A Commitment To America: Sarah Westwood Talks to A&G

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
First before we get to our guests, Sarah Westwood, a
little history lesson for those of you are too young
or were too stoned at the time to understand what
was going on. Back during Bill Clinton's first term, the
Democrats had controlled the house. See, if you're younger, the
House has been going back and forth now in recent

(00:20):
years and you kind of feel like it's been that way.
Back in Bill Clinton's first term in when the Republicans
were running to try to take the house, the Democrats
had controlled the House of Representatives for forty years. Forty
years the demos controlled the house. There was just some
belief that it just always will be, you know, institution
run by Democrats. Nuke Gingrich, who wanted to be speaker

(00:43):
of the House, came up with this contract for America,
partially based off a Ronald Reagan speech and some stuff
from the Heritage Foundation, and I had a bunch of
things in it that things that we promised to do
if you elect us to run the House of Representatives,
and it was a pretty good, uh, political I'm wanna
call it. It's definitely not a stunt in any way whatsoever,
but maneuver tactic whatever to like really focus people on

(01:07):
what they would get out of having Republicans Control Congress. Well,
it looks like the current guy who would like to
be speaker of the House with the Democrats in charge,
speaking of the House for the Republicans with Democrats in charge,
Kevin McCarthy, has put out a piece of paper of
his own and we're gonna discuss that with Sarah Westwood,
investigative reporter of The Washington examiner. Uh, Sarah, welcome to

(01:27):
the Armstrong Gutti show. How are you? I'm good. Thanks
for having me. I hope the little history lesson wasn't
too boring for you. Um, how how? What is Kevin
McCarthy calling his thing? This is called the commitment to America,
and you're right, it's sort of modeled after this contract
for America that New Gingrich unveiled, and I think it's

(01:49):
it's an effort by McCarthy to have a more proactive
message heading into the bid terms. Right. I mean, I
think a criticism that you've heard people like Senator Rick
Scott over on the Senate side level of Republican leadership
is that we are, you know, against all of these
things that Democrats are doing. We're running a really oppositional campaign,

(02:09):
but we don't really have a clear sense of what
we're for these days, and so this, I think, is
to give a sharper, clearer direction for voters as to
what they can expect if they elect Republicans. And you know,
I think there's there's the potential for it to be
really smart politics, because you are sort of defining the
Republican agenda in the in the sharpest way that they

(02:33):
have so far this election, and that could be helpful
to some Republicans out there who are still sort of
struggling to find that message to run on. Sure, you'd say,
you know, it's like a power point presentation in a
in a conference room or something. So what is he promising?
Chicken every pot? What? What? What? What? What are some
of the whatever you called it, the good things for

(02:54):
America contract? What's in it? Sure, so one of the
big ones obviously fighting inflation, UH, public safety. These are
all sort of organized under like you side, different different
slide decks, if you will, and economy that's strong is
one category. A nation that saves, a government that's accountable.
But also he's waiting into some of the culture war

(03:15):
issues with this plan that I think Republicans have found
might be in political circles defined as sort of a
right wing causes, but are actually really popular with both Americans, like, uh,
having girls sports be the domain of only girls. I
didn't know that. I didn't know he's going to go there.

(03:37):
He is, and so so you know, I think that
while some of those issues are kind of controversial, they
are leaning into the most popular of the culture war
ideas and a lot of that is centered around schools
and you know, again, I think getting all Republicans on
the same page, growing the same direction on some of
these issues where Democrats have been defining the converse station,

(04:01):
is a really good thing for the party. However, he's
rolling it out on the same day the early voting
is already starting in about five or six states today.
It's the final quarter of the election, and so one
does have to wonder if this could have been a
more helpful two Republicans if you'd rolled it out. Yeah,
that's that's a real that is a real tough one

(04:22):
with the modern politics and I'm sure both parties are
trying to figure it out because I mentioned the other day,
this past Tuesday we're seven weeks from the election seems
like a long time and Joe pointed out that. Well,
for some people they're like, you know, they're not even
seven days from the election. So yeah, well, when do
you focus your message? Message, when do you make your
your your final argument? Uh, do you wait for the

(04:43):
massive people in most places we're going to vote that
day or yeah, I don't know, that's a tough one. Traditionally,
right campaigns would wait until after Labor Day to really
ramp up because that's when voters started paying attention. But now,
you know, some of these mid touring campaigns started last year.
I mean this campaign it drags on for a long time.
People are engaged a lot earlier and uh, and some,

(05:08):
you know, there's a lot of new rances and some
of the key races, the primaries were much earlier, and
so the general election campaigns have been going on for
months and then in both candidates have had more of
a chance to define each other. In other ones we
just got the nominee, you know, in August and so
like in New Hampshire, for example, and the general election
is so much more truncated. So one does have to

(05:30):
wonder if to count for all of those nuances and
for the states where candidates were chosen in primaries a
lot earlier. A plan like this might have been more
helpful a lot earlier. That's the Senator Rick Scott did
with his plan. That angered a lot of Senate Republicans,
but he released it much earlier so it would have
more of an impact and sort of failed in getting

(05:50):
Republicans to line up behind the agenda. But I think
the idea was the same. We should enter this mentoral
election contest now. Well, I understand, I definitely understand the
argument on the other side because most people don't pay attention.
The people who don't vote early don't pay attention until it's,
you know, gets closer to election day, so you can
roll out your big contract with America's sort of thing.
But if nobody's paying attention, it's not doing any good.

(06:12):
So I'm sure over time both parties are going to
have to figure this out. Of when you when you
land with your big messages. Sarah Westwood of the Washington Examiner,
we're talking to her. I gotta jump into the Immigration Story.
Where are we on that? Is it? Is it continue
to have legs in Washington D C, or is it
petering out? Or are there going to be more bus

(06:32):
loads sent to more blue city and state that are
sanctuaries to keep it things riled up? What do you know?
I think so. I mean I think it's in so
incredibly effective. Uh, you know, I'm sure Greg Abbott is,
the governor of Texas, is not happy that run to
sansis since one planeload and gets all the attentions that
habits spend doing it for months to try to get

(06:54):
the same message across. Sending bust loads of immigrants Washington,
D C, in New York City like it the benefit
and why? This was sort of a gamble from the
santis because it was controversial. But why it's paying off?
Is it now? I don't. I don't really see a
lot of continuing debate about the ethics of sending those
specific migrants to Martha's vineyards, but the debate has moved

(07:15):
on and into even mainstream media realms about the word crisis.
I mean, Democrats had been so resistant to having any
kind of rational conversation about what to do with all
the migrants coming over the border. It's sort of hid
behind this shield of moral superiority, like they appeared to
be the more welcoming people and that, you know, excluded

(07:39):
them from having to participate in a conversation about what
to do. And now that the migrants had actually arrived
on their doorstep in Washington, D C, in New York City,
in Martha's vineyards, and they've turned them away, that's sort
of invalidated the only tool they had in their arsenal
did not have to deal with this issue, and so
now they are Democrats facing harder questions. Okay, well, it's

(08:00):
you don't want them and the border towns can't handle them.
What should we do? And those conversations overwhelmingly favor Republicans
and in that way I think this is an enormously
helpful issue for Republicans in the mid terms. Before I
let you go, Sarah, I'm I got a bunch of
TVs on here in the studio. One of them CNN,
where you used to work, and they're running the video,

(08:20):
like everybody is, of the the unruly passenger who walks
up behind the flight attendant and punches him in the
back of the head. Have you seen that video? I haven't.
I thought that was a covid thing. Is it back
plain violence? Play? Yeah, no, this one. So that's the
reason I brought it up. It's it's pretty, it's pretty unge.
They'll run up and hit a guy in the back
of the head when I was facing away from you.
And come on, if you're gonna fight a flight attendant,

(08:42):
you gotta Square up. But anyway, do you know what
it was over? It was over. They didn't have any coffee.
So I gotta say I don't you know, I don't
approve of it, but I got out of southwest playing
the other day, flying out a burbank and so the
you know, I'm running late, I'm always running and I
the starbucks line was long and I thought, you know,
I'm not gonna I'll get coffee on the plane. I

(09:04):
got on the plane, they shut the doors, they announced
there's no coffee on this plane. Yeah, I kind of
want to put something in the back of my head.
Got To admit it. So many regrets. That was rough.
Sarah Westwood, thanks for joining us today. You always have
the information. Appreciate it. Thank you, BET