Bad Things For Bad People

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the next level. I’m JBL here with my best friends, Sarah Longwell and Timothy Miller of The Bulwark, Happy New Year, Happy Carthemas, Can we say that? We’ll we’ll get to the Kevin McCarthy stuff in a minute. First, I wanna say, everybody, subscribe.

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Is that right?

Nineteenth. It’s a Thursday.

Doing an event with John Favreau, which is gonna be fantastic. We will be then up in Seattle a couple days later with Dan Savage. Kind of a different vibe, but it’s gonna be a great show. And we’re gonna have the three of us together with special guests and all of the people from the polar community. It’s gonna be really, really fun.

Go to the bulwark dot com slash events, and go pick up a ticket. Come see us. It’ll be great. A

lot of people come into Seattle.

A

lot of people come to Seattle in

They’re making a weekend of it. A

lot of LA people come in.

The LA thing, I think that people should think about that. It’s a Thursday night. Can take Friday off, you know, or you can come on central coast. We have central coast people drive on down, make little road trips, San Diego people, San

Diego. Why aren’t you coming

to San Diego what they say. Is anything that’s drivable? You could do it.

Oh, from the last one who came from Alaska. From Alaska to

DC.

You can make it up from San Diego.

So it’ll be good times. Okay. So on Tuesday, we had the first floor fight for the house speaker ship in a hundred years. And we went through three ballots in which Kevin McCarthy was denied his speakers gavel the first unsuccessful floor fight. The

first unsuccessful, because Bainer had one, but he he eked it out. Yeah. Yeah. Bader had one and he eked it.

Well, Kevin was very sad. He was very sad yesterday. And as we are taping, they are finishing vote number four and we have the same twenty people who are against McCarthy, the same twenty defectors. There was a lot to unpack here. And I think we should just start with the candy.

Mhmm. It feels good, doesn’t it? To watch bad things happen to bad people,

It does. I’m gonna chime in there

because I don’t want Sarah to ruin the moments here by trying to, you know, be in the holiday spirit let’s, you know, care about the norms. Okay. Let’s just let let me just enjoy the candy cane with you for a second. And it is nice. The smirk and Kevin face, I kind of I just sort of want, like, a Mhmm.

To to get a framed like a little small frame photo of the smirk and Kevin face as he has to just sit there on the floor and take it over and over again hour and hour again, just kind of his, like, little muppet face turning all red and just kind of having to do the all shucks guys. It looks like I’m going down again. It’s painful. It’s one of the most humiliating. It’s it’s British almost.

Like, we don’t really do this kind of thing in America. Like, you know, it’s like this is about as humiliating of a experience as somebody can go could go through. We never hold votes that we don’t already

know the outcomes to. Right.

Yeah. Back a hundred years ago, and mister Gillette lost. It was still taking a while to get onto the talkies and I mean, there is it’s it’s a lot different now. The the sea’s band camera on his face. I did want the picture in picture.

I emailed Jesse Rodriguez, my friend that I was NBC, and I was like, can I get a steady cam on Kevin? For day two.

Just the reactions.

Yeah. Unfortunately, the c span controls all the cameras. I don’t

have a source there. So maybe if somebody at c span is listening, we could use a steady I’m on on Kevin for day two. So the pain is good. He deserves it. He earned it.

He brought this on himself. I think this is the most important thing. He brought it on himself. Made a lot of decisions he did not have to make. He did not have to go down to Monologo to Grovel.

He did not have to whip votes for the coup. You know, he did not have to go support the, like, crazy fucking candidates in primaries like John Gibbs in Michigan. And he, you know, he could have made different choices that maybe might not have led to the speakership, but might have led to dignity being maintained, or might have led to the Republicans winning more House seats which would have given him a little bit more buffer. He did not make the the those choices. He made bad choices, and he’s being punished for them, and that is That’s just something you like to see every once in a while.

People being punished for bad choices.

Sarah, is your innate goodness so powerful that you can’t derive even a tiny shred of enjoyment out of this. I don’t know

what you guys are even talking about. I’ve been watching this with just the most Glee. Oh. If anybody but but the reason is is it really is about Tim’s last point. Watching somebody make their bed and then have to lie in it is satisfying.

Right? So I believe for norms and institutions to be upheld, right, there must be accountability. Now we’re getting kind of an orthogonal version of accountability here. It is coming at the hands of the absolute worst people in the Republican conference And yet, I saw something yesterday that just made my heart skip a beat. And it was if you had the ten impiccures, still.

Oh, yeah. That

that would likely make the margin for Kevin McCarthy if the impeachers hadn’t all gone down. And so, yeah, no, this is his own fault. And look, I think that there’s a whole bunch of interesting things going on here though. But I do I do take pleasure just in this year, humility. And and one of the things that’s, you know, it’s funny when you talk about humiliation.

There’s a lot going on that is not about Trump, like, straightforwardly, but still Trump undergirded at all. And one of them is how much he raised their threshold, maybe even their fetishization and desire for ritualized humiliation. Right? Like Kevin McCarthy has learned to take the humiliations and just withstand them and still try to sort of claim victory. And in fact, That is what these twenty people have learned as well.

Right? A bunch of them learned that as long as you’re the center of attention, As long as you’re the one everyone is focusing on, be the squeaky whale. Doesn’t matter if everyone’s attitude, there will always be some pocket of the media ecosystem or or voters or somebody who’s telling you that you’re a champion. It makes you a celebrity. And a star.

And that’s all what matters more. And so, like, Kevin’s being humiliated. We’re watching it happen. And yet, he’s built up a certain tolerance for that that is allowed him to withstand this. I mean, they’re gonna go on to a fifth roll call vote here.

Yeah. Anyway, I like it too. I’ll take accountability however I can get it at this point. But on some level, it’s bad for the country. Right?

Like, this is sort of ridiculous that we can’t govern. But actually, it’s good. It is good for the Republican party to have to face what it has wrought by sort of bringing, allowing these people to control things. Right? They all brought this on themselves, not just Kevin.

All of them have tolerated this this wasn’t

everywhere. Like, the walled journal editorial page, which today was telling about, oh, what a mess so much. Yeah. You built

this. Yeah.

You guys built this. Yeah. And this is this other Trump element of this, which was what I wrote about yesterday with regards to French law. Right? It’s like, They they built this both in what UCera is talking about in the culture of the party and kind of what the incentives are within the party.

Right? But but they also built it literally in the membership. Yeah.

That’s right. In the

literal sense in the membership, and this is a big

build crystal thing. Right? Because build the, you know, old gray beard, you get called from somebody who graduated Harvard and went to the Marine Corps and he’s like, I’m thinking about running for Congress. You know, Bill’s the kind of person that that person calls. That person when they were calling Bill over the past four years is kind of like, am I even a Republican anymore?

Should I run as a Democrat? Should I just wait out the pain? Right? Like, the types of people that that are adults that are responsible that want to want responsible governance. Like they’re me in as conservative.

They’re they’re in instinctually conservative. They didn’t run for Congress the past three years, six, three terms, the most part. Because they don’t wanna be part of the shit show. They don’t wanna be on Trump’s ballot. Yeah.

Who did who did run? The the lady that owns a gun themed you know, restaurant in Rifle, Colorado. Right? Like, she ran she ran for Congress. You know, not type of person that might have run from that district.

Right? Like, the twenty six year old Mike Gallagher is not rushing out.

Right. Mike Gallagher’s speech today is an example, like, he looked like this is what we wanted the party to be like ten years ago. Sorry Mike, you might have been to speak. When he was nominating Kevin tonight, it was like, oh, this is what This is, again, it might have been on the speaker track. Like, had had we had the party gone a different path, but but he sounded like an outlier.

I was like, you’re not convincing any of these people. Mike, And and so who can’t who comes in? The the charlatents, the people that pretend to be charlatents like Matt Gates. Right? Like Matt Gates, maybe in a different world that have pretended to be a responsible governing person because he’s like kids, his dad is a normal person, and bit bit no.

What what Matt Gates’ incentives is to, you know, play to the crazies. Right? Byron Donald’s the person that they nominated. Is is like a total like, he was he was arrested, you know, for bank fraud. That’s their nominee today.

Like, that is the person’s nominee. Is is Byron Donald’s who in two thousand was was arrested for what was it a felony bribery charge? As part of a scheme, did a fraud of a a bank? Right. Like, these are the types of people that that got drawn in, okay, that are running now.

And so they were the Trump appealed to them, the party appealed to them. And so now they’re gonna act like

Trump. And so they’re all gonna

act like narcissistic childish buffoons. And and so this is the caucus that you get. So

I have a question for you guys. Let’s stay with Trump here for a moment. So Trump’s endorsement of Kevin initially was not a full endorsement. It was a sort of yeah. I think he’s earned the chance.

Then he started backing away from I believe it was on Tuesday night, started slightly backing away from McCarthy. And then came sort of all in today with a, like, look, these these Republicans ought to just take the win. They gotta make the deal here. Does Trump have any prestige on the line here too? Interesting that Rhonda Santos has said nothing.

About who should be the house speaker. That’s we’ve got good strategic salons coming out of out of Tallahassee. Sarah, what do you think? I don’t

know that I think Trump has that much on the line. Other than other than. What is interesting to me is that this is a perfect example of why you have to separate Trump demand from Trump, the forces he’s unleashed on the party. Because Matt Gates and Scott Perry and all of these dope’s who are in this group of twenty who are doing this. Right?

They are they’re trumpists. Like, they’re some of the most maga people, but the thing is and this is one of my favorite Tim formulations. You know, my my best one is Republican trying to help him, but your best one is the MAGA establishment. Like, there’s a whole margery Taylor Green aspect. Right?

Because she’s now an ally of McCarthy because he has promised her things, because he thought if he could just get MTG onboard, she’d bring the rest of the crazy caucus with her. But that’s not what happened. It’s caused a schism in the crazy conference, which is awesome. Because you can realize March retailer agreed if you give her treats. And tell her she will be powerful, she will come along, but they are all part now of the MAGA establishment.

The Gates, they are part of the MAGA forces unleashed, which is they recognize a different level of incentives, and the media ecosystem that will reward them and all of those things. Right? And so Trump, what what I think is what he’s losing here is the fact that Trump last night clearly by putting out this statement. What it shows is that there’s like a wing beyond Trump. Right, this chaos wing and that Trump is part of the MAGA establishment.

To me, that’s the most interesting dynamic we’re seeing shape up with Trump. But I’m not sure, like, from a credible you know, like, doesn’t tramp up or down. It’s I don’t know that it makes that much difference. You know,

I gotta say this about murder Jeller Green. I can’t I can’t believe I’m gonna say this. I think her endorsement of McCarthy was a sign that she genuinely believes all of her own crazy. And wants to get things done. The things she wants to get done are horrible, but she’s she’s

detached from reality.

And detached from reality, but she is there because she wants to get to the bottom of Jewish space lasers and realizes that you gotta work within the system. And Matt Gates is there to eventually get a show on NewsMax?

Yeah.

Right? I mean, Matt Gates is not in Congress to change policy. I think this

is a point about the Trump and the maga establishment that’s everything. May Matt Gates is is saying, I don’t know, maybe I’m there to a senator or governor or presidential nominee one day, or maybe it’s a show on these back. I don’t think he knows. Right? But he knows that it’s like the this performance that is what matters.

Right? The, like, the positioning is what matters. And and he’s positioning himself as being not part of the elite cuckolded globalist, whatever word you wanna use, Kevin McCarthy types. Right? Like, he’s not one of those.

He’s a fighter. He’s gonna fight. I I think back to your focus group, Sarah, whenever we’re talking about the we’re in Alabama maybe during the primary. In Florida. I was in Alabama and Florida.

And they’re like, for the they wanted somebody that was, you

know, gonna

actually get things done for

for certain offices. Right? But then when it came to Congress, they were like, I don’t know why my congressman hasn’t been doing things like Marjorie Taylor Green has. I’m like Matt Gaitzap. Right?

Like, their perception of, like, what you do in congress is this? Like, like, vote the Republican based voters what they want from their congresspeople is to you know, be a, you know, put a stick in the spokes. Be on

the Bannon’s war room. Yeah. Be

in the Bannon War room, put a stick in the spokes of the establishment and screw things up and create problems. That’s what they want from their people in Congress. Right? And so, Matt Gates is is giving them what they want right now, which is a separate thing from doing exactly what Donald Trump says. Yeah.

And this is again what’s funny. So right now, I’ve been seeing this weird formulation in the press where it’s like the moderates in the Kevin McCarthy Wayne versus, like, the far right. And I’m like, this is the difference. The difference is not moderate versus far right. The difference is chaos agents who believe that THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD JUST BE GROUND TO A HALT.

BY THEM AND EVERY DAY THAT IT DISUMCTIONS OR DOESN’T FUNCTIONS OR WHATEVER IS A GOOD DAY. Gates tweeted something like this. Like, the loser today is, like, Ukraine funding and the, you know, whatever because they’re not doing anything. The the so it’s not like the McCarthy we know is like the good governance people. It’s that they’re the ones who wanna launch investigations.

They will impeach my arcus. Like, I heard Dan Crenshaw being like, You know, the American people don’t want this chaos. What they want is for us to get rid of Joe Biden’s hundred and eighty seven new IRS agents. And I was like, Is that their main goal? Like, is that the main thing they want?

I don’t know. Like, the normal people that we are even talking about, they’re so long gone. Like, the met the the line has just shifted so far. But and then one other point I wanted to make before I forget it. I will say one of the big winners and all of this is the American people as we get more and more of a civics lesson into our institutions because so many of these things used to be rubber stamps, right, certifying elections, electing a speaker, the house, they were just things that just happened.

I know he paid the much attention to when they were ceremonial. Boy, am I learning so much by sitting and being like, so what happens when they go to the fifth round? Like yesterday, they’re all trying to figure out, like and George tried to like, Corvaki’s got his board out. What happens if you just vote present? And it’s I’m sitting here being like, I’m sorry, why can’t Akeem Jeffries has now won four floor votes.

Why can the Democrats rads not make some kind of play at this point. I would

answer that. Just a really quick on the funny thing about learning things. Me and Tyler were doing this yesterday. We were like, So who is next in line to the presidency? You

know,

if, like, if Biden and Harris, like, both went down tonight. Like, who is it? And it’s Patty Murray. The incoming senate pro Tim. And so then we’re, like, and we don’t have an answer to this.

So I don’t know, maybe that’s constitutional. Scott, or can email us. But so then if that were to happen and Patty Murray was to attend to the presidency, boy, what an owned goal by the Republicans? Because they would’ve lost. It’s not like it would go back to whoever they like to speaker.

Right? Like, once you’re in there, you’re in there. It’s not like you can kind of revert it and say, no. Actually, it would have been Kevin McCarthy. So anyway, the line of succession is a little in question at the moment.

Here’s why the Democrats can’t cut a deal.

This is very important.

There’s not a lot of people tweeting at me about this. There isn’t a Republican caucus to work with. And I know Sarah has been this optimism and has been proven correct. In a number of occasions about getting Republicans to to vote with Democrats on things like infrastructure, etcetera. And and kudos to Sarah for being right about that, and I’ve I told you you should’ve done a victory lap and the ballwork on that front.

But this Republic Conference is even less amenable than the last one. Right? Sure. You’ve lost the and so you’re you’re pool of people. Like, let’s just play let’s just play a parallel game be serious.

You’re pool of potential people that you could get. To go with Hacking Jefferies. He needs six people, I think. He’s got two twelfths. He needs five or six.

You’ve got the two impeachers, I guess, validate a new house. But they are, like, the two least West

Wingi

centrist importers of

the tank. Right?

So it’s not that likely. You’ve got maybe one or two new normies. You got this Mike Lawler out of New York, who’s the guy who, like, spoke out against Trump and against Santos. But even him, I was watching him on Fox, a clip of him, and he’s like, we need McCarthy to be speaker to shut down the Joe Biden socialist agenda. Right?

So it’s like even the new guy’s like, okay, this guy’s gonna be a stretch to it, but maybe you get him to get a Fred Upton or something. Right? And then you have the closet

normals. Right?

You’ve got, like, Don Bacon and Nebraska. It’s Patrick. It’s San Matez. Gerald, whatever it is, Nancy Mace. But, like, they’re really only, like, five of them.

Right? Like, six mean, how many of that are we really talking about? You know, Nancy May’s Gallagher, but he just nominated McCarthy. So you’ve got let’s just let’s just up it to eight. Right?

You got eight consonant normals. You got two normal new people and you got the two impeachers. That’s twelve. So you need to get half of them. Right.

And and these are not people that were that showed a lot of courage during the Trump years. I mean, like, none of these people are impeachers. Few of them supported the January sixth committee being formed. Right? So it’s just it’s in theory possible, but like the pool of people from which to recruit for for this is so small for the Democrat.

Here’s my deal.

I’ve been on the record many times saying this is Westwing Fantasy politics. No one should play it. Yeah. That was before they got to a fifth round of voting. Yeah.

Right? So here’s the thing. I think the Democrats should have a plan for something. Like, we’re There’s an opening for a play, and even if the play is, hey, Kevin. We’ll give you twenty votes.

But guess what? We wanna negotiate some things up front. Like, you we wanna release you from these terrorists. But you know what? We want a smooth debt ceiling debate.

You know, we’re gonna raise the debt ceiling without screwing around. And we’re gonna give us I don’t know what. Some, like, committee is something.

You can’t do that for Kevin because he vote because because of the Trump vote. Yeah.

That’s bad for democrats politically. So I think there’s a troll route — Yeah. — which is to to have somebody go up and nominate like, you know, Tad Lou and or, like, somebody who’s a a troll and say, let’s nominate David Valle

d’Ail. Right? Or this shady and say, like, we’re gonna

nominate one of the impeachers just as like a troll, but that’s not actually gonna happen. The real route, right, is to try to find somebody that would do it. Which

is not McCarthy, who didn’t vote to overturn the election. You can’t do that. Right? So you have to find somebody else, you know, Don Bacon, right, or whatever. Yeah.

But

the problem is whoever does that is is committed suicide. Then You’re speaker, but then you’re done. And you you’ve done a list, Cheney. Right? And so, like, now you gotta find six people to commit suicide over this.

It’s just like I I just thought you’d find it very hard to game it out. Well, this

is the problem. Right? Both sides have incentives running the other direction. Because it is, as you say, suicide for whatever Republican would accept the help. Yeah.

And for

the democrats, you know, like, they are showing total and complete unity together as a party, and they look like a party which governs and does stuff. Right? Which, you know, passes Bill. Right? Right now, as the fourth vote was taking place, Mitch McConnell was at an event with Joe Biden unveiling a big infrastructure project in Kentucky, which is paid for by the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Right? And this is I don’t know. Like, this is the twenty twenty four campaign. Right? And so you can have one party which wants to fight over critical race theory and re litigating the twenty twenty election

in one party which is

like these are the fifteen bills that we passed and these are the next fifteen bills that we wanna pass. We’re just here to do governing. And, you know, even if Old Man Biden is your nominee, I think that is a viable proposition. Maybe not the perfect proposition, maybe not the best proposition, but it’s viable. So

I think the proposition’s different than that because I don’t think the American people are like that enamored of the bills that have gotten passed. In many cases, I think they should think of a play. Like, what would they most wanna get out of this? But I’m also

The idea

that they, right now, actually, what they want to get out of this is just the contrast view. It’s just the split screen. Of, like, crazy versus look look at us over here normal. Not like we passed lots of good legislation and we’re great for governance. And because lots people don’t like their governance.

But, like, The idea and this is where I think Democrats have really been able to make some headway over the last few years just to shake off the idea that, like, they’re the crazy ones. Because right now, they look like the normal ones and the Republicans look like they can’t get it together. And I don’t know if you watched any of the shows last night, but, like, they were taking different editorial alliance in terms of whether they supported the twenty or whether they supported McCarthy, but everyone seems to agree that they all look like idiots. So that’s bad for them. Where were

the fox people? Where where did the fox hosts in prime time go on this?

Because that was

the the big thing yesterday The big thing on Tuesday was the deputy whip of the Republican conference saying, well, maybe Tucker and Ben Shapiro and Sean Hannity will force these guys to move. What what an unbelievable abdication of responsibility and admission of where the power within the House Conference lies. Right? The guy whose job is it is to go out and twist arms says, I don’t know, we’ll see what the TV people

say. Yeah. That’s

nuts. Right? I mean, that is that is just an open admission. It’s saying the quiet part out loud that, like, look, we don’t have any control over anything. It’s all about what the entertainment wing says.

They drive the park. That’s crazy. Right? We have nothing to offer them. Yeah.

I

think Hannity took a different line than Tucker took. And I’m only working off of Twitter clips here. So anybody speak can feel free to correct me, but on Tucker, he was taking shots at McCarthy. And on Hannity, he was, like, bemoaning the clown show and, like, they needed to get it together. And I didn’t see anything on Laura.

Tammy Eddie insight on the Fox News lineup? No.

I mean, Laura has expressed a lot of frustration with just, like, looking crazy and kinda gave Chip Roy

a little bit of the business. Like,

what’s your plan here? Like, what’s your plan like, do you guys have a plan here and, like, chip doesn’t? Right? And so,

yeah, I do think that they’re all split. Right? They’re split in the same ways to just as we were saying about how the caucus is, but, like, this is a fight about nothing. Yes. This is a fight about nothing.

Sometimes you get a little too far in the weeds, so you can watch in the daytime MS stuff, and, like, they’ll have some of the Hill reporters on. They’re, like, well, so they have some concerns about the motion to vacate one versus three in the amendment filing process. And it’s,

like, No. That that’s not I mean, that chip Roy might have a list of, like, forty theses to pin too too many garth these walls. Like, the other

eighteen of these Bozzo’s don’t fucking have anything. Right? To Pernicone, we haven’t shouted at his new newsletter, by the way, Joe Pernicones press past Bullwork newsletter over at the Bullwork. He’s at the hell for us. Like, his newsletter anecdotally, encapsulates this.

Right? It’s crunchaw, cussing it cloud. Cloud is one of the twenty. And cloud, he doesn’t have an answer. Credshaw’s like, what do you guys want?

Like, what the fuck do you guys want? Like, he’s f bombing at cloud and, like, he does have an answer because they he does they don’t want anything. They

want Kevin McCarthy’s scalp. That’s what they want. Right? Right. Yeah.

That’s right. They

just want a

scalp. They wanna win and they they they wanna win this fight. They don’t care if it’s a police. I will say though Tim Mason, we were talking about this in the Slack, and I wanna talk about it, which is like, what’s the strategy here? Because what we just watched so right right now, I don’t know if they’re voting on around five right now.

Not yet. But they just did round four. And it looks

like there was they they gained one, but it was an abstention, one person abstained. Is

that that Victoria The woman No. No.

No. She voted for Donalds.

So they got twenty. Yeah. They

got twenty plus some

extension. Twenty plus some extension. Okay. So So it didn’t move either way. It sounds like they’re locked in on their twenty, but they put up a different person.

So yesterday, they put up Jim Jordan. Yesterday,

Jim Jordan was the only man for the job and the guy who must lead this caucus and today was like, yeah, no, we got this other dude who’s absolutely of his savior, and we all have to vote for it’s even coherent as a as a position for Chip Roy and these people to take. I actually think that they’re a little weaker than they seem. Sarah, god. Here’s what’s

funny. Both sides have a real strength. Kevin McCarthy has a lot lot more votes than these other guys. However, they have enough and locked in and they can do this forever. Right?

So like somebody has to blink And for them to blink, what I can’t figure out is, like, they both think, oh, we’re gonna wear the other side down, which I guess is true at some point. At some point, people start moving. But I think you can’t beat something with nothing. And I think that the Donald’s thing was like, no, that didn’t make any sense. Nobody’s heard of this guy.

This is not somebody everyone’s just gonna coalesce or But, like, is the goal to wear people down so then you can be like, okay. Will take Skolise. And everybody’s like, fine. Skolise. And McCarthy even says, well, at least Skolise is my boy, we’re closed, I can literally, you know, this is better than doing this for another, you know, two weeks.

Where does McCarthy say, I will die

doing this? Here’s

my take on

this. So just as just by way of update. It was Victoria Sparks of Indiana who who voted present. So that was a intentional move. Off of McCarthy to present.

So he did lose a half, I guess, he lost, but, you know, thinking about it from a momentum perspective.

While you guys have been talking about a monitor, like, watch on the screen over here. McCarthy’s body language has changed a little bit in between the fourth and the fifth vote. He was getting very upset kind of waving his arms at at Jim Jordan. You didn’t see that yesterday. He kept the smirk on all day yesterday, the smiley smirk.

He was getting upset at Jim Jordan, and and there was a group of the Mike Gallagher types that we’re gonna send you a circle around Matt Gates. Oh, Matt Gates is, like, pointing at them. Like, it’s not Anyway, not a body language expert. Didn’t seem like Matt Gates is backing down.

Jake Sherman

says Matt Gates is working on a new you know, there’s somebody that I’ve never heard of that

he’s working on on the floor right now to add. Right now, Warren Davidson of Ohio, who took John Vayner’s seat, is an icon of one of these yesterday’s men, Republicans,

is nominating. Mcarthy. So again, that’s not the type of person you put up. If you’re showing strength and gaining with the with the nihilists, right? You’d put up marred marj or somebody.

So point

being, we’re rolling into the fifth ballot here.

We’ll see no

reason to believe that he’s gonna get it on this one. Here’s I think their strategy. Their strategy is create pain to such a degree that McCarthy feels like he has to come to the table. And McCarthy comes to the table and whoever is the spokesperson

for the freaks says basically, there’s nothing you can give us. The only thing you can give us is another person. So come up with another person that you can give

us and then we’ll give you the and, you know, and I that’s how I I I I think that seems like the most likely end. I think that there are other ends to this. But I enjoyed JBL’s Triad. And please push back on me on this JBL, but my response to your Triad, which was like, I am logically game out the different ways that this thing could go. And, you know, if you look at there are more marbles in in Kevin’s jar than there are marbles in the other jar and there are more outs for Kevin that, you know, as if it’s a poker hand.

I I just think that Matt Gates has the nuts.

You

know? And it’s like Kevin might have the most doubts, but like Matt Gates has the nuts, and he’s gonna keep going until Kevin gives it. Mean,

this is the problem. Right? McCarthy’s fundamental problem is that he is so compromised from the way he’s conducted himself over the last six years.

That it

is impossible for him to convince people that he is willing to go all the way, which is what he needs to be able to do. Right? This is he needs to be able to convince people that he is perfectly willing to blow up the conference and sit there for two months. That’s what’s required. Because he’s got five people in his pocket who are always Kevin.

You know, not never Kevin’s but always Kevin. And that there ain’t nobody else. There ain’t nobody else who can get this. And the truth is, this is what I think is actually underappreciated slightly. Now we’re talking about like, oh, it’s a fifth ballot.

I think we could wind up with twenty five ballots. And I think this could go for a week or more. And while in the short term, the beginning of this is that what

I’m trying to I would get a little hot and bothered over here. I’m sorry. Don’t kinda throw twenty five balls at me. That’s just No. Not laughing.

I’m just I’m getting flushed. It’s like it’s like

It’s already gone on. He’s

like,

oh my god. Twenty five. Like, give it to

me. Exactly. I

think that in the beginning of this, the pressure and the blowback is all on McCarthy. But as it drags on, I think it the the it shifts to the defectors. And because this isn’t a straight as you guys said is not a straight establishment versus manga, but is a like all of Republican Inc. Versus like twenty people from the entertainment complex,

I

think that that eventually can be very, very hard for them. Rights to have National Review and Bannon and more retailer Green and

Trump and

Hannity, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. All of those forces aligned against you, like saying you are doing exactly what Nancy Pelosi wants. Can I just

say that something about Tim’s formulation, he said, Gates has the nuts. And I know what he means, but like think about it, it’s true in a different way, which is he doesn’t

need the

Wall Street Journal page because he’s got like the crazy people. And and, like, he has the the knuts in the right knee media.

Got it. There are three ways. The nuts nuts

make certain

three ways there. This is

in many on tundra. Yeah. In many on tundra. And, like, these are chaos agents. Right?

So, they don’t care. He doesn’t care if the Wall Street Journal editorial pages mad at him. This is what he understood from Trump. Is that, like, just the act of fighting that you gain more name recognition. He’s in the driver’s seat.

He wants this to go as long as possible. He’s center of attention. And you know how much email he’s getting right now from voters, from the base going. Keep it up. Give it give it to that Cock McCarthy.

I hate him. Look,

Madison Hawthorne is the cautionary tale here. Right? I mean, you can do everything you want until you start screwing with the actual party itself and hurting the party. That’s when people lose it. And I think you could wind up in a position where a bunch of these defectors realize that their political careers are over.

If they don’t find some way to declare victory, and then get on board. And this, the other thing is they can declare victory. They can say we made our point, we heard them, we got x y z, In the McCar McCarthy’s reign will be short lived anyway. We won this. They can plausibly say that.

They haven’t out.

Right? Oh, two thoughts

on that. One, I think that the Madison Hawthorne Cardinal sin was not going against the party. It was being pictured in lingerie looking like a faggot. Really? What I think

what this cardinal sin was. Yeah. He became an

embarrassment. He was embarrassed. He wasn’t fighting for Like, fighting against the rhinos. He was just yeah. He was an embarrassed.

Yeah. He was an idiot.

He he was, like, knocking on

Yeah. But I

I know that’s what made Kevin go out him. He

was also, like, naked humping his cousin. Like, there was a like, that was the stuff that was coming out. Exactly, by

the way. I that’s why I had a soft spot for Madison the end. Like, I was like, this this guy is gonna be the one that you guys throw

out. Okay.

Marjorie Taylor Green, she gets a committee. She gets a committee. Anyway,

just don’t wanna forget to say this. So I I apologize for slightly changing the subject. But I I think the other big takeaway from all this about Matt Yates in this crew as they’ve demonstrated that they are in charge of this conference no matter who the speaker is. And I think that that’s like like the rest of this, which is why it’s kind of fun shot and throw it because it doesn’t it kinda doesn’t matter whether McCarthy is the speaker or, you know, scalise or whoever the hell they call Jim Jordan. It kinda doesn’t matter because, like, the speaker is the crazy.

Like, the crazies have shown that they are in charge, they won’t let anything happen. And so unless that, you know, you can get into a westering fantasy, What we’re headed towards is a situation where whoever ends up being the speaker, something will happen between now and twenty twenty five where they will need democratic votes. Might happen next month, might happen during a government shutdown, might happen over Ukraine, might happen once something unforeseen happens, like, that’s just the way things work. Right? Like, something will happen where a person with even a monoclonal responsibility will realize we have to do something and we have five anarchists or nineteen or twenty.

And so we need democratic votes, and they’ll get one shot at that, and then they’ll be out. Right? Like, back in the day, Baylor you know, used that card three times, four times, five times, and eventually got pushed out. Right? Like, the power has shifted.

To the crazy caucus. And I think that

is

like what we’ve really learned from this. Yeah.

And because

as we’ve said on the show for years now, it’s because that’s where the voters are. Right. Those

are the nuts that Gates has. You know, like Nancy Pelosi

can be Nancy Pelosi because you’re median Democratic voter is like a pretty normal ish person, and your median Republican based voter right now isn’t. Right? And you you people get the parties they they want. This is the Republican party that Republican voters want. Bobbert is up ren nominating

Byron Donald’s right

now on the fifth ballot. Meanwhile, Byron Donald is on Fox. While she’s nominating

me on Fox, because everybody’s like,

oh, who’s this person? Like He’s a two

term. At least

I have to say it’s really good. He is a two term congressman. This is his second term K. As I said, in two thousand, he plead guilty to a felony bribery charge. K.

That he was then elected to the Florida House where they expunged his record. Okay. Nice deal you got down there in Florida. Alright? He replaced Francis

Rooney. Sarah, you

remember Francis Rooney? He

I do. He was one of the good ones. His enormous. Francis Rudy got run out on a rail because he expressed openness to

voting for impeachment.

Francis was a

Jeb endorser, so I knew him a little bit. I remember texting him during that time. He wasn’t even actually on board for impeachment. He

ended up voting for impeachment, I think, by the memory serves, but he wasn’t, like, fully onboard. He just kind of gave a I I think we should wait and hear out the facts. On whether the president was, like, threatening an ally in order to, like, dig up dirt on his political opponents. Like, he gave one of those answers. They ran him out on a fucking rail.

K. Now he’s replaced by this Byron Donald. Teacher speaker of the house. Yeah. Who’s

being used by

all these lunatics you know, as a front person for their anarchy. Like, that just little anecdote. Right? Like, that’s just a little four year window into, like, how the party has continued to devolve during the Trump era. Right?

And and like how there’s to even a even a meaningful difference between twenty nineteen and now in a worse way for what the conference situation is.

You guys, let me read

you the funniest thing. Please. Former rep Justin Amash is here to spectate. I love this stuff. I wish this had happened when I was in Congress.

I might as well be here. I think I would make a great candidate for speaker. So Amash just came into the chamber. Can this just happen? Could you just go to the chamber right now?

Dorax. Us if you’re a former rep, Liz, because Don’t Unless

just rolls in to be like, I’m here in case anybody wants an outside speaker. Which, to be fair, Amash makes more sense than this other guy, this one term congressman. He does. I

didn’t like his nice tweet about Andy Biggs. Today. He said something. I think I I Amash, part of this, I think he kind of seriously thinks so. This would be more funny if it was in a troll, but I think he thinks he might have a chain I think he’s in Jim Carey, so you’re saying you have a chance moment here right now.

Sebastian just give us a note. Beaubert, after the nominating stage, transit to McCarthy and says Trump should call him to tell me does of the votes. Daddy should call you. You

don’t

have the votes. You’re gonna need congressional approval and you don’t have the votes. I’m

glad you did that, Sarah, because that has been going through my mind literally on loop since — Fine too. — yesterday afternoon. I guess the the big question and the question which will decide whether or not there’s pressure on McCarthy to withdraw is

how much of

a difference does it make being on the fifth vote versus the twentieth vote? I think the realpolitik perspective of this is that it makes very little difference. The marginal difference between If you are a team normal, meaning like anybody even in the manga establishment at this point, taking the loss and the weakness of having your side lose this joust is much much worse than going through an extra week or two weeks of the fighting. And that once you’ve like entered into this world that we’re in now, the difference between five votes and twenty five votes is negligible. Do you think that’s how people see it?

Is that correct? Is it incorrect? So

here’s the thing. I read your try today. I thought it was excellent.

You did?

Yeah. It’s it’s a fun way of breaking it down. I think one thing that you miss is like the genuine human element of getting to twenty if they’re on to twenty five, one of the things that a lot of people are tweeting about already is like, press is

getting prepared

and staff is getting prepared to be here all weekend. Let me tell you about these guys. These guys are not work horses. These guys are not gonna sit through roll call vote after roll call vote. And nothing changes.

Like, the pressure will become enormous on a Friday. And it will literally come down to, we have to go home or, like, even, like, what most of them get out of their Thursday afternoon, right, to go back to their districts. So, like, that kind of stuff these practical things are really gonna start to matter in this. These guys are also

so reactive to their Eilings in the moods at the moment. Not you know, Mitch McConnell is, like, cold blooded. Right? But most of these guys I just thinking back, and I’m sure Sarah has anecdotes like this to to the Trump era. I’d get texts from friends, from congressmen, from people who advise congressmen, like, you know, after Helsinki or after Trump did something that’s like, this might be the last draw.

You know what I mean? I I get those. Like, And it it’s because, like, they’d be getting a lot of mean emails, they’d be getting a lot of questions for press, they’d be annoyed in the moment. Right? And they react dive to that.

And and then, like, things have died down and they’d go back to normal. Right? And these were the ebbs and flows of what we went through for five years. That is true here too, right, where some of these wavering people will start to go start to go to Kevin and be

like, I’m out. Right? Like, I can’t do this anymore. You know, because they don’t think

about they don’t have the distance you have JBL to say that there’s like no really meaningful difference between five and twenty five votes and in the grand scheme of things if they just chill out and wait a week and play wordle, like, you know,

it all come out in a wash. Like, they a lot of these guys are humans with emotions that just they they don’t they don’t have the ability

to have that disc and I think that that the pressure will melt on some of them to to go. But because they don’t have somebody else, it

doesn’t matter

if they go to him and say, boy, I’m out because if he stays there, they don’t have anybody else to go to. They’ll come back. The reality is he does get in and then it’s over. Right? Like,

this is kind of the point. It’s sort of meaningless. Right? Like, it’s only meaningful in the sense that he gets his portrait. He gets his portrait and then he’s out again by May.

Right? Like, that’s the best case scenario for him.

That’s why I keep coming back to that that makes the most sense from the game theory scenario because in that way both sides win. Right? His allies win. He wins and the dissidents and the defectors also win. Like, everybody can actually walk away from that claiming victory or some part of victory.

And so that seems like the most likely. The other thing, again, if you are part of that conference, you’re Skolese, it is one thing to take over the chair when you’re ready. It is another thing to come in hobbled. Right? You’re then asking yourself to get just kicked in the knots.

Right. And, like, I don’t know that I would be one to do that. You wanna take these guys and you wanna you wanna break their legs, right, before you agree to be put under the dominion. This is why

I’m not sure anybody can give at this point except McCarthy. And let me tell you two things. One is he said, I will never agree to the motion to vacate. Right? But he did.

So we already know that Kevin McCarthy says never and then faults. And they could say, well, we don’t want it to be five members to vacate. We want it to be one person. Any one person can do it. At some point, they’re like, just give us school just give us some consensus and to me, that makes more sense than the twenty buckling for McCarthy when all he’s gonna do is retaliate.

Right? That

because that’s one of

the things they wanted. They wanted amnesty from retaliation. You can’t guarantee that. You

can say it

though. Right? You can say that there’s amnesty and then screw them when you’re on the way out the door. But they know that.

They know that. They know it’s gone too far. I’m not sure they can come back now. Looks like he

lost Ken Buck on the fifth ballot. So things are things are going in the wrong direction for all Kevin. Hate to see it. It’s really due.

Hate

to see. Hate to see it, man. Alright. Well, listen,

but

more

of this will come out of the wash. It’s been a good show. It’s been a long show. You guys should come out and see us. Tim and Sarah and I are gonna be in Los Angeles on January nineteenth.

We’re gonna be in Seattle, the Emerald City on January twenty first. You should come and hang with us. We wanna see you. We wanna meet you. I can promise a good time.

We wanna meet you. We’re gonna have Johnny Favreau with us. Not the director of the Iron Man series in elf, but the Obama speech writer in podcaster in Los Angeles, while Dan Savage in Seattle, I

don’t know what these venues are like, but I’ll just say when we did this live show in DC, we, like, hung out and had drinks after, like, with all the people. Well, I won’t be able to drink with all the Xanax

coursing through my veins, but but I will be super chill. I’m

gonna be super chill

and ready to gladly am. Go. Sarah,

Tim.

Good to see you guys. Happy

new

year. Bye. Bye.