Tangle - Republicans elect Mike Johnson as Speaker.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

Starting point is 00:01:00 From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and today we are going to be talking about Mike Johnson, the newly elected Speaker of the House. Before we jump in, though, I want to give a couple quick heads up. First of all, we have our first footage from the Tangle live event this summer that just went up on our YouTube channel. I want to encourage you guys to go check it out. Our podcast and YouTube editor, John Law, put

Starting point is 00:01:51 together an awesome video, a little sizzle reel that shows some highlights of the event and I hope will be nice material for us to encourage you to come out next time. Second, I also want to make note of a correction. Earlier this week, while talking about the deficit, we noted that a pair of corporate quote tax cuts Biden signed into law in 2022 did not offset unexpected losses in revenue from more volatile capital gains taxes. This should have said a pair of corporate tax increases Biden signed into law in 2022 did not offset those losses. It was a reference to a new minimum tax and a tax on stock repurchases that Biden passed. This was our 93rd correction in Tangle's 219-week history and our first correction since September 27th. Also, you might notice if you're a very eagle-eyed or close listener that 219 weeks is fewer weeks than we had noted in our last correction. That's because

Starting point is 00:02:52 we actually recalculated that number this morning and realized that it was off by five weeks, so a little bit of a meta correction to our corrections. Anyway, it's our 93rd correction in our 219-week history and our first correction since September 27th. And we place those corrections at the top of the newsletter and podcast in an effort to maximize transparency with our readers and listeners. All right, with that out of the way, we're going to jump in with today's quick hits. today's quick hits. First up, more than 20 people were killed and dozens were injured in a mass shooting in Maine. As of publication, the alleged shooter is still on the loose and a manhunt is underway. Number two, Representative Jamal Bowman, the Democrat from New York, was charged with a

Starting point is 00:03:42 criminal misdemeanor for pulling a fire alarm in a House office building three weeks ago. Number three, in a dramatic courtroom moment, former President Trump was called to the stand and fined $10,000 for violating a gag order in his New York civil fraud trial. Number four, hours after the United Nations Secretary General called for a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel carried out one of the biggest raids in Gaza since Hamas' attack. Five, the U.S. economy grew at 4.9% last quarter, the fastest pace in two years, despite higher prices, rising interest rates, and forecasts of a recession. major breakthrough in the house of representatives after three weeks of chaos and dysfunction among republicans the gop finally came together to elect a new speaker of the house conservative mike johnson of louisiana got the required 217 votes to take the gavel.

Starting point is 00:04:47 That is something three other nominees failed to do. The country demands strong leadership of this body, and we must not waver. My office is going to be known for trust and transparency and accountability. Our system of government is not a perfect system. It's got a lot of challenges, but it is still the best one in the world, and we have an opportunity to preserve it. Here's a basic question that a lot of people around the country are asking. Who is Mike Johnson?

Starting point is 00:05:19 Yesterday, Republicans in the House of Representatives elected Johnson their new speaker. His election ended a three-week span without a speaker and came after Representative Jim Jordan, the Republican from Ohio, Steve Scalise, the Republican from Louisiana, and Tom Emmer, the Republican from Minnesota, all failed to win a full floor vote after being nominated by the party. Johnson unified the party, winning all 220 votes of Republicans in attendance, while all 209 Democrats present voted for Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat from New York. A quick little bio, Johnson is not a household name, and you probably don't know much about him. He is 51 years old, a staunch conservative, and a fourth-term member of the House. He has served as the House Republican Conference vice chair.

Starting point is 00:06:05 member of the House. He has served as the House Republican Conference Vice Chair. He also sits on the Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, and his deep red district in western Louisiana is home to a few military facilities. Before becoming a member of Congress, he was a professor at Liberty University, a talk radio host, and a columnist. A graduate of Louisiana State University, he also worked as an attorney and spokesperson for several religious groups, which helped propel his political career. Johnson promised to bring the House back to order, fight vigorously with Democrats, and also seek out the common good. He was celebrated as one of the only Republican options with few enemies who could unite the party. Johnson is also one of the most inexperienced speakers in modern history. Since the Civil War, the average speaker has had 18 years in Congress.

Starting point is 00:06:48 Johnson has served six. And Axios analysis determined he has less experience serving in the House than any speaker elected since John G. Carlyle in 1883, making him the least experienced person in the role in 140 years. Less well-known to many Americans is Johnson's record, which is sure to be headline news in the coming weeks. Most controversially, in December of 2020, he submitted an amicus brief in Texas signed by over 100 House Republicans that sought to invalidate Biden's election victory in four swing states. He also trafficked in baseless allegations

Starting point is 00:07:22 that Dominion voting machines had corrupted the election. Representative Ken Buck, the Republican from Colorado, a key holdout who had opted not to back Representatives Scalise and Jordan and pledged not to support a speaker who denied Biden won the 2020 election, reversed course and supported Johnson. What he did was he went to the courts, Buck said. That's what the courts are set up for. It is absolutely appropriate. Johnson, an evangelical Christian, has also drawn attention for his hardline views on abortion and homosexuality. He recently voted for a national abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest and co-sponsored a 20-week abortion ban. He's also defended Louisiana's same-sex marriage ban in front of the Supreme Court, and in an opinion piece from the mid-2000s, he compared homosexuality to bestiality and called it inherently unnatural and a dangerous lifestyle.

Starting point is 00:08:11 Democrats have already pounced on these comments and are developing advertising campaigns based on his views on the 2020 election and abortion. Mike Johnson, probably more so than almost any other member of the House Republican Conference, wants to criminalize abortion care and propose a nationwide ban, minority leader Hakeem Jeffrey said. Representative Matt Gaetz, the Republican from Florida who helped orchestrate the ousting of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, celebrated Johnson's rise. If you don't think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you're not paying attention, Gates said in an

Starting point is 00:08:49 interview on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast. With a speaker in place, the House now faces a laundry list of pressing issues. Lawmakers are trying to beat a looming government funding deadline on November 17th, pass military aid for Israel, determine the path forward on supporting Ukraine and its defense against Russia, and bring up legislation to address the border crisis. Today, we're going to break down some arguments from the left and saying. The left is opposed to many of Johnson's policy positions, but more concerned about his willingness to go along with Trump's 2020 election denialism. Some say Johnson's speakership is a bad sign for American democracy.

Starting point is 00:09:48 Others think Johnson will struggle to lead the House through the significant legislative challenges it faces right now. In Bloomberg, Francis Wilkinson asked, Who chose the new House Speaker, Republicans or Trump? The House GOP is only an embarrassment if you are under the mistaken impression that it's there to serve the national interest. Emphatically, it is not, Wilkinson wrote. No one, least of all Republicans, thinks that the GOP is capable of legislating. If all goes well, the party that has organized itself around Trump's voluble lies and seething rage will keep the government open and fund whatever the White House

Starting point is 00:10:18 and Senate work out. If all doesn't go well, the House GOP, having recommitted itself to lawlessness and deceit, will precipitate another existential crisis for American democracy. What ultimately matters is that Trump has an obedient speaker who supported Trump's attempted coup after he lost the 2020 election by 7 million votes. Johnson, or his replacement if Johnson doesn't last, must be poised to perform a similar duty if Trump fails again in 2024. Anyone unwilling to throw the republic and keep Trump out of jail is a MAGA enemy. They must be purged, Wilkinson said. Every Republican action now is shaped by Trumpism and the political

Starting point is 00:10:55 desperation and cultural panic that birthered it. The Los Angeles Times editorial board argued American democracy is in trouble after Johnson's election. If there was any hope that the GOP would steer towards sanity and distance itself from the Trump sideshow, that hope is gone. It's still unknown where Johnson will lead the party on important issues, though he is a vocal opponent of reproductive rights and gay marriage and happy to impose his evangelical views on the rest of the country. It's also unclear if he has the skill to avoid a looming government shutdown, the board said. Of course, Johnson's elevation to Speaker is particularly alarming for the upcoming presidential election, in which a rematch between President Biden and

Starting point is 00:11:34 Trump is more than likely. There's little reason to believe Trump can win legitimately four years after being dumped by a majority of voters and after being charged in four criminal cases. His best prospect for returning to the White House may be to steal the election with assistance from MAGA leaders running the House. In the American Prospect, David Dyan said electing a speaker is the easy part, and what that leader does is the more fraught question. The White House wants to keep the Ukraine and Israel funding together using border funding as a sweetener. There would be a strong bipartisan support for such a bill. A smaller supplemental request for Ukraine received over 300 House votes

Starting point is 00:12:10 recently, Dine wrote. But the sword of Damocles in the form of a motion to vacate the chair still hangs over the head of any speaker. Johnson cannot just bring a foreign military aid supplemental to the House floor without blowback lest he face the wrath of the hardliners just as McCarthy did. Cutting against this is the lack of unanimity within the Republican caucus on spending to say nothing of their fights with the Democratic Senate and the White House. That lack of consensus is the reason these bills aren't passed already, months into the Republican House majority, Dine said. This all falls on the shoulders of a fourth-term congressman who has never held a

Starting point is 00:12:45 committee chairmanship, never been in leadership, and never had to negotiate among factions of his caucus, let alone with Democrats. Good luck, buddy. All right, that is it for the leftist saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right is largely behind Johnson, arguing he's a strong choice for the party after a month of turmoil. Some say the GOP's far right flank will need to soften their stances to enable Johnson to effectively lead the House. Others say Johnson's election is a victory for Matt Gates and the House Freedom Caucus. In the American Spectator, Scott McKay called Johnson the speaker we need. We have, after three weeks of infighting and

Starting point is 00:13:30 paralysis, a speaker of the House, and what we have by all indications is something of which we can be very proud, McKay said. Johnson is a Christian, and a mild-mannered Christian at that. But don't take Mike Johnson's Ned Flanders manner as a sign of weakness. Mike Johnson's spine is made of steel, and Mike Johnson knows exactly what time it is in America. The most important reason why McCarthy fell was his inability to move the 12 appropriations bills funding the government in a timely manner. McCarthy didn't take this issue seriously enough, and he rightly lost his speakership over it. Johnson understands how crucial it is to reform the budget process, McKay said. Johnson is going to have to devote all of his energies to getting appropriation

Starting point is 00:14:09 bills off the floor and across the rotunda to the Senate so that he's not a victim of shutdown politics as McCarthy was. But it's doable. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said GOP agitators will have to give Johnson the leeway they denied Kevin McCarthy. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported

Starting point is 00:14:55 across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. For Johnson, the optimistic case is that he might have the credibility on the right to get the GOP's narrow majority to accept the modest wins of divided government. Maybe it will take a speaker like Mr. Johnson to convince the disruptive Republican rump that accepting partial

Starting point is 00:15:38 victory is better than a government shutdown or an eventual spending omnibus, the board wrote. Johnson has already proposed a roadmap for passing spending bills with a potential stopgap extension through early next year to gain the time to do it. Good luck and Godspeed. Whatever the McCarthy mutineers might say, the three weeks of turmoil have hurt the GOP's image as a party that can competently govern while acting as a political check on Mr. Biden. A big part of Mr. Johnson's job is to bring order to this Republican chaos. The hard reality is that the GOP's narrow majority puts him in the same precarious position as his predecessor. In the Daily Beast, Matt Lewis called Matt Gates the big winner of the GOP's House Speaker battle. It's unclear how the newly minted House Speaker,

Starting point is 00:16:21 Mike Johnson, will lead. But those who view election denial as the sine qua non, as Trump clearly does, have good reason to believe that the big lie has been, thanks in large part to Gates, deeply embedded into the GOP's leadership, Lewis said. Gates deserves most of the credit, or blame, for this outcome, and not just because he took down Speaker McCarthy on October 3rd. Instead, the elevation of MAGA Mike was the result of concessions Gates demanded from McCarthy way back in January. We are now entering into third wave Trumpism, the elevation of true believers, the rise of the first MAGA Speaker. And if we have learned anything, it is that this is just the beginning. Gates has been rewarded, and his theory regarding

Starting point is 00:17:00 how to change the GOP and America has been confirmed, Lewis wrote. But even if Speaker Johnson proves more moderate and pragmatic early on, the fact remains that the new Republican leader was an architect of the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So I think that Johnson is about to get run over. It's hard to overstate just how unfathomable this entire thing is. By the end of this week, this little-known member of Congress who began serving in 2017, has never held a leadership post of any time, has never had to negotiate between factions in Congress, is going to be in a room with the President of the

Starting point is 00:17:50 United States, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. And he'll be deciding what to do about the most important world affairs, the war in Ukraine, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the southern border, our multi-trillion dollar budget. I don't think enough people are talking enough about how much power this inexperienced and frankly ill-prepared member of Congress just inherited. To beat the dead horse a bit, when Senator Susan Collins, the Republican from Maine, was asked what it would be like to work with Johnson on spending issues, she said she needed to go home and Google him because she didn't know who he was.

Starting point is 00:18:34 Remember, Kevin McCarthy got run out of the House speaker role in part because Biden ran circles around him and McConnell ran him over. And McCarthy is a creature of the D.C. swamp, someone who knows the ins and outs of Congress, is a prolific fundraiser which makes him incredibly valuable to his caucus, and a person with actual relationships with the president and the Democratic leadership. Johnson has none of that. He isn't even well known among members of his own party. Compared to McCarthy's $16 million, he's raised just $553,000 this year. Worse yet for Republicans, he has years of public writing and radio hits that have never been combed through by Democrats and are about to become fodder for anti-Republican advertisements. Put differently, he isn't just inexperienced, but almost entirely unvetted. I suppose there's a world where this works to his advantage. Maybe the novelty of his speakership and his lack of

Starting point is 00:19:21 enemies cracks open some advantage for Republicans to get their agenda through that I'm not thinking of. Maybe Biden and Democrats struggle to navigate a Johnson speakership because so much about him is unknown. But I doubt it. I think it is far more likely Johnson feels the entire weight of the world on his shoulders in short order, and it becomes clear to everyone that he was thrown into the deep end of the pool before learning to swim. I also think this is likely to be bad for Republicans politically. Many of his views on the issues are out of the mainstream, and he's firmly on the wrong side of the two issues that have most galvanized Democrats and driven Republicans' string of recent election losses and underperformances,

Starting point is 00:19:59 abortion and a refusal to acknowledge the 2020 presidential election results. Both of those positions have driven away independents, moderates, and suburban women, while simultaneously driving massive turnout for Democrats, young voters, and leftist center women. Now, GOP representatives will need to get themselves right with those voters and Johnson, a hardliner on abortion who literally helped lead some of the legal challenges to overturn the election. The ads write themselves. And again, that's just the stuff we know about within the first 24 hours. Now, that's not to say Johnson is all electoral downside. He has some sensible positions on competition with China, immigration

Starting point is 00:20:36 restrictions, and cybersecurity issues. As I've written before, I appreciate Republicans' efforts to bring back regular order to the appropriations process and pass 12 individual spending bills. Johnson seems more committed to this than anyone, and we could certainly use a dose of some fiscal conservatism right now. Relatedly, it's also nice to have a man of modest means at the wheel. Johnson, who has four kids, no assets, and $280,000 of debt, is a lot more relatable to me than ultra-wealthy leadership we've been living under for the last few years. Maybe that real-world experience will produce a different result than we've grown used to. And, of course, he's likable. There isn't really an intellectual way to say that, but there is a reason he just won this vote unanimously among Republicans. Johnson is an

Starting point is 00:21:21 affable guy with a calm demeanor who is new enough to not have many enemies and apparently predisposed to making friends. I think describing him as a MAGA or Trump Republican is actually not quite right. He's far less of a combative flamethrower than you might expect hearing that description. As CBS's Robert Costa put it, to understand Mike Johnson, think of Mike Pence. Both served as chair of the Republican Study Committee. Both have a calm, conservative talk radio demeanor. Pence had a radio show. Johnson has a podcast. Both evangelicals. Rush Limbaugh on decaf, as Pence used to call himself. How all of that translate as speaker is yet to be seen, but I'd certainly file much of that as a positive.

Starting point is 00:22:02 On the whole, though, I mostly find him concerning, both for Republicans and for the nation. I'd much prefer someone overseeing Congress who didn't fall for election fraud claims and try to overturn an election that Donald Trump very obviously lost. I would also prefer someone with a track record of actually balancing budgets, navigating foreign conflict, and securing the U.S. border with their hand on the wheel right now. Johnson has mostly issued some strongly worded statements, kept his head down, and taken easy votes, which creates a great deal of uncertainty about what he'll do at a time when there is already, well, a great deal of uncertainty. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one is from

Starting point is 00:22:46 Matt in Charlotte, North Carolina. Matt said, how does our large national debt compare with other similar large countries? So this is a great question. It is either much larger, much smaller, or about in the middle, depending on how you decide to measure it. We wrote about the federal deficit recently, and in our piece, we give our standard disclaimer about the debt. Quote, the United States regularly spends more money than it collects in revenue each year. This annual shortfall is called the deficit. To cover that shortfall, the government borrows money by issuing government securities or bonds. Investors lend that cash with the expectation the government will pay them back with interest. Together, those loans comprise the national debt.

Starting point is 00:23:29 Our debt is held mostly by the public, and a large portion is owned by foreign governments, the Federal Reserve, U.S. banks, and state and local governments, among others. Though we focus on the deficit, we've covered the debt in previous pieces as well. What we haven't really done is directly compare the United States' debt to what is held by other countries, so I'll give a couple quick comparisons. Canada, Germany, Brazil, and Japan in terms of U.S. dollars and as a percent of that country's GDP. The United States debt is $32.3 trillion and 119% of our GDP. Canada's is $1.4 trillion and 66%, Germany is $2.8 trillion and 65%, Brazil is $1.6 trillion and 74%. And Japan is $9.4 trillion and 224%. And even though it's not a country, its economy is the most similar to ours globally. So it's worth noting the European Union's is $14.7 trillion and 84%. So in terms of real dollars,

Starting point is 00:24:22 the United States debt is far and away the highest, but that's not the best way to measure a country's debt since a larger economy makes it much easier to pay off debt more quickly. Percentage of GDP is a better measure, and there, the U.S. isn't in quite as bad shape. It's not too far above its peers, and it's way behind Japan. But countries like Japan and Greece that have more debt than the United States are also not exactly thought of as being in a good spot economically. I sense there's a question behind the question, which is, is the debt a problem? That's a whole can of worms and one that we've opened before. If you're interested, you can check out an interview from 2021 I did where I asked two economists, one more liberal and one more conservative,

Starting point is 00:25:04 questions about the debt and then lined up their answers side by side. I've left a link to that interview in today's episode description. All right, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to our under the radar section. The United Auto Workers Union said Wednesday that it has reached a tentative deal with Ford, a major breakthrough that has the potential section, the United Auto Workers Union said Wednesday that it has reached a tentative deal with Ford, a major breakthrough that has the potential to end the six-week-long strikes against Detroit's automakers. The deal still needs to be approved by 57,000 union members and includes a 25% general wage increase, cost of living raises that put the pay increase over 30%, annual bonuses for retirees, and pension increases for those who

Starting point is 00:25:46 retire. We told Ford to pony up, and they did, union president Sean Fain said. We won things no one thought possible. The Associated Press has the story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The percentage of the vote that Mike Johnson won when he was elected to the U.S. House in 2016 was 65.2%. Johnson's legislative effectiveness rank among House Republicans, according to the Center for Effective Lawmaking, is 27 out of 222. The assessment looks at lawmakers' ability to move agenda items through the legislative process and into law. The number of bills Johnson has sponsored since he began serving in Congress in 2016 is 62. The number of bills sponsored by Johnson that have become law to date is zero.

Starting point is 00:26:37 The number of days the House of Representatives was without a speaker before Johnson's election was 21. The number of days the House of Representatives was without a speaker in 1962 before John McCormack, the Democrat from Massachusetts, won the speakership was 55. The number of years John G. Carlyle, the Democrat from Kentucky, was in office before being elected speaker in 1883 was 6.75 years. The number of years Johnson has served in the U.S. House is 6.81. years. The number of years Johnson has served in the U.S. House is 6.81. And last but not least, our have a nice day story. Scientists at Cancer Research United Kingdom may have made the biggest breakthrough in treating cervical cancer in 20 years using a course of existing and affordable drugs with standard radiotherapy. According to their trial findings, the approach cuts the mortality risk

Starting point is 00:27:25 for women with the disease by 35%. Our trial shows that this short course of additional chemotherapy delivered immediately before the standard CRT can reduce the risk of cancer returning or death by 35%, said Dr. Mary McCormack, the lead investigator of the trial team. The important thing here is that if patients are alive and well, without the cancer recurring at five years, then they are very likely to be cured. So that's what makes this very exciting. The BBC has the story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. Before we get out of here, a quick heads up that we have a Friday edition coming out in the newsletter tomorrow on some of the media mistakes and media lessons from the story around the Gaza bombing, the hospital that got bombed last week, I guess a couple of weeks ago. Now, we're going to talk a little bit about what happened and what we know and what we should

Starting point is 00:28:25 learn and take away from how that whole story happened. So if you want to get that, be sure to become a member. You can do that by going to readtangle.com forward slash membership. We'll be right back here on Monday. Have a great weekend. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by John Long. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bukova, who's also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more on Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website.

Starting point is 00:29:26 Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed.

Starting point is 00:30:14 Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

Tangle - Republicans elect Mike Johnson as Speaker.

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