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Speaker 1: Republicans were in the minority and the Trump administration's relationship

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Speaker 1: with the majority the Democrats was bad. One of Riggleman's

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Speaker 1: first votes was on a measure to end the longest

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Speaker 1: government shut down in history.

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Speaker 2: I voted to reopen the government.

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Speaker 1: Most Republicans did not. That day. Mark Meadows, a founding

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Speaker 1: member of the Freedom Caucus and also Trump's future chief

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Speaker 1: of Staff, hold Wriggleman aside to give him a warning.

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Speaker 1: As a lawmaker in the House, Wriggleman would be up

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Speaker 1: for reelection the very next year, and Meadows said that

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Speaker 1: his vote to keep the government open would not be forgotten.

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Speaker 2: Mark Meadows actually told me on the floor that I'd

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Speaker 2: already lost my election. And that was the first week.

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Speaker 2: So that's how specific this is. It wasn't like, hey, Den,

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Speaker 2: you know, maybe that was a bad vote. It's like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you're screwed.

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Speaker 1: Wriggleman told me. He was rattled. He says that to

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Speaker 1: try to make his Republican colleagues happy, he voted with

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Speaker 1: them on some things that he didn't necessarily agree with.

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Speaker 1: And then one day he was at the distillery he

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Speaker 1: owned in Virginia when two of his friends walked in.

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Speaker 1: They asked him for a favor.

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Speaker 2: They said, Denver, would you officiate our wedding.

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Speaker 1: Wriggleman was excited, he'd never officiated a wedding before, but

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Speaker 1: the couple worried that the request might cost some trouble

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Speaker 1: for him.

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Speaker 2: They said, we know it's the same sex wedding, we

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Speaker 2: know we're both men, but is it something you would

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Speaker 2: do and without hesitation?

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Speaker 1: Like why not? Wriggleman didn't think the government should be

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Speaker 1: involved in regulating marriage at all, but if it was,

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Speaker 1: he thought marriage equality was only fair.

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Speaker 2: It gives a rats man they deserve to be just

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Speaker 2: as miserable as every other married couple. I mean, come

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Speaker 2: on right.

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Speaker 1: That was in line with over half of Americans at

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Speaker 1: the time who supported same sex marriage, but it went

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Speaker 1: against how his party voted on the issue, especially his

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Speaker 1: colleagues and the Conservative Freedom Caucus. The friends Alex and

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Speaker 1: Reck were Republicans. They had even volunteered on Riggleman's campaign,

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Speaker 1: and when their wedding website listed Denver Riggleman as the officiant,

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Speaker 1: it was picked up by a small Republican leaning news outlet.

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Speaker 2: As soon as the article hit, my email exploded, my

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Speaker 2: phone exploded. The committees called. I was actually asked to

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Speaker 2: do a public apology to the Christians in the district

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Speaker 2: for betraying them.

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Speaker 1: The people who worked with Wriggleman started to panic.

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Speaker 2: There was not a lot of happiness with my team either.

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Speaker 2: On the federal government side or my campaign team. They

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Speaker 2: were not happy. And it's not that I don't think

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Speaker 2: they believed in what I was doing. What they told

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Speaker 2: me was, you know, Denver, you need to be more

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Speaker 2: powerful before you make decisions like this. And I said,

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Speaker 2: when does power have to do what's doing, what's right

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Speaker 2: or what's wrong.

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Speaker 1: But he didn't apologize, and he didn't change his plans

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Speaker 1: to officiate the wedding.

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Speaker 2: My wife, I remember when we were driving up there.

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Speaker 2: She goes, you know, honey, she was laughing. She goes,

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Speaker 2: I think you're going to have the shortest political career

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Speaker 2: of any Republican in Virginia. And I started laughing, like

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Speaker 2: not me. I said, this will blow over in two weeks.

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Speaker 1: The Washington Post covered the wedding, and it described the

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Speaker 1: dress code as a seersucker linen chiffon homage to the

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Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby.

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Speaker 2: Best dressed wedding I've ever been to. We had a

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Speaker 2: great time, a lot of laughter, a lot of love.

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Speaker 1: There After the wedding, Riggelman's wife was still worried. She

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Speaker 1: wondered what would happen to his job in Congress, but

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Speaker 1: she did take a moment to tell him that she

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Speaker 1: was proud of him.

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Speaker 2: She goes, you're the best. The fact that you would

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Speaker 2: do this takes so much courage. And I'm going to

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Speaker 2: say this, I'm not being not humble bragging, I'm not

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Speaker 2: being self deprecating. It was just a wedding, so I'm thinking, eh,

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Speaker 2: you know, this will blow over. There's no way that

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Speaker 2: this is going to stick.

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Speaker 1: It stuck.

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Speaker 2: It was pretty much the overwriting factor for the next year.

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Speaker 1: Wriggleman had never worked in Washington before. He wasn't a

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Speaker 1: career politician. He'd won one election. He had no idea

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Speaker 1: what he was up against.

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Speaker 2: The death threats came in, and you know, people took

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Speaker 2: the lug nuts off my tires and put the caps

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Speaker 2: back on while my daughter was driving it, which was

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Speaker 2: pretty brutal. I mean, they really tried to do me

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Speaker 2: harm or to hurt me in a way that close

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Speaker 2: to taking your life. You know, if your tires fall

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Speaker 2: off your vehicle.

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Speaker 1: Phone calls, voicemails, emails, and letters flooded in and some

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Speaker 1: wild conspiracy theories started being floated about Wriggleman.

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Speaker 2: That was during the rise of QAnon conspiracy theories. It's

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Speaker 2: called QAnon and it's a group of people who adhere

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Speaker 2: to some far right conspiracies and believe a number of

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Speaker 2: absurd things. From the tool of the Antichrist, the general

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Speaker 2: of the Sodomite armies. I hadn't heard that one before,

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Speaker 2: trying to change the sexual orientation of children, the fact

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Speaker 2: that I was possessed by Satan, you know, or that

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Speaker 2: I was the tool of the Antichrist, or my wife

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Speaker 2: was the spawn of Satan. And I told people, well,

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Speaker 2: if I'm the tool of the Antichrist and my wife

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Speaker 2: is the spawn of Satan, we're the biggest power couple

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Speaker 2: of the United States.

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Speaker 1: Wriggleman says that he heard from some Republican voters who supported him,

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Speaker 1: but he was starting to see that he had a

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Speaker 1: battle ahead of him just as he was preparing to

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Speaker 1: campaign for reelection. We'll get to what happened next after

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Speaker 1: the break. We're back with Denver Riggleman. In his first term,

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Speaker 1: he went against his party and officiated a same sex wedding.

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Speaker 1: For that, he faced death threats, and he also began

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Speaker 1: to lose political and financial support. But when it came

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Speaker 1: to his voting record as a lawmaker, he often did

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Speaker 1: vote with his party. He even got then President Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump's endorsement for his reelection, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, and people like, well, Denver, you voted ninety three

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Speaker 2: percent with Trump, Damn right. I did, especially at the beginning.

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Speaker 2: You know why, because they said I was going to

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Speaker 2: lose to these crazy nutters if I didn't.

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Speaker 1: He voted against legislation that would make it harder to

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Speaker 1: discriminate against people based on gender or sexual orientation. Rugelmann

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Speaker 1: also voted with the party when Congress took up Trump's

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Speaker 1: ban on transgender people serving in the military, but there

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Speaker 1: were votes where he still felt like he owed his

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Speaker 1: constituents more than he owed his party. He told me

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Speaker 1: about one of those instances.

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Speaker 2: There was a peach producer in my district, great guy.

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Speaker 2: He had I think one hundred and thirty five employees

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Speaker 2: or so, and so my first thing I go to

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Speaker 2: him and I'm like, hey, goes Denver, Hey buddy, Republicans like,

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Speaker 2: what's going on? Brother? He goes, guess what do a percentage?

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Speaker 2: How many of these individuals here?

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Speaker 1: H two a's H two a's that's a visa program

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Speaker 1: for temporary agricultural workers from overseas.

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Speaker 2: How many of your guest workers? I want you to

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Speaker 2: give me a percentage. I said seventy percent. He was wrong.

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Speaker 2: He said ninety percent. Wrong, said one hundred percent. Because

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Speaker 2: correct a Republican voting farmer, one hundred percent of his

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Speaker 2: workers were H two a's one hundred percent. He goes Denver.

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Speaker 2: You got to fight for us.

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Speaker 1: Even though polling at the time revealed that nearly half

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Speaker 1: of Republicans viewed immigration as a bad thing for the country,

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Speaker 1: Riggleman got on board with the visa program.

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Speaker 2: When I came out on support of H two a's

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Speaker 2: and H two b's on the immigration side, oh my god,

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Speaker 2: Numbers USA came out against me.

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Speaker 1: He's talking about an organization that describes itself as an

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Speaker 1: anti immigration group.

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Speaker 2: Every single crackpot far right immigration lobbying firm came out

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Speaker 2: and said that they wouldn't give me money.

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Speaker 1: Riggleman. So called transgressions were piling up. There were censures

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Speaker 1: against him by other Virginia Republicans, criticizing him for abandoning

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Speaker 1: party principles. But that's just the public part. Behind closed doors,

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Speaker 1: his colleagues were ashing him to reporters. It was around

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Speaker 1: that time that I had drinks with a geop lawmaker

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Speaker 1: that Wriggleman had introduced me to. We were speaking on background,

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Speaker 1: so I can share what he'd told me, but I

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Speaker 1: can't share his name. While we were sitting at a

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Speaker 1: restaurant on Capitol Hill in the summer of twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: this lawmaker shared that he supports same sex marriage too,

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Speaker 1: but unlike Wriggleman, he would never say that publicly. He

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Speaker 1: was afraid that it would end his political career. In

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Wriggleman was entering that street fight that he expected.

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Speaker 1: He faced a primary challenger for his re election campaign.

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Speaker 1: There was a convention to determine which candidate the Republican

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Speaker 1: Party would back, and when the votes came in, Wriggleman

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Speaker 1: was out.

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Speaker 2: I ended up losing like fourteen hundred votes to eleven

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Speaker 2: hundred votes.

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Speaker 1: What it came down to was money. Wriggleman was losing

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Speaker 1: donors and that wasn't good for the Republican Party. So

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Speaker 1: instead of backing Riggleman, the state GOP supported his challenger,

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Speaker 1: who towed the party line. The hope was that with

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Speaker 1: someone more loyal in office, they'd be able to advance

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Speaker 1: more of the policies that they wanted, and that's good

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Speaker 1: for fundraising. Here's the thing. Donors will flee if they

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Speaker 1: don't think their money is going towards their agenda. So

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Speaker 1: someone like Wriggleman is a risk to the party's wallet

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Speaker 1: and that's reason enough to get him out. Wriggleman believes

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Speaker 1: that his story has consequences for the rest of us.

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Speaker 2: The parties do control how people are actually put in office,

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Speaker 2: and I think it's a real detriment to the American people.

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Speaker 1: He says that if political parties hand pick really conservative

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Speaker 1: or really liberal candidates at the primary level, like they

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Speaker 1: did in his race, people won't get the chance to

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Speaker 1: elect moderates in a general election.

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Speaker 2: It's going to be harder and harder for compromise, especially

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Speaker 2: as districts become more gerrymandered, as you look for less

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Speaker 2: and less swing districts. My biggest will have a country

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Speaker 2: that really, really, it's all about the nominating process, not

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Speaker 2: the general election. So if it's the nominating process that's

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Speaker 2: going to determine who's actually representing the American people, I

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Speaker 2: think we're about to eat a big shit sandwich.

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Speaker 1: Wriggleman can sound pretty flippant about this, But he's right.

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Speaker 1: It's exactly how we wind up with a Congress that's

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Speaker 1: so divided that it can barely pass temporary funding bills,

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Speaker 1: let alone a comprehensive budget. It's also why lawmakers feel

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Speaker 1: the need to take the most extreme positions out of

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Speaker 1: fear of being voted out of office.

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Speaker 2: Look at the people that are replacing the moderate members

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Speaker 2: right now. They're batshit.

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Speaker 1: Despite his own party turning on him, Wriggleman still has

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Speaker 1: a lot of pride in what he did when he

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Speaker 1: was a Republican member of Congress. When he joined me

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Speaker 1: at Bloomberg's podcast studio in DC, he was wearing a

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Speaker 1: polo shirt with the House of Representative's logo on it.

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Speaker 1: But he's no longer a member of the Republican Party.

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Speaker 1: He's now a regis independent, and he served as an

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Speaker 1: advisor on the House committee investigating the January sixth insurrection

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Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill. Wriggleman is just one example of a

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Speaker 1: politician who faced the cold shoulder from his party for

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Speaker 1: thinking independently. There's also Liz Cheney. She's a conservative Republican

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Speaker 1: on most policy issues, but has been a harsh critic

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Speaker 1: of Trump. She went against the party by leading the

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Speaker 1: January sixth Committee, the same one that Riggleman served on,

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Speaker 1: and then she lost her seat in Congress. And as

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Speaker 1: we all know, moderate senators like Mitt Romney and Joe

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Speaker 1: Manchin have both said that it was polarization in Congress

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Speaker 1: that pushed them out. But there are some signs that

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Speaker 1: heading into the twenty twenty four election, the traditional two

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Speaker 1: parties are trying to make space for moderates. A slew

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Speaker 1: of political action committees have been cropping up across the country.

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Speaker 1: They're promising to fund centrist candidates up against election deniers

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Speaker 1: and progressives alike. But the question remains will it be

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Speaker 1: enough for these candidates to win, And if moderates like

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Speaker 1: Wriggleman do get elected, will their parties let them compromise.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Big Take from Bloomberg News.

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Speaker 1: I'm Seleiah Moson. This episode was produced by Julia Press,

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Speaker 1: Anna Masarakis, and Naomi Shaven. It was fact checked by

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Speaker 1: Ashna Shah. It's part of a special series from our

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Speaker 1: DC newsroom. Blake Maples is our mix engineer. Our story

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Speaker 1: editors are Mike Shephard, Wendy Benjaminson and Caitlin Kenney. Sage

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Speaker 1: Bauman is our executive producer and head of Podcasts. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for tuning in, I'll be back next week.