Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We always love talking to our friend from Iowa, Senator
Chuck Grassley, who joins us now. Good morning, Senator, glad
to be with you.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Scott House. Things out there. I left de morning this
morning at six o seven to get out here to
DFS six seven.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I know everything here is fine. It's a nice crisp
October morning can be pretty windy for a couple of days,
but nice days midweek which no Kings rally did you
go to on Saturday? Were you part of one of those?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
No? I wasn't and I didn't follow her much on TV,
and I didn't see a lot of it on TV.
I read about it in the morning paper this morning,
and they had big turnouts. But it seems to me
that they were all crying about something that cannot exist
under our constitution, and that's to have a king. If
(00:53):
people believe that you can have a king, then they
don't believe in our constitution, and they don't understand the
constitution that we have a system of checks and balances, judiciary, legislative, executive,
and the reason we have all that it's best declared
in the Declaration of Independence. We're an now by our creator,
(01:14):
with certain Nonadian rights among them life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. So we get our rights from God,
not from the government. And they set up a system
of government following on the Declaration of Independence to make
sure that that couldn't happen and no one person could
(01:36):
run this country because they were getting sick and tired
of King George the Third denying the colonists their rights.
And that's why these resistance to what Trump doing, trying
to make him out as a king, is wrong, because
(01:56):
if they trust our constitution, they don't have to worry
about that. And they see it every day when judges
are saying that Trump can't do this or that, just
like they said Biden couldn't forgive a student debt as
an example, and he hits the dismount.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Senator. That was an epic rant. I appreciate that, well done,
and I thank you and I agree. Here's my question
for you, who really has the power of a king
in this country? Who's got the power? Is it the
president with executive order? Is that the judges who continuously
shut down everything the president tries to do, or is
(02:39):
it Senator Chuck Schumer who is holding the country hostage
during a shutdown.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, he sure has slowed things up. Now, when I
say Schumer has slowed things up, you're going to the
next thing I say. You're going to say that I
think Schumer's doing something right, and I'm not saying that
at all. But remember this system of government that I
(03:07):
described under a constitution of checks and balances, it was
to make sure that things were slowed up and not
done in a hasty way. Not in the way Schumer's
doing it, but in the regular way of having the
Senate be a body that has an extraordinary majority to
get things done. It's meant to slow it up and
(03:30):
do things in a way that's thought out where maybe
the House Representatives, who can operate under a majority vote
can't do it. The super majority in the United States
Senate keeps that from happening. Now that doesn't mean I
like what Schumer's doing, but you understand the Senate is
(03:50):
a little bit different than the House of Representatives.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, why don't you make it. I mean, if the
idea is we need to have a filibuster proof majority,
have a vote and make them filibuster, why don't you
make Corey Booker put his diaper back on and go
up there and talk for twenty straight days.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Well, because we wouldn't get anything done. If every senator
talk twenty five hours.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
We're not getting anything done. That's what I'm saying. If
the idea is we have to we're gonna have a filibuster,
if we don't have the votes, make them actually philibuster,
have him do something, well.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I wouldn't object to that, but I wouldn't want to
be one of those participating in the filibuster. I'll tell
you that.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Well, no, I imagine not. We're talking here with Iowa
S Editor Chuck Grassley. You're there on Capitol Hill. Are
we any closer to ending the shutdown than say, Friday
or a week ago.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I got landed in DC at nine thirty. I haven't
had any discussions with my colleagues because I'll bet most
of them are here he and maybe I'll be able
to answer your question better tomorrow than today. But right
now I don't see it into the shutdown.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Do Republicans bear any blame for this? The Democrats and
the media continue to refer to this as the Republican
majority shutdown. Is there anything that you guys are willing
to do differently to end the shutdown.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
No, we are not going to negotiate with a gun
at our head. We want to open up the government
and then we'll sit down and talk about anything that
Schumer wants to talk about.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
The President is referring to the Democrats as kami kazi
pilots right now for continuing the shutdown. It just becomes,
I think, a matter of what the polls show the
American people think about this and who they blame it on.
And according to several mainstream media outlets, they blame it
on Republicans. So what do you have to say about
(05:56):
that Senator?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Well, they say that because they don't understand how the
United States Senate operates, that you have to have sixty
votes to get things done. All fifty three Republicans have
voted ten times to open up the government. Sometimes we've
had these three Democrats, and when we can get four
more Democrats, the government will open up and then we'll
(06:22):
sit down and talk to anything that the Democrats want
to talk about. But the people that are blaming Republicans,
that's because we've got a Republican House, a Republican Senate,
and a Republican president. But they don't realize that it
takes sixty VOTs to get something done. And when Schumer
controls forty three of those votes or forty seven of
(06:47):
those votes, and he makes sure that we don't get
sixty votes to move the government along, then wouldn't it
be clear to the people if they knew that that
Schumer's will want to shut the government down.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I'm going to give you, guys, my game plan on
how to end this, and my game plans are sound.
The last time I gave someone a game plan, it
was Nebraska's offensive coordinator Dana Holgerson before Friday night's game,
and if you missed it, trust me and I tell
you it turned out great. So here's my game plan
for ending the shutdown. Republicans changed the rules to where
(07:23):
it's a straight majority vote. You vote to end the shutdown,
so you can say, see, we were serious about ending
the shutdown. And now let's talk about what the Democrats
and tumor what they want to talk about. We've changed
the rules, We've voted to end the shutdown. The government's
back open, and then we changed the rules again to
go back to filibuster supermajority vote so that we don't
(07:45):
hand things off to the Democrats to do straight up
or down vote.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
What do you think that's a slippery that's a slippery slope.
That would do exactly what Schumer would want to do
if he were in the majority, to do with the
sixty vote requirement that you refer to as a filibuster.
Correctly so, and they want a majority vote in the
(08:10):
United States Senate, so when they control the United States Senate,
they can add senators from Puerto Rico and DC get
four more Democrats than the Senate. They want to put
four more justices on the spring guard, so in pactice
(08:31):
spring Guard, and you can get on and on. They
want abortion on demand as another example. That's why they
want to do away with a sixty volte requirement. If
you did, you'd be changing the very purpose of the
Senate for the last two hundred and fifty years to
(08:51):
slow things down so we don't get radical change by
majority vote all the time. And also for the minority
party to have a voice in the legislative process.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
What about your honorable colleagues on the left causes you
to think that they won't do all of that anyway,
even if you guys stand on principle.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Well, they've said they were going to do it. They
aren't the majority, and so they aren't getting the job done.
Or when they weren't the majority, they had at least
two Democrats that were sensible and didn't want to upset
the Constitution. And that's why it didn't get done. And
maybe we'll be fortunate well into the future under Democrat
(09:41):
majorities in the United States Senate that there will be
a few Democrats that realize the purpose of the United
States Senate is to make sure that the minority party
has a voice in it. Because the minority party in
the House of Representatives has absolutely no voice, they can
be ignored.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Finally, Senator, last issue for you this morning. There, as
you know, is a long standing Senate tradition that allows
home state senators to block judicial nominees in those states.
President Trump the other day on Truth Social says, I
have eight great US attorneys, highly respected, all who will
not be confirmed for their positions in various highly consequential
(10:22):
states only because they're Republicans. And the Democrats have convinced
Chuck Grassley to honor the stupid and outdated blue slip tradition,
which precludes very talented and dedicated people from attaining high office.
Your response to the president.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
If if I did away with the blue slip, the
vote against me in the United States Senate would be
ninety nine to one because the blu slip is supported
by both Republicans and Democrats, and it's a tradition of
the United States Senate that applies to things that go
on in a state with judges, marshalls, and US attorneys,
(11:04):
and a president can't be on top of everything that's
going on in the fifty states, and to have the
influence and input of senators Republican or a Democrats from
those states is very important to make sure that we
get the right people in those positions, and the president
forgets that. Republicans, when Biden was president, wanted to nominate
(11:29):
eat about thirty liberal US district judges in those states,
and Republicans held it up through the blue slip process.
So when Trunk was elected November fifth, a year ago,
he was he had thirty vacancies and he was able
to fill with more strict constructionists to Supreme Court rather
(11:53):
than the very liberal people that Biden wanted to put out.
Have you told him why he doesn't understand that.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Have you talked President to try and get him to
understand that, or do you think he would if you
were to explain that to him like that.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I haven't had a chance to talk to him. Anytime
he wants to call me up and have a discussion,
I'll do it, But I consider the President so busy
and I don't want to interrupt him with these little
things that wouldn't change even if even if Chuck Gresley agreed.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
With the President, Well, he has certainly praised you before,
and he doesn't seem real happy right now with this process.
He didn't go after you personally in terms of any
kind of invective or name calling or anything like that.
But the assessment of the media is is that the
President is ripping you. Do you feel like there's a
(12:47):
riff between you and President Trump?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Now? No, not as far as I'm concerned. I back
the President whenever I can, and when I disagree with him,
seldom I say so. And that's just the way things
ought to operate in here.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Always appreciate your time fast this morning, Senator, Thank you
very much for taking that time as always.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, Kay Gobane
We always love talking to our friend from Iowa, Senator
Chuck Grassley, who joins us now. Good morning, Senator, glad
to be with you.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Scott House. Things out there. I left de morning this
morning at six o seven to get out here to
DFS six seven.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I know everything here is fine. It's a nice crisp
October morning can be pretty windy for a couple of days,
but nice days midweek which no Kings rally did you
go to on Saturday? Were you part of one of those?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
No? I wasn't and I didn't follow her much on TV,
and I didn't see a lot of it on TV.
I read about it in the morning paper this morning,
and they had big turnouts. But it seems to me
that they were all crying about something that cannot exist
under our constitution, and that's to have a king. If
(00:53):
people believe that you can have a king, then they
don't believe in our constitution, and they don't understand the
constitution that we have a system of checks and balances, judiciary, legislative, executive,
and the reason we have all that it's best declared
in the Declaration of Independence. We're an now by our creator,
(01:14):
with certain Nonadian rights among them life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. So we get our rights from God,
not from the government. And they set up a system
of government following on the Declaration of Independence to make
sure that that couldn't happen and no one person could
(01:36):
run this country because they were getting sick and tired
of King George the Third denying the colonists their rights.
And that's why these resistance to what Trump doing, trying
to make him out as a king, is wrong, because
(01:56):
if they trust our constitution, they don't have to worry
about that. And they see it every day when judges
are saying that Trump can't do this or that, just
like they said Biden couldn't forgive a student debt as
an example, and he hits the dismount.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Senator. That was an epic rant. I appreciate that, well done,
and I thank you and I agree. Here's my question
for you, who really has the power of a king
in this country? Who's got the power? Is it the
president with executive order? Is that the judges who continuously
shut down everything the president tries to do, or is
(02:39):
it Senator Chuck Schumer who is holding the country hostage
during a shutdown.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, he sure has slowed things up. Now, when I
say Schumer has slowed things up, you're going to the
next thing I say. You're going to say that I
think Schumer's doing something right, and I'm not saying that
at all. But remember this system of government that I
(03:07):
described under a constitution of checks and balances, it was
to make sure that things were slowed up and not
done in a hasty way. Not in the way Schumer's
doing it, but in the regular way of having the
Senate be a body that has an extraordinary majority to
get things done. It's meant to slow it up and
(03:30):
do things in a way that's thought out where maybe
the House Representatives, who can operate under a majority vote
can't do it. The super majority in the United States
Senate keeps that from happening. Now that doesn't mean I
like what Schumer's doing, but you understand the Senate is
(03:50):
a little bit different than the House of Representatives.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, why don't you make it. I mean, if the
idea is we need to have a filibuster proof majority,
have a vote and make them filibuster, why don't you
make Corey Booker put his diaper back on and go
up there and talk for twenty straight days.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Well, because we wouldn't get anything done. If every senator
talk twenty five hours.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
We're not getting anything done. That's what I'm saying. If
the idea is we have to we're gonna have a filibuster,
if we don't have the votes, make them actually philibuster,
have him do something, well.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I wouldn't object to that, but I wouldn't want to
be one of those participating in the filibuster. I'll tell
you that.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Well, no, I imagine not. We're talking here with Iowa
S Editor Chuck Grassley. You're there on Capitol Hill. Are
we any closer to ending the shutdown than say, Friday
or a week ago.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I got landed in DC at nine thirty. I haven't
had any discussions with my colleagues because I'll bet most
of them are here he and maybe I'll be able
to answer your question better tomorrow than today. But right
now I don't see it into the shutdown.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Do Republicans bear any blame for this? The Democrats and
the media continue to refer to this as the Republican
majority shutdown. Is there anything that you guys are willing
to do differently to end the shutdown.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
No, we are not going to negotiate with a gun
at our head. We want to open up the government
and then we'll sit down and talk about anything that
Schumer wants to talk about.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
The President is referring to the Democrats as kami kazi
pilots right now for continuing the shutdown. It just becomes,
I think, a matter of what the polls show the
American people think about this and who they blame it on.
And according to several mainstream media outlets, they blame it
on Republicans. So what do you have to say about
(05:56):
that Senator?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Well, they say that because they don't understand how the
United States Senate operates, that you have to have sixty
votes to get things done. All fifty three Republicans have
voted ten times to open up the government. Sometimes we've
had these three Democrats, and when we can get four
more Democrats, the government will open up and then we'll
(06:22):
sit down and talk to anything that the Democrats want
to talk about. But the people that are blaming Republicans,
that's because we've got a Republican House, a Republican Senate,
and a Republican president. But they don't realize that it
takes sixty VOTs to get something done. And when Schumer
controls forty three of those votes or forty seven of
(06:47):
those votes, and he makes sure that we don't get
sixty votes to move the government along, then wouldn't it
be clear to the people if they knew that that
Schumer's will want to shut the government down.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I'm going to give you, guys, my game plan on
how to end this, and my game plans are sound.
The last time I gave someone a game plan, it
was Nebraska's offensive coordinator Dana Holgerson before Friday night's game,
and if you missed it, trust me and I tell
you it turned out great. So here's my game plan
for ending the shutdown. Republicans changed the rules to where
(07:23):
it's a straight majority vote. You vote to end the shutdown,
so you can say, see, we were serious about ending
the shutdown. And now let's talk about what the Democrats
and tumor what they want to talk about. We've changed
the rules, We've voted to end the shutdown. The government's
back open, and then we changed the rules again to
go back to filibuster supermajority vote so that we don't
(07:45):
hand things off to the Democrats to do straight up
or down vote.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
What do you think that's a slippery that's a slippery slope.
That would do exactly what Schumer would want to do
if he were in the majority, to do with the
sixty vote requirement that you refer to as a filibuster.
Correctly so, and they want a majority vote in the
(08:10):
United States Senate, so when they control the United States Senate,
they can add senators from Puerto Rico and DC get
four more Democrats than the Senate. They want to put
four more justices on the spring guard, so in pactice
(08:31):
spring Guard, and you can get on and on. They
want abortion on demand as another example. That's why they
want to do away with a sixty volte requirement. If
you did, you'd be changing the very purpose of the
Senate for the last two hundred and fifty years to
(08:51):
slow things down so we don't get radical change by
majority vote all the time. And also for the minority
party to have a voice in the legislative process.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
What about your honorable colleagues on the left causes you
to think that they won't do all of that anyway,
even if you guys stand on principle.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Well, they've said they were going to do it. They
aren't the majority, and so they aren't getting the job done.
Or when they weren't the majority, they had at least
two Democrats that were sensible and didn't want to upset
the Constitution. And that's why it didn't get done. And
maybe we'll be fortunate well into the future under Democrat
(09:41):
majorities in the United States Senate that there will be
a few Democrats that realize the purpose of the United
States Senate is to make sure that the minority party
has a voice in it. Because the minority party in
the House of Representatives has absolutely no voice, they can
be ignored.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Finally, Senator, last issue for you this morning. There, as
you know, is a long standing Senate tradition that allows
home state senators to block judicial nominees in those states.
President Trump the other day on Truth Social says, I
have eight great US attorneys, highly respected, all who will
not be confirmed for their positions in various highly consequential
(10:22):
states only because they're Republicans. And the Democrats have convinced
Chuck Grassley to honor the stupid and outdated blue slip tradition,
which precludes very talented and dedicated people from attaining high office.
Your response to the president.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
If if I did away with the blue slip, the
vote against me in the United States Senate would be
ninety nine to one because the blu slip is supported
by both Republicans and Democrats, and it's a tradition of
the United States Senate that applies to things that go
on in a state with judges, marshalls, and US attorneys,
(11:04):
and a president can't be on top of everything that's
going on in the fifty states, and to have the
influence and input of senators Republican or a Democrats from
those states is very important to make sure that we
get the right people in those positions, and the president
forgets that. Republicans, when Biden was president, wanted to nominate
(11:29):
eat about thirty liberal US district judges in those states,
and Republicans held it up through the blue slip process.
So when Trunk was elected November fifth, a year ago,
he was he had thirty vacancies and he was able
to fill with more strict constructionists to Supreme Court rather
(11:53):
than the very liberal people that Biden wanted to put out.
Have you told him why he doesn't understand that.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Have you talked President to try and get him to
understand that, or do you think he would if you
were to explain that to him like that.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I haven't had a chance to talk to him. Anytime
he wants to call me up and have a discussion,
I'll do it, But I consider the President so busy
and I don't want to interrupt him with these little
things that wouldn't change even if even if Chuck Gresley agreed.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
With the President, Well, he has certainly praised you before,
and he doesn't seem real happy right now with this process.
He didn't go after you personally in terms of any
kind of invective or name calling or anything like that.
But the assessment of the media is is that the
President is ripping you. Do you feel like there's a
(12:47):
riff between you and President Trump?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Now? No, not as far as I'm concerned. I back
the President whenever I can, and when I disagree with him,
seldom I say so. And that's just the way things
ought to operate in here.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Always appreciate your time fast this morning, Senator, Thank you
very much for taking that time as always.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, Kay Gobane
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