The Bulwark Podcast - Aaron Blake: Kevin McCarthy Is Keeping a Secret

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

Without his secret pact, Kevin McCarthy likely would not be Speaker. Now, the American public — and members of Congress — are in the dark about the terms of McCarthy's agreement. Plus, will Joe Biden's classified documents sink a prosecution of Trump? Aaron Blake joins Charlie Sykes today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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October is the season for wearing masks and costumes, but some of us feel like we wear a mask and hide more often than we want to. At work, in social settings, around our family. Therapy can help you learn to accept all parts of yourself, so you can stop hiding and take off the mask. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions. Whether you're navigating workplace stresses, complex relationships, or family dynamics, therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding

a way to overcome them. If you're thinking of starting therapy but you're afraid of what you might uncover, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com. Welcome to the Bold Work Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. And happy Wednesday, although this is one of those weeks where I woke up this morning and I thought, what, it's only Wednesday? It feels like it should be at least at the end of the week. But of course, once again, we just have one of those news cycles that just will not quit. And joining me on today's podcast to talk about all of this, Aaron Blake, senior political reporter at The Washington Post, and he writes for The Fix. First of all, good morning, Aaron, and thanks for coming back on the podcast. Good morning. Thanks for having me. And by the way,

I'm definitely on Team Thursday right now. I think I was surprised when you just said that, that it was only Wednesday. Okay. So that I'm not alone on that. I mean, no, no, not just you. Have you ever noticed though? I mean, how, how time sometimes is, is so, is so elastic. There will, there are weeks where you'll, you'll get up on Friday and say, wow, that week went by so quickly. And this week just seems to be a slog. Maybe it's because we all sort of had to work through the weekend because of the shambolic stuff that happened in Washington. You think that's what it is? What's the psychology? I think that had something to do with it.

But, yeah, you're right. It's last week just flew by even though everything was happening. And then this week is kind of, it's a little bit slower. Yes. But it's morning in Congress again, right? Kevin McCarthy is assuring us that, you know, the doors to the people's house are open. A democracy has been restored. Blows have been struck for transparency.

That really, it's happy days. I'm just kidding, of course. So I am struck by the fact that a lot of the Republicans in Congress have been using the word transparency over and over and over again. But as you point out, Kevin McCarthy has a secret, doesn't he? And he's apparently not going to share it. Yeah, it's really rather remarkable how this whole thing began. I mean, without that secret, would Kevin McCarthy be the speaker right now? It became pretty clear towards the end of the week last week that this deal that was cut with members of the House Freedom Caucus was not one that many McCarthy allies apparently knew much about, or at least didn't have the whole picture about.

And there were some concerns and some kind of private grumblings about that. But they wound up voting for him anyways. And then on Monday, they also voted for a rules package anyways, even though a lot of them apparently didn't understand the full nature of the deal or didn't have access to this reported three-page document that laid out the terms of the deal. And so, you know, given they decided not to leverage that and to force him to kind of pony up what he had agreed to, and they would vote for him anyways, it really meant that he didn't have to disclose all this stuff. And so here we are kind of wondering what the full terms of the beginning of the McCarthy speakership really are. Okay, there are so many layers to this particular

onion. You know, one is the hypocrisy, you know, after McCarthy claiming that the House was going to be more open, accountable, and responsive. You wrote just yesterday, McCarthy was being rather opaque about the agreement, this mysterious deal with the hard right, that had gotten him to that point, namely the parameters of the still mysterious deal he cut with the hard right Freedom Cau to secure its members votes in the speaker election now punch bowl news reported about this three-page document it's in writing and it referred to as an addendum and as you point out it's all shrouded in shadow because you have mccarthy sounds like he's he's denying the existence of the addendum. Other people have confirmed they saw it. Other people are just not commenting on it. So it feels pretty obvious that there is a three-page secret document and that Kevin McCarthy's lying about it. What do you think? Too strong? I think if you look closely at the way he reportedly denied the existence of it, I think it leaned on the idea that, one, this was actually an official document. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's just somebody who wrote down the terms

of this agreement, and it's not really something that is referred to as an addendum. And the other is the idea that it's technically an addendum to the House rules package that was passed on Monday. If you've seen other McCarthy, you know, top McCarthy allies talk about this, they've leaned on those distinctions when talking about the idea that this addendum doesn't really exist. And so I think they're playing a kind of a cute game here where there is a document, but it's maybe they're arguing that it's not what people say it is. I think that the larger significance here, though, is that there are a bunch of terms that were agreed to that a lot of people don't understand whether they want to see that document or not.

Okay. So what do we think is in this maybe secret somewhat document? What do we think's in it? Well, we know some of the contents of the concessions that were made that were not included in the rules package. They include the 10-year budget that would freeze funding at 2022 levels. This was, of course, the thing that kind of caused a little bit of a stir last week because it would effectively mean a 10% cut in defense funding. And then there are votes that are due to be had on various matters like

border security and building the wall. I think maybe the biggest question about what's in this document or what's in the deal more broadly is what are the concessions that were made on committee memberships? McCarthy and his allies have said they did not give away gavels for votes last week. And perhaps that's true, but there are a number of different ways that you can give concessions to the House Freedom Caucus and empower them that are short of that. And so I think that's one of the things that we're paying attention to, especially this week, now that the House GOP Steering Committee is awarding those committee assignments. Okay, so this is obviously a big deal. This is really a BFD.

And we've had reports that members who've seen this document are not allowed to keep copies because they're afraid it's going to leak. We kind of know some of these broad strokes, but not its full scope. But you ask a really interesting question. So why weren't more Republican members curious enough to force the issue?

It's one thing for you and I not to be able to know what's in the document. But there are members of Congress, members of the House conference, who are not allowed to see it. So Nancy Mace, South Carolina, over the weekend, said that she might vote against the package because of the lack of transparency. She ended up caving, like everybody else, all the other normies, with the exception of one, while also saying that, you know, she would push for the release of the details for a lot of these people was staying in line and moving past this. They didn't like what last week looked like, and who can blame

them for that? But not forcing the issue, not trying to get the full terms of the deal comes at a cost for them. It shows that they are not willing to go as far as the House Freedom Caucus was last week in fighting McCarthy for their own concessions. And it, I think, kind of sets a tone moving forward for the next couple years where if the House Freedom Caucus shows it's willing to go further, if it's willing to threaten a government shutdown or a default on the debt ceiling, is the establishment wing of the party going to cave to them on these things repeatedly? Again. Yeah, again.

Because that's what they do, right? I mean, they cave to them. Right. And so, you know, it's a very unusual circumstance in which a small handful of Republicans can gum up the works in the House and really guide the conference moving forward. And one side of the party has proven much more willing to do that than the other. And so that creates a situation where, you know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And right now, the squeaky wheel is very much the House Freedom Caucus, and it's getting the grease. Well, I think this is the key to the whole thing. We know that the Freedom Caucus is willing to go

to the mat. We know that they're prepared to basically pull the pin from the grenade and stand there and, you know, dare the rest of the conference to not give them what they want. We have seen no indication so far that the, again, you know, what, six to 10 moderates are prepared to do the same thing. I mean, I think there's been some wish casting. Well, you know, there, you know, there's, there's a handful of people who are, you know, are not willing to go along with all this, but on that rules vote, I thought it was very telling that only one, you know, they couldn't afford to lose five. There probably were five or six people who had really serious doubts. I mean, I don't know what number you'd put on it, but none of them except one guy voted against it. And I do think that's kind of an indication of what's going to happen ahead, because I think a lot of people are hoping and praying that there are going

to be these moderates, establishment normies who will buck the majority and side with Democrats on crucial things like the debt ceiling. But I don't know, Aaron, until they do it, there's no reason to think that's probable, is there? Yeah, I think there's a couple things here that are worth pulling out of all that. One is that the vote on the rules package, the overwhelming support for it among Republicans with only that one Republican voting against it, that was an easy vote for them to justify to themselves because the big concessions that McCarthy made were not contained generally in that rules package. I mean, we're talking really in the rules package only about the motion to vacate the chair, which allows one member to call for a vote of no confidence on McCarthy,

the creation of the, you know, Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which a lot of Republicans generally support. And I think even Brian Fitzpatrick now says he's willing to serve on a very moderate member from Pennsylvania. So, you know, even when Nancy Mace says she is going to maybe vote against the rules package, she emphasized that she supported the package herself and that her opposition would come from these side deals that were made. The other thing that I think is kind of pushing them to support a package like that is, I think they believe that they, to the extent they want to fight the Freedom Caucus, are going to be able to do it in future matters, because if they need to get votes from Democrats, they can do that. The idea is that, you know, whether through a discharge petition or anything else like that,

they're going to have the votes to do it. So maybe they think the House Freedom Caucus isn't going to be quite as powerful as it seems right now. And maybe that's a good bet. I would imagine that things like that probably wind up getting resolved without the Freedom Caucus getting what it wants because of the realities of governing right now. But that's also placing a major bet. And you're also setting a tone right now that basically the House Freedom Caucus got a lot of what it wanted

because it was willing to stand in the way, which is really what it does best. So what would be the breaking point? This was an easy vote. So what are going to be the tough votes? Where would they draw the line and say, okay, we are prepared to abandon our leadership, take on the Freedom Caucus and vote with Democrats? What issues would those be? The ones I would watch for are the debt ceiling and government shutdowns, I would add. Those are things that House Republican leadership

over the years has come to understand are not fights that reflect terribly well on the Republican Party. If they're going to try to force concessions out of these matters, it almost never works out. In fact, it basically never does. And they have to go through a whole lot to get to that point that voters generally don't appreciate. Another one that I'm writing about today is Ukraine funding. What happens when this comes around again and Congress wants to send money to Ukraine and there's a growing portion of the Republican base and the Freedom Caucus that does not support sending more money to that war? I think that's something of a significance that we could see a sizable number of more establishment moderate Republicans joining with Democrats to push that through. But as far as, you know, major legislation, we're not going to see a whole lot. It's going to be these kind of must pass bills, the hugely significant things like Ukraine funding that are going to force these kinds of reckonings within the party. And so I

think those are the things to really watch for over the next two years. I guess what my fear is, I mean, I hope the scenario that you lay out is more likely because you don't want to see us default on the debt. That would be catastrophic. And I think, you know, in the past, the default position is it's going to be messy. They're going to go through the various kabuki dances. But in the end, you know, calmer, saner heads prevail. And we hope that that continues. My fear, though, is that voting on the discharge petition will become one of those, you know, bright line litmus tests that the right wing

media ecosystem and, you know, the folks in Mar-a-Lago and everything will say that, you know, if you vote with the Democrats on this, you have cast yourself into outer darkness, that this will be as toxic as voting for impeachment. That any Republican that votes to defy the leadership, votes with Democrats on a major piece of legislation, guarantees that they will be primary and that the pressure will be turned up absolutely to 10. And if McCarthy doesn't punish them or something, that you're going to see a motion to vacate the chair. I think this is the darkest timeline, but I think we have every reason to believe that the darkest timeline is certainly possible. What do you think? I'm really glad that you raised this because I've been thinking about it a lot. I get a lot of reader feedback when I'm talking about the bill that the House just passed to defund the IRS and some of these other proposals that are part of the concessions that McCarthy made. And the point that they make

is basically, well, none of this stuff is going to become law anyways, right? And the answer to that is, well, probably not. We're probably going to get a clean debt ceiling increase. Ukraine funding, I would imagine, would go forward when it comes to that. But the process of how you get to that point matters greatly because you're right, it does create and reinforce dynamics within the party that then send a message to leadership and to other members about what is acceptable and how far you're willing to go around members of your own party to get things done. And so that's the real shift here. It's a signal of intent for the party to pass these things and to try and get things out of the debt ceiling debate. It's a signal of intent for them to go against their leadership. And to the extent that the leadership or members of the party have to go around it through very unusual and seldom used processes like a discharge petition, that's just going to kind of light a fire beneath this very fractured party and potentially empower that wing even more because they'll be able to

argue that the establishment is working with Democrats. I mean, that's kind of the next step in this process, I think, even if you concede that a lot of these things aren't going to become law. Yeah, I mean, and the dynamic is that the outrage meter always has to be turned up to max all the time. You know, that sense that, you know, you are being betrayed by these people. I mean, they have to find something to be upset about, right, to be outraged about, to draw the line on. It was in the past, the impeachment vote. I don't know how this is going to play out, but you raised an interesting thing, which I find fascinating in your column this week, you know, asking what will Republicans vote to defund next? I find this to be one of the deliciously ironic moments that the Republicans

made tremendous hay out of the defund the police issue. And now it seems that they are on this march to defund one agency after another. I mean, they're talking about defunding the IRS. They're talking about defunding the military. So talk to me a little bit about this, the Republican, you know, passion for defunding and whether or not Democrats are going to be able to turn that around on them and say, hey, wait, I thought we weren't supposed to defund cops and things like that. Yeah, yeah. I think it's it's important to draw that line talking about defunding things broadly versus the specific things the Republicans are talking about defunding. Of course, the Republican Party has for a very long time argued for smaller government and cutting the federal government spending, things like that. I think where things have moved is these concessions included a budget that would cut defense spending by about 10% over the next 10 years. And Jim

Jordan went on Fox News and defended that and basically said, look, there is stuff that can be cut out here. That's a big departure from where the Republican Party has been in recent decades. The same day that they were voting to defund the IRS, we had Congressman Chip Roy, who was perhaps the most significant Freedom Caucus figure in reaching the agreement with McCarthy last week, coming out and saying that he wants to withhold funding from the Department of Homeland Security over border security. So, you know, the argument is that these agencies, you know, the Defense Department, which protects us, the Homeland Security Department, which protects us, are failing at their core missions or becoming too woke or something like that.

But when we had the debate over defunding police, the nuance was gone. It was that they're just going to take money away from people who protect us. And so to the extent that Republicans are willing to go down these paths, even if they're symbolic votes, I would imagine Democrats are going to be happy to say that Republicans are voting to, you know, defund the Defense Department and defund the Homeland Security Department. And this is just another example, I think, of this wing of the party forcing the party into certain things that it might not otherwise want to dip its toe into. Well, Marjorie Taylor Greene was out front calling for the defunding of the FBI. They seem to have backed off on all of that. But so are they just content to harass and investigate the FBI? They're not actually going to have t-shirts defund the FBI anymore, are they? Yeah, I mean, that was, you know, last summer after the search of Mar-a-Lago. And there were a number of Republicans who were going down the defund the FBI path. And I think somewhat similar to what we saw with Democrats

and defund the police, there was a recognition among party leaders that maybe we should try to talk these people off of this idea. And so we saw it somewhat, you know, swiftly from people like Mike Pence and others. And we haven't heard a whole lot about that moving forward. But, you know, this is another idea that depending upon what comes out of this committee on the weaponization of the federal government, you know, could be picked up again now that Republicans actually have the power to do something about this. So I would imagine that the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene may not be done with that particular subject in the months to come. Okay, just a quick fact check here, because, you know, the Republicans have been claiming over and over and over again that the

IRS was going to hire 87,000 agents. And they say they've reversed that, which, of course, they haven't. What is the reality here? Are we adding 87,000 IRS agents who are going to be rifling through my bank account, my checkbook over the next few years? I would point people to my colleague, Glenn Kessler, our fact checker, who's written, I think, on this like a half a dozen times, because it just keeps coming up over and over again. The Democrats did pass funding, you know, increased funding for the IRS, there has been a significant backlog there in recent years. It is not 87,000 new agents, it's 87,000 employees. And a lot of that is replacing people

that have left or are going to leave through attrition. So, you know, I think that the 87,000 agents talking point just kind of goes to show how hyperbolic some of this stuff is. And the fact that this is the first major bill that the House Republicans decided to pass, an effort that in many ways is founded on that hyperbole, I think says a lot about the intent and the need to do what this wing of the party tells the leadership to do. And so we'll see whether that's a precursor to things to come. There are hundreds of billions of dollars, trillions of dollars that are owed to the federal government that are not collected because of people who are scofflaws, people who don't pay their taxes, right? You have, you know, lots of rich people who figured out how to game the system.

I never advise people on how to spin this, but Republicans have weaponized the 87,000 IRS agents. But what they're really doing here in part, and I'm not defending the IRS, you know, up and down, is saying that, you know, we want to make sure that people like Donald Trump, who make millions of dollars and pay nothing in taxes, are not hassled by the IRS. This strikes me as a target-rich environment for Democrats if they want to get back some of their populist mojo. Yeah, yeah, potentially. I think the way that you brought this up is somewhat telling, though, because as you said that, you're saying, well, I'm not defending the IRS, you know, up and down. I think if there's an agency that many Americans dislike very passionately and have for many decades, it might be the IRS. So to the extent this is

Republicans saying, look, we defunded this thing that, you know, might audit you and things like that. I think that could be something that doesn't necessarily hurt them. You know, one of the big arguments Democrats have been making is this was supposed to be something that is going to reduce the deficit. You know, finding people who are cheating on their taxes helps the government recover money. Right. And the CBO came out with an estimate that showed that this bill that Republicans just passed that knocks down that funding is going to cost money over the long term. I think it's $114 billion is the estimate, which Republicans dispute, I would hasten to add. But that's a much harder argument to make.

And right now it's Republicans saying that they're keeping the IRS off your backs. And I think this is maybe one of the less dicey things that Republicans are looking to defund, at least politically speaking. Yeah, no, I mean, obviously there's a lot of symbolism there. Okay, so one other wonky thing, you point out the Republicans are reinstating the so-called Holman rule, which I will confess I had never heard of until this week, which my understanding is allows lawmakers to cut the funding of specific federal agency programs and to target the salaries of individual federal employees. What could possibly go wrong, Aaron? I'm glad you brought this up, too, because I think this is something we might be talking about a fair amount. The Holman rule, it is as

you described it, and it was in effect until I think 1983, before it fell out of favor, was brought back by Republicans under Donald Trump. But, you know, it wasn't used as much because it was a Republican administration and the appetite for cutting and going after the administration is less in those circumstances for perhaps obvious reasons. But now we have a Democratic administration, we have a House Republican majority that's eager to send a message on certain things. And this is a lever for them to pull. They can go after specific programs, they can make a fuss about it. And I would imagine that they are going to use that, at least in certain instances. The question is, on what? There's been some talk about using it for the special counsel's investigation of Trump. that would certainly be a very dicey decision. But there are many other things, especially given the kind of anti-woke crusade

that exists inside the Republican Party, where I would imagine that this might be applied in the years to come. Okay, but what actually happens? So let's say that they target Jack Smith and they move to zero out his salary or the salary of all of his aides. That is unlikely to become law, right? Right. I mean, just like everything else we're talking about, this is, you know, these would be amendments to legislation. That's basically how the process works.

And then the House and the Senate would have to decide whether they want to, you know, vote up or down on that. But the amendment process also does provide an avenue for people to insert things that other people don't like and then dare them to vote against the entire package. And so, you know, if this was just forcing a vote up or down on this single issue of, you know, taking Jack Smith's salary away, that would be one thing, including that or something less serious or less severe than that as part of a larger package could force a little bit more of a difficult

situation for Democrats in the next couple of years. So it'll be really interesting to see how they attempt to wield this tool because it could force some difficult votes. It occurred to me because we've been focused so heavily on the House of Representatives and what's going on over there, that there hasn't been a lot of attention paid to what's going on over at the Senate right now. Democrats don't control it, but Mitch McConnell is also sitting there, and he's going to have to deal with this new House Republican majority. And I thought it was fascinating last week while the House Republicans were melting down, where was Mitch McConnell? He was down in Kentucky shaking hands and, you know, and making merry with Joe Biden. So what's going on with the Senate? And also this morning, I'm reading in your newspaper about, you know, Senator Rick Scott has a new ad where he's touting himself and attacking the rhinos in the Senate who have, you know, have not been fighting strong enough. So what's going on there? The McConnell decision to appear with Biden, even as all this was going down, was

certainly an interesting one. I imagine it was considered and they knew what the optics of this would look like. And maybe it was intended to send a little bit of a message about the realities of governing over the next couple of years. I think he's going to be one of the most interesting people to watch over the next couple of years because he is somebody who has, at least from time to time, argued against going down the Trumpian path for the party. He is a guy who perhaps more than anybody else in the party is saying that funding the war in Ukraine should be their number one priority, even as all this, you know, this movement has kind of taken off in the base that opposes that. And so I don't think he necessarily

like wants to lean into that battle too much. But, you know, as a leader, sometimes you have to take part in that. And I think he's shown he's somewhat eager to demonstrate the difference between Republicans who are interested in governing and others. And whether he's able to do that over the next couple of years, I think is a separate question, but he could emerge as a significant figure if the House Republican conference is thrown into discord over and over again. Well, I think the conference will be dramatic and the dynamic will be fascinating because, you know, Kevin McCarthy is on a very, very short leech from Mar-a-Lago. He is not going to do anything that's going to get him labeled a rhino by Donald Trump. And Mitch McConnell seems like he's all out of fucks to give.

He just doesn't care. We've seen this from time to time where there are Republicans who Trump has gone after. And most of the time, he ends their careers. But sometimes that's not the case. You know, I'm thinking of like Mitt Romney in Utah, who has such a kind of a connection with the party there and such a reputation that he's a little bit immune from Trump's attacks. I think McConnell is somewhat in that class. He's been the target of Trump's attacks over and over again. He still won the majority leader slot relatively

easily. And so he may feel a little bit emboldened to go outside of where a lot of other Republicans feel that they have to right now and run things as he sees fit. And so I think that's a really good point. And it's definitely something worth watching moving forward. Okay, now let's talk about the thorniest issue of the day that will annoy everybody. I don't think it comes as a surprise to anybody that Republicans are all over the news that Joe Biden apparently took some classified documents with him when he left the vice presidency. And we're getting reports that there are about 10 documents, including intelligence memos, briefing materials that covered Ukraine, Iran, and Britain. So as I wrote in my newsletter this morning, if you're expecting calmer heads and nuanced takes to prevail here, you know, would suggest that at least for my read as a non-lawyer

is that number one, this is a blow to the Trump prosecution for squirtling away his documents down in Mar-a-Lago. And it's going to be a real political headache for Joe Biden because it's kind of an easy, hey, what about is a thing for Republicans? So what do you think? How badly does this damage the prospects of an indictment prosecution of Trump for his classified document case? And again, stipulating that these are very, very different cases, very, very different stories. I think your summary of it is right here. There's no world in which this is a good thing for a former vice president to have classified documents outside of where they're supposed to be. It's not good. And that doesn't mean that it's the same as Trump, but it's something that

should be recognized given the focus on this issue right now. But it is very different in a number of ways. It's different in the volume of documents here. It's different in the intent. Donald Trump was asked to return these documents and resisted over a number of many months, didn't get those documents back until they raided Mar-a-Lago. And if you look specifically at the crimes that are being pursued in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, they don't lean on the of justice, of resisting returning the documents, things like that. And so I think that's where the real big difference is here and the big difference is, legally speaking. But you're right. It's not a helpful development for Jack Smith. It's not a helpful development for people who think that Donald Trump should be charged with a crime here. And so I think that it's important, and Merrick Garland has acknowledged that it's important to make sure there's an investigation of this. That's only fair. But

right now, we have no real reason to believe that there's any similarity between these two beyond the fact that both of these guys had these documents in their possession. This does remind me, though, that sometimes in our world, the simpler explanation almost always beats the more complex explanation. So the simple explanation is Joe Biden took classified documents and we just found them. Donald Trump took classified documents and we just found them. It's the same thing. How can you go after Donald Trump for this? Now, I understand, look, with Biden, it's under 12 documents. With Trump, it's like 160 plus secret documents. Biden's personal staff discovered the documents. Trump denied. But do those distinctions matter in the political

world? I think they matter when it comes to the decisions that are going to be made about this. But public opinion does also matter. And you're right that to the extent, you know, most Americans are paying attention to this. It's, yeah, both of these guys had classified documents. And to the extent that any people in the middle were on the fence or weren't sure what to think about this process, it does muddy the waters and Republicans are using it and will use it to muddy those waters. I think that this has always been a very difficult decision for the DOJ moving forward, because however much they will say, you know, the justice system is blind, and it shouldn't matter who this guy is, it should matter what was done and whether it's a

crime. Practically speaking, the stature of the former president looms all over this and launching a prosecution would be one of the most momentous decisions in Justice Department history. So to the extent that there's now this kind of troubling development that can be used to what about this to death, it doesn't help their cause any bit whatsoever. Yeah, I understand this is gonna be frustrating for people who think, you know, but this is the way it should be versus, yes, but this is the reality. And it does kind of remind me of the debate about, you know, defunding the police, where I got all of these comments, people don't, Charlie, actually, let me explain what defunding police actually means, you know, what we're talking about. And I was like, wait, do you understand, you know,

that it's still going to be politically toxic? It is a terrible, terrible issue. So I understand what you want to have happen, but it's not going to happen the way you want. This feels that way again. Nick Cattaggio, I hope I'm not mispronouncing his name over the dispatch, says that now that Team Biden is splashed into a classified document scandal of its own, it seems likely to me that Trump will be let off the hook entirely. Don't know if that's true. But he does say, and I think accurately, the one thing that could be counted on to drive wavering Republicans back into his corner in this matter has come to pass. They've been handed a libs do it too on a silver platter. And, you know, life's not fair.

Politics is not fair. And I think this is going to be a real problem. I mean, so I think it's incumbent on the media and other folks to continue to point out what the distinctions are, but not to be so naive to believe that in this particular age, nuances actually can cut through all the smoke that's going to be out there. this driving Republicans to kind of hunker down and really stand by Trump on this issue is well taken. I think it's worth emphasizing that after Mar-a-Lago was searched, the Republican Party very quickly closed ranks and called it into question based upon very little knowledge about what underlied the search or really any details about it. So getting them to fully close ranks was not perhaps as difficult as it might seem, but it's certainly a point well taken that this will enable that and perhaps allow them to make that case more publicly, even if that glosses over

all kinds of nuance and the many differences between the two situations. Okay, so one last thing. I personally find it remarkable how openly Steve Bannon is cheering on the violence in Brazil. Okay, it's not a new story that Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and other, you know, folks in Trump world were very, very close to the Bolsonaro's defeated president of Brazil and his son. I mean, we knew that we knew that he was spreading the big lie. But in the aftermath of the outbreak of these riots and all of the destruction in Brazil by the neo-fascist anti-democratic protesters, Steve Bannon is going, these are freedom fighters. I'm not backing off an inch, which I don't know, Aaron, this does strike me as kind of a maybe it's incremental but it's a significant incremental step where he's not pretending that he's in favor of peaceful protests but we you know deplore the violence he's all in on the violence

Steve Bannon is grooming people to accept violent responses to an election result they don't like yeah and it's just kind of a death by a thousand cuts, whether you're talking about the death of democracy or kind of the death of accepting elections as being valid. You mentioned Steve Bannon, but we also had Tucker Carlson on his show just flat out saying that the election in Brazil was rigged, was stolen, without presenting any actual evidence to that effect, I would add. No basis. At the very least, for a lot of Republicans, it will reinforce that elections can't be

trusted and that they can be called into question in the future. And maybe Donald Trump won. You know, Brazil is not on our level of a democracy, but it's certainly, you know, a major country. And so to the extent this can happen in another country, why couldn't it happen in the United States? And then beyond that, I think one of the more telling things that I noticed over the weekend and early this week was after the scenes in Brazil, we saw a whole bunch of Democrats denouncing this pretty unified response that this was a very bad thing condemning it. Very few Republicans

spoke out on this. I counted among the first 60 members to tweet about this. Only two were Republicans. One was George Santos, which is interesting in and of itself. And the other was Brian Fitzpatrick, who, as we mentioned, is perhaps the most moderate House Republican. So the fact that Republicans didn't see fit to jump out and condemn this, I think, is telling when it comes to where the base is at. And to the extent that there's no pushback on the things that Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson are saying about this, I think it just cements that sensibility within the Republican Party base that elections can't be trusted based upon no actual evidence of that.

Well, it's understandable why George Santos would have tweeted about this, considering the fact that he's a former president of Brazil. I'm sorry. I wondered where you were going with that. Or whatever his name actually is. We really don't. We didn't even get into George Santos because I think there's a lot out there. I think that's going to be a gift that's worth giving. People keep saying, when are they going to deal with him? Look, we keep coming back to that four-vote majority. I can't see Kevin McCarthy being too aggressive. So I think George Santos

is kind of like that dead fish you left out in the sun. He's just going to sit there and it's going to get stinkier and stinkier. What do you think? They're stuck with him. I think you're right. Not only is it a four seat majority, but he comes from a very competitive district. And so, you know, this was a guy in Ruby Red, rural Alabama, who was having these problems. It would be easier to say, hey, maybe we should just boot this guy out and let them have a special election. We'll get that seat back very soon. There's no guarantee of that in this situation. So I think his problems probably don't come from McCarthy. I think they come from the justice system investigating his campaign finance, very curious filings. I think that's going to be the next thing to watch out for here because you're right, there's not going to be an appetite for McCarthy to do anything about this until the situation is completely untenable.

Aaron Blake, senior political reporter at The Washington Post, who writes for The Fix. Aaron, thank you so much for your time today and coming on The Bulwark Podcast. It's so good to talk to you, Charlie. Thanks for having me. And thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow and we'll do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.