Inside The House Vote To Reopen The Government - The Hill's Emily Brooks

A detailed look at the House vote to reopen the government and what led key members to break ranks. We also examine how the latest Jeffrey Epstein revelations are impacting lawmakers and fueling new questions on Capitol Hill. Congressional Reporter Emily Brooks of The Hill joins us with insight into both major stories.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go to the hotline and bring in Congressional reporter
for The Hill, Emily Brooks. You can find all of
her working a whole lot more at the Hill dot
com and you can follow her on x for the
latest at Emily Brooks News. Emily, it's great to talk
to you this morning, and let's start with the government
shutdown vote. The House got the job done, but there
was a little drama beforehand, wasn't there.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yes, always a little bit of drama in the House.
But in the end, the government is back open. President
Trump's finding the bill. But there were interesting to see
the defections from the Democrats in the House, many of
whom who had voted against bill in September to keep
the government open, but now that the government was closed

(00:47):
for forty three days, there were many repercussions from that
affecting their constituents. That number increased from one Democrat voting
to keep the government open to six, So that I
think reflects just how big of a rift there in
the Democratic Party about their strategy for the government shutdown

(01:10):
after this did not result in the kind of commitments
that they were looking for on healthcare and extending the
Affordable Care actubsidies that expire at the end of the year.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
And then there were two Republicans who voted against it.
One of them was Florida Congressman Greg Stuby. And this
had to do with some provision in the Senate bill
that allows senators to sue over phone searches. What can
you tell us about that? Which seemed to honestly piss
off many House Republicans, including the House Speaker.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yes, this was very controversial. This provision was inserted by
senators who crafted this legislation to reopen the government, and
it would allow senators whose phone records were seas and
investigations relating to January sixth to sue the federal government

(02:07):
for hundreds of thousands of dollars over this seizure. And
this was something that the Speaker and a whole bunch
of other Republicans in the House that they had no
idea about until the legislation came out. And now you
know this is attached to a bill to reopen the
federal government. In order to take it out and pass

(02:29):
it without it, then you would have to have to
set it to come back again, further delaying reopening the government.
And so rather than do that. They accepted it and
passed it. But Greg Duby did not like that at all,
didn't think that, you know, it was worth passing. And
there's going to be now an effort in the House
to try and take that out of what is now

(02:52):
law and remove that. The Speaker said he had a
conversation with Senate Leader Johnson about this, and he is
not happy about it. But he does not yet have
a commitment that if the House does pass the provision
to remove that from the laws, that the Senate will
also take it up.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
What's pretty funny about that too, is that senators they
allowed themselves to sue over the phone searches, but there
are some House Republicans impacted by that and they weren't
included in the bill.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
I know it was very This is, you know, a
very House versus Senate thing. Very yes, very very interesting
that House members not eligible to take advantage of that provision.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
And real quick We're joined by Congressional Reporter for the Hill,
Emily Brooks. As all of this is unfolding yesterday, you
have these Epstein revelations that rock Capitol Hill. We're going
to talk about the specifics of the revelations coming up
in a moment, but just how words spread and what
you were seeing on Capitol Hill as that was happening.

(03:57):
Tell us about that.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, well, this Epstein fear really went back in full
force in the House, and you know, we were already
expecting this to be a major part of the day
when the House returned to pass this bill because Representative
Gerhalza and Arizona, who had not since sworn in the

(04:22):
since September her special election in September, became the two
hundred and eighteenth and final signature needed on a petition
to circumvent House Republican leadership and force action on a
bill to release the Epstein files. When she was torn in,
there were some Epstein survivors in the House gallery that

(04:43):
she referenced, very big moment she signed up immediately after
giving a speech when she was torn in. That is
just compounded by further releases from the House Oversight Committee
Democrats who released some old emails showing that Epstein that
Trump quote knew about the girls. Of course, the White

(05:05):
House and Republicans that these were cherry pets needed to
really actually prove or show anything. And so that is
just very much heightened, and so because of that bill
that's going to come up. You know, this is not
going to go away anytime soon, all right.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Emily Brooks, Congressional reporter for The Hill. You can find
her work in a whole lot more at the Hill
dot com and you can follow her on x for
the latest at Emily Brooks News. Emily really appreciate you
taking a few minutes to come on this morning after
what I'm sure was a very busy day yesterday. Thanks
so much, Thank you. It was a Ryan Gorman Show
five to nine every weekday morning on news Radio two

(05:46):
u f LA.