James Hohmann: Kevin in a Vise

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is September twelfth two thousand twenty three, and we have a lot of things to sort out. We are joined by our good friend James Homen editorial writer and columnist for the Washington Post James. Welcome back to the podcast.

Charlie Sykes to be with you.

Well, first of all, before we get into everything, did you notice that the packers beat the bears over the weekend? I just have to mention this again.

I did. I’m actually I’m going to the, to watch the packers play the falcons in Atlanta this weekend.

Oh, really? I’m jealous.

I’m looking forward to it. Even we post Aaron Rogers new era.

I just wanted to take a moment. The reason I bring this up, I wanna, you know, take a moment. Thoughts and prayers to all you fans of the New York Jets. That’s all I wanna say. There’s no shot in Freud.

Just thoughts and prayers for all you New York Jets fans. Okay? So can we move on to the business end? Because I had to get I had to get that out of the way.

Let’s talk about something less divisive, which is politics.

Yeah. So I’m looking at the headline in, the NBC News website. Kevin McCarthy faces a perfect storm of demands as shutdown looms September thirtieth deadline, the house speaker confronts right wing demands to cut spending migration prop up Trump and impeach Biden with veiled threats to his gavel. So here we have My Kevin, once again, it kinda feels like Groundhog Day, doesn’t it? Like, you know, Kevin McCarthy in a vice.

How bad is this going to be? How about that for a general question?

I think it is gonna be bad, but I learned to kind of respect McCarthy’s political skills during the speaker vote fight. Obviously, he has such a narrow margin for error and who knows what his own agenda is? I think he’s just trying to survive. But he was able to hold on for that speaker’s fight. Obviously, some of the hardliners say, this time’s gonna be different.

They said that a few months ago.

And and the debt limit, the debt limit he pulled out of a hat kind of. Yeah.

Exactly. Exactly. You know, on paper, it’s really difficult. There’s a lot they have to do the base is restive. It feels like they’re walking into all the same traps that opposition parties have walked into in the past.

Well, is there any way to avoid a shutdown? Because it appears that the hard liners this is the last card to play. Right? I mean, the hard liners are demanding an impeachment inquiry and we learned this morning that Kevin McCarthy is gonna cave in on that. They’re, you know, talking about, you know, defunding the special councils.

They’re talking about defending Ukraine. Others have, you know, have draconian spending cuts that have no chance of actually being passed, but Is there any way that he can finesse this without shutting down the government, or is that a just foregone conclusion?

Sure. I think he could. I think that there’s a way that you can rest the votes with the right kind of leadership and the right sort of face saving. But a lot of people that I am talking to on Capitol Hill and both parties are very, very pessimistic. But the, you know, leadership has a lot of tools at hand to twist arms and to get the vote.

If Kevin McCarthy wants to avoid a shutdown, he can. He might need a little help from the White House.

But can he do that? You’re right. I mean, obviously, if he wants to avoid a shutdown, he can cut a deal with the White House. He can get Democratic votes, but wouldn’t that come at the price of perhaps his speakership? I mean, I can see how he can keep the government open.

I can see how he can keep his speakership. I’m not quite clear how he does both.

Well, perhaps this playing, let’s see with impeachment is part of an effort to sort of

—

Sure. — let’s avoid a shutdown

feed the alligator.

We’ll give you your committee to pursue impeachment, but don’t make us look like we’re unserious about governing. That could be part of the calculus.

Okay. So let’s talk about this. Does he have the votes to go ahead with the impeachment inquiry? You know, over the weekend, we have you know, people like Ken Buck who’s very, very conservative congressman from Colorado were saying, look, he doesn’t have any reasons to pursue this. I’m just reading a quote from Ken Buck.

On the one hand, we’ve got to pass a short term funding bill, and we also have the impeachment issue. We also have members of the house led by my good friend Roy, who are concerned about policy issues. So you take those three things put together and Kevin McCarthy, the speaker, has made promises on each of those issues two different groups. And now it is all coming due at the same time. I guess the question is are these reconcilable?

Because Kevin McCarthy has finessed this so far. His political skill has basically been to, you know, throw out promises like skittles, some of which are, like, mutually explosive. Right.

Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, the the post did a feature a few months ago, and it was the five families of the house republican conference. And and but what’s funny is the McCarthy folks loved it. And, you know, they said that this really is actually what it’s like.

And I think that it’s true. You know, and maybe that’s not tenable in the long term Obviously, this is coming against the backdrop of an election being not much more than a year away. And so if you’re Kevin McCarthy, How much are you thinking about your own survival?

Yeah.

Which, obviously, everyone thinks of that first. But how much are you thinking of strengthening your party’s hand going into the election. Biden looks so weak right now in the polls, but a Republican impeachment inquiry could end up playing to his advantage, even a shutdown fight could end up playing to Biden’s advantage. And are they thinking a year ahead, or are they thinking three weeks ahead? And and that I don’t know.

Is this where it’s counterintuitive? Because normally, I think it’s it’s a safe bet that, nobody wants to be impeached and impeached my inquiries are bad sort of like indictments. And yet, in this sort of upside down political universe, Joe Biden could use a lifeline right now. And maybe this clown car impeachment inquiry could be exactly what he wants because It’s interesting. They’re backing into this before they have any real evidence.

I mean, and this is kind of the problem when when Republicans are pressed, well, what exactly is hard evidence that would justify the impeachment of Joe Biden. The answer seems to be, well, that’s why we have to have an inquiry to find the evidence that we don’t have right now, which is generally not the way things have been done in the past. So so how do you think the impeachment plays out? So far, Jim Comer’s investigations have not been I mean, this is this has not been the Army McCarthy hearing. This has not been really successful with Watergate hearings.

So it it depends on whether they have the goods or gonna get the goods Yeah. I mean, all indications are that, either they have a lot of scintillating and embarrassing stuff about the president’s son, but they don’t have enough know, so when you ask about Ken Buck, yeah, like, I think that McCarthy can thread this particular needle and buy himself a couple weeks by saying, look, this is just an inquiry into whether they’re should be impeachment proceedings and to see if evidence turns up. And that’s how you can sort of get the bucks of the conference to go along But then, you know, you send articles of impeachment to the House Judiciary Committee. I’m not sure what those articles of impeachment would be for. And that is where it gets tastier.

And if they don’t have the goods,

then an example, what are the goods for people who haven’t been paying the attention to all this?

I mean, I think in this case, it would be evidence that Joe Biden directly benefited financially in more than just like Hunter paid his cell phone bill one time.

That he was part of the sleazy deals of Hunter.

Exactly. And the deals were sleazy. And I think Democrats should stipulate that.

May, you know, Hunter Biden clearly was trading upon his father’s name. He had these sleazy international deals, and he made a lot of money which he blew on cocaine and women. I don’t know what he did with it. But so far, there is nothing tying his father to that. And so that’s what they’re desperately in search of.

Right? They’re in search of that nexus, that transfer of cash from hunter to dad. And so far, do we see any of that? Is there any evidence?

We don’t. There is some smoke but we don’t see any fire. And I do think that the Republicans smart Republicans, of which there are a bunch. In leadership and in staff. And once you start going down this road, it’s dangerous.

You know, it’s it’s like building a weapon that you’re gonna wanna use. It’s it’s hard to imagine what the off ramp would be because once you start the impeachment proceeding, or the inquiry or whatever you’re gonna call it. It’s impossible to imagine Komer or anyone else saying, oh, well, we didn’t find the smoking gun. We’re we’re giving up.

Yeah. He’s innocent. He’s exonerated. Yeah. I mean So then

you end up you you put it on some of your members where, you know, it’s like, oh, it’s so frustrating that the rhinos won’t go along. And again, you know, I mentioned an election in a year. The Democrats odds of winning the house next year are higher than their odds of holding the Senate. And the presidential election is gonna be decided by moderate suburban Republicans in four states, and control of the house is gonna be decided by moderate suburban Republicans in California and New York. And the members who represent those districts are going to have really tough votes.

And so, you know, one of the jobs of a speaker is to protect those frontline members, whether they’re a Republican or a Democrat, And because McCarthy has such a small majority, he really is caught in this really tough place where he has to protect his front liners but also placate the Marjorie Taylor Greens, you know, who, as you noted in your newsletter today, on September eleventh is out there calling for secession. I mean, it’s hard. I don’t I’m not sure. I mean, and I think the speakership in this environment with this party, with this conference it might be an impossible job.

Well, that’s why it is kinda it’s compared to a Rubik’s cube from McCarthy because, you know, you have to get the freedom caucus guys plus Marjorie Taylor Green who’s been kicked out of the freedom caucus, whatever, can get too deeply into into that particular food fight. He’s gotta keep the hard liners, in line. But by doing that, he puts the, you know, ten, twelve members and swing districts very much at risk. I mean, there were a number of districts that elected Republicans have been voted for Joe Biden, and many of those moderates are saying, please do not make us walk the plank on these crazy issues, you know, do not force us as a litmus test vote. But you know, I can certainly conceive the, you know, impeachment of Joe Biden vote coming up, and any Republican that votes know is going to be tagged to Rhino is going to be targeted for primary and may have the same fate as Republicans that voted to impeach Donald Trump.

I mean, it will be that much of a test. And for many of those congressmen, from the swing districts. I mean, this is like putting a gun to their heads.

Yeah. It is. You know, one of the things that makes this congress different than other congresses is that traditionally the house passes tons and tons of show bills that they know will never go anywhere in the senate, but it’s sort of to put points on the board and so people can say they voted for this and that. And there have been relatively few sort of show bills, and it is because on some of the conservative policy priorities. McCarthy doesn’t wanna make the really tentative members that walk that plank.

Let’s move on to something else. So I need you to explain to me the Elon Musk Walter, Isaac, and story. Now for people who are just tuning into this particular story, Walter Isaacson is an immensely prestigious author. He’s written the biography of Leonardo Davinci and of, Ben Franklin you know, former editor of Time magazine. And he’s been working on a biography of Elon Musk, and, of course, wow.

You know, what a tangled web you know, dealing with the mind of Elon Musk is. And and there’s was a back and forth over the last couple of days played out in the pages of the Washington Post where Walter Isaacson wrote a story about Elon Musk, essentially shutting off startling satellite access the Ukrainiansians were trying to attack the Russian fleet. Elon has pushed back. Walter Isaac has corrected that story. I mean, it seems like a terrible mess.

We know that everything Trump touches dies. Is this one of these cases of everything Elon touches dies? I mean, where’s the Walter Isaacson book on this whole starling thing because I have to admit it’s making my head hurt.

It is making my head hurt too. I’ve been following it closely. The the publication date for Walter’s book is today. We ran an excerpt, obviously, last week. And, you know, I think in this particular case, Elon does a lot of things.

You know, he he’s very much kind of a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy. You know, I don’t think he consults his lawyers as much as someone normally would.

I think that’s apparent. Yeah. Or consult anyone at some point. I mean, it’s he strikes me as the kind of guy that, you know, wakes up at three o’clock in the morning, and, like, I am a genius, and I have this brilliant idea. I had this dream.

I’m just gonna not call it Twitter anymore. I’m gonna call it x and by four o’clock it’s x. Right? I mean

And he only surrounds himself with people who will kind of allow him to do that. And the people who, you know, don’t validate those kinds crazy ideas or tell him that they’re genius. He quickly pushes out of his orbit. And I think it’s a cautionary tale for those of us who don’t have a billion dollars that it’s good to have people who are willing to tell you when your ideas are stupid.

That, by the way, in and of itself is valuable. Okay. Let’s go back to this. So did Elon Musk Fuck over the Ukrainians in order to appease Vladimir Putin or because he was genuinely afraid that if the Ukrainians used the drones to attack the Russian fleet that it would lead to some nuclear holocaust. Did that actually happen?

Because because now Walter Isaacson is walking in that story back, and there’s so there’s version one point o, and now there’s a version two point o. Can you explain that to me?

Yeah. So the the version one point o is Elon Musk found out that the Ukrainians were going to attack the Russian fleet in Crimea and shut down access to his internet platform that they’re depending on for targeting and a lot of other things. And that thwarted what could have been a major coup in the war and really turn the tide in favor of the Ukrainians. The version two point o is StarLink was equipped to cover basically the the wartime boundaries of Ukraine and that it wasn’t covering Crimea. And so they would have Musk would have had to extend the service to allow the Ukrainians to invade.

Turn on something that was not done.

Exactly. And so, I mean, I think that this is, like, where don’t have any insight into it. You know, re reported insight, but Musk clearly does have a coterie of public relations advisors and lawyers who are, I think, in his ear saying, you know, this explanation protects you from congressional investigations and other problems. I mean, he ultimately is It’s insane to believe, but Musk is a huge government contractor.

Which raises all kinds of questions. Doesn’t it?

It does. Which are legitimate and should still

be Exactly.

And and I do think, you know, this should be bipartisan. Conager should look into this and get to the bottom of it. And also, the Ukrainians shouldn’t be depending on the whims of this boy genius, you know, who wakes up at three AM with these silly ideas, as you know, correctly, for their national defense and when they’re facing an existential attack, I do think that there are lots and lots of questions we don’t know the answers to, but it does seem like Musk basically, it did undercut the Ukrainians. On the other hand, to be fair, Musk gave the Ukrainian StarLink in the first place when he didn’t have to.

But that’s the thing about the largest of billionaires, what they give it, they can take it away. I mean, you’re calling Eugene Robinson. I’m I’m just looking at the headline here. You know, raises the the really large fundamental question that Elon Musk should not be calling the shots on how Ukraine fights or any other ally of the United States. It’s one thing to say, okay, Elon Musk is screwing up Twitter, and he’s created the cesspool of any Semitism and hate speech and all that.

That that is bad enough. But here we have a major government contractor who feels somehow in titled to make major decisions of life and death, foreign policy, war, and peace. And wow. That just doesn’t seem like a good idea.

It doesn’t. And let me add, you know, what we’re talking about Russia and Musk has had conversations with senior Russian officials and all that. I mean, the thing that actually should alarm us more than Russia. I mean, in in addition to is China, where Musk really has played nice with the Chinese Communist Party And, you know, his knee deep in construction in China and trying to do business in China and is totally very much caught up in the CCPs. And I think that that should be really alarming that this guy has such business interests.

If you are a United States senator right now or a or member of Congress, I mean, wouldn’t this be like the most urgent thing to have a public hearing about? Is is Elon Musk in the position to do anything to kneecap US defenses against, say, China because of his conflict of interest. Why have we given him this kind of access? Or how much power does he have to do that? I would just like to answer them.

May may maybe the answer is, no. No. There’s he can’t shut off our satellites because the Chinese called them up and say we can’t build Tesla here anymore unless you shut off the the satellites that are protecting the United States. You know, maybe that doesn’t happen, but maybe it does.

Also, I think the question I would ask is how can we whatever dependency we have, however bad it is as a country on Elon Musk. Like, how do we Get rid of it. How do we stop it? How do we backfill it?

How do we zero it out?

Are there reliable defense contractors that we can partner with. Those are the questions that that I’d be asking if I was a senator.

Okay. Totally switching gears now. I wanna get your take on this controversy involving the democratic governor of New Mexico. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who just issued an edict temporarily banning the carrying of firearms in Albuquerque. Let me just read you this, this story.

I think this is from, CNN. New Mexico governor, Michelle Luhan Grisham, signed an emergency order banning both open and concealed firearms in Albuquerque. And, surrounding County on Friday setting off a stream of backlash and legal challenges. The ban is part of a public health emergency declaration over gun violence and drug abuse. The Democratic governor cited the killings of a thirteen year old girl and eleven year old boy as well as two mass shootings in the state in May in her declaration.

So this is a thirty day suspension of open and concealed carry laws. So you’re taking on that. I mean, you could kind of understand where she’s coming from on all of this, but it is kind of breathtaking to issue an edict wiping out all second amendment rights, and, of course, the backlash is national or local, local sheriff saying they’re not gonna enforce it. A lot of, gun rights advocates saying, see, we told you they were going to suspend the second amendment — Right. — and she just freaking did it.

It is breathtakingly unconstitutional. It is a gimmick that will be struck down in court. Should be struck down in court. And it It is exactly the wrong approach for lots of reasons. Again, you can be sympathetic to gun violence or horrifying those cases, but we’re seeing this rollback of public health emergency powers in lots of places because there was overreach during COVID and there were too many restrictions and you know, if we could do it over again, I think even a lot of Democrats would say, you know, maybe we shouldn’t have forced churches to close and and that kind of thing.

But now these emergency powers are being rolled back because they’re being abused in this way. And, you know, I think for all of us who spoke out against Donald Trump using emergency powers to divert money that Congress wouldn’t appropriate to build the wall. This is a similar illustration of a politician mostly for show kind of invoking these executive authorities that she doesn’t have to do something that is extra constitutional I mean, I was heartened to see Ted Lou, the Democratic congressman from California speak out against it. I’m gonna mention that. Very liberal.

Yeah. Very liberal member. And even David Hogg, who was at Parkland and I think runs the group March for our labs, big liberal gun control group. He also said this isn’t the way to go about it. Which I was heartened to see because I just don’t want us to get to a place where governors are trying to one up each other in in ignoring the constitution to pursue their agenda, whatever that is, whether that’s going after undocumented immigrants or guns or climate change or I mean, there’s so many ways you could say, oh, there’s a there’s an emergency.

I’m gonna claim all these powers that I don’t have. And it is just so is an American kind of repulsive to our the whole system of government. You cannot just do what governor Grisham did. And the thing is, like, she clearly knows better. But this is just to try to raise her profile.

Remember she wanted to be vice president to Biden, didn’t hold up in vetting, wanted to be HHS Secretary got passed over for Javier Bessera. And I think this is an an example of the Peter principle. Of someone who, you know, probably belongs in the house, not as governor.

Well, I mean, your point about, you know, the the outrage about, Donald calling for terminating the constitution, and then you have a governor who basically says, yes, I’m gonna be terminating these constitutional rights because I think I have the power. You’re right. She’s gonna get slapped down. I’m really surprised by, things on social media, but when Ted Lou, who’s a very liberal democrat, came out and said, Hey, really, you can’t do this. I thought that was kind of an interesting tell.

Alright. I wanna get to a presidential politics in just a moment, but, something else that hasn’t been on my radar screen that is that’s really immensely important as you’ve been watching closely. These upcoming legislative elections in Virginia you know, there’s been a lot of buzzes. Glenn Young can possibly gonna be a late entry into the presidential race, and he’s made it clear that he’s gonna focus now on trying to flip the Virginia legislature And again, I understand people going, wait. This is one state, the legislature, and one state, why is it so important?

Well, tell me why it is so important because it certainly is gonna give you an indication of what the mood of the electorate is, which is kind of a leading indicator going into next year, isn’t it?

Yeah. It is. And, yeah, and there’s a a lot of things that’ll tell us. You know, Glen Youngon wins in Virginia by two points a year after Biden wins by ten points. And if you’ll recall, you know, the potency of parents rights, parents matter, the, you know, backlash to critical race theory, everything that was happening in loud and county related to transgender issues and sexual assault.

And Terry McCallov is screwing up, you know, by saying parents shouldn’t get to say what is done in the classroom. And, you know, there’s a bunch of swing districts that are genuine swing districts, which is, you know, increasingly rare in federal house races. But here, you know, where there’s a ton of districts with competitive state senate and state house races where Joe Biden carried it. Glenn Youngen carried it. You know, and then a Democrat carried it for Congress in twenty twenty two.

And so it really is a great proxy in window. For one, on whether the parties will be motivated, you know, will voters be motivated to come out? The biggest issue Certainly, as far as Democrats are concerned is abortion. And right now, there’s divided government. The Democrats narrowly control the state senate, the Republicans narrowly control the state house, and then you have a Republican governor.

And Glenn Youngton says that if Republicans when control of the house and senate and both really up for grabs, then he will sign a fifteen week abortion ban with exceptions for rape and life of the mother and incest. But what he has declined to say is if the Republican legislature passed a six week ban. Would he sign it? And he’s kept the door open to that. And he said, look, you know, fifteen weeks is what we’re gonna get.

But so you have Democrats who were going around saying, this guy’s know, if he’s gonna sign a six week ban, if he can, he will be able to sign a fifteen week ban if Republicans just pick up a couple seats. So it is a test of whether Democrats can still use the Dodd’s decision in the abortion issue to rally their voters.

So is that the dominant issue?

Republicans are are trying to make the kind of education, parents rights, the dominant issue. Yonkin’s popular. He’s in the fifties, approval rating wise. There was a big state surplus, thanks in part to federal money, but the state’s doing pretty well. Youngin has done a bunch of good stuff with trying to raise educational standards.

He has tried to invest in behavioral health. He his cut taxes. I mean, there’s a the kind of a record that he can run on of actually doing a bunch of stuff in divided government. Junin is going around the state doing these town halls in the swing districts because he is popular. And the big sign behind him at these town halls says parents matter.

And he’s still sort of he pardoned the, allowed county father over the weekend. So certainly in Northern Virginia swing districts, Republicans aren’t running on. We’re gonna restrict abortion after fifteen weeks.

Right.

But I do think if Republicans win control of the state house and senate, I think it will say something about the flagging galvanizing power of daubs, you know, going into twenty twenty four.

What are Democrats saying about this parental rights issue?

They’re saying, yeah, we want parental rights. You know, you have a lot of Democrats in competitive races saying it was a mistake to keep the schools closed for so long that was wrong. We shouldn’t have masked mandates again. Parents should have a say over their schools. And, you know, so they have moved to a reasonable place on these issues.

And I guess what Democrats are saying is now, like, Republicans have gone too far, that this isn’t just about, like, school closures that this is about book bands and culture war stuff. And in one of these swing districts in loudoun County, in an open state senate race, the Democrat is talking a lot about whatever the education stuff comes up. She responds by talking about school shootings and they need to deal with guns. So I guess that’s part of their messaging too.

Okay. Well, speaking of Culture Wars, you had an item that was kind of eye popping. I I don’t know who had originally reported this, but at the Iowa game, where, of course, Trump was there and got, loudly booed and Ron DeSantis was there as well. I’m sure he got cheered and and booed. But there was this initial report.

DeSantis’s campaign is geo targeting and add directly to people’s phones in the stadium that hammers Trump for allowing transgender women to compete in miss universe. I mean, wow. And as you point out, you know, imagine this being your case why you should be the leader of the free world, small, narrow minded, and then serious. As it turns out, it wasn’t DeSantis’ actual campaign. It was DeSantis’ super pack, never backed down But still, James, is this the issue?

Yeah. It’s their message.

Is this the issue? Yeah. Okay. You’re sitting around the room and you’re going Okay. Iowa football game.

You know, what can we do? We can geotarget these messages. What should we go for? Transgender women competing in this universe. That’s their go to issue.

It’s really depressing. I mean, what it feels like is a hillary pass, which is the, you know, the Ron DeSantis, it knows that he’s behind, meaningfully, you know, by a couple touchdowns. And they’re looking for a way to peel off evangelicals in Iowa who voted for Ted Cruz over Donald Trump in the twenty sixteen caucuses and they see this as a wedge to be able to do that. And so they’re running that play. But I I do think it shows a fundamental unseriousness.

That’s your rationale for being the leader of the free world. It’s you shouldn’t be the leader of the free world. You know, it is the super pack, not the campaign, but But it’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to test your message.

I’d forgotten that Donald Trump controls miss universe. I mean, the or or used to control miss universe? So is this a thing related? Does he still control miss universe? He still own it?

No. I think he’s stolen. He sold it a couple years ago. So did

he allow transgender? I mean, what? This is, like, so weird. That’s, like, you, you know, I’m embarrassed to ask.

I honestly, I don’t know the the facts here. So I I don’t wanna say anything wrong, but

Okay. Yeah.

I mean, I think this was something that happened, like, a decade ago, and it was, like, one person or a guy. I don’t really full I don’t know. So I don’t wanna speak out of school. But if the debate is over who has done more for trans rights or whatever. You know, Trump did a lot during his presidency to undo stuff that the Obama administration had done and But the conversation should be bigger.

If you’re trying to stop Republicans from nominating Donald Trump, trying to out trump trump is not the way to do it. You have to offer something different. This, I think, it reflects sort of of strategy that clearly is not working. And it increasingly feels like barring some actuarial issue. Trump’s gonna be the nominee, and so these are sort of gasps to to try and stop that.

But it it just feels like if this is what you’re throwing against the wall and hoping it sticks, it’s like you’re not in a very good place. However, many days out we are from the Iowa caucuses.

We’ve talked before about this. The the kind of the rocky marriage between Ron DeSantis and this Super PAC run by Jeff row for for people who wanna, you know, this is getting a little in inside baseball here, but you have the campaign, and then you have the super pack and Super PAC has all the money, but it’s run by somebody differently. And under the law, they’re not supposed to coordinate. They’re not supposed to talk. So That’s why they weak that pre debate memo that blew up in everybody’s face.

And there are multiple reports that Rhonda Sanders is like, you know, what the f is going on with these guys. Jeff Rowe is basically buying multiple summer houses walk this campaign while the thing is just going up in flames. I mean, this is this is part of the the massive mega grift of American political consultant politics. Six, isn’t it?

Roe was Glen Youngen started just in twenty twenty one.

We did a better job there, but Yeah.

Exactly.

We were talking about embarrassing and trivial things. There are actually we need to remind people. There are actually really, really important things. That could get screwed up with all of this, you know, performative politics, including in Washington, DC. I mean, you know, Kevin McCarthy’s trying to figure how to not shut the government down.

But we have FEMA money for disaster aid. And and as you’ve pointed out in the Washington Post, Congress is going to have to decide whether or not to reauthorize the Pfizerization that was passed after nine eleven. So talk to me about that because I I I know you’ve done a deep dive into that issue.

I have. Yeah. So the section seven zero two was passed in two thousand eight on a bipartisan basis. And the idea was essentially to allow the government to conduct foreign surveillance even if hypothetically, like, two Iranians are communicating over Gmail in the old days pre two thousand eight, you can make an argument that because it was on American soil, and it was going through American routers that they would do some protections. And so this basically created a legal framework to allow the NSA to collect on foreign intelligence targets.

The the challenge is that inevitably, of course, Americans are communicating with foreigners who are under surveillance. And so there’s sort of incidental collection of American communications phone calls and emails when they’re talking to people who are targets of foreign surveillance. And so the big question is, you know, who should have access to that material? Should they need a warrant to have access to it? And the government so it’s been reauthorized twice.

It expires every five or six years. It’s expiring again at the end of this year. And the government is quite persuasive that this has become, like, the most important tool. For combating terrorism espionage that they’ve stopped assassination attempts, cyber hacks. They broke up a Chinese spy ring in the United States.

What happened to Carter page is very different. It’s a totally different section at different part of the law than what’s expiring. But there are a lot of people on the far right and the far left who don’t want to renew this program. And there have been some abuses. The FBI was searching the database of seven zero two is the foreign intelligence stuff to they were checking the names of Black Lives Matter protesters and January sixth rioters to see if they were involved with any foreign intelligence agencies you know, out of fear that maybe there were some government behind what happened on January sixth.

There was not. And so there’s a lot of oversight, and it’s sort of like that shouldn’t have happened. And So we wrote an editorial in the Washington Post last week outlining some reforms that can be made to the program. For example, it shouldn’t be used for non national security related criminal investigations, but the tool is so essential, fifty nine percent of the items in Joe Biden’s presidential daily brief last year cited intelligence gathered under Section seven zero two of Fisa So that would all be closed off if this program isn’t extended by the end of the year. And right now, it looks like it may not be.

So I think it’s essential to extend it and congress, you know, bipartisan way needs to get its act together. I think this is gonna be the most important national security thing this Congress does. But, you know, you can do it in a smart way with reforms and both sides can sort of get what they want. And there’s some trading space and the administration’s willing to negotiate. But that’s one of those issues that is on the back burner, but really does matter, especially, you know, here we are twenty two years after September eleventh.

And this system was created to prevent sort of the high wall of separation between foreign intelligence gathering and domestic law enforcement. This was supposed to fix that. And so if you reelect that barrier, we’re just asking for an, you know, another attack.

So will this be up to Tommy Tuberville?

Unfortunately, I mean, they can bring it to the floor. I mean, there’s a lot of people are never gonna vote.

This just brings up this strange story that I I’m gonna admit I completely do not understand why, the the United States senators allowing Tommy Tuber the one guy to hold up all of these military nominations and promotions. You know, why Mitch McConnell is allowing this to happen? Why Chuck Schumer’s allowing this to happen? Why the United States Senate continues to have this weird tradition of one member being able to put a hold on nominations. That’s not in the constitution.

Is it I mean, that that’s not something that the founders, you know, thought was a good idea. I mean, isn’t this a good moment to say this is just crazy?

Well, yeah, I agree. It’s shameful what Tuberville is doing. I know a lot of the really great guys who are in the military, who are affected by this directly. There are reasons why, you know, this is not in the constitution. The framers, you know, we had an articles of confederation that gave every state veto power over everything and that didn’t work.

So we came back nine years later and wrote the constitution. You know, yeah. So the the kind of the heckler’s veto is not a good way to govern. I’m a supporter of the filibuster. I think that it prevents craziness on both sides and prevents kind of erratic movements and lowers the stakes of our elections.

But I do think that McConnell and Schumer both have levers at their power to sort of jam through these promotions. And these are all, like, deserving people who, you know, it’s not just the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. It’s Lieutenant colonels and colonels. No. I think this is a good moment to revisit some of the the whole policy.

You mentioned the anniversary of nine eleven. Of course, we all remember what happened to that day. We we had a really powerful piece I thought in the Bulwark yesterday by, veteran Will Saletan said we also need to remember what came after nine eleven, all of the wars we fought, all of the, casualties and the men and women who went to Iraq and went to Afghanistan and all the fallout from all of that. And this is a a good moment to look back, and we have we had two anniversaries. We, of course, have the nine eleven anniversary, and we have the anniversary of the of the pullout from Afghanistan, and you’ve been looking at the question of, okay, let’s remember what happened in Afghanistan in including the state of women in Afghanistan because that continues to haunt us, doesn’t it?

It does. And it should. And it’s it’s hard because it’s much harder to report from Afghanistan now because the Taliban took over two years ago. And, you know, what happened at Abigail was was terrible and sad And, you know, I spoke out against pulling out of Afghanistan. I thought it was a bad idea.

I think that’s been vindicated. And the women who are left behind it is like worse than the worst case scenario. They have done so much to suppress them to keep them from learning. The Taliban, I never believed them. I don’t think any serious person did, but the Taliban claim this time was gonna be different.

It wasn’t gonna be like before, they were gonna let women learn and Bulwark. And they have not in the band contraception. They’ve forced women out of schools. They’ve banned women most recently from visiting national parks. You know, some Dubai billionaire offered a bunch of a hundred Afghan girls’ scholarships to come study in the UAE, and the girls boarded a private plane and the Taliban, the Ministry of virtue and vice came and dragged the girls off the plane.

I mean, it’s they’re treating half their population, like, you know, animals. And it’s unconscionable. And this is a reminder. And I understand the problems of Afghanistan and Iraq and all that. But the essential nature of American leadership.

And there is a vacuum. The jungle does grow back. When America’s not there, there were four million girls who are getting education because of a relatively small number of US troops who are keeping the peace. In Afghanistan. You know, we had virtually no casualties the last few years up until the pullout.

So it it is a reminder twenty two years after nine eleven after the bad taste in our mouth from Iraq. American leadership still matters and that it’s essential. And this idea that the world will be okay without us is just plain wrong, especially as there are so many people like the Russians and the Chinese who are now making inroads in Afghanistan. And, you know, China’s getting mineral rights and various things, it is a tragedy on so many levels just because it’s not in the newspapers and or on the front pages doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be remembering those women left behind.

Yeah. The jungle does does grow back. James Home an editorial writer and columnist for the Washington Post Thank you so much for joining us on the Bulwark podcast today.

Always a pleasure, Charlie. Great to be with you.

Thank you. And thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow, and we’ll do this all over again. The boat work podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.