Will Saletan: Expect More Hostage-Taking in the House

Welcome to the Bullework Podcast. It is Monday, and of course, we have to ask the question what could possibly go wrong, Kevin McCarthy, finally, and he finally was able to self gelled himself to the point where he was able to get the hallow gavel In case anybody thinks that that was a hell of a show, that’s just a preview of what the next two years are going to be like. There’s a lot of other things going on as well, including the fact that Joe Biden is down at the border. The House GOP is wrestling with that rules package later today, and rioters in Brazil. Our storming government buildings to overturn the presidential election, let me quote the Washington Post here, in scenes that hauntingly evoked the January sixth two thousand twenty one, insurrection at the U.

S. Capitol by supporters of president Donald Trump. So what I wrote in my newsletter this morning, old and busted, America, shiny city on a hill, new hotness, America, exporter of insurrection. So welcoming back because it is Monday. My good friend and colleague Will Sullivan, how are you?

Happy New Year, first of all.

Thanks, Charlie. I I’ve missed you, but I wanted to first of all console you on the packers going out. They had a noble run at the end. But don’t worry, my my cowboys will be right behind you. Oh,

man. I was afraid you were gonna bring this up. It’s just it it is too soon. I had to say the mood here in cheese headland is decidedly negative on Aaron Rogers.

Roger

has, like, a hundred and fifty million dollars still waiting for him on that contract, I think.

Yes. America the land of of endless hope. Okay. So I I can’t even bring myself to talk about this. I did make one life decision that was probably shouldn’t even confess this.

The late night games were really tough because I have to get up so early, and I had to get up really early for morning Joe today. And I made the decision I was gonna watch the beginning of it, and I wasn’t gonna stick with it. But of course, you know, at midnight or so, I roll over, I wake up, I, you know, open up my phone, look at ESPN and go, you kidding me. They lost the Detroit Lions at home in a decisive game I mean, what a bleak beginning? On the other hand, happy Monday to everyone from Detroit.

I’m sure you’re very excited. Exactly. Well, in Seattle.

Right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I never thought that would happen, but congratulations. The

city of my birthplace. Okay. So I wanna talk about Robbie’s was how it happened in the capital and what’s going to happen in the capital. I mean, amazing street theater going on on the four thousand representative. I mean, almost fisticups, yelling back and forth and everything.

But before we do that, let’s start with the story out of Brazil, which is truly amazing. I mean, you have a very clearly organized attack on government buildings. By right wing supporters of the defeated president Bolsonaro as the Washington Post reports the attack the most significant threat to democracy in Latin America’s largest nation since the nineteen sixty four military coup came a week after the inauguration of the new president to succeed ball scenario. It suggested a spreading plague of far right disruptors in Western democracies as hard liners radicalized by incendiary political rhetoric refused to accept election losses, claim to unfounded claims of fraud, and undermine the rule of law. Well, how did that happen?

How wonderful did that happen?

First of all, Charlie, we’re gonna find out more about what connections there are beyond possibly Steve Bannon and others to, you know, January’s it can’t be complete coincidence this happens on the the anniversary of January six roughly. And, you know, there are obviously everyone in the world saw what was happening in the United States a couple of years ago. So clearly, we’ve set some kind of impressive. That was

the blueprint for this.

The thing that really struck me about this thing was the first piece that I wrote for the bulwark a year ago was you don’t have to think of yourself as an authoritarian to become one. Right? You if you believe that you that you actually won the election, you’re you believe that the guy you voted for won the election. Then you go down to the capital and you’re protesting and you think that you’re defending democracy and all of these protesters turned rioters, turned attackers in Brazil, when they’re interviewed, are saying, you know, we’re our guy won, Bolsonaro won, it was fraud. This is very much like January sixth in that regard.

The people who invaded the capital in the United States also thought Donald Trump won the election. So all you really have to do to these people is light of them. The way Trump did, the way Bolsonaro did, that they had actually won the election. And suddenly, you’ve got an army of people mobbing for authoritarianism who think they’re defending democracy. So you

can be a foot soldier for fascism without actually being consciously a fascist.

Exactly the opposite effect. You think you’re fighting the fascists.

See, I think what’s really extraordinary about all of this is how unsettled it is and how clearer the ties are between some of the January sixth architects and what’s happening in Brazil. And I wonder whether or not people get a little perspective because everybody around the world at Brazil and goes, okay, this this is an attack on democracy. Well, of course, it was just as January sixth was a fundamental attack on democracy. And so in my newsletter today, I see, you know, it’s quite relevant, you know, to, you know, have screenshots of these various stories. Trump aides Bannon and Steven Miller advising the ball scenarios on next steps.

Here’s here’s the insider Trump aides are helping Brazil’s president to dispute the results of the election he just lost. It’s going terribly. Here’s the Washington Post. Trump aides, Bannon Miller advising the ball scenarios. And then you have Steve Bannon who’s on social media, and he is just one post after another openly supporting the violence in Brazil.

He called the rioters Brazilian freedom fighters. He posted Lula stole the election. Brazilians know that release the machines over and over and over again. So a couple of points here. Clearly, he is deeply involved in all of this.

There’s a direct tie between Trump world and what’s going on down there. They love this. And they’re not making any pretense that, well, this is a peaceful protest and unfortunately there’s some violence. He’s actually posting pictures of people throwing rocks etcetera. So he has moved from, you know, they they sort of pretend wink, wink, wink, wink, that we want this to be peaceful, to screw that you know, praising this violent attack on on the Brazilian democracy.

So many of the people involved may not think they’re fascist. I I I’m sorry. Steve Bannon has just gone I mean, he’s gone full, flashy. I don’t know how else you describe it. Somebody has me this morning.

Can you remind me why Steve Bannon is not actually in jail? Right.

Well, what these guys do is they in sight. So what you’re quoting from Bannon, that’s classic. Right? What he’s saying is the system is corrupt. The system achieves the system steals.

And the problem is once you convince people of that, then they don’t believe in the system, and they’re likely to resort to, you know, invading offices and violence if necessary. We have very similar January six. Literally, attacking law enforcement. We have hand to hand combat with police during the lead up to January sixth in this country. There were a lot of Republican lawmakers, a lot of Republican politicians who rationalized what Donald Trump was doing lying about the election, They said, you know, he’s just pursuing all of his legal recourse.

You know, the claims that he’s making might or might not pan out. But, you know, he’s just going through the courts and that’s fine. And it’s So the problem is when you go down this road of lying to the public about elections, lying to a lot of angry people telling them that the election was literally stolen from them. This is the kind of thing that can happen. It happened in the United States.

It’s happening in Brazil. And so we need to crack down, and I don’t know what, I’m not saying that we need to constrain free speech, but we need to think really hard about people going out and lying in a way that incites violence?

Yes. In case anybody thought that January six was a one off, I mean, I I think that there’d been some discussion of the fact you know, what is a failed coup is merely rehearsal for the next coup. Well, clearly, the failed coup of January six is rehearsal not just for more political violence here. But around the world. And what an interesting example that we have said?

I mean, that’s the the bizarre thing that on what we are exporting now to the rest of the world, this sort of thing. It is interesting. I’m I’m not cutting Bolsonaro any slack whatsoever, but there’s a slight difference between the way he’s handled it in Trump. I mean, while Trump was actively egging it on and inciting it, Molson now actually left the country, interestingly enough, headed to Florida. So you get to Florida men

Did you see the picture

of him wandering around the public’s grocery store the other day? Yes. It was the weirdest damn thing.

That was incredible. In Bolsonaro’s defense, like, he’s he’s clearly learned from the Trump case. He he’s going to Florida — Right. — before before his interaction. Trump did it the other way.

Right? And he is not specifically egging it on in the way. I mean, he’s yes. He’s engaged in election denial. Like, I I don’t wanna be misunderstood here.

And he’s engaged in election denial, but, you know, he at least is not playing the active role that Donald Trump made. But it is interesting because I think this is the last time you and I spoke that One of the contrasts was kind of amazing was that Brazil was having a better, you know, peaceful transfer of power than the United States of America. But of course, Steve Bannon and his buddies have made sure that that doesn’t happen. Okay. So speaking of chaos, let’s talk about what’s going on in Washington.

What an amazing what an amazing story. And and for people who think that it’s just funny and it’s just theater. By the way, it is funny and it is just theater. I mean, I mean, almost beating up Matt Gates on the floor of the house and everything. This is just a preview of the next two years.

I mean, the dysfunction will be the point of the nihilism is the point, the gridlock is the point. So I guess the question is, how bad will it be? Given what Kevin McCarthy has given up, I think people think, well, it’s going to be you got the crazies that are in control. I don’t think that people have fully understood. The way in which Kevin McCarthy’s concessions, his selfgulding, is gonna turn the house over to people who frankly are burned it all down, nihilists.

What do you

think? Yeah. Well, I mean, structurally, obviously, McCarthy has opened things up. I mean, Mike Walt’s Republican congressman from Florida was on TV this weekend saying, you know, it’s not just Matt Gates or anybody on the Republican side who can suddenly call a a motion to vacate. Right?

It’s the democrats right now. So McCarthy has dealt away all this power. But Charlie, you’re right. There are very specific aspects of this chaos caucus on the Republican side that make this even more dangerous. First of all, these guys, they just proved that they’re willing to shut down the house.

They did it over the first vote, over the speakership. Right? So they’re gonna do it again. The second thing is McCarthy has paid a ransom. Right?

They kidnapped the house, and they said, we’re not gonna give it back to you until you pay our ransom. And he paid it. And every hawk for sure knows if you pay a ransom, you’re going to get more hostage take. You incentivize it. Yes.

Yeah. Exactly. So the tactics exceeded. We can expect both because of the nature of these twenty and however many others they may get. Plus the fact that McCarthy incentivized it that we’re gonna see a lot more of this in the next two years.

And

very specifically, we’re going to see a very nasty fight over the debt ceiling. And and as I wrote this morning, I think that a lot of people think, well, calm or wiser heads will prevail. We certainly will not shut down the government. We certainly would not have a, you know, market killing default on our debt. Well, if you think that why is your head you’re gonna prevail, you haven’t been paying attention or understand the nature of some of these concessions.

So for example, He’s given three seats now on the crucial rules committee to the freedom caucus. Nothing gets to the floor. Nothing even gets a vote unless it’s approved by the rules committee. As you pointed out, if he negotiates with the White House, if he tries to compromise on this, any member of the house can move to basically throw him out of office. And they’re also now committing.

I find this to be somewhat stamina while focusing on the on the real crazy stuff. I’m interested in getting your take on all of this. I know this is not as I wrote, I I kinda was, like, struggling with saying, this is new, but of course, it’s not new. It is kind of new ish to sort of quote George Santos. That the GOP is turning its focus to open warfare over what they call fiscal conservatism.

And so These fiscal hawks are intending to force the white this is Washington Post, force the White House to agree to massive spending cuts, threatening a return to the political brinkmanship, that once nearly crippled the economy and almost plunged the US government into a default. Now, again, this is not new. This is kind of a back to the future to that pre Trump Kamikazi, Ted Cruz, Tea Party politics. Right? But this is what’s interesting.

Even though Trump sort of came from that world ideologically, Trumpism, as you know, oh, well, has never been about debt reduction, deficit reduction, fiscal conservatism, I mean, they may talk about it. But Donald Trump in just four years added seven point eight trillion dollars in budget deficits. He added more money in deficits. Than Barack Obama and George W. Bush added.

And yet now, you know, what a difference a presidential election makes they’ve decided they’re gonna go all in and they’re targeting not just Social Security and Medicare and good luck with that. But also threatening massive cuts in the military. So the politics of this is really going to be so we say problematic. But also the politics of of actually tanking the markets and destroying people’s four zero one k’s because you’re taking this position. I don’t think people fully realize how awful this is going to be.

Yeah.

So first of all, on your point about Trump. You’re right. One of Trump’s great insights. I mean, what Trump was, what Trump is, is that he understands exactly what his base wants. Right?

And he doesn’t do the Mitt Romney thing of suggesting, you know, that we’re gonna actually cut programs. Right? He finds an enemy, and the enemy is the lips, the enemy is the Mexicans, the enemy is the Chinese, whatever. So through bashing immigrants, through bashing trade, you know, he was always tough on the other guys, never on you. What these House Republicans are talking about is drifting back away from Trumpism and going back to sort of pre Trump Republicanism and when you start talking about cutting programs like Social Security, you are starting to hit the Trump base, and that is what Trump understood.

Don’t do that. Okay.

So this is a really important point here. One of the major Trump deviations from quote unquote establishment Republicanism and certainly Ryanism, Paul Ryanism, was when he said back in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, I will protect Medicare and Social Security. And that really was a key element in his new populist coalition So one of the very little secrets of the Republican Party and the tea party has been that they may talk a good game about spending cuts, but the actual rank and file don’t have much appetite for cutting that. They do not want to cut Social Security. They do not want to cut Medicare.

They wanna cut programs for the needy. They wanna cut foreign aid. They’re willing to do, you know, things like that. But to go to the wall, to cut funding for, you know, national defense and for Social Security and Medicare, is almost like a textbook case of political suicide for the Republicans. I mean, I I posted some polls, you know, which have been consistent over the years.

You ask Republican based voters even tea party folks about specific spending cuts, and they’re like, no, not really. And now suddenly, you have this party that has spent the last five, six years wallowing in culture, war politics going, hey, why don’t we pivot a little bit to fiscal conservatism, which we basically didn’t give a shit about for the last four years. I mean, how’s that gonna work now?

Right. Right. And, you know, this gets to an important point, which is, you know, we sat and we watched, you know, doctor Seuss and whatever, you know, crazy stupid cultural, non issue, people that were raised on Fox News. And we would look at this and we’d say, this is so trivial and stupid. Why are they doing this?

And the answer is what you just said. By focusing on those fake issues, they didn’t have to deal with real issues, with real things like, you know, the massive spending that we were doing and not paying for. So if they’re gonna shift back towards dealing with real issues, they’re gonna pay a real political price. I’m sure nothing excites Democrats more than the idea. That Republicans are gonna go back from Trumpism to Mitt Romneyism, and they’re gonna pay the attendant consequences.

Well,

and then going back to something else too. I mean, this is the party of Fire and Fury. I mean, I know it’s old now to say that this is no longer the party of Ronald Reagan. But for the Republican Party to say, yeah, we ought to slash military spending, which we just voted to increase at a time when the threats from Russia and China and the global threats arising every day, this is not where they wanna be. I mean, you have Democrats like Abigail Spanberger who’s already out saying, you know, this is a very, very dangerous time.

We should not be doing that. The Wall Street Journal editorial board has a lead editorial today saying that this is not that smart given how dangerous, obviously dangerous the world is. So it’s gonna be interesting to see how they play that. So Can I just share with you my favorite read of the day though? Go for it.

I probably shouldn’t even acknowledge this, but I just love it so much. The media research center has a thing called newsbusters. And for years, it it focuses on liberal bias and it’s whatever. And they have a whole piece today about something I said on television yesterday.

It’s very

critical of me and I love it, which may tell you a little bit about this a little bit. I don’t know. What does it say that I actually enjoy k. So That line is MSNBC’s Bullework Snark. Yeah.

Kevin McCarthy has self gelled it himself as speaker. And I’m not gonna kid you, Will. I’m very proud of that phrase, but there was some serious pearl clutching over at the Newsbusters. Let me read. The liberal media likes to depict Never Trumpers like Charlie Sykes as the voice of center right reason in moderation, but In recent days, founder of the Bulwark in MSNBC columnist has revealed a spiteful vulgar streak.

No. No. Really? By the way, I just wanna put in the bid I want that on the t shirt, spiteful and vulgar streak. Okay.

Last week, okay, it gets better. Last week, we caught him literally laughing. As he reveled in Kevin McCarthy’s sticky predicament in seeking the speakership and pronouncing with malicious glee, the names of George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Green as people McCarthy had to rely on. And by the way, everything there is true. I was literally laughing, and I did have a certain amount of plea that Kevin McCarthy’s speaker shipped appended on the votes of George Sandoz and Marjorie Taylor Green, which is literally true, but they go on.

But that was tame. Compared to his spit take.

On Jonathan

K Part Sunday show, now that McCarthy has secured the speakers’ gavel, Sykes took Sunday’s democrat talking point about how the House Republicans will be incapable of governing. And I think that’s more than just a democrat talking point. And headed straight for the crotch. And there’s really good. See, I love this.

Okay. I’m I’m saying, wait. You look at the kind of concessions he’s made, putting the bomb throwers on the rules committee, the motion to it is extremely difficult to see how Kevin McCarthy can negotiate anything because the man has self gelled at his speakership. And

then

they point out to the readers of Newsbusters, Gildan, is, of course, a synonym for castration.

Okay. You

might have thought, they write. That the normally proper kpart would have been offended by Sykes’s crude metaphor. No. You would not have thought that. No one knows.

But to the contrary, he, Jonathan Kpart, and Michael Steele, former RNC chairman, but they describe the of the disgraced Lincoln project, whatever. Could be heard laughing off camera. This would be literally laughing off camera. With one of them saying that is true, For the liberal media, rules of decency into quorum are apparently suspended when it comes to belittling Republicans. Oh my goodness.

I I just

I just I’m sorry. I know I should not be wallowing in that. But I think it’s hilarious. Also, well, I think it’s pretty apparent to this particular individual, this intern, whatever, who wrote this, has never listened to our podcast. This is I

was gonna say all these descriptions of you It’s the vulgar. No. No shit. No shit.

Yeah. We should invite you to listen to the Bulwark podcast because it will blow your fucking mind.

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So on this issue, back to being serious here, here’s the segue to being serious. So the the problem of the debt default is huge because, you know, even though Biden sits in the White House and the Democrats control the senate, you can’t raise the debt ceiling, which by the way is a stupid idea to force congress to have to go through this particularly meaningless step with all the risks of it. But anyway, they can’t do it without an affirmative vote of the house. Now, clearly there would be a bipartisan majority of members of the House who would vote to raise the deciline because they’re not crazy. But under the concession that Kevin McCarthy has made, that becomes irrelevant because you can’t get any sort of a vote to the floor of the house without the approval, basically, now the veto of the Freedom caucus members, and they don’t care.

So the Democrats have said, look, we’re not negotiating with the nation’s full faith in credit. We are not going to negotiate cuts in Social Security and Medicare and Social Safety Net. In the military, in return for the dead. I wanna play for what Chris Christie, his spin on this yesterday on ABC News and get your take on the other side. Well, here’s Chris Christie saying that, well, is that, you know, this wouldn’t be just the Republicans fault if they managed to shut down the government because they’ve turned the keys of the house over to the crazies.

Here’s Chris Christie.

Clearly, he

made a promise about the debt limit that he was gonna have to tie it. Suspending cuts, which president Biden has absolutely ruled out. Are we heading towards a major fiscal crisis sooner rather than later?

Well, George, I’ll say I I governed for eight years in New Jersey with a Democratic legislature. And if I ever stood up and said on the budget for instance, I’m not negotiating.

I’m not

negotiating. This is this is my budget. This I’m not negotiating. Not the budget. People would say I was an obstructionist.

President Biden to say he’s not going to negotiate defies the reality of his situation. He lost the house. He’s got to negotiate.

And so

to say that the Republicans will be the obstruction as well, now you have to divide a government and you have to both sides are gonna have to give, Chuck Schumer’s gonna have to give, Joe Biden’s gonna have to give, and Kevin McCarthy is gonna have to give ultimately. So if we have a fiscal disaster because of some of these things, it’s gonna be us judging who’s been willing to negotiate and who has it.

So we’ll sell it, and that sounds so reasonable. Right, that everybody has to make

concessions, divide a government. And that is what’s so tempting about this lie. Right? And so what Christie is doing is he’s he’s obliterating without quite saying so the distinction between negotiating over a budget and negotiating over the debt ceiling. Alright.

Thank you. What fifty thing about budget negotiations is entirely sensible. Right? You do? Like, oh, should we spend more on this?

Should we spend less on that? Right? And you have a negotiation over that because you’re making a decision? The part where you raise the debt ceiling is not a budget negotiation. That’s where you’re paying the bills for what you already agreed to spend.

And it would be like, you know, in the case of Republicans and Democrats or Republicans having sort of paid no attention to the debt ceiling, specifically during the Trump years. Lot of attention before, now paying attention under Biden. Imagine that you and your spouse have differences about what you spend money about. Right? And you run up a big credit card bill on things you care about.

And then your spouse starts paying for things and you decide that you’re not going to pay the credit card bill for what your spouse is purchasing, not for what you purchased, but what are your spouse’s purchase? So now you’re threatening the credit rating of you and your spouse. Right? And you’re doing it selectively. And you’re not doing it at the point where you should have had a discussion about what the two of you were gonna spend money on or not.

And that’s basically what Christie is talking about here. McCarthy and the Republicans are going to hold up the debt ceiling and threaten a default and with consequences to the credit of the United States and borrowing rates and everything that affects ordinary people, over what should have been a budget negotiation. So this is

why what Christy is saying is so wide is bullshit. And I’m sorry to offend the folks from newspapers on that. Because as you point out, he is complaining budget with a debt ceiling. And he never had a vote on that raising the debts ceiling in New Jersey when he was the governor. He never had to give up something in order to keep New Jersey from defaulting on its bonds.

So there’s not the same thing at all. But you can already see that even the normal Republicans

are

preparing to rationalize and spin something that will put the nation’s economy at risk. This is what’s extraordinary about it. And this is why I am very frustrated that we even have to have a vote on raising the debt ceiling. It’s like writing in the law a process by which every year or so, the US government has to put a loaded gun to its head, and you hope for the best. And I think the hoping for the best is probably not the best to sound a strategy.

No.

And and as you pointed out at the beginning, that language that Christy using about negotiation. And we’re gonna hear a lot of that. This is what we’re gonna be hearing coming up of the debt ceiling. Reasonable people negotiate. Biden is refusing to negotiate.

McCarthy is offering to negotiate so McCarthy is the reasonable person. That’s the spin. But as we and I just discussed, on principle, that doesn’t make any sense because we’re talking about whether you’re gonna pay the credit card bill, not whether you’re gonna buy the thing in the first place. But what’s really notable about what Christie’s saying there, about negotiation is there is no principle involved. What he’s saying is because the Republicans now have power in the house.

Because McCarthy now has a majority. You have to negotiate with him just as a matter of practicality. So this is part of the evacuation of the Republican party of any principles. And where they’re just saying, anyone who has power, you have to go shape with them just because of that power even if what they’re defending is not morally

defensible. So

they are pivoting from almost a sole focus on the culture war issues and and the border to fiscal issues, but not completely pivoting from that. Three of the twelve bills that they’re going to be taking up first, deal with new restrictions on abortion. I I think we got a little flavor of how hard it’s going to be to govern with this majority on some of the Sunday shows yesterday. So here’s Nancy Mace. And there’s there’s two parts of this, and I’m interested in both of them.

Number one, you know, she doesn’t hold anything back on her contempt for Matt Gates. And it raises the question, she’s answering the question, well, how hard it is, is it going to be to work with members of the caucus who just behave this way? And then I should make some very interesting comments as a pro life republican about the strategy of pushing through anti abortion bills. So let’s play Nancy May from yesterday morning.

It’s gonna be very

difficult. That case is a fraud. Every time you voted against Kevin McCarthy last week, he sent out a fundraising email. What you saw last week was a constitutional process diminished by those kinds of political actions. I don’t support that kind of behavior.

I am very concerned as someone who represents a lot of centrist, a lot of independents. I have as many independents. And Democrats as I have Republicans in my district, I have to represent everybody. I am concerned that common sense legislation will not get through to get a vote on the floor. And I for example, we have twelve bills that we’re supposedly going to be voting on in our first week in office.

Three of them are abortion bills and pro life bills. I am pro life, but I have many exceptions, but they are not legislation pieces of legislation that can pass us in and get onto the desk for the president assign into law. And so if we’re gonna be serious about protecting life, for example, maybe we should look at more centrist views like ensuring every woman has access to birth control because if you can reduce predictcies, you can reduce the the need or want for women to have abortions. For example, a very common sense pragmatic point of view, but that’s not what we’re going to be voting on this week. Yeah.

And I am concerned. I want to see pragmatics that work common sense, fiscal conservative, issues at work that represent all views. We

ought to note

that Nancy Mace despite being the voice of reason there was the one who actually flew up to New York stand in front of Trump Tower to plead and pledge her endless field he did the Orange God King. And now she is shocked shocked to find out that, hey, we’re not doing reasonable pragmatic things. But your thoughts about I thought that was interesting that unprompted she brought up as a pro life Republican brought up her concerns about these anti abortion bills that are gonna be rammed through the house in the next few weeks.

Yeah. Well,

I mean, what Nancy Mace is getting out there in my opinion, and especially as you’re pointing out the distinction between the Nancy Mace wing. If I call it that in the Matt Gates wing is this is not fundamentally about where you stand on the issue. They’re both pro life. It’s about what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to solve a problem?

Or are you trying to perpetuate an issue and raise money off of it by power. Right? And so what Nancy Mace is talking about there on abortion, about providing better access to birth control, and frankly, birth control that you can put in your arm and not have to worry about for and don’t have to think about every time you have sex. That actually and I’ve looked at this a lot. That’s actually the best way to reduce the number of proportions if your goal is to reduce the number of abortions.

However, if your goal is to just raise money off the abortion issue, then you do what Matt Gates do and what most Republicans in the House do, which is you try to pass all these messaging bills to say, we’re against abortion in the other side. Not really true, is for abortion. And so that’s the fundamental difference that’s emerging in the Republican Party. So

and they’re really talking past one another because Matt Gates is is not interested in actually passing legislation that will be signed that will go into law, that will deal with a real world problem. He is interested in striking a pose, sending a message, and then raising money off. I mean, there’s a completely different philosophy here. But it is interesting that Nancy Mace is throwing out these pragmatic ideas, including about, you know, more readily birth control. This is the kind of thing that we didn’t hear before dobs.

Did we. We didn’t hear this a lot. And now we are in kind of a new age and a new reality. So we’re we’re starting to hear some different little nuances. Nothing’s gonna come up with any of this, but it is interesting.

Yeah.

You know, Charlie, do you remember the old saucer theory that basically, in any Congress, somebody would sort of fall into the middle. And if somebody disappeared from the middle, like sort of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger out of Congress, Is Nancy Mace falling into that role? Who else might fall into the role of saying, you know, the the middle is unoccupied, the sensible center is unoccupied, and I’m gonna occupy it. Well, this

is a question. And I know this will sound like the same old same old question, but let’s try to pretend that it’s quasi fresh. Will moderate reasonable Republicans begin to speak up. I know we get this conversation, but you are seeing a number of them who are going, wait wait wait when Kevin McCarthy gave away his power, he also gave away our ability to influence things and we have our own agendas here. And some of them are just showing some signs of being more outspoken.

I’m assuming that that rules package is gonna pass anyway. I mean, that’s a test form. Because, you know, some of the moderates were making noise that, well, you know, we’re not gonna go along with this. You’ve given away to the store to the the the freedom caucus. What about us?

But I’m assuming it’s gonna pass. Do you assume the same thing? Like, I do and I worry about that, Charlie. I mean, I want the house to work, but I fear that what

we’re seeing is this fundamental advantage that the fringe has, that the extremists have over the middle. Right? The extremists just proved they’re willing to shut down the house for four days. Over the very first thing, a speaker. Meanwhile, you have these moderates, you have people like Nancy Mace, Tony Gonzalez.

Gonzalez has said, for Republican congressman who said he’s gonna a moderate who said he’s gonna vote against the rules package because too much was conceded to the extreme. Nancy May said she might. I mean, we’ll find out today how many are doing that. But I don’t want the house to be held up over the rules package and yet at the same time I worry that the moderates are going to lose power because they’re not willing to threaten the whole institution while the extremists are willing to do that. No, I think you’re right.

I

actually spent

a lot of time over the weekend with a very, very smart Republican lawmaker who had kind of a gripe about some of the things that we do. And it was it was a very friendly conversation. I wanna make that clear. But, you know, his point was that he was very frustrated by the fact that folks like us at at the Bulwark will often portray everybody in the Republican Party as being nutjobs, as being part of Maga. And he said, you know, look look at what’s happening in Congress, look what’s happening in various other legislatures.

Well, you’ll see that the vast majority of Republicans are normies. They are not crazy. They are actually normal people. And they get lumped in with the crazies. And I understood, you know, where he was coming from.

But here’s the problem. The normies get lumped in with the crazies because they won’t stand up to the crazies. Because when push comes to shove, they enable the crazies. So the normies that he was talking about who got their speaker in Kevin McCarthy. Right?

What’s the first thing that Kevin McCarthy did after being

elected speaker? He

had a selfie taken with margery Taylor Green. So, Guy, do you understand that this is not us saying, hey, you people have become reckless and extreme and irresponsible because, you know, you go along with those. You have gone along with all of this now for more than six years. And I understand that it’s frustrating that people think. They know that you’re indistinguishable from the crazies, but I don’t know.

Isn’t there anything about you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas kind of thing? I mean, where do those fleas come from, guy? You know?

Look, in fairness to your friend, I think he’s right. We should draw distinctions, but the distinctions are not necessarily gonna be flattering. Right? So There are extremists in the Republican Party. And by the way, we can draw some mirror images on the left, although it’s not as big a problem over there.

There are extremists. There are liars. Right? There are people who are just gonna, like, lie about election fraud, for example, when they know better. They’re not maybe not extremist themselves, but they lie, and they cause a lot of damage.

And then there’s a large class of cowards. And these are you might call them normies. They are the Republicans who knew better who tried not to join in, but they wouldn’t stand up to Donald Trump. They wouldn’t stand up to election lies. And today, they don’t stand up, you know, to the fringe in the house.

And then you have people who are normies and are brave, or just simply do the right thing. You know, Adam Kinzinger said, look, we’re not heroes. We just stood up when it was morally necessary to do so. And those people got kicked out of the House Republicans, Kensinger Cheney. Right?

So we’re left with these weak cowardly normies. I’m willing to say they’re not extremists. I’m willing to say they’re not liars. But I’m not willing to say they’re brave or that they’re doing the right thing. So

let’s talk about the Democrats for a moment. You’ve been watching Democrats in Congress for a long time. Have you ever seen anything like the show that we saw last week where they were actually having a good time and we’re completely united. Yeah. How long does that last?

What did they

say never interrupt your opponent when

he’s in the process of destroying himself? They they played that role quite well. Well, then they they got that. Yeah. Who was it?

Who was

sitting there reading

the reading the book about the subtle art of not giving Yeah. Katie Porter. The subtle art of not getting a fuck, and there’s Katie Porter

sitting there on

the floor of the house. And I was shocked shock Charlie to learn that you did not write that book. I regret

that. You know? I I have

many regrets

in life, and I’m sorry to say, well, that is one of them. Yeah. But they were having a good time and they were solidly united. When you think about, you know, two years ago, the entire year was spent with Democrats fighting with one another. And it’s really interesting to watch how they pull together.

And also, this is the contrast between the continuing self emulation of Kevin McCarthy, and the new leader of the Democrats in the House, Hakim Jeffries, who I didn’t really know much about. But gave a speech. Was this, like, at one in the morning, Saturday morning, Friday night? After the vote, after the fifteenth ballot, you had given Kevin McCarthy his his heart’s desire. He finally got his hands on

his precious. The

team Jeffries gave this very, very short speech, the Alphabet speech, Yeah. And I I wanna weigh into the argument about this. So I’m I’m gonna play it and I want you to grade this speech because again, a king Jeffrey stands up. And as far as I can tell pretty much without notes, he looks down occasionally, but it’s pretty it’s pretty clear that he had this one planned. And it is It is the whole alphabet.

So stick with this here. Here’s her King Jeffries. We’ll always put

American values over autocracy. But Netherlands — Yeah. — over bigotry — Mhmm. — the constitution over the cold. Democracy over demagogues — Yeah.

Economic opportunity over extremism. If

I can

go. Freedom — Okay. — over fascism — Mhmm. — governing over gaslighting — Okay. — hopelessness over hatred.

In

closing, over

isolation, justice over judicial overreach, knowledge over kangaroo courts, liberty see over limitation, maturity over moral agriculture, normalcy,

over negativity,

opportunity over obstructions is going.

People over

politics, quality of life issues, over chewed on, reason over racism, substance over slander, triumph, over tyranny, understanding over ugliness, voting rights over voter suppression working families over the well connected — Oh. — xenial over xenophobia. Yes. We can over you can’t do it and sell this presentation over zero sum conferences.

Oh my. He did the whole alphabet. He even got through x. Yo.

Thank you

Donald Trump for being a xenophobia that would not have been possible. Alright. So this is just

between you and me here. Among some of our bolder colleagues are people think it was overrated. Hey, it wasn’t that great. And then there was kind of a back and forth on Slack about it. What did you think?

You know what I thought? What did you think?

I am

in the overrated cab. This is a this was an okay speech. First of all, this is the kind of thing that you can do. Right? This is not the kind of thing that the leader of the house Democrats should do.

First of all, he lost he lost the vote for speaker. Right? You don’t get up there. The other guy is about to take the gavel and you proceed to go on from quite some time in my opinion doing this whole speech that is with lots and lots of digs, you know, Mar a Lago and, you know, QAnon and stuff like, that’s all the kind of thing that you and I can do. We are the ones and the bleachers who can do that.

I think that he came Jefferies, stepped out of the proper role there. I think he should have given a shorter speech a nicer speech and just handed over the gavel. Amazingly, I

completely disagree with you. I thought it was fine. I thought it was impressive. I like the fact that it was fun and entertaining. And the fact that three days later, anyone is still talking about this speech Can you tell me anything else, any other member of Congress has said in the last ten years that people talked about three days later?

And not because it was stupid, but because it was like, hey, do you hear that great speech on the floor of the house? No. Nobody pays any attention to this. So I came Jeffries has apparently decided he has no moral obligation to be boring and stuffy like you want. Well,

I I plead guilty. I want

I want them to be a little boringer and stuffyer in that context. Look, Charlie, there will be lots of opportunities to dig at the Republican they’re gonna be lots of house Democratic, you know, leadership press conferences. And the team Jeffries can do that. Actually, I think you should leave it to somebody else by and large. I mean, Nancy Pelosi didn’t do so much of that.

She left that to other people, and I would hope that the Democratic leadership if the new generation will will do the same thing. But In this moment, I just don’t think it was the

right move. I’m

thinking Preach. Preach Brother, I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know how you have become the guy who’s going on. I don’t know. We need to have stability.

And I’m well, I guess, no. That’s not that surprising. That is your position, generally. But I thought it was okay. And also the fact that he pulled it off at one o’clock

in the

morning. Pretty good Neomonic device there. You know, I have to say that I I looked at that with a little bit of admiration, particularly when he got about to the g’s, I’m thinking, is he gonna do this? Can he actually get to the whole alphabet? And so, normally, I don’t listen to these whole things.

I honestly, I a congressional speech is like, oh, you know, me go, my eyes glaze over. Right. And yet when you got to

I’m thinking,

okay. Right. He’s rolling. He’s gonna roll all the way. Right?

Then I’m churning him on. One of the weirdest things about that night was that basically

Jefferies and McCarthy each gave the speech that he intended to give all along. Right? It was canned speeches with good lines, all that stuff. But they just did it at one or two o’clock in the morning instead of, you know, normally, like, at were a political convention in the old days, they would have said, you know, okay, this is what I planned to say when it was gonna be nine o’clock. But now that it’s happening at eleven thirty or twelve or whatever, I’m gonna do something shorter or different.

They just went right ahead with it, and it made me wonder about the whole media cycle and whether it just no longer matters what time it is when you say it. Because it’s all gonna be recycled. Well, this is why I think

Jefferies had the right instinct here. I mean, can you remember anything that McCarthy said? I can’t. You

know, I

mean, he came out and he said, thank you Donald Trump, you know, about it. You know, it was kind of a tale. No one should doubt your influence I mean, that struck me as a lot more, you know, bomb for the endlessly needy ego than it was an actual analysis. You know, King Jeffries speech’s probably been watched. I don’t know what you think ten million times on YouTube.

Yeah. So — Yeah. — good on him. Yeah. Alright.

I need you to help me on this. You have president Biden, Revathi Latidli, going to the border dealing with the crisis. He’s being ripped by both the right and the left. He announced a border crackdown before he went there. He actually met with Governor Abbott on the CarMax, and Governor Abbott actually hands him a really insulting letter to many all kinds of things.

I’m struck again by how incredibly intractable these problems are, how deeply complicated they are, how politically almost insoluble they are given our current environment. So I want your thoughts about Joe Biden and where he’s at on the border, this has been a significant negative for him. They have by and large I won’t say ignore it. That’s too strong, but this is his first visit to the border. Give me your take on this.

Why is he doing this now and is he doing the right thing? I think he is

doing the right thing, and I think he should have done it sooner. And it may be, Charlie, that he decided the White House decided or Democrats decided they were gonna pass all of the legislation and focus on the issues that they could get their whole coalition behind while they had the house in the senate. And now that they’re losing the house, he’s gonna sort of pivot over and work on an issue that Republicans are willing to work with him on theoretically, which is border immigration. Right? I have been frustrated increasingly over the last several months because I like the Democratic Party as it is now better than the Republican as it is now.

And the Democratic Party was not showing me and was not showing most people in this country that they were gonna be serious about restoring some sense of order about the influx of people coming up the hemisphere and coming into our country. What Biden is starting to signal is that, yes, he will take a position on this issue, and he will try to do something. And what really made me happy, Charlie, was Biden’s signaling that he is going to change the incentives because the incentives for months, for years have been show up at the US border. Claim asylum. Our system can’t handle it.

You’ll get to come into the country. You’ll get it’ll be years before you have your case gets hurt. If you don’t qualify, don’t worry. It’ll be years before then. Maybe you don’t have to show up, etcetera.

Now he is saying, look, there’s an app. And yes, these people do have apps, by the way. They apply for asylum first, where you are. Right? And give us some time to work on your case and determine whether you merit this.

Don’t show up at the border. In fact, if we send you back, you’re not gonna be able to come again. So he’s reversing the incentives and making it better if you apply it elsewhere than if you show up in person, and that is extremely important. And he said in his remarks at the White House, this is already having an effect. They’re already seeing a sharp decline in the Venezuelans showing up because they’ve gotten the message about what’s the best way to get in.

I agree with

you. And it is interesting that there are folks on the left were jiving that Biden’s policies are pretty much indistinguishable now from Trump’s policies, and this reportedly infuriates the Biden people because they’re saying no, you need to make these distinctions. You need, you know, everything is not black and white. You need to understand what we are doing And I think they have a a point there. I think that there is a knee jerk response that any sort of a crackdown on the on the border is somehow going to be inhumane or Trumpist, and it’s not.

I mean, this has always been a legitimate concern. It’s a legitimate interest. That Trump seized upon and exploited in a very, very bad faith, a xenophobic way. But that does not mean that there’s not a responsibility to deal with it. And Joe Biden, I have to say over the last couple of days, did a pretty good job of creating this contrast of being the grown up, the very elderly grown up.

But the grown up in the room was actually trying to solve a problem as opposed to the you know, food fighters going on in the capital. So I I admitted you before we started this. I I realized this week because I was watching the debate that I’ve kind of lost the handle on it. It has become so complex, so so fraud. There are so many different moving parts.

And, also, there’s a certain futility to thinking that Congress is ever gonna work in good faith on all of this because whatever Joe Biden wants, this House of Representatives is never going to work in good faith. On the border with him. Are they? No. I don’t think

so, but I don’t agree with the argument that all of the immigration stuff has to be dealt with together, that it has to be comprehensive reform. That would be great. The Republicans are never gonna do the part about will you try to stop the flow of people coming up the continent in the first place. Right? They’re not gonna they’re not gonna do foreign aid.

They’re not gonna do anything like that. But they’re gonna focus on this on the border security. And I believe that it is possible to work out a sensible border security plan separate from all the other stuff and that Biden is beginning to do that. I agree with you. Okay.

So

we have successfully launched Charlie and Will Monday for two thousand twenty three. Yes,

we have. So

thank you for coming back on. Thanks, Charlie. I missed you. I missed you too, and thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast on Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow, and we’ll do this all over again.

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