December 20, 2024 • 39 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, So, as I am sitting here right now,
we are headed towards a government shutdown. Senator Cruz and
I we're talking about this. At what point do we
do this podcast? When do we record it? Well, it's
well after midnight now, and we were trying to see
if a deal was going to get done at this
point it has not gotten done yet. Now the question
(00:23):
is what should Republicans be fighting over. What should we
be asking for? What is a good deal, what is
a bad deal? How do you get to that magic
number two eighteen? And so, as I was sitting here
with Sender Cruise a moment and I said, look, let's
just have that conversation together. Let's talk it out, because
(00:47):
there's a lot of people online that are saying a
lot of things that are just not accurate about you know,
some people are wanting there to be less government spending
while also raising the debt ceiling, which doesn't make any
sense logically, if you want to cut government spending, then
why would we get rid of the dead ceiling. It's
a fair question to ask. So we're going to explain
(01:07):
it all to you. And what's going on this is
I actually think one of the most important shows that
I've ever been a part of, because look, whether you're
dealing with the government shut down and you're dealing with
trillions of dollars in spending and you're dealing with a
lot of pork ball spending that we're trying to stop. Yes,
this is really important because this is what I mean,
(01:29):
the average Americans working what three and a half months
four months a year to pay their taxes and they're
abusing your tax dollars the way that they are. So
this is a conversation that's important that we should have.
So with that being said, here are four principles that
center Cruise and I came up with to talk about
what's going on now. Now, I want to be clear,
this is not going to be what you see from
(01:51):
like online an X. Okay, this is a different conversation.
But first I want to talk to you real quick
about the USCCA. There are over eight hundred thousand Americans
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carry a firearm and I've had to pull the trigger
(02:12):
and I had to save my life one night, and
I'm so thankful that I was able to exercise my
Second Amendment right or I wouldn't be here talking to
you right now. But what I will tell you that
is even more shocking than that is now our twisted
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like you behind bars because they cannot stand that so
(02:35):
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(02:57):
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Speaker 2 (03:18):
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Speaker 1 (03:19):
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Speaker 2 (03:26):
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Speaker 1 (03:27):
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(03:48):
Now here are four principles the center Cruise and I
came up with talk about what's going on. Now. Now,
I want to be clear, this is not going to
be what you see from like online an X. Okay,
this is a different conversation because I want you to
understand the CR. I want you understand why it's happening.
I want you to understand all aspects of it. So
I want you to understand the CR. I want you
(04:09):
understand why it's happening. I want you to understand all
aspects of it. So with that being said, here's my
conversation that Senator Cruise and I just had. All right,
so this is an interesting conversation center about what's happening
in Washington.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And look, there's.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
The politics of it that everybody's obsessed with and pointing fingers.
I love doing this show because I think we can
look at it a little bit differently. I want people
to understand, starting off with what is actually being fought over,
and that is a CR. Can you explain in layman's
terms what a CR is? Why we keep having these
(04:46):
over Christmas time? And is this the normal way that
government does work or is this abnormal?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, look, it's a very good question.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
People are very confused about it. And let me do
my best to explain number one, what this fight is about,
and then some basic principles to think about it, because
there are a lot of people who are right now yelling,
but it's hard to understand what's going on. So for
the federal government to operate, Congress has to appropriate funds.
(05:15):
Appropriating funds is voting to spend money. Unless Congress appropriates funds,
money can't be spent. Now, there are three principal ways
money gets appropriated. The first and the best one is
Congress actually passing appropriation bills through the regular Order, through
the process of legislating. There are typically thirteen appropriations bills
(05:40):
for each of the major cabinet areas and subject matters,
and the way it should operate is Congress takes up
an appropriation bill, the House passes that, the Senate passes
at the President signs it. That's the way it normally works.
It almost never works that way anymore, especially when you
have what we have now, which is divided government. We
have right now a Publican House barely a very very
(06:02):
small Republican majority in the House. We have a Democrat
Senate and Democrat President, and so as a result, appropriations
bills will not pass, and they will not pass because
the Republican House and the Democrats Senate fundamentally disagree on
what should be in those appropriation bills. There's a second
way you fund the government, and that's through what's called
an omnibus, or sometimes you call it a minibus. Basically,
(06:24):
what that is is a bunch of appropriation bills jammed together.
So instead of thirteen separate bills you can get an
omnibus would be all thirteen. A minibus is sometimes say
four or five, six of them, but it is a
specific appropriation for a portion of government. That is frequently
how things are done, all crammed together. Again, we can't
(06:45):
get agreement doing it in divided government is very difficult,
and I will point out that Joe Biden and the
Democrats are providing the zero leadership to do anything other
than embracing radical positions that of course Republicans in the
House aren't going to agree with. So the third way,
and there are really only three, is what's called a
continuing resolution. So a continuing resolution typically does not specify
(07:07):
how how money will be appropriated. It simply says, what
we're doing now, let's continue going forward, and a continuing
resolution is typically for a set period of time. Continuing
resolution is usually abbreviated a CR, and a CR basically said,
a continued resolution basically says what we're spending today, keep
(07:28):
spending tomorrow. And you sometimes will get a You can
get a long term CR, like you could get say
a year long CR that says for the next year,
we're just going to spend what we're spending right now.
You can get a short term CR. Sometimes crs are short,
as short as a day or two or a week
or more. Now, why is this fight happening? This fight
is happening because at midnight Friday night, funding for the
(07:52):
government expires, and that was set in the last funding battle.
Congress funded it through mid night Friday night. That means
at twelve oh one am on Saturday, funding for the
government will expire. Now, if we get to twelve oh
one am, and I got to say sitting here right now,
that seems like a very likely outcome that we're going
to get to twelve oh one without this being resolved.
(08:15):
The result will be a quote unquote government shutdown. Now,
what does a government shutdown mean? Well, that phrase is
overstated because much of government does not shut down. Number one,
mandatory spending. Mandatory spending is government spending that is written
that is automatically spent, that doesn't need to be appropriated.
Mandatory spending is not affected. What does that mean. It
(08:37):
means so security checks will go out regardless. It means
Medicare will go out regardless, It means Medicaid will go
out regardless. It means anything that is written as mandatory
spending happens regardless, because you don't need appropriations. That's just
written to automatically be spent. What else does it mean, Well,
if you have a government shutdown, it is existing law
(09:01):
that even in the case of a shutdown, when Congress
has not appropriated funds, essential services continue. So for example,
if at twelve oh one am on Friday we have
a government shutdown, the military is not going to suddenly
cease to operate. We have soldiers and sailors and airmen
and marines who are deployed in harm's way. The military
(09:23):
is the very definition of essential services, so they'll continue
to defend this nation. It means that there are a
host of positions throughout government that are deemed essential, and
by the way, that's decided typically agency by agency.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
It is up to.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Each agency to decide how many which ones of their
employees are essential. At some cabinet departments, you take it
to a cabinet department like the Commerce department. Historically you
have seventy percent or more of the employees that are
deemed non essential. If you're deemed non essential, when there's
a government shut down, you stay home, you don't go
to work, you don't do anything. And by the way,
(10:05):
typically all government employees stopped being paid. So one of
the consequences of a shutdown is if you're a federal
government employee, your paycheck doesn't come Now. Sometimes Congress will
make exceptions so for example and pass shutdowns. We have
made exceptions with some frequency for active duty military, but
(10:25):
that actually takes Congress moving in and legislating and saying,
you know what, We're going to pay our soldiers, sailors, airmen,
and marines. But if Congress doesn't act, they don't get paid.
In the last big shutdown we had when Trump was president,
I went to the Senate floor and fought to pay
coast guardsmen. Look, the Coastguard was saving people who were drowning,
(10:46):
they were guarding our border, they were working, and yet
they weren't being paid. And the Democrats stood up and
objected to paying coast guardsmen during the shutdown. So the
basic principle is the vast majority of federal government employees
don't get paid during a shutdown. And by the way,
if you're a young enlisted man, I mean you might
(11:08):
need like your paycheck to pay your rent next month.
You might need your paycheck to pay your food. Like
many of these these government employees are not wealthy and
they are living paycheck to paycheck, So having the paycheck
stop puts real burdens, particularly on the load to median
income federal workers. On top of that, when the shutdown ends,
(11:32):
the federal workers all get paid. They get paid back pay.
So what we end up doing is having a significant
chunk of federal workers not work for a period of time,
and then they don't get paid during that period of time,
and then after the fact they get paid on the
back end. So we waste a bunch of government money.
That's what's at stake. Now, how do we think through
this fight? What does it mean? I'm going to suggest
(11:54):
four key principles that are important. I want to start
with one that that almost no one talking about this
is talking about. But it's a very simple one count
to eighteen. I want to repeat that ben count to eighteen.
To eighteen is a majority of the House of Representatives.
The House Representatives has four hundred and thirty five representatives.
(12:17):
Two hundred eighteen is half of it. Unless you have
absences or vacancies. Nothing can pass the House without two
hundred and eighteen votes. So we have seen there have
been two different attempts so far by House leadership to
pass a CR continuing resolution. The first attempt was a
(12:37):
continuing resolution that extended until the middle of March, and
it included a variety of different programs. Now, I want
you to understand I want you to imagine for a second, Ben,
that you wake up tomorrow morning and your name is
Mike Johnson, You're the Speaker of the House. I want
you to engage in some simple math. You need to
get to eighteen.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Okay, if you don't get to two eighteen, my life.
I don't think want to get to that name in
the morning, because I know how stressful that job's got
to be.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So I want to walk through just the simple reality
that Mike is facing.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
He needs to eighteen.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Now, a continuing resolution continues funding. The current discussion is
through mid March. On top of that, you've got a
significant number of House members who are insisting at least
two things be included in the continuing resolution. Number one
is one hundred and ten billion dollars in funding for
(13:31):
farmers and ranchers and ag that have just been hammered
across this country. So if you don't add that money
for farmers and ranchers and ags, you lose dozens of Republicans,
you lose a ton of votes if you.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Don't have AG there.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
So you're sitting there going, Okay, we need to take
care of our farmers and ranchers.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
We need to have that money.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Secondly, you've got disaster relief, and in particular two states
that have been just hammered by disasters recently, Florida and
North Carolina. Now the Florida and North Carolina members are saying,
if you do not have disaster relief in this bill,
I'm voting no. So here's the challenge. The first version,
(14:11):
Mike Johnson sits down, he extends government funding, he puts
funding for farmers and ranchers in there, he puts disaster
relief in there. Now, there are a significant number of
Republicans who is a matter of principles, say they will never,
ever ever vote for a continuing resolution. So if you're
only looking to Republicans, you can't get to too eighteen
(14:34):
because they're a bunch of them. They're going to vote no,
no matter what. They're just like no, no, no, I
will not vote yes.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I'm a no.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
So you're Mike Johnson, You've got to get to get
to eighteen. You look at Republicans. There are not two
hundred and eighteen Republicans who will vote yes. Your only
choice is to get Democrat votes. If you've got to
get to to eighteen, where you'd like to start is
give me two hundred and eighteen Republicans.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
There are not.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I don't believe they're two hundred and eighteen Republicans who
will vote vote for any CR. That means you must
get Democrats. Now, Democrats, let's look at something like relief
for farmers and ranchers. Most Democrats today, the Democrats by
and large don't care about farmers and ranchers. So the
Democrats are like, I'm not going to vote for aid
(15:20):
for farmers and ranchers. Why would I do that? And
Florida and North Carolina are both Republican states, so most
of the Democrats are like, why would I give disaster
relief to Florida and North Carolina. I'm not from there.
I'm a liberal New Yorker. Why would I help out Florida?
And so what happens is the Democrats say, Okay, if
you want my vote, I need X, Y, and Z.
(15:43):
Now these are demands made by Democrat members of Congress.
So they're bad, they're bad policies, they're terrible. And so
the first bill that Mike Johnson rolled out had some
elements in it that were really bad. Now I don't
like elements that are bad. But what is Mike Johnson
(16:05):
supposed to do? If there were two hundred and eighteen
Republican votes there, he would not have to agree to
really bad Democrat provisions. There are a bunch of Republicans
who are like, hell, no, no matter what, I won't
vote for you. So Mike Johnson, on the first version,
I think, felt he had no choice but get the
(16:25):
Democrat votes.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
To pass it.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Now, when he rolled it out, Twitter went crazy and
a whole bunch of people criticized it, and they said,
there are Democrat provisions in here that are terrible. Now,
mind you just remember the very simple principal, count to
two eighteen. If you can get to two eighteen and
a better bill, awesome. And by the way, two eighteen
doesn't even get it done because you've also got to
(16:48):
get it to pass the Senate, which Chuck Schumer and
the Democrats control. But let's just focus on the House.
If you can't get to two eighteen, nothing will pass.
All right, let me talk about a second principle. I've
got four principle that I want to lay out. Number
one is count to eighteen. And just remember this, because
almost all of the commentary is ignoring the fact that
(17:08):
nothing will pass unless you can get to to eighteen.
And by the way, so the first bill Johnson had
a cr through mid March, had far made, had disaster relief,
and had a bunch of gives he had to give
to Democrats because he had to get Democrat votes to
get it to pass. Twitter went crazy, blasted him, you
(17:33):
terrible rhino. How could you possibly propose? Democrat asks, Well,
the answer would be because he's got to get to
eighteen and so the first one crashed and burned. Then
Trump wants to raise the debt ceiling. Now what's the
death ceiling. Let's talk about that, because there's sort of
two elements in these battles. One is funding the government.
(17:56):
The other is the debt ceiling, which is a cap
on how much the federal government can borrow. Now every
president hates the death ceiling. When Trump is president, he's
got to raise the debt ceiling because if he doesn't
raise the death ceiling, we will run into the death ceiling.
(18:17):
And if we did not actually raise it, the United
States would default on its debt, which would be disastrous
for this country. So Trump wants to raise the death ceiling.
Now Trump is also angry with Kevin McCarthy, the former
Speaker of the House, because he extended the dead ceiling.
The death ceiling is scheduled to expire next summer. I
think June or July, I don't remember, but next summer.
(18:40):
So six months into the Trump presidency the dead ceilings
scheduled to hit, and Trump is very focused on He's
mad at McCarthy, very mad at McCarthy. That's six months
into his presidency. He's going to hit the death ceiling
because he's got to raise it. And that's true of
every president. And so Trump is demanding, he says, part
of this continuing the resolution raising the debt ceiling.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So he demanded that.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Well, Mike Johnson came back as a second version, and
he came back with what was called a skinny cr
So it included funding for the government through mid March.
It included farm relief, and it included disaster relief. So
those are the asks principally a Republicans. And because Trump
(19:27):
demanded it, it suspended the debt ceiling for two years.
So it gave two of the four years of the
Trump presidency no debt ceiling, which is what Trump is
insisting being this bill. So this second bill was by
and large the bill that was being demanded by Republicans. Well,
we had a vote tonight.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
What was the vote result? Then it didn't pass.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Okay, As I said, rule number one is count to
two eighteen. The vote was one hundred and seventy four
to two hundred and thirty five. Now I'm going to
make a simple observation. One hundred and seventy four is
not to eighteen. One hundred and seventy four of the
s is two thirty five of the No's the breakdown.
Every Democrat but two voted no. Look, the Democrats want
(20:17):
Trump to fail, so they're all happy to vote no.
There were only two Democrats who voted yes. Now we
still had the Republican votes to pass it. Well, what happened.
Thirty eight Republicans voted no. You cannot get to eighteen
in this narrow congress. If thirty eight Republicans vote no,
(20:38):
you end up with one hundred and seventy four, which
is where we were. So as we're sitting here tonight,
I don't know what the hell's going to happen, but
on the death Sailing. To be clear, this skinny proposal
was almost exactly what President Trump demanded. He put out
a statement urging every Republican vote for this now. He
was unequivocal, I'll vote for it now because it had
(21:03):
almost entirely what was asked for by Republicans, and it
had very few of the things asked for by Democrats.
And it didn't just fail.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
It failed.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
One hundred and seventy four is way way way below
two eighteen. And to be clear, it failed because thirty
eight Republicans voted no. So what's next. Let me move
to the second principle. I told you I got four
principles to think through this. Here's the second principle. Funding
(21:33):
should be about leverage. Listen, we're living in a time
right now. You spent a lot of time on Twitter.
I spent a lot of time on Twitter. I get
that sense. You're frustrated with Washington. Washington's the swamp. You
don't like government, just shut it down raw in my view, Now, listen,
(21:54):
there are some Republicans. There are swampy Republicans Mitch McConnell
who are terrified of a government shutdown, who on every
battle over government spending, they want to surrender on everything
because they think the government shutting down is the end
of the universe. That view is wrong. The government shutting
down is not the end of the universe. However, I
(22:14):
think you should use battles over government funding as leverage
to get something. So if you think back to twelve
years ago when I was a brand new baby senator
and I led a filibuster against Obamacare, and we had
a government shutdown, and I was painted by the media
as the point of the government shutdown. To be clear,
(22:37):
my position was not shut the government down, raar. My
position was we should fund the entirety of the federal government,
but don't fund Obamacare. That we should use funding as leverage,
and I had a very detailed and laid out plan
to get to victory. Now, we failed in twenty thirteen
with that objective, in significant part because Republican leadership Mitch
(22:58):
McConnell and John Bayner waged war against me. They joined
with the Democrats and said, nope, we want to fund
all of Obamacare.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
To hell with you.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
And when you're fighting the Democrats and leadership in your
own party, you lose. But I will say to everyone
tweeting shut it down, shut it down, shut it down.
I get you're on your phone. That feels good. Why
do I care shut it down? Well, let me tell
you when you have a shutdown. Number one, if you
(23:27):
have a bunch of soldiers stationed abroad who are not
getting paid, who are not able to feed their families.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
That ain't good.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
By the way, it is also important to recognize so
the last big shutdown we had was when Trump was president.
So when Trump's president, if you have a shutdown and
you want to navigate through it, And by the way,
Chuck Schumer forced the last shutdown when Trump was president.
His administration was able to mitigate the harms of the
shutdown because they wanted to. If we have a shutdown
(23:57):
twenty four hours from now, Joe Biden, the Democrat, will
do everything they can to make it as painful as possible.
So it means a crap tout of federal workers will
not get paid going into Christmas. That doesn't make him thrilled.
And by the way, it's not just federal workers that
we're not big fans of. It's not bureaucrats that are
regulating the hell out of business and destroying jobs. They're
(24:18):
among them, but it's also prosecutors. It is also border
patrol agents. It is also Marines, I mean is it's
coast guardsmen. It's a lot of people who are good
people doing great work who get their pay cut off.
But Biden will also implement the policies in ways. So
for example, what will they do. They'll shut down every
(24:40):
national park in America. So maybe you and your family
over Christmas break, we're planning to go see a national park.
Maybe you're planning to go see the Smithsonian. Now Christmas
is not a huge time for that, but shutting down
the museums, shutting down the national parks, it is one
hundred percent Biden will do that, and that is done
(25:02):
to inflict maximum pain. Let's say you're taking your family
on vacation and you want your passport processed. Well, you
know what, Biden's going to shut that down. You're not
going to get your passport processed.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Every consumer face, make it hurt, is what they're saying.
They want to make it hurt, and they want you
to blame Republicans, and they want you to say this
is what they did, this is their fault, and it's
a blame game.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
It is a blame game, and they want to make
it painful and they want to blame Republicans. So I
will just say to everyone, and look, I'm reading Twitter,
I'm reading people that I like it, agree with the
or just like shut it down, shut it down, shut
it down.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
That I get.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
There's a lot about government that frustrates the heck out
of me. But let me just ask, Okay, what's.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
The end game.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Do you really think if we have a government shutdown
for the next month and Trump arrives on January twentieth
with the government shut down for a month, that that
helps Trump? Do you really think that helps the incoming administration?
By the way, come January twentieth, it stays shut down,
you still got to get to two eighteen. There are
(26:13):
people around Trump will say, well, no, no, no, everyone will
blame the shutdown on Joe Biden. I promise you they
won't in significant part because when it's Republicans screaming we
want to shut down, it's actually not ridiculous of Democrats
to say, well, if the Republicans want to shut down,
then it's the Republican shutdown. I mean, that's not an
(26:34):
insane thing to say. The media will say it, the
Democrats will say it. And when you have Republicans screaming
I want to shut down, that becomes not a very
difficult narrative to tell. So if you're arguing, who cares
about the shutdown, let's shut it down, let me just
ask what are you trying to accomplish with that, what's
the leverage you're trying to get, and what's the endgame?
(26:57):
When does the shutdown end? Or do you think we
should never pay our active duty military again? And I
don't think there are many people And that's one of
the dangers of people just yelling when they don't actually
look at well, what does this mean?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And let me be clear, I have been.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Vigorous in saying we should use funding as leverage, but
leverage for an achievable, concrete, discrete outcome. I'm not hearing
anyone who's saying shut it down, shut it down.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Now.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Some people are saying, all right, here's what we should
get leverage for. We should get leverage for Trump's demand
that we suspend the debt ceiling. And here's the third principle.
I want to say.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
There are some.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
People arguing for eliminating the debt ceiling permanently altogether, just
getting rid of the death ceiling. Never again having to
worry about it. And by the way, one of the
plans that's discussed is, well, the Democrats have always wanted
to eliminate the death ceiling, so let's just do that,
and that's how we get out of this. I pray
that is not the end game here. Eliminating the debt
ceiling would be the single world first step we could
(28:01):
possibly take if you care about spending or deficits or debt.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Now, why is that?
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Okay, let's do a little history. Historically, the debt ceiling
has been the single greatest leverage Republicans have had to
force spending restraint. Now, this has only happened and it's
only worked against the opposing party. So one of the
challenges with the debt ceiling is when your own party
(28:29):
is in power. Trump wants the dead ceiling raised. Every
president wants the dead ceiling raised. Republicans, as a general matter,
are not willing to exert massive leverage on their own
parties president and force spending restraints. So when Trump was
president the first time, the debt ceiling was not leverage
against Trump because Republicans didn't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
I understand that.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
But when Democrats are in the White House Republicans, the
debt ceiling is the single most effective lever point that
has been used against Democrats to force spending restraints. And
I want to point to a couple of examples. Number one,
Graham Rudman Hollings. Graham Rudman Hollings, passed decades ago, remains
the single most effective spending restraint that has ever been
(29:15):
passed into law. Phil Graham, former Senator from Texas, was
the lead author. How did that get passed? It got
passed because of the debt ceiling. Got passed because Republicans
forced it and said, we won't raise the debt ceiling
unless you pass meaningful structural reform to.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Reign in spending. And Graham Hollings.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Was in effect for many years and had a very
positive effect reigning in the growth of spending. I'll point
to a second example twenty ten, the Budget Control Act.
Twenty ten, Barack Obama was president and Republicans used the
debt ceiling to force Barack Obama to agree to something
called the Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act again
(29:59):
significant constrain the growth of federal spending. It was only
through the debt ceiling we got that. Now the argument.
And by the way, today we the Republican senators, we
all had lunch.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
JD. Vance came to express his views. To the lunch.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
There were a number of Republicans saying, well, we should
just get rid of the debt ceiling now. And I'll
tell you I expressed my views. If we get rid
of the debt ceiling, it would be utterly disastrous. If
you care remotely about government spending, eliminate the debt ceiling
would be a massive mistake.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
And I just put it up.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
If we get rid of the dead ceiling, there will
come another Democrat president. I get the urge to live
in the moment of we're in charge.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Wuha.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
But unfortunately, there will come another time when the American
people elect a Democrat. And for anyone who has an
attention span beyond twelve seconds, you recognize throughout history that
politics has been a pendulum and it goes from one
to the other. So we will get another Democrat president.
And I told my colleagues today at lunch, I said,
all right, you get rid of the death ceiling, get
(31:07):
ready for President Elizabeth Warren. And if you don't like
a thirty six trillion dollar debt, get ready for a
fifty trillion dollar debt because the Democrats Elizabeth Warren wants
to eliminate the dead ceiling, AOC wants to eliminate the
death ceiling. Chuck Schumer wants to eliminate the dead ceiling
because they want to spend us into oblivion.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
So I will say one potential way out of.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
This is to cut an absolute deal with the Democrats
that gets rid of the debt ceiling forever. We will
have given away what history has proven. And by the way,
I'll go back. I'll go back to about a decade.
I don't have the most recent stats, but about a
decade ago, it was the case that of the previous
fifty one times Congress had raised the debt ceiling, twenty
(31:53):
eight of those times that had attached meaningful conditions to
the debt ceiling. So it's leverage. Remember my principal number two,
as you spending for leverage, this is related on principle
number three. The debt ceiling is about getting leverage for concessions.
Now here's the problem I mentioned to you. There are
a bunch of Republicans in the House who say they'll
never vote for continued resolution. There are also a bunch
(32:16):
of Republicans in the House who say they will never
ever ever vote to raise the debt ceiling.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I got to tell you, I don't think that makes
any sense.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
I've never said it, and I consider myself very much
a fiscal conservative. But forty percent of every dollar the
federal government spends is borrowed unless you're prepared to slash
the federal government budget by forty percent tomorrow. And by
the way, there is literally no serious person on planet
Earth who is prepared to do that and is able
to do that. Even if you would with a magic
(32:43):
wand do that, there's no way to make that happen.
Unless you're prepared to do that, the debt ceiling will
have to be raised. My position has always been I'm
willing to vote to raise the debt ceiling if we
are getting concessions that are raining in the out of
control spending that's bankrupting our country. However, in the House
(33:04):
there are a bunch of Republicans who simply say, I
will never ever ever vote to raise the debt ceiling
no matter what, it doesn't matter what we get. My
answer is no, that is a real problem. Let me
make one final principle, Mike Johnson, who's the Speaker of
the House. There are a bunch of voices on TV,
a bunch of voices on talk radio, a bunch of
(33:26):
voices on Twitter saying get rid of Mike Johnson, throw
them overboard. I'm going to tell you something that I
believe is an absolute fact. Mike Johnson is the single
most conservative Speaker of the House that will ever be
Speaker of the House in our lifetime. He is undoubtedly
the most conservative Speaker of the House we have ever
(33:47):
had in our lifetime. It's not even close, it's not
even arguable. And I'm here to tell you listen, Mike
Johnson may lose his job over this. He has a
very perilous It's a tiny majority in the House. You've
got a bunch of House members saying I'm going to
vote against him. I will tell you this, If Mike
Johnson has toppled a Speaker of the House, and he
might be Kevin McCarthy was, Mike Johnson is orders of
(34:11):
magnitude more conservative than Kevin McCarthy. It's not even close.
If Mike Johnson is toppled as Speaker of the House,
we will end up with a Speaker of the House
who is much much more liberal than Mike Johnson. I
think that is indisputable. I know Mike Well, he's a
(34:32):
good man. He's a decent man, he's a strong Christian,
he is a man of humility. And everyone on Twitter
is saying, but he gave the Democrats concessions. I want
to go back to the first principle. I said, count
to two eighteen. If Mike Johnson could draft a bill
(34:53):
that makes it out of the House with two hundred
and eighteen Republicans, he would I don't believe that is
p possible. There's certainly nothing to indicate it as possible
right now. If you cannot get to two eighteen with
Republicans because a bunch of Republicans say I will not
vote for anything you propose, no matter what, then Mike
(35:16):
Johnson is forced to get Democrat votes. To get Democrat votes,
he must give Democrats things they want. And so I
don't know what will happen. I think there's a reasonable
chance somehow out of this we get some very short
term cr a week or two or three, and then
(35:38):
in mid January we're back in the middle of this
mess again. That's possible. I'll tell you, in the state,
we're all sitting there. We have no idea what's going
to happen. I got to tell you I feel for
Mike Johnson. I think he is trying with all his might,
and I would just encourage you to focus on listen.
I think we need people to be serious about changing
(36:00):
the direction of the battleship of government, and to do so,
you actually need a strategy that can get the votes
to prevail. If you can't get the votes, it's easy
to tweet about it. I mean that's from the cheap seats.
Thirty eight Republicans voted No. One hundred and seventy four
(36:25):
is not to eighteen, and so I don't know what
the result is here. I think it is chaotic. We
will get through this one way or another. But the
fundamental structural dynamics, and it's one of the things look
going forward into the next year. I'm really optimistic about
the Trump presidency. I'm really optimistic about a Republican Senate
(36:47):
in the House. But I'll tell you the Senate's going
to be a lot easier. We've got fifty three Republicans
coming in next year. By the way, we still have
a Democrat Senate today, so I haven't even this whole
discussion has ignored the fact that you've got to get
Chuck Schumer and the Democrat to agree with whatever you do,
which is even harder. But next year we'll have fifty
three Republicans in the Senate. Fifty three is a big
enough majority that we can lose three votes and still
(37:10):
get things done. So I think the Senate will be
able to pass pretty good legislation, not fantastic, not wonderful,
but surprisingly good. The House worries me enormously next year
because the majority is so excruciatingly small that if you
lose a handful of votes, you cannot get to too eighteen.
(37:33):
And so I think Mike Johnson is trying to work
miracles right now. But the single hardest challenge of the
next two years in terms of passing good legislation is
going to be getting to two eighteen in the House.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
And I don't know what the answer is to that.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I want to take a moment and talk to you
about IFCJ the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, wants
to wish you a blessed beginning of the holiday season
as you gather with your families, grateful for the blessings
that God has given us all. But let's also remember
those who are facing unbelievable hardship in need of food, fellowship,
(38:12):
and hope. That includes the people of Israel, who are
threatened daily by attacks from enemies on all sides. And
during these hard times, Israelis are thankful for the fellowship,
for food and basic assistance, truly life saving aid, when
the rest of the world seems to have turned its
back on them. Your gift of twenty five dollars will
(38:33):
help provide a food box to an elderly Jew or
a Jewish family who are suffering and in desperate need.
A gift of one hundred dollars will help provide four
of these life saving food boxes this holiday season. Please
consider standing with Israel and the Jewish people. You can
go to SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. That's support IFCJ dot org.
(38:57):
To make a gift now, that's SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. Or
you can call to give at eighty eight for eight
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eight four three two five all right. Make sure you
share this podcast as well. That helps tremendously, Get out
(39:18):
all this information to everybody that's out there, and I
will see you back here tomorrow
All right, So, as I am sitting here right now,
we are headed towards a government shutdown. Senator Cruz and
I we're talking about this. At what point do we
do this podcast? When do we record it? Well, it's
well after midnight now, and we were trying to see
if a deal was going to get done at this
point it has not gotten done yet. Now the question
(00:23):
is what should Republicans be fighting over. What should we
be asking for? What is a good deal, what is
a bad deal? How do you get to that magic
number two eighteen? And so, as I was sitting here
with Sender Cruise a moment and I said, look, let's
just have that conversation together. Let's talk it out, because
(00:47):
there's a lot of people online that are saying a
lot of things that are just not accurate about you know,
some people are wanting there to be less government spending
while also raising the debt ceiling, which doesn't make any
sense logically, if you want to cut government spending, then
why would we get rid of the dead ceiling. It's
a fair question to ask. So we're going to explain
(01:07):
it all to you. And what's going on this is
I actually think one of the most important shows that
I've ever been a part of, because look, whether you're
dealing with the government shut down and you're dealing with
trillions of dollars in spending and you're dealing with a
lot of pork ball spending that we're trying to stop. Yes,
this is really important because this is what I mean,
(01:29):
the average Americans working what three and a half months
four months a year to pay their taxes and they're
abusing your tax dollars the way that they are. So
this is a conversation that's important that we should have.
So with that being said, here are four principles that
center Cruise and I came up with to talk about
what's going on now. Now, I want to be clear,
this is not going to be what you see from
(01:51):
like online an X. Okay, this is a different conversation.
But first I want to talk to you real quick
about the USCCA. There are over eight hundred thousand Americans
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(02:12):
and I had to save my life one night, and
I'm so thankful that I was able to exercise my
Second Amendment right or I wouldn't be here talking to
you right now. But what I will tell you that
is even more shocking than that is now our twisted
legal system, especially with activist das, are wanting to put
law abiding citizens who exercise their Second Amendment rights just
like you behind bars because they cannot stand that so
(02:35):
many of us carry a firearm. Well, you've got to
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Speaker 2 (03:18):
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(03:48):
Now here are four principles the center Cruise and I
came up with talk about what's going on. Now. Now,
I want to be clear, this is not going to
be what you see from like online an X. Okay,
this is a different conversation because I want you to
understand the CR. I want you understand why it's happening.
I want you to understand all aspects of it. So
I want you to understand the CR. I want you
(04:09):
understand why it's happening. I want you to understand all
aspects of it. So with that being said, here's my
conversation that Senator Cruise and I just had. All right,
so this is an interesting conversation center about what's happening
in Washington.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And look, there's.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
The politics of it that everybody's obsessed with and pointing fingers.
I love doing this show because I think we can
look at it a little bit differently. I want people
to understand, starting off with what is actually being fought over,
and that is a CR. Can you explain in layman's
terms what a CR is? Why we keep having these
(04:46):
over Christmas time? And is this the normal way that
government does work or is this abnormal?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, look, it's a very good question.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
People are very confused about it. And let me do
my best to explain number one, what this fight is about,
and then some basic principles to think about it, because
there are a lot of people who are right now yelling,
but it's hard to understand what's going on. So for
the federal government to operate, Congress has to appropriate funds.
(05:15):
Appropriating funds is voting to spend money. Unless Congress appropriates funds,
money can't be spent. Now, there are three principal ways
money gets appropriated. The first and the best one is
Congress actually passing appropriation bills through the regular Order, through
the process of legislating. There are typically thirteen appropriations bills
(05:40):
for each of the major cabinet areas and subject matters,
and the way it should operate is Congress takes up
an appropriation bill, the House passes that, the Senate passes
at the President signs it. That's the way it normally works.
It almost never works that way anymore, especially when you
have what we have now, which is divided government. We
have right now a Publican House barely a very very
(06:02):
small Republican majority in the House. We have a Democrat
Senate and Democrat President, and so as a result, appropriations
bills will not pass, and they will not pass because
the Republican House and the Democrats Senate fundamentally disagree on
what should be in those appropriation bills. There's a second
way you fund the government, and that's through what's called
an omnibus, or sometimes you call it a minibus. Basically,
(06:24):
what that is is a bunch of appropriation bills jammed together.
So instead of thirteen separate bills you can get an
omnibus would be all thirteen. A minibus is sometimes say
four or five, six of them, but it is a
specific appropriation for a portion of government. That is frequently
how things are done, all crammed together. Again, we can't
(06:45):
get agreement doing it in divided government is very difficult,
and I will point out that Joe Biden and the
Democrats are providing the zero leadership to do anything other
than embracing radical positions that of course Republicans in the
House aren't going to agree with. So the third way,
and there are really only three, is what's called a
continuing resolution. So a continuing resolution typically does not specify
(07:07):
how how money will be appropriated. It simply says, what
we're doing now, let's continue going forward, and a continuing
resolution is typically for a set period of time. Continuing
resolution is usually abbreviated a CR, and a CR basically said,
a continued resolution basically says what we're spending today, keep
(07:28):
spending tomorrow. And you sometimes will get a You can
get a long term CR, like you could get say
a year long CR that says for the next year,
we're just going to spend what we're spending right now.
You can get a short term CR. Sometimes crs are short,
as short as a day or two or a week
or more. Now, why is this fight happening? This fight
is happening because at midnight Friday night, funding for the
(07:52):
government expires, and that was set in the last funding battle.
Congress funded it through mid night Friday night. That means
at twelve oh one am on Saturday, funding for the
government will expire. Now, if we get to twelve oh
one am, and I got to say sitting here right now,
that seems like a very likely outcome that we're going
to get to twelve oh one without this being resolved.
(08:15):
The result will be a quote unquote government shutdown. Now,
what does a government shutdown mean? Well, that phrase is
overstated because much of government does not shut down. Number one,
mandatory spending. Mandatory spending is government spending that is written
that is automatically spent, that doesn't need to be appropriated.
Mandatory spending is not affected. What does that mean. It
(08:37):
means so security checks will go out regardless. It means
Medicare will go out regardless, It means Medicaid will go
out regardless. It means anything that is written as mandatory
spending happens regardless, because you don't need appropriations. That's just
written to automatically be spent. What else does it mean, Well,
if you have a government shutdown, it is existing law
(09:01):
that even in the case of a shutdown, when Congress
has not appropriated funds, essential services continue. So for example,
if at twelve oh one am on Friday we have
a government shutdown, the military is not going to suddenly
cease to operate. We have soldiers and sailors and airmen
and marines who are deployed in harm's way. The military
(09:23):
is the very definition of essential services, so they'll continue
to defend this nation. It means that there are a
host of positions throughout government that are deemed essential, and
by the way, that's decided typically agency by agency.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
It is up to.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Each agency to decide how many which ones of their
employees are essential. At some cabinet departments, you take it
to a cabinet department like the Commerce department. Historically you
have seventy percent or more of the employees that are
deemed non essential. If you're deemed non essential, when there's
a government shut down, you stay home, you don't go
to work, you don't do anything. And by the way,
(10:05):
typically all government employees stopped being paid. So one of
the consequences of a shutdown is if you're a federal
government employee, your paycheck doesn't come Now. Sometimes Congress will
make exceptions so for example and pass shutdowns. We have
made exceptions with some frequency for active duty military, but
(10:25):
that actually takes Congress moving in and legislating and saying,
you know what, We're going to pay our soldiers, sailors, airmen,
and marines. But if Congress doesn't act, they don't get paid.
In the last big shutdown we had when Trump was president,
I went to the Senate floor and fought to pay
coast guardsmen. Look, the Coastguard was saving people who were drowning,
(10:46):
they were guarding our border, they were working, and yet
they weren't being paid. And the Democrats stood up and
objected to paying coast guardsmen during the shutdown. So the
basic principle is the vast majority of federal government employees
don't get paid during a shutdown. And by the way,
if you're a young enlisted man, I mean you might
(11:08):
need like your paycheck to pay your rent next month.
You might need your paycheck to pay your food. Like
many of these these government employees are not wealthy and
they are living paycheck to paycheck, So having the paycheck
stop puts real burdens, particularly on the load to median
income federal workers. On top of that, when the shutdown ends,
(11:32):
the federal workers all get paid. They get paid back pay.
So what we end up doing is having a significant
chunk of federal workers not work for a period of time,
and then they don't get paid during that period of time,
and then after the fact they get paid on the
back end. So we waste a bunch of government money.
That's what's at stake. Now, how do we think through
this fight? What does it mean? I'm going to suggest
(11:54):
four key principles that are important. I want to start
with one that that almost no one talking about this
is talking about. But it's a very simple one count
to eighteen. I want to repeat that ben count to eighteen.
To eighteen is a majority of the House of Representatives.
The House Representatives has four hundred and thirty five representatives.
(12:17):
Two hundred eighteen is half of it. Unless you have
absences or vacancies. Nothing can pass the House without two
hundred and eighteen votes. So we have seen there have
been two different attempts so far by House leadership to
pass a CR continuing resolution. The first attempt was a
(12:37):
continuing resolution that extended until the middle of March, and
it included a variety of different programs. Now, I want
you to understand I want you to imagine for a second, Ben,
that you wake up tomorrow morning and your name is
Mike Johnson, You're the Speaker of the House. I want
you to engage in some simple math. You need to
get to eighteen.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Okay, if you don't get to two eighteen, my life.
I don't think want to get to that name in
the morning, because I know how stressful that job's got
to be.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So I want to walk through just the simple reality
that Mike is facing.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
He needs to eighteen.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Now, a continuing resolution continues funding. The current discussion is
through mid March. On top of that, you've got a
significant number of House members who are insisting at least
two things be included in the continuing resolution. Number one
is one hundred and ten billion dollars in funding for
(13:31):
farmers and ranchers and ag that have just been hammered
across this country. So if you don't add that money
for farmers and ranchers and ags, you lose dozens of Republicans,
you lose a ton of votes if you.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Don't have AG there.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
So you're sitting there going, Okay, we need to take
care of our farmers and ranchers.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
We need to have that money.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Secondly, you've got disaster relief, and in particular two states
that have been just hammered by disasters recently, Florida and
North Carolina. Now the Florida and North Carolina members are saying,
if you do not have disaster relief in this bill,
I'm voting no. So here's the challenge. The first version,
(14:11):
Mike Johnson sits down, he extends government funding, he puts
funding for farmers and ranchers in there, he puts disaster
relief in there. Now, there are a significant number of
Republicans who is a matter of principles, say they will never,
ever ever vote for a continuing resolution. So if you're
only looking to Republicans, you can't get to too eighteen
(14:34):
because they're a bunch of them. They're going to vote no,
no matter what. They're just like no, no, no, I
will not vote yes.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I'm a no.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
So you're Mike Johnson, You've got to get to get
to eighteen. You look at Republicans. There are not two
hundred and eighteen Republicans who will vote yes. Your only
choice is to get Democrat votes. If you've got to
get to to eighteen, where you'd like to start is
give me two hundred and eighteen Republicans.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
There are not.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I don't believe they're two hundred and eighteen Republicans who
will vote vote for any CR. That means you must
get Democrats. Now, Democrats, let's look at something like relief
for farmers and ranchers. Most Democrats today, the Democrats by
and large don't care about farmers and ranchers. So the
Democrats are like, I'm not going to vote for aid
(15:20):
for farmers and ranchers. Why would I do that? And
Florida and North Carolina are both Republican states, so most
of the Democrats are like, why would I give disaster
relief to Florida and North Carolina. I'm not from there.
I'm a liberal New Yorker. Why would I help out Florida?
And so what happens is the Democrats say, Okay, if
you want my vote, I need X, Y, and Z.
(15:43):
Now these are demands made by Democrat members of Congress.
So they're bad, they're bad policies, they're terrible. And so
the first bill that Mike Johnson rolled out had some
elements in it that were really bad. Now I don't
like elements that are bad. But what is Mike Johnson
(16:05):
supposed to do? If there were two hundred and eighteen
Republican votes there, he would not have to agree to
really bad Democrat provisions. There are a bunch of Republicans
who are like, hell, no, no matter what, I won't
vote for you. So Mike Johnson, on the first version,
I think, felt he had no choice but get the
(16:25):
Democrat votes.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
To pass it.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Now, when he rolled it out, Twitter went crazy and
a whole bunch of people criticized it, and they said,
there are Democrat provisions in here that are terrible. Now,
mind you just remember the very simple principal, count to
two eighteen. If you can get to two eighteen and
a better bill, awesome. And by the way, two eighteen
doesn't even get it done because you've also got to
(16:48):
get it to pass the Senate, which Chuck Schumer and
the Democrats control. But let's just focus on the House.
If you can't get to two eighteen, nothing will pass.
All right, let me talk about a second principle. I've
got four principle that I want to lay out. Number
one is count to eighteen. And just remember this, because
almost all of the commentary is ignoring the fact that
(17:08):
nothing will pass unless you can get to to eighteen.
And by the way, so the first bill Johnson had
a cr through mid March, had far made, had disaster relief,
and had a bunch of gives he had to give
to Democrats because he had to get Democrat votes to
get it to pass. Twitter went crazy, blasted him, you
(17:33):
terrible rhino. How could you possibly propose? Democrat asks, Well,
the answer would be because he's got to get to
eighteen and so the first one crashed and burned. Then
Trump wants to raise the debt ceiling. Now what's the
death ceiling. Let's talk about that, because there's sort of
two elements in these battles. One is funding the government.
(17:56):
The other is the debt ceiling, which is a cap
on how much the federal government can borrow. Now every
president hates the death ceiling. When Trump is president, he's
got to raise the debt ceiling because if he doesn't
raise the death ceiling, we will run into the death ceiling.
(18:17):
And if we did not actually raise it, the United
States would default on its debt, which would be disastrous
for this country. So Trump wants to raise the death ceiling.
Now Trump is also angry with Kevin McCarthy, the former
Speaker of the House, because he extended the dead ceiling.
The death ceiling is scheduled to expire next summer. I
think June or July, I don't remember, but next summer.
(18:40):
So six months into the Trump presidency the dead ceilings
scheduled to hit, and Trump is very focused on He's
mad at McCarthy, very mad at McCarthy. That's six months
into his presidency. He's going to hit the death ceiling
because he's got to raise it. And that's true of
every president. And so Trump is demanding, he says, part
of this continuing the resolution raising the debt ceiling.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So he demanded that.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Well, Mike Johnson came back as a second version, and
he came back with what was called a skinny cr
So it included funding for the government through mid March.
It included farm relief, and it included disaster relief. So
those are the asks principally a Republicans. And because Trump
(19:27):
demanded it, it suspended the debt ceiling for two years.
So it gave two of the four years of the
Trump presidency no debt ceiling, which is what Trump is
insisting being this bill. So this second bill was by
and large the bill that was being demanded by Republicans. Well,
we had a vote tonight.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
What was the vote result? Then it didn't pass.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Okay, As I said, rule number one is count to
two eighteen. The vote was one hundred and seventy four
to two hundred and thirty five. Now I'm going to
make a simple observation. One hundred and seventy four is
not to eighteen. One hundred and seventy four of the
s is two thirty five of the No's the breakdown.
Every Democrat but two voted no. Look, the Democrats want
(20:17):
Trump to fail, so they're all happy to vote no.
There were only two Democrats who voted yes. Now we
still had the Republican votes to pass it. Well, what happened.
Thirty eight Republicans voted no. You cannot get to eighteen
in this narrow congress. If thirty eight Republicans vote no,
(20:38):
you end up with one hundred and seventy four, which
is where we were. So as we're sitting here tonight,
I don't know what the hell's going to happen, but
on the death Sailing. To be clear, this skinny proposal
was almost exactly what President Trump demanded. He put out
a statement urging every Republican vote for this now. He
was unequivocal, I'll vote for it now because it had
(21:03):
almost entirely what was asked for by Republicans, and it
had very few of the things asked for by Democrats.
And it didn't just fail.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
It failed.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
One hundred and seventy four is way way way below
two eighteen. And to be clear, it failed because thirty
eight Republicans voted no. So what's next. Let me move
to the second principle. I told you I got four
principles to think through this. Here's the second principle. Funding
(21:33):
should be about leverage. Listen, we're living in a time
right now. You spent a lot of time on Twitter.
I spent a lot of time on Twitter. I get
that sense. You're frustrated with Washington. Washington's the swamp. You
don't like government, just shut it down raw in my view, Now, listen,
(21:54):
there are some Republicans. There are swampy Republicans Mitch McConnell
who are terrified of a government shutdown, who on every
battle over government spending, they want to surrender on everything
because they think the government shutting down is the end
of the universe. That view is wrong. The government shutting
down is not the end of the universe. However, I
(22:14):
think you should use battles over government funding as leverage
to get something. So if you think back to twelve
years ago when I was a brand new baby senator
and I led a filibuster against Obamacare, and we had
a government shutdown, and I was painted by the media
as the point of the government shutdown. To be clear,
(22:37):
my position was not shut the government down, raar. My
position was we should fund the entirety of the federal government,
but don't fund Obamacare. That we should use funding as leverage,
and I had a very detailed and laid out plan
to get to victory. Now, we failed in twenty thirteen
with that objective, in significant part because Republican leadership Mitch
(22:58):
McConnell and John Bayner waged war against me. They joined
with the Democrats and said, nope, we want to fund
all of Obamacare.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
To hell with you.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
And when you're fighting the Democrats and leadership in your
own party, you lose. But I will say to everyone
tweeting shut it down, shut it down, shut it down.
I get you're on your phone. That feels good. Why
do I care shut it down? Well, let me tell
you when you have a shutdown. Number one, if you
(23:27):
have a bunch of soldiers stationed abroad who are not
getting paid, who are not able to feed their families.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
That ain't good.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
By the way, it is also important to recognize so
the last big shutdown we had was when Trump was president.
So when Trump's president, if you have a shutdown and
you want to navigate through it, And by the way,
Chuck Schumer forced the last shutdown when Trump was president.
His administration was able to mitigate the harms of the
shutdown because they wanted to. If we have a shutdown
(23:57):
twenty four hours from now, Joe Biden, the Democrat, will
do everything they can to make it as painful as possible.
So it means a crap tout of federal workers will
not get paid going into Christmas. That doesn't make him thrilled.
And by the way, it's not just federal workers that
we're not big fans of. It's not bureaucrats that are
regulating the hell out of business and destroying jobs. They're
(24:18):
among them, but it's also prosecutors. It is also border
patrol agents. It is also Marines, I mean is it's
coast guardsmen. It's a lot of people who are good
people doing great work who get their pay cut off.
But Biden will also implement the policies in ways. So
for example, what will they do. They'll shut down every
(24:40):
national park in America. So maybe you and your family
over Christmas break, we're planning to go see a national park.
Maybe you're planning to go see the Smithsonian. Now Christmas
is not a huge time for that, but shutting down
the museums, shutting down the national parks, it is one
hundred percent Biden will do that, and that is done
(25:02):
to inflict maximum pain. Let's say you're taking your family
on vacation and you want your passport processed. Well, you
know what, Biden's going to shut that down. You're not
going to get your passport processed.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Every consumer face, make it hurt, is what they're saying.
They want to make it hurt, and they want you
to blame Republicans, and they want you to say this
is what they did, this is their fault, and it's
a blame game.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
It is a blame game, and they want to make
it painful and they want to blame Republicans. So I
will just say to everyone, and look, I'm reading Twitter,
I'm reading people that I like it, agree with the
or just like shut it down, shut it down, shut
it down.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
That I get.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
There's a lot about government that frustrates the heck out
of me. But let me just ask, Okay, what's.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
The end game.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Do you really think if we have a government shutdown
for the next month and Trump arrives on January twentieth
with the government shut down for a month, that that
helps Trump? Do you really think that helps the incoming administration?
By the way, come January twentieth, it stays shut down,
you still got to get to two eighteen. There are
(26:13):
people around Trump will say, well, no, no, no, everyone will
blame the shutdown on Joe Biden. I promise you they
won't in significant part because when it's Republicans screaming we
want to shut down, it's actually not ridiculous of Democrats
to say, well, if the Republicans want to shut down,
then it's the Republican shutdown. I mean, that's not an
(26:34):
insane thing to say. The media will say it, the
Democrats will say it. And when you have Republicans screaming
I want to shut down, that becomes not a very
difficult narrative to tell. So if you're arguing, who cares
about the shutdown, let's shut it down, let me just
ask what are you trying to accomplish with that, what's
the leverage you're trying to get, and what's the endgame?
(26:57):
When does the shutdown end? Or do you think we
should never pay our active duty military again? And I
don't think there are many people And that's one of
the dangers of people just yelling when they don't actually
look at well, what does this mean?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And let me be clear, I have been.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Vigorous in saying we should use funding as leverage, but
leverage for an achievable, concrete, discrete outcome. I'm not hearing
anyone who's saying shut it down, shut it down.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Now.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Some people are saying, all right, here's what we should
get leverage for. We should get leverage for Trump's demand
that we suspend the debt ceiling. And here's the third principle.
I want to say.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
There are some.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
People arguing for eliminating the debt ceiling permanently altogether, just
getting rid of the death ceiling. Never again having to
worry about it. And by the way, one of the
plans that's discussed is, well, the Democrats have always wanted
to eliminate the death ceiling, so let's just do that,
and that's how we get out of this. I pray
that is not the end game here. Eliminating the debt
ceiling would be the single world first step we could
(28:01):
possibly take if you care about spending or deficits or debt.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Now, why is that?
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Okay, let's do a little history. Historically, the debt ceiling
has been the single greatest leverage Republicans have had to
force spending restraint. Now, this has only happened and it's
only worked against the opposing party. So one of the
challenges with the debt ceiling is when your own party
(28:29):
is in power. Trump wants the dead ceiling raised. Every
president wants the dead ceiling raised. Republicans, as a general matter,
are not willing to exert massive leverage on their own
parties president and force spending restraints. So when Trump was
president the first time, the debt ceiling was not leverage
against Trump because Republicans didn't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
I understand that.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
But when Democrats are in the White House Republicans, the
debt ceiling is the single most effective lever point that
has been used against Democrats to force spending restraints. And
I want to point to a couple of examples. Number one,
Graham Rudman Hollings. Graham Rudman Hollings, passed decades ago, remains
the single most effective spending restraint that has ever been
(29:15):
passed into law. Phil Graham, former Senator from Texas, was
the lead author. How did that get passed? It got
passed because of the debt ceiling. Got passed because Republicans
forced it and said, we won't raise the debt ceiling
unless you pass meaningful structural reform to.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Reign in spending. And Graham Hollings.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Was in effect for many years and had a very
positive effect reigning in the growth of spending. I'll point
to a second example twenty ten, the Budget Control Act.
Twenty ten, Barack Obama was president and Republicans used the
debt ceiling to force Barack Obama to agree to something
called the Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act again
(29:59):
significant constrain the growth of federal spending. It was only
through the debt ceiling we got that. Now the argument.
And by the way, today we the Republican senators, we
all had lunch.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
JD. Vance came to express his views. To the lunch.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
There were a number of Republicans saying, well, we should
just get rid of the debt ceiling now. And I'll
tell you I expressed my views. If we get rid
of the debt ceiling, it would be utterly disastrous. If
you care remotely about government spending, eliminate the debt ceiling
would be a massive mistake.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
And I just put it up.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
If we get rid of the dead ceiling, there will
come another Democrat president. I get the urge to live
in the moment of we're in charge.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Wuha.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
But unfortunately, there will come another time when the American
people elect a Democrat. And for anyone who has an
attention span beyond twelve seconds, you recognize throughout history that
politics has been a pendulum and it goes from one
to the other. So we will get another Democrat president.
And I told my colleagues today at lunch, I said,
all right, you get rid of the death ceiling, get
(31:07):
ready for President Elizabeth Warren. And if you don't like
a thirty six trillion dollar debt, get ready for a
fifty trillion dollar debt because the Democrats Elizabeth Warren wants
to eliminate the dead ceiling, AOC wants to eliminate the
death ceiling. Chuck Schumer wants to eliminate the dead ceiling
because they want to spend us into oblivion.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
So I will say one potential way out of.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
This is to cut an absolute deal with the Democrats
that gets rid of the debt ceiling forever. We will
have given away what history has proven. And by the way,
I'll go back. I'll go back to about a decade.
I don't have the most recent stats, but about a
decade ago, it was the case that of the previous
fifty one times Congress had raised the debt ceiling, twenty
(31:53):
eight of those times that had attached meaningful conditions to
the debt ceiling. So it's leverage. Remember my principal number two,
as you spending for leverage, this is related on principle
number three. The debt ceiling is about getting leverage for concessions.
Now here's the problem I mentioned to you. There are
a bunch of Republicans in the House who say they'll
never vote for continued resolution. There are also a bunch
(32:16):
of Republicans in the House who say they will never
ever ever vote to raise the debt ceiling.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I got to tell you, I don't think that makes
any sense.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
I've never said it, and I consider myself very much
a fiscal conservative. But forty percent of every dollar the
federal government spends is borrowed unless you're prepared to slash
the federal government budget by forty percent tomorrow. And by
the way, there is literally no serious person on planet
Earth who is prepared to do that and is able
to do that. Even if you would with a magic
(32:43):
wand do that, there's no way to make that happen.
Unless you're prepared to do that, the debt ceiling will
have to be raised. My position has always been I'm
willing to vote to raise the debt ceiling if we
are getting concessions that are raining in the out of
control spending that's bankrupting our country. However, in the House
(33:04):
there are a bunch of Republicans who simply say, I
will never ever ever vote to raise the debt ceiling
no matter what, it doesn't matter what we get. My
answer is no, that is a real problem. Let me
make one final principle, Mike Johnson, who's the Speaker of
the House. There are a bunch of voices on TV,
a bunch of voices on talk radio, a bunch of
(33:26):
voices on Twitter saying get rid of Mike Johnson, throw
them overboard. I'm going to tell you something that I
believe is an absolute fact. Mike Johnson is the single
most conservative Speaker of the House that will ever be
Speaker of the House in our lifetime. He is undoubtedly
the most conservative Speaker of the House we have ever
(33:47):
had in our lifetime. It's not even close, it's not
even arguable. And I'm here to tell you listen, Mike
Johnson may lose his job over this. He has a
very perilous It's a tiny majority in the House. You've
got a bunch of House members saying I'm going to
vote against him. I will tell you this, If Mike
Johnson has toppled a Speaker of the House, and he
might be Kevin McCarthy was, Mike Johnson is orders of
(34:11):
magnitude more conservative than Kevin McCarthy. It's not even close.
If Mike Johnson is toppled as Speaker of the House,
we will end up with a Speaker of the House
who is much much more liberal than Mike Johnson. I
think that is indisputable. I know Mike Well, he's a
(34:32):
good man. He's a decent man, he's a strong Christian,
he is a man of humility. And everyone on Twitter
is saying, but he gave the Democrats concessions. I want
to go back to the first principle. I said, count
to two eighteen. If Mike Johnson could draft a bill
(34:53):
that makes it out of the House with two hundred
and eighteen Republicans, he would I don't believe that is
p possible. There's certainly nothing to indicate it as possible
right now. If you cannot get to two eighteen with
Republicans because a bunch of Republicans say I will not
vote for anything you propose, no matter what, then Mike
(35:16):
Johnson is forced to get Democrat votes. To get Democrat votes,
he must give Democrats things they want. And so I
don't know what will happen. I think there's a reasonable
chance somehow out of this we get some very short
term cr a week or two or three, and then
(35:38):
in mid January we're back in the middle of this
mess again. That's possible. I'll tell you, in the state,
we're all sitting there. We have no idea what's going
to happen. I got to tell you I feel for
Mike Johnson. I think he is trying with all his might,
and I would just encourage you to focus on listen.
I think we need people to be serious about changing
(36:00):
the direction of the battleship of government, and to do so,
you actually need a strategy that can get the votes
to prevail. If you can't get the votes, it's easy
to tweet about it. I mean that's from the cheap seats.
Thirty eight Republicans voted No. One hundred and seventy four
(36:25):
is not to eighteen, and so I don't know what
the result is here. I think it is chaotic. We
will get through this one way or another. But the
fundamental structural dynamics, and it's one of the things look
going forward into the next year. I'm really optimistic about
the Trump presidency. I'm really optimistic about a Republican Senate
(36:47):
in the House. But I'll tell you the Senate's going
to be a lot easier. We've got fifty three Republicans
coming in next year. By the way, we still have
a Democrat Senate today, so I haven't even this whole
discussion has ignored the fact that you've got to get
Chuck Schumer and the Democrat to agree with whatever you do,
which is even harder. But next year we'll have fifty
three Republicans in the Senate. Fifty three is a big
enough majority that we can lose three votes and still
(37:10):
get things done. So I think the Senate will be
able to pass pretty good legislation, not fantastic, not wonderful,
but surprisingly good. The House worries me enormously next year
because the majority is so excruciatingly small that if you
lose a handful of votes, you cannot get to too eighteen.
(37:33):
And so I think Mike Johnson is trying to work
miracles right now. But the single hardest challenge of the
next two years in terms of passing good legislation is
going to be getting to two eighteen in the House.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
And I don't know what the answer is to that.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I want to take a moment and talk to you
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