From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Congressman Gaetz Gets His Wish As Speaker McCarthy Ousted

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Sean and Rachel sit down to give their reaction to the ousting of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and weigh in on how the political move led by Congressman Matt Gaetz will backfire on the Republican Party.   Later, Sean explains the next steps for Congress, as they look to avoid a government shutdown in November, and shares who he believes could become the next Speaker Of The House.   Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RachelCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy, along with my co-host of the podcast, my partner in life, and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. Sean, it's great to be back, especially on a week with so much going on in D.C. I mean, let's just say it. It's a tsunami. It's an earthquake. It's I don't know any other adjective we can use. But the fact that Speaker McCarthy is no longer Speaker McCarthy, that he has been vacated from that position by Matt Gaetz is something I just never expected to have happen. Yeah, first time in the history of the country that the speaker has been removed by a motion to vacate. It's been tried a couple of times, one in the early 1900s and one recently when

John Boehner was the Speaker of the House. That one didn't come up for a vote. Tried to do that. That was Mark Meadows who introduced the resolution. That's right. But it never came for a vote. But a couple of months after Meadows introduced that resolution, Boehner left and Paul Ryan became the Speaker of the House. Right. And so here we are. And how did this happen? I mean, what are the forces? Because I mean, I've gone to you so much during the last few days with so many questions because what happens inside the

house, some of the rules are very arcane. It's so much about different relationships. How did this all happen? How did Matt Gaetz get somebody like Nancy Mates, for example, to join him and the other seven people to get rid of Speaker McCarthy. Yes. So let's be clear. So when you remove someone, a Speaker of the House, all you need is a majority vote. And so if you're going to have all the Democrats vote to remove the Speaker and you have such a slim majority of Republicans giving them the gavels in the majority, it only takes five, six members of the House to have the speaker removed.

There are eight Republicans that voted to remove Kevin McCarthy in total. But what that means is like over 96 percent of House Republicans wanted to keep Kevin McCarthy in the speakership. And it was only eight people who said we want to kick him out and go in a different direction. I think that's such an important distinction to make. So people say, well, everyone's unhappy with Kevin McCarthy. Well, you have what you said, 97% of the House conference, the Republican conference, wanted to keep Kevin McCarthy. And of course, Sean, the Democrats must be loving this chaos. They do love it because the question, what does this mean, right?

So Republicans have had a couple of missions recently. It's they're doing an impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden. And it's been going very well. It has. They're bad for America. Yeah, bad for America. But information that we thought we all knew was happening, but never thought would come out. They're finally connecting the dots. They're getting all these financial. You've been saying, Sean, for like over a year, you've been like, this is not hard stuff. We just need the financial documents. There's a you know, this is a forensic financial investigation. It's easy to connect these dots. It's data. It's not speculative. You know, you it's you can do this. And sure enough, Representative Colbert has been doing a very effective, methodical job of little by little bringing out the information to the point where now even Democrats believe that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden were actually, you know, doing these dirty deals with the with the Chinese and with the Russians and the Ukrainians.

But to that point, we're not talking about an impeachment. They're not talking about impeachment. There's not hearings on the Ukrainians. But to that point, we're not talking about an impeachment. They're not talking about impeachment. There's not hearings on the impeachment inquiry. They're not investigating Joe Biden. That work is not happening. They're not doing the hearings? No, they've been embroiled in a removal of the speaker. Right?

Now they've all left and gone home and they're talking about who is the next speaker going to be. They're all consumed with the leadership of the House. They're not consumed with with with Joe Biden. Now, some of their staff might still be doing some work behind the scenes and the documents that they have. But I don't think they can get subpoenas even out right now. New subpoenas without an actual elected speaker of the House. out right now, new subpoenas, without an actual elected Speaker of the House. Is that the rules? You can't get a subpoena without having a Speaker of the House? And McHenry is not as sufficient as a stand-in to make those kinds of calls?

So Patrick McHenry is the Speaker pro tem, not elected. He has a certain limited role that he serves, but he is not the elected Speaker. And every committee is set up with certain rules. And so just let me get back to my original point. We're not talking about Joe Biden and impeachment. We're not talking about the border. We're not talking about inflation. We're not talking about Hunter Biden. Things that are on the minds of every single American that they actually care about, instead of talking about those things, the media is gleefully and happily, as well as Democrats and Joe Biden, talking about the dysfunction in the House. And that's a tragedy.

That's a great point, by the way. The media loves that this happened. It gives them an excuse to not talk about any of the things that Republicans have been bringing about the border, which has been turning on the Democrats and also with Hunter and Joe Biden. Well, to the point where Joe Biden is now talking about building a wall, that's how bad it's going. He's getting so much pressure from Democrats. He's taken a page out of Trump's book. But so that's the problem is just the narrative and the work that's not happening in the Congress. So you and I are conservatives.

You and I talk a lot. We've done even podcasts about how freaked out we are about $33 trillion in debt and that we've had this massive amount of money that was spent during COVID and the money hasn't gone back to the 2019 levels. Joe Biden has continued to spend massive amounts of money that are completely unsustainable, that are driving inflation, going to risk the stability of the dollar. All of that is wildly troubling and concerning. And so I'm about cutting spending.

And I think you're about cutting spending, right? And so it was remarkable to me that in the House, you had the Freedom Caucus, the conservatives, joined up with the Main Street people, which are the moderates, and they cut a deal to stop a government shutdown, which was going to happen at the end of September or October 1st, stop that, cut spending. And just by the way, as a side note, First, stop that cut spending. And just by the way, as a side note, it's always the art of the possible in Congress because not everyone thinks like you and I do. Not everyone thinks like people listening to this podcast.

You have some Republicans that come from pretty moderate districts. Joe Biden won their districts. They're not rock ribbed conservatives. And then you have rock ribbed conservatives that want to slash and burn the budget a little bit like we do. And you need every single vote. And you have to negotiate the most conservative, cost-effective, cost-cutting bill possible. And they did that.

And Matt Gaetz came in and said, I'm not going to vote for that because not because it was not enough, not because it didn't cut enough. Really, Matt, you've heard talk about this rumors about it but it's true matt gates is angry at kevin mccarthy because he feels like kevin mccarthy didn't protect him from the ethics violation uh or in investigation investigation that's being done in the house that could actually have gates removed from congress that goes back to you know know, little girl trafficking. And, you know, the FBI had done a release on that. I don't know if that's true or not.

We don't know if it's true, but apparently he had crossed state lines with some girl who was underage. I don't even know the full details. I know the FBI was involved, and he felt like Democrats circle around their own. No one's protecting him. And we all know that there are some shady things that the FBI has been doing, you know, against people that they think are, you know, not in line with with the target. They become targets of the Democrat Party. And so I think, yeah, he did feel that way.

But he did in this negotiation, Sean, and that avoided the shutdown. He did effectively say, let's let's pull out Ukraine spending and vote on that separately, correct? Well, we're going to come to that in a second. So conservatives and the moderates cut a deal, right? And you got to cut a deal to actually cut spending and fight with the Republicans in the Senate who are joining with Democrats to spend more cash and Ukraine cash as well. And if you don't come together as moderates and conservative Republicans, then you have to negotiate with,

then Speaker McCarthy has to negotiate with Democrats in order to get the votes to get it over to the Senate. And it's better to negotiate within your little family, your Republican family, than it is to have to cross over to the Democrats, which ironically is what Matt Gaetz did in order to get rid of Speaker McCarthy. That's right, because if you go negotiate with Democrats, you're not going to cut any spending. You're actually going to spend more money. And so I want to be clear, I'm not throwing stones at Matt Gaetz for what's happening in the investigation in the House, the ethics

investigation. I have no idea whether that's fair or not. I'm willing to believe it might not be fair just based on what I've seen the FBI do. But I will tell you on the ethics committee, it's bipartisan. And unless there's really damning evidence, they don't throw people out. They're all part of the House. You gotta do something really wrong

and there has to be real evidence. And oftentimes, you know, what happens to a Republican will probably then also happen to a Democrat. So there's a little bit of a fraternity bipartisan fraternity so unless it's really really egregious they're not going to sort you out you don't think sean because the congress is even more partisan than it was when you were in office um you don't think that's the case because i i saw the january six committee there were were Republicans and and

and Democrats joined together on that. So this is different on the ethics committee. It's very bipartisan and they take up cases of both Republicans and Democrats, you know, and they do it in unison. And sometimes you'll find, you know, Republicans wanting to punish a Republican member and Democrats will be the ones that step in and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not, don't, don't do that to them. Because they may know that they have a Democrat who has the same problem. And so there's a little bit of, of ass covering, if you will. That is a technical term. Yes. Uh, covering. So again, I don't know what was going to happen to Matt Gaetz. The bottom line is I'm telling you this because he was angry at McCarthy and therefore he got a few

other members to say, we're not going to pass this negotiated deal, which was going to cut spending when we came to September 30th and avoid a shutdown on October 1st. Now, I want to be really clear to everybody. They didn't cut enough for my liking. I want them to go further. They need to cut more. And they didn't cut where you wanted. You want the FBI and Homeland Security. There's some offices within Homeland Security that are doing some really awful surveillance, illegal, unconstitutional surveillance on Americans. You wanted those things cut.

You wanted the DOJ's budget cut so they wouldn't have money to go after, you know, Republicans. And you wanted the FBI curtailed as well. That's right. That's what that's what I wanted. But they cut this deal. Right. And Matt Gaetz with a couple others, because all the Democrats were going to vote against it. So Matt Gaetz only needed five, six people to say we're not going to vote for it. And they wouldn't. And therefore, there was no bill coming out of the House at the end of September to keep the government funded.

And so, again, I'm going to play both sides here because I know what people will say. Well, they'll say, oh, good, shut it down. Shut her down, shut her down. I knew so many people that were saying that. And by the way, you can find me in the camp of shut her down, right? And we've done a podcast, right, talking about shut it down. But let me just let me give you a caveat. If you're going to shut the government down, you actually have to pass a bill that cuts funding but keeps it open. was they were going to not pass a bill to keep the government open and just have it shut down.

That is an untenable position. If you're going to put it down, tell America what you want to do to keep it open. It's like, we'll keep it open, but we're going to slash and burn the Department of Justice, FBI, the DOJ, Homeland Security. That's not what happened. They didn't have any bill. Right. And so what McCarthy did is he went to the Senate, the Senate Republicans and said, hey, listen, give me time. Let's do a CR. Don't pass a bill. Continuing resolution. Right. To fund the government at current levels, which I don't love, but it's going to give McCarthy time to say, OK, what I'm going to do here is I'm going to figure out how the House can come up with a deal amongst ourselves. What wouldn't have worked is if Senate Republicans had worked with Senate Democrats, Chuck Schumer, and passed a bill to fund the government with Ukraine spending in it

and sent it to the House. We say that they would have been jamming House Republicans. Democrats in the House would have said, take this bill off. Some of the arcane rules, Sean, but yes, you're right about that. Take it to that. I'm getting a little bit in the weeds, but I hope that you can follow me here. Because if the Senate sent the House a bill, Democrats and the media would have gone wild and say, we have a bill to keep it open. You don't have a bill yourself.

The pressure would have come to take the Senate bill to fund the government, which was a really bad bill. And so Kevin McCarthy was able to get Senate Republicans to not work with Senate Democrats. And so the Senate couldn't pass a bill and the House couldn't pass a bill. And that's how Kevin McCarthy got Democrats to join him and Republicans to do a continuing resolution, fund the government at current levels for 45 days, giving the House time to figure their business out and cut spending. Does this make sense? It does, except explain to me where the squad representative, Jamal Bowman, pulling the fire alarm, pretending like he did it and all the weird stuff.

pulling the fire alarm pretending like he did it and all the weird stuff how does that play into the timing of how this uh cr ended up being passed so really good question so um republicans were brought up kevin mccarthy and republicans brought up a bill to fund the to do a cr continue resolution keep the funding at current levels just for 45 more days so they could figure out their business like like I said. Well, as that bill was on the floor, Democrats, they started to stall. They asked for the bill to be read. They started giving speeches. The leader of the Democrats in the minority has what's called a magic minute. Usually everyone is timed when they speak, but the leader of both parties can talk for as long as they want. So the leader of the Democrats came down and started talking forever.

What they were doing was they were trying to stall the vote in the House to wait and see if the Senate was going to pass a bill and jam this thing. So actually, they were interfering. He was, DeMau Bowman was- Was part of the stall. And he pulled a fire alarm to stop the proceedings, stall the proceedings, so they could wait for the, see if the Senate would pass a bill.

I have to believe that. That guy who, by the way, is a former school principal. So he knows exactly how far fire alarms and, you know, that all that stuff works. He's seen it before. He's done probably fire alarm drills at his school. So he knows everything about fire alarms.

And yet he lied about it. And that is because he was trying to interfere in a more direct way. The other way was sort of a filibustering way, like having the speaker of the Democrats or leader speak indefinitely. But now Jamal Bowman pulls this fire alarm, trying to stall it for real. What Hakeem Jeffries in the Democrat Party was doing, he was on the floor and he was stalling. That's legal. That's within the rules. Pulling fire alarms is against the rules. Possibly even a felony. And and then we'll get to see what because apparently he's under investigation and we'll see if he was actually coordinating with Hakeem Jeffries or any other Democrats to do that. And that'll be another thing. I don't mean to go off on that, but that's such an important, interesting part of the drama that's all going on that day.

So what he did, Bowman was saying, I was trying to get to boats and the door was locked. I pulled the fire alarm. Bowman was saying, I was trying to get to boats and the door was locked. So I pulled the fire alarm. And so, by the way, you don't see him on the video trying to get out the door first. And after he pulls the fire alarm, he doesn't again, try to get out the door. He runs, flees in the opposite direction after the door. So he's not trying to get through the door. He flees away from the door and away from the fire alarm thinking how stupid is he? He knows if nothing else from January 6th that there's lots of there's lots of cameras everywhere. We'll have more of this conversation after this. I'm Guy Benson. Join me weekdays at 3 p.m. Eastern as we break down the biggest stories of the day

with some of the biggest newsmakers and guests. Listen live on the Fox News app or get the free podcast at GuyBensonShow.com. So Democrats actually voted to do this 45-day extension because if they didn't do that, they would have been blamed and they would have said, listen, you want to shut down the U.S. government because we didn't fund Ukraine. Ukraine funding would have been their excuse why they didn't keep the government open. And that's a losing position in American politics. So that's a backdrop. And so I bring that up because removing Kevin McCarthy, Kevin McCarthy, listen, with a five seat majority, Kevin McCarthy is going to do whatever the House wants him to do. Whatever the will of the Republican conference is, is what Kevin McCarthy was doing. I served under him in the House when I was there.

He was one of the most conservatives. And as a member, he was a radical conservative. Until he became speaker, and then everyone thought he was a liberal because trying to placate all the different sides of, you know, the moderates and the conservatives. Is that right? You're being all these factions in the House to get to the best deal possible. And so same thing with Paul Ryan and now again with Kevin McCarthy. And so this is all bringing me to a bigger point. Conservatives, Republicans who believe this country is on the wrong course, we are on the wrong path. If you believe that, you have been set back, if not this whole term, for at least a month or two.

Republicans are not going to get their act together now. They're going to burn preface time at least four, six, eight weeks as they get a new speaker in there. They try to organize. They try to figure this thing out. It's not going to be simple. And so you've kicked out Kevin McCarthy. But in the end, what's the most important?

Yes, spending. Figure out, did. But in the end, what's the most important? Yes, spending. Figure out, did Joe Biden sell the country to China? You know, figure out how you fix the damn border. And you've got to talk about inflation. That was never going to be fixed until the election. It wasn't, but they were getting some confessions in their border work with Democrats on the funding side and on the policy side. So you're right, it wasn't. But I'm all about the possible. And so here's the difference in Republicans and Democrats. Democrats will take small victories and they're methodical. It might take them five years,

10 years. It might take them like what they did with education. It took them generations to actually make steps forward. So instead of taking a small step forward, the only step you could take with cutting funding with a small majority and a lot of Republicans that are in seats that Joe Biden won, you can only take a small step. But I need them to take that step. Now, when we're going to go through this 45 days, watch. They're not going to cut anything. It's not going to get better than the deal that the conservatives and moderates cut in the House before the shutdown. It is going to be worse, less, less, less cutting, less concessions, and America is worse off for it.

So I know people applaud, get rid of Kevin McCarthy. We're winners. No, in the end, you got Kevin McCarthy's scalp. But you are going to be a loser in the long run because you are going to get less of what you think is necessary to win the day for America. And again, I don't think people, you're not more conservative than the two of us and that understand the threat of debt and spending like the two of us. But I need some victories in this victory. This is a massive defeat for conservatism. So there's two things that Sean, I've been like talking about this, you know, because I have a lot of questions and it's really interesting to be married to somebody who was in the house and understands all the politics and all the different rules and the

way things work that, you know, it just is not as simple. And it's been fascinating to break this down. There's two things that you said to me that I found really interesting because I tend to be, as Sean said, I'm probably to the right of even Sean. And I also love disruptors and disruption into the system because I think the system is whack right now. I think it's horrible. But there's a couple of things that you said that really struck me. One was back to your point of how much more committed Democrats are to the long-term gains than Republicans are. One of the examples you gave was, it was a great one, and you lived through it, which was, you know, Obamacare, and how when Obamacare vote came

to be, when that vote came up, there were Democrats in moderate districts who barely won, who knew that if they voted for Obamacare, their own personal career in Congress would be over, that they would not win re-election. And they were willing to take that vote. They were willing to lose their seat in order to pass something that they felt was really important for more of this centralized control that they wanted in the federal government. And they thought that having people, you know, dependent on the federal government for health care was a big part of, you know, what they wanted to see happen. And they were willing to do it. It was it was a remarkable thing that they did. And right now, you know, yeah, they lost they lost seats. Did they lose the majority because of it? Yeah, they did. And right now, you know, yeah, they lost, they lost seats. Did they lose the majority

because of it? Yeah, they lost. That's what brought in you and 90 some Republicans in the Tea Party revolution in 2010. And yet, eventually, they got the majority back. And they were willing to do that. It's really hard to imagine Republicans who are just a lot more wily, a lot more independent, maybe a lot more selfish to make that kind of career, I guess, sacrifice. No, to that point, I ran against he was a 42 year incumbent in 2010. He actually was one of the architects of Obamacare. She was in the speaker's chair and he managed the debate and gaveled in the victory of Obamacare. She was in the Speaker's chair and he managed the debate and gaveled in the victory for Obamacare. And they gave up

to the right. People lost. He lost his seat. I won my seat over spending and Obamacare. We won and so did 87 other Republicans. But in the long run, maybe he won because Obamacare is here and that's part of his legacy, right? And he's proud of it. We know it's bad for the country,

but he's proud of it. And he can go and he can, and, and in the Democrat, you know, history books, he will be go down as a hero who sacrificed his career for that. So there's that. And then the other point I thought that you brought up, which was a great point, which is everyone gets angry at the speaker. In this case, Kevin McCarthy for not being conservative enough. And what you say is the speaker is only a reflection of the conference. And so if you're really mad about the direction or the or the way that CR don't look to Kevin McCarthy, look at all of your own individual members of Congress, Republicans, because they are the ones,

they actually with only a four vote majority in the House. Truly, you're right, Sean. It was a real eye-opening sort of statement and way that you laid it out. Kevin McCarthy has no power, not because of Matt Gaetz, but because of all the other members. And what that CR looked like was a reflection of the individual members. So if you're not happy right now, look at your own member, not at Kevin.

So to your point, Kevin McCarthy is not a dictator. He couldn't mandate, we're going to do something more conservative or less conservative. If he tried that, they would have thrown him out. That the bill was a reflection, the negotiation was a reflection of the Congress itself. You're right. And just another point, Matt Gaetz did an interview on Maria Bartiromo's Sunday Morning Futures. I remember this interview. And he did a really great job.

And you watched it and you said, I kind of agree with Matt Gaetz. That's what you need to— Oh, that's so hard for me to say because, you know, I'm a big Maria Bartiromo fan. She almost says no wrong. But in this interview, Matt Gates really kind of, you know, they went head to head, mano a mano. And in the end, I felt like, you know, even though Maria was pushing back pretty well on him, I felt like Matt Gates made excellent, excellent points. And I was like, Sean, you should watch this interview. And Sean watched it. And I was like, Sean, you should watch this interview. And Sean watched it and he was like, have you pulled up?

He pulled a fast one. So, yeah, with three. So I watch Rachel was getting ready for bed and I pull up the interview and we listen to it. And by the way, I listen. It's hard to push back. It was Matt. Matt Gates is smart, really smart. And graduate from Harvard. He's he's a he's a really he's he's articulate. from Harvard. He's articulate.

He's smart on his feet. And so if you're not actually in the know, it's hard. I give Marie a lot of credit. She gave pushback. But with not being in the know, it's really challenging to fight. The inside of how Congress works. Right. And so I played it, and I kept stopping the interview and pointed out to Rachel, that's a lie. He's mischaracterizing.

He's misrepresented here. We went through the interview and really, really smooth, really, really compelling, but really a lot of bull. And so let me just bring up. See, as we were watching it, we have a system that we can watch it and actually pause. And so Matt Gates, you know, Maria would ask something. Matt Gates would say something. Sean would pause and go,

that's bulls**t, like you can't do that. You literally can't, you know, because of the rules of the house, do this. Or, and then it would play a little bit more. And then he'd break that down and show where it was faulty. To me, what was also incredible, Sean, is how you, you know, as individual citizens, it all becomes, the rules become so convoluted in the way the system works. You almost can't understand unless you're in it.

It's not as close as it's fair. Right. But a lot of it is understandable, too. And you got to. But also some of it is not. You got to have worked in the Congress to understand it. One of the Matt Gaetz has continually said, I'm angry. Kevin McCarthy promised to have appropriations bills. We bring them to the floor and we give amendments and we work the will of the Congress. And by the way, I agree with that. He should have done 12 bills. He said he was going to do it. Matt Gates makes the point that he didn't do it. Fair point. Kind of fair point. Because here's the problem.

What's supposed to happen is the House is supposed to pass 12 appropriations bills. And it's great because the bill is going to come to the floor and then all members can come down and make amendments to put more money in one place, take money out of another place. And you're really the Congress itself works its will modifying and changing the how the government spends. That only works if the Senate passes their 12 appropriations bills, because what should happen then is on added workforce. That's one of the appropriations

bills. The House bill and the Senate bill go to conference and the two sides work out their differences in that bill. But if the Senate doesn't pass an added workforce bill, you have no one to negotiate with. So yes, it's nice in theory if the House would have passed 12 appropriations bills. But if the Senate doesn't pass them, you're going to be right back to we're going to do one big appropriations bill like where they're at at the end of September trying to forestall a shutdown. So nice, nice effort, Matt. But if the Senate doesn't do their work either, you're stuck doing one big bill. No, the Senate's not going to do it.

No, they hadn't done any appropriations bill, so they weren't going to do it. And so here we sit. Matt Gaetz, I think, is going after McCarthy because it's personal. He's holding himself out as a great conservative knight and champion. And what he's done is he's set our movement back. The things that you and I were so troubled by this country, we're not going to make any progress now. We're going to actually lose ground from what we could have had, had Matt Gates not been such a selfish, self-centered and duped so many good conservatives out there into believing that he was the man of justice and the bearer of conservatism. We'll have more of this conversation after this.

Can we talk about Nancy Mace? Like, that was one of the most surprising things was to see Nancy Mace among the eight members who actually ended, essentially ended Kevin McCarthy's career. I mean, I think he's going to retire after this. So, you know, she came in famously as a very moderate Republican from a, you know, I guess a not super hardcore Republican district. And she is famously sort of, you know, likes to present herself as reasonable on abortion, meaning that she has, you know, pro-choice. She's not as pro-life as, say, Rachel Campbell-Stuffy, and which has always, you know, rubbed me the wrong way. She has shown some interesting, you know, she was very pro-vacc vaccine and vaccine mandates. And then she herself had

a vaccine injury. And I thought brave of her to come out and talk about that injury. Cause a lot of people who have had vaccine injuries are afraid to talk about it, especially if they took a harder position on, on vaccine mandates. So I was really encouraged by that. Then she had this really weird moment where she went to a prayer breakfast on behalf of Tim Scott in South Carolina and made a real huge faux pas. I could not read the prayer breakfast from somehow and talked about how she wasn't late because she told her boyfriend, she essentially said, I'm not going to stay in bed with you. I have to get up and go to the prayer breakfast as if that paper, you know, points with the Christian crowd at the prayer breakfast. It was a really a bizarre,

uncomfortable moment. Use your imagination on what stay in bed means. Yeah. With her fiance, by the way, not her husband. It wasn't even like I'm, you know, my husband wanted to have sex and I couldn't make it to the prayer breakfast on time. Or I was, it was my, my fiance wanted me to stay in bed, but I was such a good girl that I said no to sex and came to the prayer breakfast, crazy moment. And then now she's joining with Matt Gates on, you know, what essentially is, you know, moment, as you said, Sean, that really puts us back. Like, why would she have joined this eight? And I kept calling around. I understand that her district was redistricted, right? So it's more conservative. And maybe this prayer breakfast thing where she's got a crown, see, I'm more conservative, or I don't know what's going on here, but it was just weird.

So Nancy, you're right about the district, more conservatives. She's trying to get more cred to remove Kevin McCarthy. And a lot of MSN, I've dealt with these people, the eight, they have a different thought process. They sometimes have their own personal needs they put ahead of the country and what's best for the country. There's no deal that men would take. They're just angry and they're not there to work to start to fix the country and get us on the right course. They're just there to say no. I mean, Matt Gaetz has his issues with Kevin McCarthy and the investigation. Maybe each of them has their own individual personal reasons. Let me go back to something else you said. You talked about Democrats when they passed Obamacare. That was important because Democrats at that time had the House, the Senate and the

White House. Barack Obama was the president. And no matter what the House passed, the Senate too would pass. Today, if Republicans die on the cross, if you will, to kind of think about this, what would have happened was, yeah, you might get a really conservative bill out of the House, but there's no way that's going to pass in the Senate. And there's no way Joe Biden's going to sign it. So to make strong, strong inroads on spending, especially those that are attacking the American citizenry, is important. But it is, as Republicans, better if they get the House and the Senate ever again. Don't just pass tax reform like we did. Right.

Yeah. That's tax reform. You got to do some big things that are long lasting. And that was the difference there. They had all of government. Right now, Republicans just have the House, but they can leverage that House into doing great things for the country. Can we talk about the horse race now?

Like what happens now? We're on the same page. We're so mind melding. Yes. So we have two people in the race for Speaker. Kevin McCarthy's like, I'm not running again. I imagine that later, next week, Kevin McCarthy will resign.

He'll go on his way just like Eric Cantor did. He was the leader of the House, lost his primary bid in 2014, I think it was, and he left a few days later. Kevin will do the same thing. He went on to lobby for pot. For marijuana, yes. So here we have Steve Scalise, the leader of the house. Many know Steve. He was out on the baseball field. Sadly, Steve is now dealing with cancer

right now. And the man's a scrapper and a fighter from Louisiana. Well, like. I'm surprised that he's wanting to take this on given his health condition. And you never, I don't know how, what regimen he's on. So, but again, every family, every individual goes through an assessment. Can you do the job? And I'm sure he's done that. Jim Jordan, rock ribbed conservative, is also going to run for the speakership. rock ribbed conservative is also going to run for the speakership.

Pro Tem McHenry, who is now in, I guess he's like speaker and. Pro Tem. Pro Tem. So, so I don't think he hasn't made an announcement yet. I do not think Tom Emmer, Minnesota, from Minnesota. He's the, he is the whip. So he's third in line. Nice guy, by the way.

Really nice guy. Really smart. He's done a great job as the whip. He's indicated he's going to not run for speaker. He's going to run. Nice guy, by the way. Really nice guy. Really smart. He's done a great job as the whip. He's indicated he's going to not run for Speaker. He's going to run for the leader position. So it's just because, you know, the Speaker's a top job. Second is the leader. Third is the whip. Elise Stefanik is rumored.

She runs the conference from New York. She might run for Speaker as well. Is she too green in your view, or could she be ready for this? Unlike her a lot, she's a great gal. Yep, smart. I think she's probably still a little greener and probably doesn't have the support right now. So let's take a step back. What's going to probably happen is you might find Jordan and Scalise come to an agreement

where Scalise runs and Jordan runs for the majority position. That could happen. The leader. I'm assuming the leader position. Thank you for that. That could happen. But that doesn't mean the conference is going to go for it, right? But Scalise have a lot of, I mean, you know a lot of these guys.

Who has more support within the conference? Scalise or Jordan or Emmerich. Let's start with that first by saying the way a speaker is elected is usually Republicans will go into a conference and whoever wins the majority in the Republican conference wins the race in the conference to be the nominee for speaker. But that's not what makes you speaker because Because everybody in the House votes for Speaker. And every Democrat is going to vote for Hakeem Jeffries, their leader. So you need every single Republican but four to vote for you.

You can only afford to lose four people in order to win. So basically every Republican has to agree. What's with these eight that voted against McCarthy? They probably try to play nice. But you can give a faction of five, six people and say, we're not going to vote for Scalise or we're not going to vote for. And then it goes back to conference. So the question is, will. These are the voting rounds that we saw with McCarthy.

So the question is, and McHenry is going to lead this in the conference with Elise Stefanik. What's going to happen is they're going to try to come with someone who can get all the votes, right? At this point, they don't want to look like a show. But if they can't, they might go to the House floor and just start voting and voting and voting. And that just makes everything look weak. I mean, the strongest thing they could do is— and do you think that they're, I mean, you've been in those rooms. Imagine yourself there right now.

This, as we called it, this volcano, this hurricane, this tsunami just happened with Kevin McCarthy. There's probably a lot of them. You've seen the interviews. There's a lot of animosity. And now they need to look strong coming out. Is there an impetus for for that to not have what people hated last time around all those 15 or how many rounds that kevin mccarthy went is there

is there a desire among all of them to come together to look strong there aren't any cameras in the conference that's private and so i snuck in one time sean let me stand in the conference as private. And so- I snuck in one time. Sean let me stand in the back and I got to see what was going on. A couple of times you kicked me in the back. A couple of times I've done that. So you would hope that they're going to try to rally around one person and get it done in conference.

And it's very possible they won't. I imagine they're going to go to the floor and then on full public, they're going to show what a mess Republicans are. They're going to go to the floor and then on full public, they're going to show what a mess Republicans are. They're going to go vote after vote after vote. And so what can happen is if if Scalise and Jordan can't get a basically not a majority, like all the Republicans to vote for them, what's going to happen? Are people going to start to work? The sides are going to start working on who is the consensus candidate. And that's when you don't know who you're going to get.

It could be, it could be, it could be. What's the pressure to make sure it doesn't get to that point? Well, so the pressure to make it get, not get to that point. Well, I think they, they might look for a consensus candidate in a conference, but after you're there and you're not getting a resolution, they're going to go to the floor. And the pressure of seeing what a disaster they are

from their home districts, from conservatives, you'll see, you know, the likes of Mark Levin and Sean Hannity, you know, the weekend Fox and Friends show, going after these guys about what a disaster they are, that pressure, as well as what people are hearing from home, gets them to go, we got to find a deal here. Who can we get? Somebody, Sean, that you think realistically, anyone from a Matt Gaetz to I'm trying to think of somebody kind of I mean, like across the spectrum, people can.

the spectrum people can it seems to me like a jim jordan has the sort of conservative credentials the name id and this but i mean i guess so much of it is also how likable they are in the conference i mean i would assume jim is but i have no so so jim jim jordan had been conservative firebrand um he actually blew up some deals that he shouldn't have blown up back in. He's like considered a little more like moderate these days. Like he sort of got a grandfatherly, I guess, for lack of a better way. He's not the blow it up, you know, guy that he was when you were in Congress with him. He's sort of matured. and he, I mean, again, famously was not part of the eight, was with Kevin McCarthy because he understood how the system

worked. Jim Jordan is crushing it. Jim is doing a great job and has got a lot of respect. And so, but I don't know. So, but if it's not one of those two, I think it's going to be a McHenry. He's the chair of the Financial Services Committee. He was the deputy whip under Steve Scalise. McHenry was when Scalise was shot. And in the hospital, Patrick McHenry did the job of whip for a long time. And so people saw him in that role as a whip. And he did a very, very good job as well.

Is Everett from Minnesota? He's the whip right now? Yes. So one of the things that the whip has to do is be really, you know, have good relationships with everybody because he's trying to count the votes and get everybody help the speaker sort of rally or hurdle all the cats. Right. And I get them all together. So, I mean, he's a really likable guy. Could it be somebody like him? So I was going to say the next one would be Tom Emmer. So the whip's an important job in that they not only count votes, but then it's like, well, he is concerned about the bill. And if you do this to the bill, she'll get on board.

And then they got to figure out, well, if I put Rachel's provision in her priority, do I lose four people because I did that? Sounds like a horrible job, Sean. Or do I get Rachel to want to not lose anybody? So you're counting, they're counting. And actually, Tom does a great job of going, what does Rachel want? How do I get Rachel to yes?

And then, you know, getting good information, work through the information of the members really matters. And he's been remarkable in the house. A lot of force trading when you're trying to herd cats like that. Like I can imagine that at some point, just come on, I just need you to get onto this.

We'll work on this other thing in the future. I mean, you got to have that kind of relationship with people, right? Yes. And trust. And trust. So what you'll find is, whether it's Kevin Hearn is the chair of the other conservative group, not the Freedom Caucus, but the other one, the Study Committee. And so Kevin could be in play as a member of a larger caucus on the House side of Republicans,

or one of the chairmen of one of the committees could be someone that's become the consensus. Who's the dark horse? So I think it's someone in leadership, which again is Steve Cleese, Tom Emmer, or a gavel, which would be Jim Jordan, Elise Stefanik. What about Kathy McMorris-Rogers? So Kathy McMorris-Rogers was conference chair before. Now she chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee. I'm not sure that Kathy mixed it, but, you know, who knows? I mean, she was, she was,

she was very well liked. She was, she's great in conference and, you know, she's done a great job at E&C. So yeah, Kathy McMorris Rogers, who was in leadership before could make that happen. But I, listen, it, what I'm telling you is if anyone, if you listen to someone on Teeter podcast, that's going to tell you what's going to happen, they're lying to you because nobody knows what's going to happen. When does the voting start? So next Tuesday is when Republicans get together at a conference and try to figure out, can they get 218 people in the conference to say yes to one person. Okay, so what is, tell me what you imagine life is like for Matt Gaetz in Congress right now. Because you guys, it's so interesting

when you're so close to somebody who's been in Congress. You guys run into each other all the time. You share a very small cloakroom together. What's life for him there? And what's it going to be like for him? What role does he play on Tuesday when they start making these votes? Is he sort of persona non grata because everybody's mad at him? Or in some ways, there are people like, we got to bring him in so we can make this vote happen. And there's sort of like a begrudging sort of like a, like a, you know, a begrudging, you know, sort of reconciliation. What's it like

to be Matt Gaetz in Congress? So I could put it like this. If you had a chance to sit next to Matt Gaetz or herpes, you'd probably sit by herpes over Matt Gaetz. If you're in the house right now that listen, he is not liked at all. Um, so wow, that's pretty strong, Sean. I wasn't expecting that. So going back to going back to i mean honestly like you think people are really angry at him or are they going to try to make nice with him because they do need he i'm assuming he has control over eight of those votes so it's eight people but no he got eight people to oust kevin mccarthy but you told me in order to come up with one game they can only afford to lose four people.

So yeah, Matt Gase might want to play now and be like, whatever the consensus is, I got rid of McCarthy. Now I'll do whatever you guys want. I'll be nice. I don't know who's going to do what, but here's the deal. These guys, so everyone's, listen, you got a lot of really good members. They're trying to do the right thing. They can't do what you and I all want them to do, but they are doing the best of their,

to the best of their ability. They're pissed that they have to go through this. They lost a speaker and now they're going through this process instead of the things that matter to them and their districts. They're going to have a, you know, a full display show on.

And as you know, they do, they did the conference on tuesday on wednesday they anticipate coming to the floor and doing votes and so let me just in the conference let me tell you what's happening right now if you've ever seen a high school election for president that's what's happening right now in the house to a little more sophisticated level okay slightly more sophisticated are cupcakes being made what's happening you have the cheer squad out doing pom-poms no so when you have this um i'm running for a speaker um i'm gonna get a number of my closest friends to say will you help me and so phone calls are being made so you

and your friends are making phone calls to every other member asking them if they'll support you. And then, you know, trying to gauge, are you a for sure supporter, a maybe supporter, not supporter, but could support, or you're never going to support me. You do a list of one through four and you categorize everybody. You start working the phone, trying to get the support. And just like you're not in the halls of your school, but you're working phones. And then when people are all super high school shop and then when you're back in Congress, you're actually going up to people. You're asking them for the vote. What can you do for them? What are the biggest priorities? You're like you are working very personally trying to get the votes.

And the problem is you need all the votes. Every single person basically has to vote for you. And it's a hard lift. And you're trying to get advantage of some of the concerns that some might have with you. You're making promises to others that you can make, not making promises that you can't keep. But it's actually kind of a grueling time for those who are running.

Not only are people running for speaker, but Steve Gilles, who is the leader, running for speaker so then you have tom emmer who's running for a speaker i mean for leader and some other people are going to probably run for leader as well but that means then the whip position is open so people are going to run for whip and it's like full like you're right it's full, upheaval in the House. And so as they're working on getting votes and making phone calls, Joe Biden's not at the top of their mind. It's not at the top of mind. All these things that were sort of coming into focus and they were gaining, I think, a lot of good ground in terms of turning the media attention towards issues that people really

care about on the Republican side. All of a sudden, they're they're focused on this. All new players in all new positions trying to pick up where we left off before Kevin McCarthy left. Once someone's elected, then it takes a while to get your team going. I mean, you lose the time on that as well. That's why you're saying it sets you back months, this whole thing. And time is precious. You only have so much time. And so again, for the, I'm going to put in quotes,

conservatives that think this is good, in the end, Mark Edwards, you can come back and we can, you know, listen to this podcast five months from now and tell me if you got more or less than you would have with the deal that was struck between the conservatives and the Freedom Caucus and, you know, the moderates. And, you know, how much further did you get? And I think you're going to realize five months from now, it felt good. It was great. I was Kevin McCarthy.

But in the end, I didn't move the ball at all. Actually, I lost this slim, slim majority in moment in time. We had to hold Joe Biden accountable before the presidential election and a potential changing of the house in the next election. So it's too bad. And again, I want to be clear, you and I both wanted more. We both want more. We both think the country needs more. We both think that too much money is being spent on Ukraine, that people should be voting on Ukraine money separately and not out of part of these big deals, that we shouldn't be forced to choose between funding the border and Ukraine.

In other words, they're tying Ukraine's spending to spending at the border, but also spending at the border just means more money for processing. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're actually securing the border. So many problems going on, Sean. They're tying Ukraine money to disaster relief for people who were hit by hurricanes in the U.S. So this is troubling. I didn't even know that.

We're going to wait and see how this all plays out. But again, as two conservatives who want more from this Congress, I'm willing to take the art of the possible. And we now cash that in and we are going to be worse off. And so it's a good conversation. It's important that you kind of unpack the problem, some of the false promises, the false profits, the false conservative profits that come to you and say they're going to deliver something for you.

In the end, they will not deliver. So listen, thank you for joining us on Podcast at the Kitchen Table. If you like our podcast, you can review, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And please subscribe. You get a notice every time we drop Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. And again, in very short order, we get close. We're going five days a week. So watch out for that. Stay tuned for that. And until next time, have a great day. Bye-bye. Bye, everybody. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

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