Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / Explosive Conclusion to the Speaker Fight - What It All Means

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Explosive Conclusion to the Speaker Fight - What It All Means · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome it as a verdict. With Senator Ted Cruz, Ben
0:03
Speaker 1: Ferguson with you. It is a moment that finally happened.
0:07
Speaker 1: Many of you were asleep, but we have a new
0:09
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. And here's what it
0:12
Speaker 1: sounded like. Do you solemnly swear that you will support
0:16
Speaker 1: and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
0:21
Speaker 1: foreign and domestic, That you will bear true faith and
0:25
Speaker 1: allegiance to the same, That you take this obligation freely,
0:30
Speaker 1: without intimental reservation or purpose of evasion, And that you
0:35
Speaker 1: will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office
0:40
Speaker 1: on which you're about to enter. So help your God, Yes,
0:43
Speaker 1: I do. Congratulations and God's speed. That was it happened
0:49
Speaker 1: late in that way, I should say, technically early in
0:52
Speaker 1: the morning. Senator, your prediction on this podcast was spot on.
0:57
Speaker 1: You said you thought they would get a deal done
1:00
Speaker 1: on Friday night. It happened Friday night in this Saturday morning.
1:03
Speaker 1: Pretty spot on. Congratulations for that prediction. Well, I will
1:08
Speaker 1: say when we talked about this on Wednesday morning's pod,
1:13
Speaker 1: what you and I predicted together. I said that I
1:15
Speaker 1: thought the most likely outcome was that Kevin McCarthy would
1:19
Speaker 1: cut a deal with the holdouts, and in particular that
1:22
Speaker 1: he would cut a deal with Chip Roy. That Chip
1:24
Speaker 1: Roy really was the leader of the twenty And the
1:28
Speaker 1: reason I thought that is because Chip was focused, I
1:30
Speaker 1: think quite rightly on changes to the rules, changes to
1:35
Speaker 1: how the House conducts business. On substance, some of the
1:38
Speaker 1: people involved in this leadership battle, I think had had
1:43
Speaker 1: real personal animosity to Kevin McCarthy. I think Chip, to
1:46
Speaker 1: his credit, was not motivated by that. He was motivated
1:49
Speaker 1: by changing the broken way that Washington operates. And what
1:55
Speaker 1: you and I talked about Wednesday morning on this podcast
1:58
Speaker 1: is I thought the most likely outcome was Kevin and
2:01
Speaker 1: Chip would reach a deal. He would make some significant concessions,
2:05
Speaker 1: and those concessions would be a Nathan McCarthy would be elected.
2:09
Speaker 1: Ultimately at about one in the morning, uh, late last night.
2:14
Speaker 1: That's exactly what happened. It took It took a few
2:17
Speaker 1: more hours than we had predicted, but not much. It
2:19
Speaker 1: was about about the same time period. And I will
2:23
Speaker 1: say what Chip and the other dissenters accomplished was a
2:30
Speaker 1: really big deal. There was a lot of drama because
2:34
Speaker 1: there was a vote at eleven PM where I think
2:38
Speaker 1: McCarthy and leadership thought they had the votes, and they
2:40
Speaker 1: ended up falling just short because many of the dissenters
2:45
Speaker 1: dropped off, but there remained a handful who didn't and
2:48
Speaker 1: it and it led to it led to some interesting drama.
2:54
Speaker 1: It led to and and in particular, you also had
2:58
Speaker 1: during the day too, votes that were missing. One Wesley Hunt,
3:03
Speaker 1: a new congressman from Houston, actually my congressman, who had
3:07
Speaker 1: to fly back to Houston because his wife had just
3:09
Speaker 1: delivered a baby, his son who was born prematurely and
3:12
Speaker 1: and and they were having to care for his son.
3:15
Speaker 1: He flew back to Houston to be with them and
3:17
Speaker 1: then turned around and was there for the late night vote.
3:19
Speaker 1: His vote was needed at the end, and he was
3:21
Speaker 1: there for the late night vote. But it it got
3:27
Speaker 1: a little wild and woolley and including uh. At one
3:31
Speaker 1: point Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama YEA, had to
3:35
Speaker 1: be physically restrained from from taking a swing and and
3:39
Speaker 1: and coming after Matt Yates that that was I'm not
3:43
Speaker 1: sure I've seen the beginnings of an actual bar fight
3:47
Speaker 1: on the floor of the House, but it it it
3:50
Speaker 1: came pretty close. I was wondering if that was a
3:53
Speaker 1: new COVID certified mask for Congress, right the hand over
3:57
Speaker 1: the face and restraining. I'm like, maybe that count as
4:00
Speaker 1: a new COVID mask. But at the end of the day,
4:05
Speaker 1: all of the histrionics about oh, this is terrible, this
4:09
Speaker 1: is the end of the republic. Now, the Democrats were,
4:11
Speaker 1: of course crowing. You would expect them to crow. That's
4:13
Speaker 1: what they're going to do regardless. The media went on
4:16
Speaker 1: and on. But I've got to say the agreements that
4:21
Speaker 1: they ended up getting were significant. And let me throw
4:24
Speaker 1: a caveat that the Rules Package has not yet been
4:27
Speaker 1: voted on, that the plan is to vote on that
4:29
Speaker 1: on Monday, and so the devil is always in the details,
4:32
Speaker 1: and it could you know, this is at this point
4:36
Speaker 1: what's been publicly reported. But among other things that have
4:39
Speaker 1: publicly been reported, here are elements of the deal that
4:42
Speaker 1: have been reported in the press. Number one, that the
4:44
Speaker 1: rules package ends proxy voting, which means members of the
4:48
Speaker 1: House actually have to show up and do their damn jobs.
4:51
Speaker 1: One of the bizarre things Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats did,
4:54
Speaker 1: and the name of COVID is allowed House members to
4:58
Speaker 1: be sitting on the beach thousands of miles away and
5:02
Speaker 1: cast votes by proxy. That was always nuts. I believe
5:06
Speaker 1: it's unconstitutional. I tell you, the Senate never did it.
5:08
Speaker 1: Schumer and the Senate never did it. If you're not
5:10
Speaker 1: in the Senate, you don't vote. You have to be
5:13
Speaker 1: on the floor of the Senate. In fact, the way
5:14
Speaker 1: the Senate votes is so old school. You literally are
5:18
Speaker 1: standing on the floor of the Senate and the clerk
5:20
Speaker 1: calls out your name, mister Ferguson, and you say I
5:25
Speaker 1: or nay, and they write it down with a pencil
5:28
Speaker 1: on a little on a long, skinny card that has
5:32
Speaker 1: the names of all one hundred senators on it. Yeah,
5:35
Speaker 1: voting that way, I think is just there's so much
5:38
Speaker 1: history in it. I was at one time when I
5:41
Speaker 1: was thirteen years old. Newt Gingrich allowed me to go
5:44
Speaker 1: down the flour of the House with Bob Dornan, and
5:46
Speaker 1: Bob let me hit after he put his key, you know,
5:49
Speaker 1: his card in hit the green button on a vote
5:52
Speaker 1: with him when I was thirteen. I'll never forget for
5:54
Speaker 1: the rest of my life. I love the old school
5:56
Speaker 1: side of that and having people be present. I also
6:00
Speaker 1: think it builds camaraderie and conversation over a legislation. And
6:04
Speaker 1: let's go through some of what's in play here. But
6:07
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7:37
Speaker 1: Now there's this proxy voting ended. Also remote committee hearings ended,
7:43
Speaker 1: So if you want to have a hearing, get your
7:46
Speaker 1: butt to the hearing. That that was important. But but
7:50
Speaker 1: they're also a whole series of additional uh agreements that
7:54
Speaker 1: are apparently in the rules package, although as I said,
7:57
Speaker 1: the devil's in the detail. One is the single purpose
8:00
Speaker 1: rule the House for a long time one real source
8:03
Speaker 1: of mischief is cramming a gazillion things into a rule
8:07
Speaker 1: into a rule rather than just have it focus on
8:10
Speaker 1: a single purpose. That's a good thing. Related to that
8:15
Speaker 1: is the Germanus Protocol, which is again a requirement that
8:18
Speaker 1: if things are added to a bill that they be
8:19
Speaker 1: germane essentially they'd be relevant to the bill. That you
8:22
Speaker 1: can't just add completely unrelated matters to a pending bill.
8:28
Speaker 1: There's another element that is apparently part of it, and
8:30
Speaker 1: it's a return of what's called the Holman rule, which
8:34
Speaker 1: allows reducing spending at agencies and reorganizing agencies. It's an
8:39
Speaker 1: appropriation rule the House has had that enables them to
8:42
Speaker 1: get into the budget of executive agencies. That's significant. Another
8:47
Speaker 1: element is the seventy two hour rule that delays anything
8:50
Speaker 1: from moving forward seventy two hours that you have time
8:52
Speaker 1: to actually read the damn bill before you vote on it.
8:56
Speaker 1: That's significant. There is an agreement to have a church
9:01
Speaker 1: style committee to investigate weaponization of organizations like the FBI
9:07
Speaker 1: and the DOJ and Ben You and I have been
9:09
Speaker 1: calling for that for a long time. As you know,
9:11
Speaker 1: my last book, Justice Corrupted, How the Left has weaponized
9:14
Speaker 1: our legal system is entirely about the abuse of power
9:18
Speaker 1: at the DOJ and the FBI and the CIA. I
9:20
Speaker 1: think we very much need a serious church style committee
9:24
Speaker 1: investigating it, and that's part of the agreement. And then
9:27
Speaker 1: the two that were the biggest deals that were the biggest,
9:30
Speaker 1: the most hotly contested, were having a motion to vacate
9:37
Speaker 1: the chair that one member could bring and that means
9:39
Speaker 1: any individual member at any time can go down and
9:42
Speaker 1: move to vacate the chair, and you have to have
9:44
Speaker 1: two utter eighteen people vote for McCarthy to stay speaker
9:48
Speaker 1: that apparently is in there. And then the final one
9:52
Speaker 1: that is apparently in there is seats for conservatives on
9:55
Speaker 1: the Rules Committee, on an other committees. And that's in
9:59
Speaker 1: order to give real fiscal conservatives leverage to fight against
10:04
Speaker 1: another bad omnibus bill, another one point seven trillion dollar
10:08
Speaker 1: monstrosity that just got rammed through, putting people in positions
10:13
Speaker 1: on committees that they can prevent that from happening. All
10:15
Speaker 1: of those are a huge, huge deal. At the outset,
10:20
Speaker 1: the naysayers said Conservatives couldn't get any of these, and
10:24
Speaker 1: I got to say, look, it's a testament to my
10:28
Speaker 1: friendship Roy, it's a testament to the other conservatives who
10:31
Speaker 1: were standing up and behaving in a principled manner. And
10:33
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it's a testament to
10:35
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy for reaching an agreement that I think is
10:38
Speaker 1: a reasonable, a positive agreement, agreement that's good for the
10:41
Speaker 1: House and is going to give more power to Republicans,
10:48
Speaker 1: more power to conservatives, more leverage to the House to
10:51
Speaker 1: stand up to Chuck Schumer and to stand up to
10:53
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. There was a question that was asked of
10:56
Speaker 1: me and it was one that I wanted to ask
10:58
Speaker 1: to use. I said, was this worth it? And I
11:01
Speaker 1: said yes, and they said wine. I said, just the
11:04
Speaker 1: transparency will save the American taxpayers countless dollars. How much
11:10
Speaker 1: money do you think the American people? Are we in
11:12
Speaker 1: the billions of dollars that can be saved just because
11:15
Speaker 1: of the way these rules changes and the transparency of
11:19
Speaker 1: not being able to cram so much into bill with
11:21
Speaker 1: all of this different pork. You know, I'm sorry to
11:24
Speaker 1: tell you you're off by an order magnitude it We're
11:28
Speaker 1: in the billions of dollars. Before Monday morning, we are
11:32
Speaker 1: likely in the trillions of dollars. Wow, this is a
11:37
Speaker 1: big deal. If conservatives have more leverage to force real
11:43
Speaker 1: fiscal restraint to stop the out of control spending that
11:48
Speaker 1: is bankrupting the country, that is driving record inflation, that
11:52
Speaker 1: is put in crushing debt to China on this country,
11:56
Speaker 1: that's a big deal. And in the last couple of years,
12:00
Speaker 1: the federal government has spent more time than in the
12:03
Speaker 1: entire history of the universe. And the only way it's
12:07
Speaker 1: going to stop is if Republicans have a backbone to
12:12
Speaker 1: stand and fight to make it stop. This battle this
12:15
Speaker 1: week significantly enhance the tools for fiscal conservatives to be
12:22
Speaker 1: able to stop the radical abuses of the last two years.
12:28
Speaker 1: Talk about tribalism for a moment. The House has a
12:32
Speaker 1: lot more members than the Senate does. In the Senate,
12:36
Speaker 1: I think you guys get to know each other a
12:38
Speaker 1: lot faster. You get to work with each other across
12:41
Speaker 1: party lines. In the House, it's so much bigger, and
12:45
Speaker 1: there's different fractions within the Democratic Party, the Squad for example,
12:49
Speaker 1: AOC and kind of her group. You have the Freedom Caucus,
12:52
Speaker 1: and you've had the Tea Party groups, and you've had
12:54
Speaker 1: so many different fractions. I actually think one of the
12:58
Speaker 1: biggest blessings into sky is it's going to come out
13:01
Speaker 1: of this week and these fifteen votes is there were
13:05
Speaker 1: a lot of walls and maybe misconceptions about individuals who
13:09
Speaker 1: had conversations they would have never had, interactions they would
13:12
Speaker 1: have never had, and now moving forward, there may be
13:16
Speaker 1: a much better line of communication between people because we
13:20
Speaker 1: I mean, you were watching it like I was. It
13:23
Speaker 1: was really interesting to see people that you would assume
13:26
Speaker 1: would never be speaking to each other, that we're talking
13:28
Speaker 1: to each other intently. Vote after vote after vote. That
13:32
Speaker 1: may be a big blessing. Well, I think it is,
13:35
Speaker 1: and I think it's also a blessing to have leadership
13:38
Speaker 1: that is responsive to the members. Now, listen, Kevin McCarthy's
13:41
Speaker 1: never been speakers, so we'll see what kind of tenure
13:44
Speaker 1: he has a speaker. You know, I've told you before
13:47
Speaker 1: I like Kevin personally. He and I have a good relationship.
13:51
Speaker 1: But there certainly had been speakers in the past who
13:55
Speaker 1: were autocratic, who were dictators, who just laid out, this
13:58
Speaker 1: is what we're gonna do. Shut up at a bay
14:01
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi does that. John Bayner did that. It was
14:04
Speaker 1: one of the things that caused him to be driven
14:06
Speaker 1: from the speakership is his members got tired of being
14:10
Speaker 1: mistreated and him viewing it is as essentially his reign
14:17
Speaker 1: rather than reflecting the views of the conference. I think
14:22
Speaker 1: this process is likely to have made Speaker McCarthy significantly
14:28
Speaker 1: more responsive to the views and concerns of the conference.
14:32
Speaker 1: And I think that's healthy. I think that's what leadership
14:34
Speaker 1: should do. You're right, The House and Senator very different. Look,
14:38
Speaker 1: the House has four hundred and thirty five members right now,
14:40
Speaker 1: it has four hundred and thirty four because one member
14:43
Speaker 1: just recently passed away, a Democrat from Virginia. You know,
14:48
Speaker 1: you have about two hundred in each party. You compare
14:52
Speaker 1: that to the Senate, and the Senate we've got forty
14:54
Speaker 1: nine Republicans. Forty nine is not that much. I mean,
14:57
Speaker 1: we have lunch together. The forty nine of us have
14:59
Speaker 1: lunched together every Tuesday, every Wednesday, every Thursday. We know
15:04
Speaker 1: each other really well. I mean, you forty nine people,
15:08
Speaker 1: you build relationships, and senators stay there sometimes longer than
15:12
Speaker 1: you know grant monuments in Washington. So when you've been
15:18
Speaker 1: working with people for years and then for decades and
15:21
Speaker 1: it's a small group, those interpersonal relationships can be one
15:26
Speaker 1: of the real keys to getting things accomplished. One of
15:30
Speaker 1: the one of the reasons why I win a lot
15:34
Speaker 1: of the battles that I'm fighting in the Senate is
15:36
Speaker 1: at this point, my colleagues know that I don't bluff,
15:40
Speaker 1: that I don't engage in fights based on personalities. I
15:44
Speaker 1: don't make it personal, but I focus on substance. I say,
15:47
Speaker 1: if you want my vote, I need X. If I
15:50
Speaker 1: don't get X, my vote is now. If I get X,
15:53
Speaker 1: my vote is why One of the reasons. I'm really
15:56
Speaker 1: proud of the job Chipped it is. That's exactly how
15:58
Speaker 1: he handled negotiating it. He didn't get emotionally, didn't get angry.
16:02
Speaker 1: He said, if you want my vote, here's what I need.
16:05
Speaker 1: At the outset, people said, oh, that's ridiculous. You'll never
16:08
Speaker 1: get concessions like that. And at the end of the day,
16:11
Speaker 1: math is math, and it turned out they needed his vote,
16:15
Speaker 1: and getting Chips vote was the critical piece to bringing
16:19
Speaker 1: the rest of the group on board and getting McCarthy
16:21
Speaker 1: the votes. That responsiveness is important, and you're right, the
16:26
Speaker 1: relationships between the members, you know, you gotta remember there's
16:30
Speaker 1: also always a lot of turnover in the House. The
16:32
Speaker 1: House today is a very different house that it was
16:34
Speaker 1: five years ago. It's a very different house that it
16:36
Speaker 1: was ten years ago. They're just it's a body that
16:39
Speaker 1: has significantly more churn. So some of these folks are
16:42
Speaker 1: brand new. You had three representative elects who'd never been
16:48
Speaker 1: congressmen were literally just elected and they finally got sworn
16:52
Speaker 1: in last night, who were part of the rebels forcing
16:56
Speaker 1: the rule change that will impact the job they do
16:59
Speaker 1: go forward. If you're part of that at the outset,
17:02
Speaker 1: but but the relationships between and across different factions hopefully
17:08
Speaker 1: will be positive. Now, there maybe some hurt feelings. People
17:11
Speaker 1: were really ratcheted up and pissed off, And so I'm
17:15
Speaker 1: not being pollyannish and suggesting it'll all be loves and kisses.
17:22
Speaker 1: But I do think this process it was transparent, it
17:28
Speaker 1: was democratic, and at the end of the day, it
17:31
Speaker 1: substantially increased the tools to stop the reckless spending that
17:36
Speaker 1: has fueled the record inflation and that has bankrupted the country.
17:40
Speaker 1: I think that is a really good thing. Grabbing agenda
17:43
Speaker 1: items that can bring the Republican Party together early on.
17:48
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be key to Kevin McCarthy's success.
17:51
Speaker 1: He announced last night at one twenty am Eastern that
17:55
Speaker 1: the first piece of business the House is going to
17:57
Speaker 1: bring up is gonna be something that's very important to you.
18:00
Speaker 1: You helped expose this. You talked about how big of
18:03
Speaker 1: a threat this was to the American people. It deals
18:06
Speaker 1: with the IRS Agency eighty seven thousand, and here's what
18:09
Speaker 1: the Speaker elects at last night, one twenty am. I
18:13
Speaker 1: know the night is late, but when we come back,
18:17
Speaker 1: our very first bill really peel the funding for eighty
18:21
Speaker 1: seven thousand, UI, I mean center, if you want to
18:30
Speaker 1: get everybody to get together real quick. This was a
18:33
Speaker 1: pretty brilliant move by him to say that. It's saying,
18:36
Speaker 1: I know it's late, I know you're tired, but when
18:37
Speaker 1: we come back Monday, get ready. And that was a
18:40
Speaker 1: standing ovation you just heard. Yeah, No, that was exactly
18:44
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. It was very smart, it
18:46
Speaker 1: was very savvy. As you know. It's something that I've
18:49
Speaker 1: been calling on the House to do as their first bill.
18:52
Speaker 1: I said it on the trail campaigning for a lot
18:55
Speaker 1: of these guys standing next to you in a number
18:57
Speaker 1: of instances, saying, when we went a majority in the House,
19:00
Speaker 1: the very first bill the House should take up is
19:03
Speaker 1: repealing the funding for the eighty seven thousand new I
19:06
Speaker 1: R S agents. I'm glad Kevin agreed with what I
19:08
Speaker 1: and others had called for. That's a strong unifying message.
19:13
Speaker 1: It draws a clear contrast with the Democrats. I think
19:16
Speaker 1: that's good. I will point out, so you and I
19:19
Speaker 1: both stayed up till the whole thing was over. We
19:22
Speaker 1: were watching it live. We watched the votes, the final votes,
19:26
Speaker 1: everyone coming in, all the drama, everyone holding their breath,
19:28
Speaker 1: everyone knowing how are the last few holdouts going to vote?
19:31
Speaker 1: Are they going to vote for McCarthy? Are they going
19:34
Speaker 1: to vote present? Are they going to vote for someone else?
19:36
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, there were no
19:38
Speaker 1: votes for someone else in the last ballot. There were
19:40
Speaker 1: a handful that voted present but allowed McCarthy to get in.
19:45
Speaker 1: After that, you had speeches, you had a pause, and
19:50
Speaker 1: then you had speeches, and you had a speech from
19:52
Speaker 1: Akeem Jeffreys and then a speech from Kevin McCarthy. And
19:55
Speaker 1: and I will say, for people that didn't watch Hakeem
19:59
Speaker 1: Jeffreys speech last night, it was consequential. I don't know
20:06
Speaker 1: how Keem Jeffries. I have not not dealt with him. Um,
20:11
Speaker 1: I haven't really seen him give a speech until last night.
20:16
Speaker 1: Watching it. His tone, his rhythm, his speaking pattern, his
20:27
Speaker 1: way of communicating is eerily reminiscent of Barack Obama. It
20:34
Speaker 1: is I would think the same thing as I was
20:35
Speaker 1: watching him, going wow, this is Barack Obama two point zero. Um.
20:40
Speaker 1: You know, someone on Twitter tweeted out if Barack Obama
20:45
Speaker 1: and Martin Luther King had a son, he'd be a
20:48
Speaker 1: Keem Jeffries. Now that that may be a bit much.
20:50
Speaker 1: I actually put doctor King in a whole different class.
20:54
Speaker 1: But Barack Obama is a very talented communicator and it
21:00
Speaker 1: led to eight years in the White House as a
21:03
Speaker 1: result of it. There were more than a few Democrats.
21:07
Speaker 1: There are more than a few Democrats in the Democratic
21:10
Speaker 1: presidential field who watched that speech last night and said,
21:15
Speaker 1: oh crap, that that was. That speech last night reminded
21:23
Speaker 1: me of Obama's speech at the Democratic National Committee where
21:27
Speaker 1: he talked about there there are not red states and
21:31
Speaker 1: blue states. We are the United States of America. The
21:34
Speaker 1: messages and themes that he was echoing were really powerful,
21:40
Speaker 1: and he also he gave a long speech. He gave
21:43
Speaker 1: a speech to Democrats that was, look at all the
21:47
Speaker 1: great things we did destroying our country the last two years,
21:50
Speaker 1: and if you're a radical social issue would have been
21:52
Speaker 1: cheering like crazy. But he gave a speech saying we're
21:56
Speaker 1: great and the guys that are taking over they suck.
22:01
Speaker 1: I mean, it was it was. It was not gracious,
22:05
Speaker 1: given that he was literally introducing Kevin McCarthy and handing
22:09
Speaker 1: the gabble to him. There was no graciousness whatsoever. It
22:14
Speaker 1: was a partisan speech. But what made it dangerous is
22:16
Speaker 1: it was a partisan speech that was very eloquent and
22:21
Speaker 1: and and basic planned. I mean they planned that. Oh yeah, no, no,
22:26
Speaker 1: that that was a written speech. He was not talking
22:29
Speaker 1: off the cuff, and and basically he hijacked the night.
22:33
Speaker 1: It was impressive. You know, McCarthy wasn't happy, but there's
22:36
Speaker 1: not really much you can do. You can't walk up
22:38
Speaker 1: and shut him up. But Jeffreys basically hijack the night. Now,
22:43
Speaker 1: it was late enough at night. I don't know how
22:44
Speaker 1: many people listened to it, but there were millions of
22:51
Speaker 1: people across the country that looked at this guy and said,
22:53
Speaker 1: this guy is a force to be reckoned with. When
22:55
Speaker 1: when you look at moving forward now next week, what
23:00
Speaker 1: advice do you have for these new members as they
23:03
Speaker 1: try to, you know, get their rhythm, get their feet
23:08
Speaker 1: under them. I mean the way that they got baptism
23:11
Speaker 1: by fire in this last week. Yeah, they're going to
23:14
Speaker 1: take a lot from that. But now we're going to
23:16
Speaker 1: the regular order and kind of a normal cycle and
23:20
Speaker 1: feel here. What advice do you have to new members
23:23
Speaker 1: of Congress? What do you wish somebody would have said
23:25
Speaker 1: to you when you were first elected? If you could
23:28
Speaker 1: go back and do it all over again. Well, the
23:31
Speaker 1: advice that I consistently give to new members, either in
23:34
Speaker 1: the House or the Senate, is really simple. Do what
23:38
Speaker 1: you said you would do, whatever you promise the voters
23:42
Speaker 1: on the trail to do, follow through on that commitment.
23:47
Speaker 1: And a component of that is don't just listen blindly
23:50
Speaker 1: to leadership. You don't work in the House for Kevin McCarthy.
23:56
Speaker 1: I don't work in the Senate for Mitch McConnell. Your
24:00
Speaker 1: boss is the men and women who elected you. My
24:04
Speaker 1: boss are the thirty million Texans. Ben, you're my boss.
24:07
Speaker 1: You're a Texan. I work for you. And so new
24:10
Speaker 1: members sometimes can get confused and think leadership, Oh, I'm
24:14
Speaker 1: supposed to follow orders from leadership. No follow orders from
24:18
Speaker 1: the men and women who elected you, and do in
24:22
Speaker 1: January what you said you would do in October. And
24:27
Speaker 1: any member that does that it's a radical thing that
24:30
Speaker 1: doesn't happen very often. I do think this fight this
24:35
Speaker 1: week helped. I'll be talking with a lot of these
24:38
Speaker 1: House members. I very deliberately did not talk to the
24:41
Speaker 1: House members when this was happening. I consciously many of
24:47
Speaker 1: the people engage in this fight are close friends of mine.
24:50
Speaker 1: I decided, Okay, I'm gonna stay out of this. I'm
24:52
Speaker 1: gonna let them work out their own leadership battles. These
24:55
Speaker 1: are big boys and girls. They can figure it out themselves.
24:58
Speaker 1: But I will to all of them in the coming days.
25:01
Speaker 1: And you know, I think the focus needs to be
25:06
Speaker 1: very much on results, on substance. How can we deliver
25:09
Speaker 1: for the American people? How can we fight to change
25:14
Speaker 1: the corrupt culture of Washington. These rules changes are a
25:18
Speaker 1: big step in that direction. By the way, there was
25:21
Speaker 1: one other concession that I didn't mention, but it was
25:23
Speaker 1: publicly reported, which is McCarthy saying that he's going to
25:27
Speaker 1: stay out of Republican primaries and stop spending money trying
25:30
Speaker 1: to defeat conservatives and Republican primaries. If if McCarthy superPAC
25:34
Speaker 1: follows through on that, that's a big deal to all
25:37
Speaker 1: of those concessions were real and significant changes in how
25:43
Speaker 1: the House conducts itself. How significant is that it it
25:47
Speaker 1: when you look at the amount of money that McCarthy
25:49
Speaker 1: Superpack could come in and spend in a primary. In
25:53
Speaker 1: multiple primaries, McCarthy Superpack spent millions of dollars supporting one
26:01
Speaker 1: Republican attacking another Republican. In almost every circumstance, when given
26:05
Speaker 1: a choice between a moderate and conservative, McCarthy's superpack would
26:08
Speaker 1: put the money behind the moderate and would attack the conservative.
26:11
Speaker 1: And that was nationally tens of millions of dollars we're
26:14
Speaker 1: spent doing that. At least publicly, they've made a commitment
26:18
Speaker 1: they're not going to do that again. That will matter
26:20
Speaker 1: for this next cycle because we'll have contested primaries, and
26:25
Speaker 1: if McCarthy's pack is not trying to put a thumb
26:28
Speaker 1: on the scale, that means conservatives are going to be
26:31
Speaker 1: have a better chance of prevailing on the merits in
26:34
Speaker 1: the primaries. When you look at this overall fight, what
26:38
Speaker 1: is your biggest takeaway as we move forward into this
26:42
Speaker 1: new Congress from this When you say, all right, this
26:48
Speaker 1: is the best thing, this may be the worst thing,
26:51
Speaker 1: and this is my biggest you know, throw it up
26:53
Speaker 1: in the air and I'm not sure what's going to
26:54
Speaker 1: happen moment. My biggest thing is smart, principled fights matter.
27:08
Speaker 1: That you should engage in real, serious, meaningful fights, not
27:15
Speaker 1: show fights, but fights where you have a plan, where
27:18
Speaker 1: you have a strategy, and where you have a real
27:24
Speaker 1: outcome That can be delivered. So I'll tell you last
27:30
Speaker 1: night at eleven twenty three pm that's Texas time, so
27:33
Speaker 1: it's twelve twenty three pm DC time. It was when
27:37
Speaker 1: the final vote was ongoing. Was the first time I
27:43
Speaker 1: reached out to Chip as the final vote was happening.
27:45
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I texted Chip last night. I
27:48
Speaker 1: texted Chip, Chip, what you've accomplished this week is a
27:52
Speaker 1: big damn deal. You handled yourself with grace, skill, calm, resolve,
28:01
Speaker 1: savvy and principle. I'm proud of you, my friend, as
28:07
Speaker 1: is the state of Texas. Ted. That's a message that
28:11
Speaker 1: was very heartfelt, but as I said, I didn't want
28:15
Speaker 1: to convey anything like that until everything was said and
28:18
Speaker 1: done and it was over and now I hope for
28:21
Speaker 1: a world of success for the House Republican majority. They're
28:25
Speaker 1: the one lever point we have. I hope Kevin McCarthy
28:27
Speaker 1: speakership is the most successful speakership in history, and that
28:32
Speaker 1: these rule changes firm up his resolve to fight smart, principled,
28:40
Speaker 1: consequential battles. If we do that in the House, we'll
28:44
Speaker 1: be doing our job. And that, by the way, not
28:47
Speaker 1: only help save the Republic. Right now, but fighting smart, principled,
28:51
Speaker 1: consequential battles will also help Republicans dramatically to win in
28:56
Speaker 1: twenty four, to have a much bigger majority in the House,
28:59
Speaker 1: to win in the Senate, and to win the White House.
29:02
Speaker 1: If we stand and fight and deliver, the voters reward
29:06
Speaker 1: that by showing up and voting, and so I think
29:12
Speaker 1: this week was a big step in the right direction.
29:15
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a lot of fun to watch what
29:18
Speaker 1: this House is able to do now and how much
29:21
Speaker 1: money that we're going to save the American people just
29:23
Speaker 1: by these rules changes that were worth fighting over. You
29:26
Speaker 1: were right when you said it, this was gonna get
29:29
Speaker 1: figured out. This is worth it, This battle was going
29:31
Speaker 1: to be worth it, and it was gonna be figured out.
29:34
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of good that's going to
29:35
Speaker 1: come from this new relationships built in the House. And
29:38
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other big fights they're gonna be happening.
29:40
Speaker 1: Immigration is going to be one of those. Border security,
29:43
Speaker 1: the President getting involved on this issue. We're going to
29:46
Speaker 1: talk about that Monday, his trip to the border. So
29:50
Speaker 1: make sure you hit that subscribe button, the auto download
29:53
Speaker 1: button wherever you're listening to this podcast. Make sure you right.
29:56
Speaker 1: It's a five star review center. It was fun to watch,
29:59
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be really fun to see what Republicans
30:02
Speaker 1: get moving forward, and we'll see every one of you
30:05
Speaker 1: back here on Monday morning.