January 4, 2023 • 36 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, there's two ways to look at it. Either a
you say this is a total mess, or you can say, well,
this is good. It's amazing what happens when some conservatives
stand up for their principles, and we might even get
a different speaker the House and Kevin McCarthy. The headlines
all over the country are exactly what you would expect
(00:23):
this after Kevin McCarthy lost his third ballot the House
and chaos is how CNN has it with no speaker elected,
all business on hold. Democrats are loving this moment, cherishing
this moment and saying, look at how the Republicans are
in quote disarray. Is this disarray worth something for a
twenty four hour old? Yes, I believe that it is.
(00:45):
Now the House has decided to adjourn the headlines read
there's quote no end in sight? Is that actually true? Well,
joining me now to talk about the history of this
and actually what's happened as Carry Pickett, she's a senior
congressional reporter for the Washington Times and a good friend
(01:05):
of mine. Carrie, I appreciate you coming on. I know
you're very busy right now as a senior congressional reporter
for the Washington times. This hasn't happened in literally a
hundred years. Put a little bit of historical perspective into
this now, and then we'll get into the modern kind
of day politics of it. That's right. The House speaker's election,
as you mentioned, it has not required multiple ballots in
(01:28):
one hundred years. Now. House historians they've recorded fourteen instances,
many of them in the years after the Civil War,
in which the speaker election required numerous ballot rounds, and
the last time at the start of the sixty eighth
Congress in nineteen twenty three. That was when Frederick Huntington
(01:50):
Galet he's a Massachusetts Republican. He was elected on the
ninth ballot. Okay, Now, the five hold outs against McCarthy,
you know, they're demanding really key changes to the House
rules that would take power away from the speaker and
giving more governing authority to the committees and rank and
(02:12):
file lawmakers. You know, for example, one would require the
reinstatement of a rule that would allow lawmakers a vote
to replace the House speaker at mid Congress. And look,
you understand the so McCarthy has been pretty reluctant to
negotiate with these uh five holdouts out of concern that
(02:33):
it will embolden this group to make even more demands,
even even after if he was elected speaker. Now, as
we've seen, Ben, it isn't just five holdouts after a
three rounds. So far, we've seen like, you know, nineteen
members come out against McCarthy, voting for mister Biggs of
(02:58):
of Arizona as well as mister Jordan of Ohio. So
you know, he has a lot of negotiations to do
right now. You know, you look at these these twenty
that have basically said, hey, we'll go with Jim Jordan,
for example, we're done, you know, with Kevin McCarthy, and
(03:19):
a lot of people are saying now it looks like
Kevin McCarthy may be done. He says, no, I'm not.
The adjournment does it help or hurt? Because the early
morning argument when they got there Tuesday morning was hey,
if it takes one hundred votes, Kevin McCarthy said, we're
gonna do it in a hundred votes. If it takes
one hundred and fifty, we're gonna stay. This wasn't that
(03:41):
many votes that this was, you know, after three times
they said, okay, we're gonna adjourn now so people understand
why there was an adjournment. There was a lot of
members of Congress that have their family members there. Usually
you elact the Speaker of the House, then you go
and take your pictures with your family for your swearing
in the pictures and all of that. Who lie your
(04:01):
family's there. And there were a lot of members that, all, right,
we're not getting anywhere on Tuesday. We know that, let's
adjourn till Wednesday at noon. Let's go take these pictures
and kind of do this with our family and have
this moment in our personal careers or we're becoming members
of Congress. But there's a lot of people that say, Okay,
this could be bad news for Ken mccarthury because it
(04:23):
gives more time for people behind the scenes to have
conversations that maybe they couldn't have had while they were
still all sitting there on the floor of the House.
I know it's it's a real steam because for the
past century, every speaker has been able to swear in members,
(04:45):
or every new speaker has been able to swear in
members right away, and they've been able to gather with
their small children in their spouses on the floor and
these members were weren't able to do that this time around,
which the shame. But look, one of the things that
(05:07):
I was telling some reporters, I'm like, this is kind
of interesting. Uh. You get to tell sort of new
members and some new reporters it usually isn't like this. Yeah.
When when I January sixth happened, it was sort of
similar in the sense of it usually isn't like this,
and you know, this is this is where we are today. Yeah.
(05:28):
My guest with me is uh is carry biggest singer
congressional reporter for the Washington Times. Carry. Let's talk about
the politics of this now, Tip Rory. Rory, who who
was there. He said, Look, the reason why I'm saying
no to Ken McCarthy is I want there to be
up or down votes on on basic things amendments. We
haven't been doing this. Great example was this massive spending
(05:51):
bill we just had that they rammed down our throats.
They wouldn't let us separate things out and debated things
on it their merit. A great example of that when
it comes to the merit was the Ukraine funding. He said, Look,
I support Ukraine against Russia, but I think we should
have a grand debate on the funding for Ukraine. It
shouldn't be thrown into this omnibus spending bill the way
(06:13):
that it was just done. And he said, this is
the problem with that he has. He wants these things
to be debated on their own merit. There's a lot
of people in America that hear that and go, okay,
that makes sense. Chip Rory's a guy that said, all right,
I'm going to nominate Jim Jordan on the second ballot,
which is what he did, saying I should say excuse
me on the third ballot, which is what he did.
(06:34):
And he's saying, I'm I think the American people are
ready for transparency back in government. I'm not here making
ridiculous demands for me to sit on certain committees or
things like that. I'm saying, we need to go back
to how do we pay for this and where's our
money going? I want transparency and government. Is that where
Jim Jordan can big up some steam in the early
(06:55):
morning hours an overnight Tuesday and the Wednesday. Maybe because
that a similar reason that I heard from uh Ralph
Norman of South Carolina. He does not like the spending
problems that we have seen very recently and that is
what's keeping him a no on McCarthy as well. Another
(07:16):
issue too, by the way, Ben is uh, you have
a number of of these holdouts, number of these conservatives.
They don't like the whole idea that you have Republican
leadership who uh kind of gets involved with these primaries
and they put their money down and they onto a
(07:37):
winners and losers. They sort of pick who they would
like to push forward as opposed to just staying out
of the primaries altogether. And we saw that in the
Upper Chamber with miss McConnell and a number of of
these conservatives who ended up kind of squeaking through or
(07:57):
even overwhelmingly making it through. They saw how the money
was us spent this time around as far as Goop
leadership in the House, and they're sort of upset about
that as well. You know, when you look at McCarthy,
he did make a statement to CNN where he said
there is no scenario where I drop out. He really
seemed to I think um mismanaged this vote. Early on
(08:21):
in the day, he had meetings with some of those
that said they were gonna be nos. He went to
the floor knowing he didn't have the votes to become
the speaker, and he basically said, well, no one else
does either, so I'm going to get this by default.
That backfired. Was this a big miscalculation for him? Well,
he was hoping from what I understand that he was
(08:45):
apparently making a deal with some Democrats that that they
would simply just leave the floor and lower the threshold
right where he wouldn't where he wouldn't need two hundred
and eighteen votes. Maybe explained explain that aspect of this vote,
because this is something that that Kevin McCarthy was also
thinking about. From what I was told that they were saying, look,
(09:07):
if this did go to one hundred votes, eventually some
Democrats would lead because of like, look, we know we're
not gonna get it. That would lower the threshold on
the vote count, so therefore you could get it. Explain
at the math on that and that strategy, because it
very well could come into play on Wednesday. So apparently,
h you know, like a McCarthy was making a deal
(09:30):
with Democrats to leave the floor at some point and
lower the threshold from two eighteen to a number that
he could actually attain. However, you know, you had a
number of these conservative Republican holdouts, these anti Kevin McCarthy
types who caught wind of this, and they ended up asking, like,
(09:53):
you know, squad members like AOC say, hey, what's this
about you guys leaving the floor, and and these AOC
types are like, uh, we had no plans to do that. So,
you know that kind of blew up in his face. Well,
let's talk about if he doesn't get these votes. I mean,
they say it's an all out war now, but if
you don't have the votes, you don't have the votes.
(10:15):
Is there real talk now about coalitioning behind a Jim
Jordan or would he still be short? And then do
you get yourself in a situation where there's a moderate
that all of a sudden comes out of this um?
You know, I asked you had a Bob Good Republican
from Virginia, and he is once again a never Kevin
McCarthy conservative, and he's the one who's always been talking about, oh,
(10:39):
we have a candidate, we have a consensus candidate, and
we're keeping this candidate, you know, mysterious until until the
second round. And I asked him like, Okay, where is
this mysterious candidate that you're supposed to unveil, and he
dodged that question completely. So now we know that they
never had a consensus candidate to begin with, or that
person just dropped out. So as far as you can see,
(11:03):
there is no consensus candidate as of now. Kerry, I
want to ask you about the politics of this when
it deals with Donald Trump. What's very interesting about the
vote that we witnessed on Tuesday was the people that
were saying no to Kevin McCarthy were very much the
Maga Republicans, and yet Donald Trump has not said anything
on his true social about this so far. He didn't
(11:26):
seem to do anything really to help during the day
that we know of Kevin McCarthy, he's kind of stepped back. Why.
Very excellent question there, Ben. In fact, if you recall,
Donald Trump did throw his support behind Kevin McCarthy early
on for speaker okay, and he did sort of like
(11:50):
do a deal with him in regards to you know, hey,
you support me, I'll support you. However, very recently, as
you very much mentioned, he has not said anything in
regards to Kevin McCarthy's speakership situation. And I think it's
because Trump has, you know, wants to be known as
(12:11):
supporting a winner. Okay, and I spoke with Congressman Kent
Buck about this. Ken Buck is a Colorado Republican and
he thinks that this, you know, it may have helped
McCarthy maybe in the beginning, but it may have backfired ultimately.
(12:32):
And that's where he sort of stuck at this point. Yeah,
stuck is a great way of putting it. Let's talk
about Bobert and Matt Gags. They made it very clear
early on they were not going to go for Kevin McCarthy.
They kept asking for things that some people said was
just unrealistic. Others said, look they didn't. You know, they've
(12:53):
they've been trying to screw those two over for the
Republican establishment for a long time. Didn't support them the
way they shouldn't their reelection bids. Boboard almost lost her seat,
uh in Congress. Matt Gates has kind of been hung
out to dry, some say, others say, what's his own
doing when you look at those two individuals and they say,
this is just spite what's happening right now, and they're
(13:14):
putting the you know, they're they're they're they're empowering the
Democrats now with twenty people going for Jim Jordan's, can
you really say that anymore about them? Are they maybe yeah,
maybe they're maybe they're ultramagat right, But but are they
more principal than maybe some of these other people are,
and and honestly more than they thought they were going
to be? Um Matt Gates, his vendetta against uh uh
(13:41):
McCarthy is more personal than anything else. Explain it. Explain
that because a lot of people don't know the history there. Okay, Uh,
I think that that you have uh Matt Gates who
just never really felt that he was supported by uh
by McCarthy when when when he felt that he was
(14:04):
under siege by a lot of the Democrats and as
well and when he was an under under investigations exactly
as well as uh Liz Cheney, when Liz Cheney was
also attacking him as well. So so when you had
the Democrats end Liz Cheney who was attacking him, uh,
(14:25):
he didn't feel that, uh, that you had McCarthy who
had his back, and he sort of like felt like
McCarthy was start of stabbing him in the back. And
then when like uh and then when elections start came around, uh,
He pointed out, as I previously mentioned, that McCarthy was
sort of giving uh well, start picking and choosing losers
(14:49):
in the primaries, and that's where he ended up saying,
you know what, I've had enough McCarthy. And that's where
some of the history, off the top of my head
kind of comes from. I want to ask you about this.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich did an interview with his
good buddy over at Fox Business Channel, Larry Couglo a
(15:13):
moment ago. This is what he had to say about
this battle that were it's historic, one hundred year battle.
We haven't seen this in a hundred years. Here's how
he had put it, and I want to get your reaction.
I was impressed that even when the rebels decided to
consolidate around Jim Jordan, who of course had just nominated
(15:35):
Kevin McCarthy, the number of votes didn't change. They didn't
get any new votes. So I'm looking to the third, fourth,
and fifth ballots to see what's gonna happen. My guess
is that McCarthy, in fact, will in the end be speaker.
I wrote a newsletter recently pointing out that it was
Kevin or Chaos. Because I mean, if for any reason
(15:56):
the radicals were to somehow be able to drive him out,
they would have established a precedent that anybody else can
do the same thing. Lincoln warned about this in his
first inaugural and said, the problem with secession is once
you established that right, everybody can secede from everybody. Well,
the five who started this fight have now given every
(16:19):
other member of the House Republican Party the moral right
to go out and find four friends and have the
same chaos. And I think that's why the conference has
been overwhelmingly solid, and they're still overwhelmingly solid even with
Jim Jordan's name, and Jordan is certainly a very serious person.
(16:40):
The numbers didn't change at all. They got nineteen, Kevin
got two hundred and two. That means he's getting better
than ten votes for every vote the rebels can put together.
And I think they have no endgame. These people can't
play tic tac toe. And I think that's part of
the problem is they've gotten themselves that like the dog
that caught the bus. They've gotten themselves in this position.
(17:02):
They can't get out of it. And if Kevin is
prepared to calmly and cheerfully wait them out. At some
point their districts are going to start calling him and saying,
you know, what are you doing? Why are you ruining
the Republican Party. I got to ask this question. And
you've been there a long time in Washington, Carry You've
been covering this. You know, he said, at some point
Americans will start calling saying, what are you doing? You're
(17:25):
ruining the Republican Party. I disagree with that opinion, and
I have a lot of respect from New English. I
think the majority of Republican voters are would overwhelmingly supported
Jim Jordan over a Kevin McCarthy. I think Kevin McCarthy
is very much more the establishment GOP, the rhinos the
(17:47):
quote swamp. I think there's a run that would call
and say, get behind a Jim Jordan. But does he
really have a chance in your opinion, or do you say,
you know what, Nut's probably right at the end of
this thing, Kevin McCarthy's still be a speaker. Um. I
think that you had knew who has you know really
forged this us this strong sort of relationship with McCarthy
(18:12):
right now, And keep in mind you know Knew himself.
I mean you had like a coup, so to speak,
a political coup that, like you know, pretty much uh,
he had to deal with back in his day when
he was speaker. So you know, there's some sort of
recollections going on in his mind when he had to
sort of deal with these factions when he was a
(18:35):
speaker back in his day. So I think that's kind
of going on right now as far as he's a concerned.
That being said, Uh, if you have enough people who
end up falling away from uh McCarthy, and look some
already are, then Jordan could very well uh end up
(18:55):
getting enough votes. But until then, I think I do
think the longer it goes on, it could very well happen.
It's gonna be very interesting. I appreciate your time. Kerry Pickett,
Senior Congression reporter at the Watching Times. Check her out.
She's on Twitter and all the other social media platforms
as well. Thank you for spending some time with us
and explaining this to us as you're alive there in
(19:16):
Dcake here. Thank you. Is obviously a historic day. It
has not happened in a hundred years. There is no
speaker the House right now because Kevin McCarthy did not
get the votes needed to become the speaker. Joining me
now to talk about the politics of this. The man
that served in Congress with a lot of people involved
(19:37):
in this scenario is former Congressman Doug Collins. Doug, I
appreciate you coming on. Let's talk about how did we
get to this point. I am still honestly shocked that
Kevin McCarthy took this vote to the floor knowing he
didn't have the votes to win somehow, assuming that he'd
(19:58):
eventually just get there then clearly getting it wrong. Are
you as shocked as I am by the political miscalculation here? Yes?
And no, Ben, Ben, it's good to be on with you.
I think you have to take it too far. Number one.
Kevin has been wanting this job for so long, and
he has been denied it once by a group that
(20:20):
back then, frankly didn't they were. He let it go
before it came to a vote or anywhere else, and
he stepped aside. That's how we end up with Paul Ryan.
I think at this point he has felt like over
the past few years, he's done everything he possibly can do.
If he'd raised more money than any speaker we've you know,
any leader we've ever had. He elected most of these people.
It's crazy, as some of these people who are voting
(20:41):
against him now he actually helped to get elected elected.
And I think he just did the point. I'm just
simply saying, I've got no other place to go. It's
either I go to the floor and I die on
the floor, or you know, either way, that's the more
you know, acceptable thing for him too. I am shocked
that he didn't have more conversation. I thought he would
(21:02):
have this if he was gonna have it locked up
here to try to have it locked up before. But
now you've gotten into a situation, Ben where you got
people who it's really, frankly and not about policy anymore.
It's about the fact that they simply just don't want
Kevin McCarthy and they're willing to stick to the Gunden.
As long as five of them hold out, Kevin can
never become secret. Yeah, And it seems that the bullying
(21:23):
on of Kevin McCarthy kind of like you're gonna step
in line and I've got enough people around me that
no one else is going to get this thing really backfired.
I talked to one of the five confidentially and they said,
the arrogance is what got him in trouble is he
treated us like we were beneath him, and that because
(21:44):
he had virtually virtually all the votes needed, that we
would just shut up and go away, and they dug
in even harder. Yeah, oh yeah, and it's brilliancy. This
is where Republicans and Democrats are really different. Pelosi and
the Democratic where hip have been doing this for years, um,
you know, keeping their folks in line, threatening them with uh,
(22:05):
you know, lack of resources, or threatened them with the
primary or whatever, you know, and on our side, it's
just that's just never been a case. And then when
it has happened, you know, Republicans, you know, get upset.
And I think what happened here is is Kevin you
there's an old thing in life. You cannot negotiate with
somebody who's willing to shoot the hostage. And by meaning
(22:27):
that there's nothing you can do. You either give them
what they want or they'll never agree to you. And
I think that I think he just misread this with
the five and probably a little bit more, probably eight
and ten that just said, look, Ken, you're unless you
give us exactly what we want, we underlying where don't
trust you. And I think that's going to become the
theme out of this is at the end of the day,
(22:48):
they said, chip Freud said exactly that I don't trust you. Yeah,
I don't trust you. And look, chip Frey, I want
to be clear here because when he nominated Jim Jordan
on that third ballot and gave his speech, he made
it clear, we just want there to be transparency in government, which,
by the way, as the majority of Republicans are going
(23:08):
to listen to this, are gonna agree with us. He said, Look,
I wanted there to be amendments, for example, that are
voted on based on their merit, not crammed into one
massive bill. He referred to the Ukraine Ukraine funding that
was in the Omnibust spinning bill. He said that should
have been debated on its own merit, Greek completely. And
I think this is here's the problem. Some of what
(23:30):
they want, okay, and this is some of the things
that you're like you just said, are things that we
should have been doing or have been in the rules before. Again,
thus not trusting Kevin. We had seventy two hour prior
filing on bills. We had some of this other stuff
that is social move toward a more open amendment process, which,
by the way, the big dark secret is members want
(23:52):
that until it actually happens, and then it's it's really
an interesting play after that because it actually requires a
lot more time and effort than most of the members frankly,
and I'm just being blood here, are willing to give.
And but these are the problems that are out there
that could Yeah, I mean couldn't they thought there's no reason.
I mean again, I'm gonna say it being you and
I thought about it. I ain't so sick of the
Republicans and the Democrat acting as a September thirtieth as
(24:15):
a shock. That's when the budget is us. That's when
you got to have a spending bill. But why don't
you start in February getting it done? And instead they
run it late because it controls as long as the
later it is the leadership gets to decide. That's where
chipping them, I think, are right. Then it's left in
it into this, you know, we go into this all
of a sudden, the big bill about the motion to
vay case. I'll give you a little secret here. It's
(24:38):
might be breaking news on New shop we were back
when they were trying to use that against John Bayner.
We had heard and I cannot prove this, but we've
heard it. I heard it from enough folks that the
Democrats were had basically back channel to say, look, we're
not going to allow this to happen, frankly because they
didn't want it to happen to them. So again, this
motion to vacates an idea that the sound really good,
(25:01):
but at the end of the day, you still got
to bring it to the floor and you still got
to people to vote for it. And granted they're in
a much better position to do it now with four
vote than say, back when we had thirty five vote margin.
But again, these are things that then most people don't understand,
and what they do understand is is that we want
to see Republicans do something. We want to see them
(25:21):
pass bills, we want to see them actually have conservative legislation.
And right now we're cleaning the day two of a
one hundred and eighteenth Congress with Nancy Pelosi's splort staff
and everybody else still in control of Congress. Yeah, you'll
listen to those that kind of started this, and there's
some and they have reason to be angry. You know.
Represent Bobert barely won her reelection. She feels she was
(25:43):
hung out to drive by the establishment. Matt Gates feels
like he was disrespected and wasn't protected when people like
Liz Chenney came after him and the investigations, and that
Kevin McCarthy didn't do enough and they're sticking it to McCarthy.
That's very clear. But Represented Bobert said this just moments
ago on Fox News. I want you to hear what
she had to say about Jim Jordan's saying he's the guy,
(26:06):
and then I'll get your reaction. How do you see
this ending? Can you see yourself voting for a consensus candidate?
Can you vote for Steve Scalize for example. I'm voting
for anyone who actually brings unity to the Republican Party
and helps get our country back on track and we
have to actually govern on the things that we campaigned
right now. Our candidate is Jim Jordan. This is he
(26:26):
is a fighter, He is a leader. He may not
want it right now, but George Washington did not want
to be president. He did what was right for his country.
Jordan is the consensus candidate right now. He absolutely is.
And every time that he speaks up to defend Kevin McCarthy,
he actually just reaffirms why he would make a great speaker.
And if you heard from him that he does not
(26:47):
want it in any way, shape or form, what do
you say. I have heard that from him, And if
we have the numbers, then sorry, Jim Jordan, We're going
to make you do it's right for the country. We
love you, Okay. I mean, do you believe her? Or
is she full of crap? I mean, how do you?
I mean, is this say I barely won this my
last election. I'm gonna go down and burn the place
(27:09):
down the process. Well, I think it's I think it's Look,
it's it's again. Anybody who's already voted against McCarthy has
nothing to lose, Okay, because they've already set themselves outside
over two hundred plus of their own members. They're gonna
have trouble. You know. It's just that this is not
going to go here. This, this bandate that was ripped
open today is not going to heal anytime soon. The
(27:31):
understanding part here is Jim Jordan, Ben I will tell
you there's at least one hundred probable members, one hundred
and twenty five members who will never vote for Jim
Jordan for secrets period. It ain't happening. So when you
say that, why because of just a history mainly because
you know and I think mainly because going back through
(27:52):
history and times that many in the conference are just
not as uh as uh fightings spirit however you want
to put it. And Jim does not built those relationships
outside of the main part of his own committee or
the other Freedom Caucus. There's a lot to do with
This is the part that hard. It's hard for him extanding,
but sitting in with Serius, sitting those conference friends, it
(28:15):
is as much of a h is close to I
want to say military because I'm in the military. It's different,
but maybe a fraternity. It's it's you can be a
part of a tourney but not know everybody. You can
be a part of tourney but not really that many friends.
Sometimes this is what Jim has been a great member
at bringing up issues. He's a great member at investigating,
(28:35):
but he's never desired to legislate, and he's never desired
to leave the conference. He's desired to focus on investigations,
to dig in and go after what he has wanted
to investigate. There's a much bigger picture here when it
comes to being Speaker of the House, and whoever gets
this is in trouble. I mean they're they're in trouble.
(28:56):
And that's where I'm going to ask you. You look
at Kevin McCarthy's one of the thing for his long
he has been alive and knew what the speaker was.
You've got You've got a guy by the name of
Steve Scalise who a lot of people know his name
because unfortunately he was wounded in that attack when they
were preparing for that that baseball game, the congressional baseball
game several years back. He's liked by a lot of people.
(29:16):
He's a survivor in that sense. They're close friends. And
people keep saying, maybe he's the quote consensus candidate. If
you say that Jim Jordan's will never get it and
they're gonna have to move on from him. Is Steve Scalise,
based on your time in Congress, probably that that one
our best option right now. He may be, But my
(29:38):
concern goes back to something that I heard just a
few minutes ago, and that is, you know, from some
of the five or six that have voted no consistently.
You know, they said that if you just come, like
if you go to the one vote on the most
vacat or you go to this, then we'll vote for you.
Um well, that may get to consent, that may get
those on board, and you may keep the other two
(29:59):
hundred simply because it's left four votes and they're they're
tired of looking like they don't know what they're doing.
But in over time, the more the next person gives
to get those votes. There's a group of the other
House members that are sitting there like the you know,
the old sword of the particle son. Partical son comes home,
everybody celebrates, but what about the son who stayed. And
(30:21):
there's a lot a lot of members who are sitting
there saying, look, we're here just to work. We've been
doing the work ablaze from cameras and everything else, and
you're giving everything to these who pitched a fit, and
that's your problem. And look, I'm not trying to put
down either side, but this is the reality and people
need to take in the Republican Party. I'm sick of
us doing the high mighty cloud waving stuff. We gotta
(30:43):
be reality. We want to fight back against Democrats. We
better get our craft together. Well, let me ask you this.
Come noon Wednesday they reconvene. What happens then, in your gut,
how long will it take? And do you believe that
Kevin McCarthy will end up being the speaker? I think
he is still has a chance. It will depend on
(31:04):
how much he is able to give tonight. And also
then it would also say, are those five or six
philosophically opposed just to Kevin? If they are, he won't
become a speaker. Well, and that's say it seems like
those at least those five are pretty much how been.
I'm just saying, we're gonna screw you. Just say, because
you're the establishment, and and you better find this another candidate,
(31:27):
because it ain't. We're not gonna give you your dream job.
And look, maybe that's one of the problems of saying
you want it so bad, as that people know just
how bad you want it now it's just an issue
of you want it this bad, we're gonna make sure
you never get it. Yeah, that's the problem Kevin's had
all alf And I just say this as someone who
considers him a friend. Kevin has always had that problem.
(31:48):
He was always to consist. If you if you remember
back when they were the young gun Remember when remember
when Republicans thought Kevin McCarthy, Paul's Line, and uh Eric
Canner were the stars of the other unservatives. They were
before they got I would say, corrupted by Washington. Yeah, yeah,
I mean it was really interesting though, And what has
happened is but but Paul, you know, Paul fell off
(32:10):
because Paul again leading in a speakership job is almost impossible.
Nancy Pelosi is unknock. If you ever want to be
I've always said this, if you ever want to be
president of the United States America, you never want to
be Speaker of the House because you'll never get the
job exactly. It is as it's one of those things.
So I mean, now, is there an opening now for
an off? Not an off an unknown? Okay, because I
(32:33):
want I want to be very careful with Republicans. Remember
we got Denny Hassard this way, Okay, remind people of
that because they don't remember the history, so quickly explain
I will. That's a mess concern because we've got to
go back in the or the back in the two
thousand when we had one of our speakers, Um Livingston,
I think was he was going to be speaker. Then
(32:53):
he got caught in an affair, and they're coming along
and and really nobody was out behind. Nobody could agree
on who it was. And then all of a sudden,
this sort of backbencher from Illinois who was sort of
liked by everybody, remember my fraternity reference. He was sort
of liked by everybody, go along, get along kind of guy.
He was pushed up and was elected speaker. And if
(33:13):
you go through those times and then of course the
very ugly way he ended and what came out after
his speakership and everything else. But also I reminded somebody
today because they were giving Paul Ryan and John Bainard
are all hard time. Remember Paul Ryan did not want
to be speaker. He's just like Jim Jordan and that
he didn't want to be speaker. It's not his giftedness
(33:34):
and not where he wanted to be. And yet he
took the job. And you know, some things I think
he did very well. On some things I think he
struggled with because he was still looking at an old
school consensus. So folks you kind of be waried that
speaker is a job that is more than just giving speeches.
It's more than just you know, telling the Democrats to
(33:56):
jump take a jump. It's actually a lot of administration.
It's see a lot of planning, it's a lot of
stuff you and it takes you away from things that
you may want to do. That's why Jim wants to
be take He took my old position as ranking number
of Judiciary and he wants to be Judiciary chairman because
that's his comfortable that's where he likes to be. You
take that out. Jim doesn't go get to yell at
(34:17):
people in the committee anymore. He has to say in
the Speaker's office and control two hundred and twenty two
Republicans to get things like the budget pass, the debt
sailing done, and things like that. My guess to meet
Doug Collins. He's got a great podcast. You can download
Duck Collins Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Final question,
noon you're there. If you were a member of Congress
again and you were sitting there, how would you vote
(34:38):
at noon tomorrow? I'd have father been knowing what I
know right now with the situation like it is. I've
already voted for McCarthy probably three times, because simply there
was never the preparation. And again, and that's saying that
I had got dropped in without even you know, having
a chance to fix anything beforehand. Because right now, if
(35:00):
they get mad at McCarthy, they'll get rid of McCarthy.
But at a certain point in time, you got to
fix four four votes. Think about that, man, four votes. Yeah,
this isn't about can you get four people to like
you who hate you? Probably not. And remember we've had
some of those people, some of our members in the
Republican Party have never voted for an appropriations bill, have
(35:22):
never voted for some legislation. How are we supposed to
get that done? They've never voted for Republican legislation. Yeah,
I'll be spook to vote now. Yeah, great point, Doug,
appreciate it as always. I'm sure we'll have you back
again real soon. Sound good man, Thank you, Thank you, sir.
Take a quick break, Ben Ferguson show moren't coming up, Doug.
I appreciate your time, my friend, thank you for coming on.
(35:43):
Make sure you share this podcast with your family and friends.
Write it's a five star review. We're gonna keep you
up to date on this. Also, I'll be doing a
special podcast so Senator Ted Cruise with his show Verdict,
So make sure you download Verdict with Ted Cruz as
I co host that podcast. Then three days a week,
and I will see you back here tomorrow
Well, there's two ways to look at it. Either a
you say this is a total mess, or you can say, well,
this is good. It's amazing what happens when some conservatives
stand up for their principles, and we might even get
a different speaker the House and Kevin McCarthy. The headlines
all over the country are exactly what you would expect
(00:23):
this after Kevin McCarthy lost his third ballot the House
and chaos is how CNN has it with no speaker elected,
all business on hold. Democrats are loving this moment, cherishing
this moment and saying, look at how the Republicans are
in quote disarray. Is this disarray worth something for a
twenty four hour old? Yes, I believe that it is.
(00:45):
Now the House has decided to adjourn the headlines read
there's quote no end in sight? Is that actually true? Well,
joining me now to talk about the history of this
and actually what's happened as Carry Pickett, she's a senior
congressional reporter for the Washington Times and a good friend
(01:05):
of mine. Carrie, I appreciate you coming on. I know
you're very busy right now as a senior congressional reporter
for the Washington times. This hasn't happened in literally a
hundred years. Put a little bit of historical perspective into
this now, and then we'll get into the modern kind
of day politics of it. That's right. The House speaker's election,
as you mentioned, it has not required multiple ballots in
(01:28):
one hundred years. Now. House historians they've recorded fourteen instances,
many of them in the years after the Civil War,
in which the speaker election required numerous ballot rounds, and
the last time at the start of the sixty eighth
Congress in nineteen twenty three. That was when Frederick Huntington
(01:50):
Galet he's a Massachusetts Republican. He was elected on the
ninth ballot. Okay, Now, the five hold outs against McCarthy,
you know, they're demanding really key changes to the House
rules that would take power away from the speaker and
giving more governing authority to the committees and rank and
(02:12):
file lawmakers. You know, for example, one would require the
reinstatement of a rule that would allow lawmakers a vote
to replace the House speaker at mid Congress. And look,
you understand the so McCarthy has been pretty reluctant to
negotiate with these uh five holdouts out of concern that
(02:33):
it will embolden this group to make even more demands,
even even after if he was elected speaker. Now, as
we've seen, Ben, it isn't just five holdouts after a
three rounds. So far, we've seen like, you know, nineteen
members come out against McCarthy, voting for mister Biggs of
(02:58):
of Arizona as well as mister Jordan of Ohio. So
you know, he has a lot of negotiations to do
right now. You know, you look at these these twenty
that have basically said, hey, we'll go with Jim Jordan,
for example, we're done, you know, with Kevin McCarthy, and
(03:19):
a lot of people are saying now it looks like
Kevin McCarthy may be done. He says, no, I'm not.
The adjournment does it help or hurt? Because the early
morning argument when they got there Tuesday morning was hey,
if it takes one hundred votes, Kevin McCarthy said, we're
gonna do it in a hundred votes. If it takes
one hundred and fifty, we're gonna stay. This wasn't that
(03:41):
many votes that this was, you know, after three times
they said, okay, we're gonna adjourn now so people understand
why there was an adjournment. There was a lot of
members of Congress that have their family members there. Usually
you elact the Speaker of the House, then you go
and take your pictures with your family for your swearing
in the pictures and all of that. Who lie your
(04:01):
family's there. And there were a lot of members that, all, right,
we're not getting anywhere on Tuesday. We know that, let's
adjourn till Wednesday at noon. Let's go take these pictures
and kind of do this with our family and have
this moment in our personal careers or we're becoming members
of Congress. But there's a lot of people that say, Okay,
this could be bad news for Ken mccarthury because it
(04:23):
gives more time for people behind the scenes to have
conversations that maybe they couldn't have had while they were
still all sitting there on the floor of the House.
I know it's it's a real steam because for the
past century, every speaker has been able to swear in members,
(04:45):
or every new speaker has been able to swear in
members right away, and they've been able to gather with
their small children in their spouses on the floor and
these members were weren't able to do that this time around,
which the shame. But look, one of the things that
(05:07):
I was telling some reporters, I'm like, this is kind
of interesting. Uh. You get to tell sort of new
members and some new reporters it usually isn't like this. Yeah.
When when I January sixth happened, it was sort of
similar in the sense of it usually isn't like this,
and you know, this is this is where we are today. Yeah.
(05:28):
My guest with me is uh is carry biggest singer
congressional reporter for the Washington Times. Carry. Let's talk about
the politics of this now, Tip Rory. Rory, who who
was there. He said, Look, the reason why I'm saying
no to Ken McCarthy is I want there to be
up or down votes on on basic things amendments. We
haven't been doing this. Great example was this massive spending
(05:51):
bill we just had that they rammed down our throats.
They wouldn't let us separate things out and debated things
on it their merit. A great example of that when
it comes to the merit was the Ukraine funding. He said, Look,
I support Ukraine against Russia, but I think we should
have a grand debate on the funding for Ukraine. It
shouldn't be thrown into this omnibus spending bill the way
(06:13):
that it was just done. And he said, this is
the problem with that he has. He wants these things
to be debated on their own merit. There's a lot
of people in America that hear that and go, okay,
that makes sense. Chip Rory's a guy that said, all right,
I'm going to nominate Jim Jordan on the second ballot,
which is what he did, saying I should say excuse
me on the third ballot, which is what he did.
(06:34):
And he's saying, I'm I think the American people are
ready for transparency back in government. I'm not here making
ridiculous demands for me to sit on certain committees or
things like that. I'm saying, we need to go back
to how do we pay for this and where's our
money going? I want transparency and government. Is that where
Jim Jordan can big up some steam in the early
(06:55):
morning hours an overnight Tuesday and the Wednesday. Maybe because
that a similar reason that I heard from uh Ralph
Norman of South Carolina. He does not like the spending
problems that we have seen very recently and that is
what's keeping him a no on McCarthy as well. Another
(07:16):
issue too, by the way, Ben is uh, you have
a number of of these holdouts, number of these conservatives.
They don't like the whole idea that you have Republican
leadership who uh kind of gets involved with these primaries
and they put their money down and they onto a
(07:37):
winners and losers. They sort of pick who they would
like to push forward as opposed to just staying out
of the primaries altogether. And we saw that in the
Upper Chamber with miss McConnell and a number of of
these conservatives who ended up kind of squeaking through or
(07:57):
even overwhelmingly making it through. They saw how the money
was us spent this time around as far as Goop
leadership in the House, and they're sort of upset about
that as well. You know, when you look at McCarthy,
he did make a statement to CNN where he said
there is no scenario where I drop out. He really
seemed to I think um mismanaged this vote. Early on
(08:21):
in the day, he had meetings with some of those
that said they were gonna be nos. He went to
the floor knowing he didn't have the votes to become
the speaker, and he basically said, well, no one else
does either, so I'm going to get this by default.
That backfired. Was this a big miscalculation for him? Well,
he was hoping from what I understand that he was
(08:45):
apparently making a deal with some Democrats that that they
would simply just leave the floor and lower the threshold
right where he wouldn't where he wouldn't need two hundred
and eighteen votes. Maybe explained explain that aspect of this vote,
because this is something that that Kevin McCarthy was also
thinking about. From what I was told that they were saying, look,
(09:07):
if this did go to one hundred votes, eventually some
Democrats would lead because of like, look, we know we're
not gonna get it. That would lower the threshold on
the vote count, so therefore you could get it. Explain
at the math on that and that strategy, because it
very well could come into play on Wednesday. So apparently,
h you know, like a McCarthy was making a deal
(09:30):
with Democrats to leave the floor at some point and
lower the threshold from two eighteen to a number that
he could actually attain. However, you know, you had a
number of these conservative Republican holdouts, these anti Kevin McCarthy
types who caught wind of this, and they ended up asking, like,
(09:53):
you know, squad members like AOC say, hey, what's this
about you guys leaving the floor, and and these AOC
types are like, uh, we had no plans to do that. So,
you know that kind of blew up in his face. Well,
let's talk about if he doesn't get these votes. I mean,
they say it's an all out war now, but if
you don't have the votes, you don't have the votes.
(10:15):
Is there real talk now about coalitioning behind a Jim
Jordan or would he still be short? And then do
you get yourself in a situation where there's a moderate
that all of a sudden comes out of this um?
You know, I asked you had a Bob Good Republican
from Virginia, and he is once again a never Kevin
McCarthy conservative, and he's the one who's always been talking about, oh,
(10:39):
we have a candidate, we have a consensus candidate, and
we're keeping this candidate, you know, mysterious until until the
second round. And I asked him like, Okay, where is
this mysterious candidate that you're supposed to unveil, and he
dodged that question completely. So now we know that they
never had a consensus candidate to begin with, or that
person just dropped out. So as far as you can see,
(11:03):
there is no consensus candidate as of now. Kerry, I
want to ask you about the politics of this when
it deals with Donald Trump. What's very interesting about the
vote that we witnessed on Tuesday was the people that
were saying no to Kevin McCarthy were very much the
Maga Republicans, and yet Donald Trump has not said anything
on his true social about this so far. He didn't
(11:26):
seem to do anything really to help during the day
that we know of Kevin McCarthy, he's kind of stepped back. Why.
Very excellent question there, Ben. In fact, if you recall,
Donald Trump did throw his support behind Kevin McCarthy early
on for speaker okay, and he did sort of like
(11:50):
do a deal with him in regards to you know, hey,
you support me, I'll support you. However, very recently, as
you very much mentioned, he has not said anything in
regards to Kevin McCarthy's speakership situation. And I think it's
because Trump has, you know, wants to be known as
(12:11):
supporting a winner. Okay, and I spoke with Congressman Kent
Buck about this. Ken Buck is a Colorado Republican and
he thinks that this, you know, it may have helped
McCarthy maybe in the beginning, but it may have backfired ultimately.
(12:32):
And that's where he sort of stuck at this point. Yeah,
stuck is a great way of putting it. Let's talk
about Bobert and Matt Gags. They made it very clear
early on they were not going to go for Kevin McCarthy.
They kept asking for things that some people said was
just unrealistic. Others said, look they didn't. You know, they've
(12:53):
they've been trying to screw those two over for the
Republican establishment for a long time. Didn't support them the
way they shouldn't their reelection bids. Boboard almost lost her seat,
uh in Congress. Matt Gates has kind of been hung
out to dry, some say, others say, what's his own
doing when you look at those two individuals and they say,
this is just spite what's happening right now, and they're
(13:14):
putting the you know, they're they're they're they're empowering the
Democrats now with twenty people going for Jim Jordan's, can
you really say that anymore about them? Are they maybe yeah,
maybe they're maybe they're ultramagat right, But but are they
more principal than maybe some of these other people are,
and and honestly more than they thought they were going
to be? Um Matt Gates, his vendetta against uh uh
(13:41):
McCarthy is more personal than anything else. Explain it. Explain
that because a lot of people don't know the history there. Okay, Uh,
I think that that you have uh Matt Gates who
just never really felt that he was supported by uh
by McCarthy when when when he felt that he was
(14:04):
under siege by a lot of the Democrats and as
well and when he was an under under investigations exactly
as well as uh Liz Cheney, when Liz Cheney was
also attacking him as well. So so when you had
the Democrats end Liz Cheney who was attacking him, uh,
(14:25):
he didn't feel that, uh, that you had McCarthy who
had his back, and he sort of like felt like
McCarthy was start of stabbing him in the back. And
then when like uh and then when elections start came around, uh,
He pointed out, as I previously mentioned, that McCarthy was
sort of giving uh well, start picking and choosing losers
(14:49):
in the primaries, and that's where he ended up saying,
you know what, I've had enough McCarthy. And that's where
some of the history, off the top of my head
kind of comes from. I want to ask you about this.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich did an interview with his
good buddy over at Fox Business Channel, Larry Couglo a
(15:13):
moment ago. This is what he had to say about
this battle that were it's historic, one hundred year battle.
We haven't seen this in a hundred years. Here's how
he had put it, and I want to get your reaction.
I was impressed that even when the rebels decided to
consolidate around Jim Jordan, who of course had just nominated
(15:35):
Kevin McCarthy, the number of votes didn't change. They didn't
get any new votes. So I'm looking to the third, fourth,
and fifth ballots to see what's gonna happen. My guess
is that McCarthy, in fact, will in the end be speaker.
I wrote a newsletter recently pointing out that it was
Kevin or Chaos. Because I mean, if for any reason
(15:56):
the radicals were to somehow be able to drive him out,
they would have established a precedent that anybody else can
do the same thing. Lincoln warned about this in his
first inaugural and said, the problem with secession is once
you established that right, everybody can secede from everybody. Well,
the five who started this fight have now given every
(16:19):
other member of the House Republican Party the moral right
to go out and find four friends and have the
same chaos. And I think that's why the conference has
been overwhelmingly solid, and they're still overwhelmingly solid even with
Jim Jordan's name, and Jordan is certainly a very serious person.
(16:40):
The numbers didn't change at all. They got nineteen, Kevin
got two hundred and two. That means he's getting better
than ten votes for every vote the rebels can put together.
And I think they have no endgame. These people can't
play tic tac toe. And I think that's part of
the problem is they've gotten themselves that like the dog
that caught the bus. They've gotten themselves in this position.
(17:02):
They can't get out of it. And if Kevin is
prepared to calmly and cheerfully wait them out. At some
point their districts are going to start calling him and saying,
you know, what are you doing? Why are you ruining
the Republican Party. I got to ask this question. And
you've been there a long time in Washington, Carry You've
been covering this. You know, he said, at some point
Americans will start calling saying, what are you doing? You're
(17:25):
ruining the Republican Party. I disagree with that opinion, and
I have a lot of respect from New English. I
think the majority of Republican voters are would overwhelmingly supported
Jim Jordan over a Kevin McCarthy. I think Kevin McCarthy
is very much more the establishment GOP, the rhinos the
(17:47):
quote swamp. I think there's a run that would call
and say, get behind a Jim Jordan. But does he
really have a chance in your opinion, or do you say,
you know what, Nut's probably right at the end of
this thing, Kevin McCarthy's still be a speaker. Um. I
think that you had knew who has you know really
forged this us this strong sort of relationship with McCarthy
(18:12):
right now, And keep in mind you know Knew himself.
I mean you had like a coup, so to speak,
a political coup that, like you know, pretty much uh,
he had to deal with back in his day when
he was speaker. So you know, there's some sort of
recollections going on in his mind when he had to
sort of deal with these factions when he was a
(18:35):
speaker back in his day. So I think that's kind
of going on right now as far as he's a concerned.
That being said, Uh, if you have enough people who
end up falling away from uh McCarthy, and look some
already are, then Jordan could very well uh end up
(18:55):
getting enough votes. But until then, I think I do
think the longer it goes on, it could very well happen.
It's gonna be very interesting. I appreciate your time. Kerry Pickett,
Senior Congression reporter at the Watching Times. Check her out.
She's on Twitter and all the other social media platforms
as well. Thank you for spending some time with us
and explaining this to us as you're alive there in
(19:16):
Dcake here. Thank you. Is obviously a historic day. It
has not happened in a hundred years. There is no
speaker the House right now because Kevin McCarthy did not
get the votes needed to become the speaker. Joining me
now to talk about the politics of this. The man
that served in Congress with a lot of people involved
(19:37):
in this scenario is former Congressman Doug Collins. Doug, I
appreciate you coming on. Let's talk about how did we
get to this point. I am still honestly shocked that
Kevin McCarthy took this vote to the floor knowing he
didn't have the votes to win somehow, assuming that he'd
(19:58):
eventually just get there then clearly getting it wrong. Are
you as shocked as I am by the political miscalculation here? Yes?
And no, Ben, Ben, it's good to be on with you.
I think you have to take it too far. Number one.
Kevin has been wanting this job for so long, and
he has been denied it once by a group that
(20:20):
back then, frankly didn't they were. He let it go
before it came to a vote or anywhere else, and
he stepped aside. That's how we end up with Paul Ryan.
I think at this point he has felt like over
the past few years, he's done everything he possibly can do.
If he'd raised more money than any speaker we've you know,
any leader we've ever had. He elected most of these people.
It's crazy, as some of these people who are voting
(20:41):
against him now he actually helped to get elected elected.
And I think he just did the point. I'm just
simply saying, I've got no other place to go. It's
either I go to the floor and I die on
the floor, or you know, either way, that's the more
you know, acceptable thing for him too. I am shocked
that he didn't have more conversation. I thought he would
(21:02):
have this if he was gonna have it locked up
here to try to have it locked up before. But
now you've gotten into a situation, Ben where you got
people who it's really, frankly and not about policy anymore.
It's about the fact that they simply just don't want
Kevin McCarthy and they're willing to stick to the Gunden.
As long as five of them hold out, Kevin can
never become secret. Yeah, And it seems that the bullying
(21:23):
on of Kevin McCarthy kind of like you're gonna step
in line and I've got enough people around me that
no one else is going to get this thing really backfired.
I talked to one of the five confidentially and they said,
the arrogance is what got him in trouble is he
treated us like we were beneath him, and that because
(21:44):
he had virtually virtually all the votes needed, that we
would just shut up and go away, and they dug
in even harder. Yeah, oh yeah, and it's brilliancy. This
is where Republicans and Democrats are really different. Pelosi and
the Democratic where hip have been doing this for years, um,
you know, keeping their folks in line, threatening them with uh,
(22:05):
you know, lack of resources, or threatened them with the
primary or whatever, you know, and on our side, it's
just that's just never been a case. And then when
it has happened, you know, Republicans, you know, get upset.
And I think what happened here is is Kevin you
there's an old thing in life. You cannot negotiate with
somebody who's willing to shoot the hostage. And by meaning
(22:27):
that there's nothing you can do. You either give them
what they want or they'll never agree to you. And
I think that I think he just misread this with
the five and probably a little bit more, probably eight
and ten that just said, look, Ken, you're unless you
give us exactly what we want, we underlying where don't
trust you. And I think that's going to become the
theme out of this is at the end of the day,
(22:48):
they said, chip Freud said exactly that I don't trust you. Yeah,
I don't trust you. And look, chip Frey, I want
to be clear here because when he nominated Jim Jordan
on that third ballot and gave his speech, he made
it clear, we just want there to be transparency in government, which,
by the way, as the majority of Republicans are going
(23:08):
to listen to this, are gonna agree with us. He said, Look,
I wanted there to be amendments, for example, that are
voted on based on their merit, not crammed into one
massive bill. He referred to the Ukraine Ukraine funding that
was in the Omnibust spinning bill. He said that should
have been debated on its own merit, Greek completely. And
I think this is here's the problem. Some of what
(23:30):
they want, okay, and this is some of the things
that you're like you just said, are things that we
should have been doing or have been in the rules before. Again,
thus not trusting Kevin. We had seventy two hour prior
filing on bills. We had some of this other stuff
that is social move toward a more open amendment process, which,
by the way, the big dark secret is members want
(23:52):
that until it actually happens, and then it's it's really
an interesting play after that because it actually requires a
lot more time and effort than most of the members frankly,
and I'm just being blood here, are willing to give.
And but these are the problems that are out there
that could Yeah, I mean couldn't they thought there's no reason.
I mean again, I'm gonna say it being you and
I thought about it. I ain't so sick of the
Republicans and the Democrat acting as a September thirtieth as
(24:15):
a shock. That's when the budget is us. That's when
you got to have a spending bill. But why don't
you start in February getting it done? And instead they
run it late because it controls as long as the
later it is the leadership gets to decide. That's where
chipping them, I think, are right. Then it's left in
it into this, you know, we go into this all
of a sudden, the big bill about the motion to
vay case. I'll give you a little secret here. It's
(24:38):
might be breaking news on New shop we were back
when they were trying to use that against John Bayner.
We had heard and I cannot prove this, but we've
heard it. I heard it from enough folks that the
Democrats were had basically back channel to say, look, we're
not going to allow this to happen, frankly because they
didn't want it to happen to them. So again, this
motion to vacates an idea that the sound really good,
(25:01):
but at the end of the day, you still got
to bring it to the floor and you still got
to people to vote for it. And granted they're in
a much better position to do it now with four
vote than say, back when we had thirty five vote margin.
But again, these are things that then most people don't understand,
and what they do understand is is that we want
to see Republicans do something. We want to see them
(25:21):
pass bills, we want to see them actually have conservative legislation.
And right now we're cleaning the day two of a
one hundred and eighteenth Congress with Nancy Pelosi's splort staff
and everybody else still in control of Congress. Yeah, you'll
listen to those that kind of started this, and there's
some and they have reason to be angry. You know.
Represent Bobert barely won her reelection. She feels she was
(25:43):
hung out to drive by the establishment. Matt Gates feels
like he was disrespected and wasn't protected when people like
Liz Chenney came after him and the investigations, and that
Kevin McCarthy didn't do enough and they're sticking it to McCarthy.
That's very clear. But Represented Bobert said this just moments
ago on Fox News. I want you to hear what
she had to say about Jim Jordan's saying he's the guy,
(26:06):
and then I'll get your reaction. How do you see
this ending? Can you see yourself voting for a consensus candidate?
Can you vote for Steve Scalize for example. I'm voting
for anyone who actually brings unity to the Republican Party
and helps get our country back on track and we
have to actually govern on the things that we campaigned
right now. Our candidate is Jim Jordan. This is he
(26:26):
is a fighter, He is a leader. He may not
want it right now, but George Washington did not want
to be president. He did what was right for his country.
Jordan is the consensus candidate right now. He absolutely is.
And every time that he speaks up to defend Kevin McCarthy,
he actually just reaffirms why he would make a great speaker.
And if you heard from him that he does not
(26:47):
want it in any way, shape or form, what do
you say. I have heard that from him, And if
we have the numbers, then sorry, Jim Jordan, We're going
to make you do it's right for the country. We
love you, Okay. I mean, do you believe her? Or
is she full of crap? I mean, how do you?
I mean, is this say I barely won this my
last election. I'm gonna go down and burn the place
(27:09):
down the process. Well, I think it's I think it's Look,
it's it's again. Anybody who's already voted against McCarthy has
nothing to lose, Okay, because they've already set themselves outside
over two hundred plus of their own members. They're gonna
have trouble. You know. It's just that this is not
going to go here. This, this bandate that was ripped
open today is not going to heal anytime soon. The
(27:31):
understanding part here is Jim Jordan, Ben I will tell
you there's at least one hundred probable members, one hundred
and twenty five members who will never vote for Jim
Jordan for secrets period. It ain't happening. So when you
say that, why because of just a history mainly because
you know and I think mainly because going back through
(27:52):
history and times that many in the conference are just
not as uh as uh fightings spirit however you want
to put it. And Jim does not built those relationships
outside of the main part of his own committee or
the other Freedom Caucus. There's a lot to do with
This is the part that hard. It's hard for him extanding,
but sitting in with Serius, sitting those conference friends, it
(28:15):
is as much of a h is close to I
want to say military because I'm in the military. It's different,
but maybe a fraternity. It's it's you can be a
part of a tourney but not know everybody. You can
be a part of tourney but not really that many friends.
Sometimes this is what Jim has been a great member
at bringing up issues. He's a great member at investigating,
(28:35):
but he's never desired to legislate, and he's never desired
to leave the conference. He's desired to focus on investigations,
to dig in and go after what he has wanted
to investigate. There's a much bigger picture here when it
comes to being Speaker of the House, and whoever gets
this is in trouble. I mean they're they're in trouble.
(28:56):
And that's where I'm going to ask you. You look
at Kevin McCarthy's one of the thing for his long
he has been alive and knew what the speaker was.
You've got You've got a guy by the name of
Steve Scalise who a lot of people know his name
because unfortunately he was wounded in that attack when they
were preparing for that that baseball game, the congressional baseball
game several years back. He's liked by a lot of people.
(29:16):
He's a survivor in that sense. They're close friends. And
people keep saying, maybe he's the quote consensus candidate. If
you say that Jim Jordan's will never get it and
they're gonna have to move on from him. Is Steve Scalise,
based on your time in Congress, probably that that one
our best option right now. He may be, But my
(29:38):
concern goes back to something that I heard just a
few minutes ago, and that is, you know, from some
of the five or six that have voted no consistently.
You know, they said that if you just come, like
if you go to the one vote on the most
vacat or you go to this, then we'll vote for you.
Um well, that may get to consent, that may get
those on board, and you may keep the other two
(29:59):
hundred simply because it's left four votes and they're they're
tired of looking like they don't know what they're doing.
But in over time, the more the next person gives
to get those votes. There's a group of the other
House members that are sitting there like the you know,
the old sword of the particle son. Partical son comes home,
everybody celebrates, but what about the son who stayed. And
(30:21):
there's a lot a lot of members who are sitting
there saying, look, we're here just to work. We've been
doing the work ablaze from cameras and everything else, and
you're giving everything to these who pitched a fit, and
that's your problem. And look, I'm not trying to put
down either side, but this is the reality and people
need to take in the Republican Party. I'm sick of
us doing the high mighty cloud waving stuff. We gotta
(30:43):
be reality. We want to fight back against Democrats. We
better get our craft together. Well, let me ask you this.
Come noon Wednesday they reconvene. What happens then, in your gut,
how long will it take? And do you believe that
Kevin McCarthy will end up being the speaker? I think
he is still has a chance. It will depend on
(31:04):
how much he is able to give tonight. And also
then it would also say, are those five or six
philosophically opposed just to Kevin? If they are, he won't
become a speaker. Well, and that's say it seems like
those at least those five are pretty much how been.
I'm just saying, we're gonna screw you. Just say, because
you're the establishment, and and you better find this another candidate,
(31:27):
because it ain't. We're not gonna give you your dream job.
And look, maybe that's one of the problems of saying
you want it so bad, as that people know just
how bad you want it now it's just an issue
of you want it this bad, we're gonna make sure
you never get it. Yeah, that's the problem Kevin's had
all alf And I just say this as someone who
considers him a friend. Kevin has always had that problem.
(31:48):
He was always to consist. If you if you remember
back when they were the young gun Remember when remember
when Republicans thought Kevin McCarthy, Paul's Line, and uh Eric
Canner were the stars of the other unservatives. They were
before they got I would say, corrupted by Washington. Yeah, yeah,
I mean it was really interesting though, And what has
happened is but but Paul, you know, Paul fell off
(32:10):
because Paul again leading in a speakership job is almost impossible.
Nancy Pelosi is unknock. If you ever want to be
I've always said this, if you ever want to be
president of the United States America, you never want to
be Speaker of the House because you'll never get the
job exactly. It is as it's one of those things.
So I mean, now, is there an opening now for
an off? Not an off an unknown? Okay, because I
(32:33):
want I want to be very careful with Republicans. Remember
we got Denny Hassard this way, Okay, remind people of
that because they don't remember the history, so quickly explain
I will. That's a mess concern because we've got to
go back in the or the back in the two
thousand when we had one of our speakers, Um Livingston,
I think was he was going to be speaker. Then
(32:53):
he got caught in an affair, and they're coming along
and and really nobody was out behind. Nobody could agree
on who it was. And then all of a sudden,
this sort of backbencher from Illinois who was sort of
liked by everybody, remember my fraternity reference. He was sort
of liked by everybody, go along, get along kind of guy.
He was pushed up and was elected speaker. And if
(33:13):
you go through those times and then of course the
very ugly way he ended and what came out after
his speakership and everything else. But also I reminded somebody
today because they were giving Paul Ryan and John Bainard
are all hard time. Remember Paul Ryan did not want
to be speaker. He's just like Jim Jordan and that
he didn't want to be speaker. It's not his giftedness
(33:34):
and not where he wanted to be. And yet he
took the job. And you know, some things I think
he did very well. On some things I think he
struggled with because he was still looking at an old
school consensus. So folks you kind of be waried that
speaker is a job that is more than just giving speeches.
It's more than just you know, telling the Democrats to
(33:56):
jump take a jump. It's actually a lot of administration.
It's see a lot of planning, it's a lot of
stuff you and it takes you away from things that
you may want to do. That's why Jim wants to
be take He took my old position as ranking number
of Judiciary and he wants to be Judiciary chairman because
that's his comfortable that's where he likes to be. You
take that out. Jim doesn't go get to yell at
(34:17):
people in the committee anymore. He has to say in
the Speaker's office and control two hundred and twenty two
Republicans to get things like the budget pass, the debt
sailing done, and things like that. My guess to meet
Doug Collins. He's got a great podcast. You can download
Duck Collins Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Final question,
noon you're there. If you were a member of Congress
again and you were sitting there, how would you vote
(34:38):
at noon tomorrow? I'd have father been knowing what I
know right now with the situation like it is. I've
already voted for McCarthy probably three times, because simply there
was never the preparation. And again, and that's saying that
I had got dropped in without even you know, having
a chance to fix anything beforehand. Because right now, if
(35:00):
they get mad at McCarthy, they'll get rid of McCarthy.
But at a certain point in time, you got to
fix four four votes. Think about that, man, four votes. Yeah,
this isn't about can you get four people to like
you who hate you? Probably not. And remember we've had
some of those people, some of our members in the
Republican Party have never voted for an appropriations bill, have
(35:22):
never voted for some legislation. How are we supposed to
get that done? They've never voted for Republican legislation. Yeah,
I'll be spook to vote now. Yeah, great point, Doug,
appreciate it as always. I'm sure we'll have you back
again real soon. Sound good man, Thank you, Thank you, sir.
Take a quick break, Ben Ferguson show moren't coming up, Doug.
I appreciate your time, my friend, thank you for coming on.
(35:43):
Make sure you share this podcast with your family and friends.
Write it's a five star review. We're gonna keep you
up to date on this. Also, I'll be doing a
special podcast so Senator Ted Cruise with his show Verdict,
So make sure you download Verdict with Ted Cruz as
I co host that podcast. Then three days a week,
and I will see you back here tomorrow
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