The Bulwark Podcast - Will Saletan: Expect More Hostage-Taking in the House

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

McCarthy paid the ransom, Bannon is openly supporting violence in Brazil, and even normie Republicans are prepared to put the US economy at risk. Plus, Charlie and Will disagree on Hakeem Jeffries' speech. Will Saletan's back with Charlie Sykes for Charlie and Will Monday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. It is Monday, and of course, we have to ask the question, what could possibly go wrong? Kevin McCarthy finally, finally, finally was able to self-gueld himself to the point where he was able to get the hollow gavel. In case anybody thinks that that was a hell of a show, that's just a preview of what the next two years are going to be like. There's a lot of other things going on as well, including the fact that Joe Biden is down at the border. The House GOP is wrestling with that rules package later today. And rioters in Brazil are storming government buildings to overturn a presidential election. Let me quote the Washington Post here. In scenes that hauntingly evoked the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.

So what I wrote in my newsletter this morning, old and busted, America,, Shining City on a Hill, New Hotness, America, Exporter of Insurrection. So welcoming back, because it is Monday, my good friend and colleague, Will Salatin. How are you? Happy New Year, first of all. Thanks, Charlie. I've missed you, but I wanted to, first of all, console you on the Packers going out. They had a noble run at the end. But don't worry, my Cowboys will be right behind you. Oh, man. I was afraid you were going to bring this up.

It's just, it is too soon. I have to say the mood here in Cheesehead land is decidedly negative on Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers has like $150 million still waiting for him on that contract, I think. Yes. America, the land of endless hope. Okay. So I, I can't even bring myself to talk about this. I did make one life decision that was,

probably shouldn't even confess this. The late night games were really tough because I have to get up so early and I had to get up really early for Morning Joe today. And I made the decision, I was going to watch just the beginning of it and I wasn't going to stick with it. But of course, you know, at midnight or so I roll over, I wake up, I, you know, open up my phone, look at ESPN and go, are you kidding me? They lost to the Detroit Lions at home in a decisive game. I mean, what a bleak beginning. On the other hand, happy Monday to everyone from Detroit. I'm sure you're very excited. Exactly. Well, and Seattle, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I never thought that would happen, but congratulations. The city of my birthplace. Okay. So I want to talk about, obviously, what happened in the Capitol and what's going to happen in the Capitol. I mean, amazing street theater going on on the floor of the House of Representatives. I mean, almost fisticuffs, yelling back and forth and everything. But before we do that, let's start with the story out of Brazil, which is truly amazing. I mean, you have a very clearly organized attack on government buildings by right-wing supporters of the defeated president Bolsonaro. As the Washington Post reports of the attack, the most significant threat to democracy in Latin America's largest nation since the 1964 military coup came a week

after the inauguration of the new president to succeed Bolsonaro. It suggested a spreading plague of far-right disruptors in Western democracies as hardliners radicalized by incendiary political rhetoric, refuse to accept election losses, claim to unfounded claims of fraud and undermine the rule of law. Well, how did that happen? How on earth did that happen? First of all, Charlie, we're going to find out more about what connections there are beyond possibly Steve Bannon and others to, you know to January 6th. It can't be a complete coincidence. This happens on the anniversary of January 6th, roughly. And obviously, everyone in the world saw what was happening in the United States a couple of years

ago. So clearly, we've set some kind of a precedent. That was the blueprint for this. The thing that really struck me about this thing was the first piece that I wrote for the Bulwark a year ago was you don't have to think of yourself as an authoritarian to become one, right? If you believe that you actually won the election, you believe that the guy you voted for won the election, then you go down to the Capitol and you're protesting and you think that you're defending democracy. And all of these protesters turned rioters, turned attackers in Brazil, when they're interviewed, are saying, you know, our guy won, Bolsonaro won, it was fraud. This is very much like January 6th in that regard. The people who invaded the Capitol in the United States also thought Donald Trump won

the election. So all you really have to do to these people is lie to them the way Trump did, the way Bolsonaro did, that they had actually won the election. And suddenly you've got an army of people mobbing for authoritarianism who think they're defending democracy. So you can be a foot soldier for fascism without actually being consciously a fascist. Exactly. The opposite, in fact. You think you're fighting the fascists. See, I think what's really extraordinary about all of this is how unsubtle it is and how clear the ties are between some of the January 6th architects and what's happening in Brazil. And I wonder whether or not people get a little perspective because everybody around the world looks at Brazil and goes, OK, this is an attack on democracy. Well, of course it was, just as

January 6th was a fundamental attack on democracy. And so in course it was, just as January 6th was a fundamental attack on democracy. And so in my newsletter today, I said, you know, it's quite relevant, you know, to, you know, have screenshots of these various stories. Trump aides Bannon and Stephen Miller advising the Bolsonaro's on next steps. Here's the insider. Trump aides are helping Brazil's president to dispute the results of the election he just lost. It's going terribly. Here's the Washington Post. Trump aides, Bannon, Miller advising the Bolsonaro's. And then you have Steve Bannon, who's on social media, and he is just one post after another openly supporting the violence in Brazil.

He called the rioters Brazilian freedom fighters. He posted Lula stole the election. Brazilians know that release the machines over and over and over again. So a couple of points here. Clearly, he is deeply involved in all of this. There's a direct tie between Trump world and what's going on down there. They love this. And they're not making any pretense that, well, this is a peaceful protest. And unfortunately, there's some violence. He's actually posting pictures of people throwing rocks, etc. So he has moved from, you know, the sort of pretend wink, wink, wink, that we want this to be peaceful to screw that, you know,

praising this violent attack on the Brazilian democracy. So many of the people involved may not think they're fascists. I'm sorry, Steve Bannon has just gone, I mean, he's gone full fashy. I don't know how else you describe it. Somebody asked me this morning, can you remind me why Steve Bannon is not actually in jail? Right. Well, what these guys do is they incite. So what you're quoting from Bannon, that's classic, right? What he's saying is the system is corrupt, the system cheats, the system steals. And the problem is once you convince people of that, then they don't believe in the system and they're likely to resort to invading offices and violence if necessary. We have very similar January 6th, literally attacking law enforcement. We have hand-to-hand combat with police. During the lead up to January 6th in this country, there were a lot of Republican lawmakers,

a lot of Republican politicians who rationalized what Donald Trump was doing, lying about the election. They said, you know, he's just pursuing all of his legal recourses. You know, the claims that he's making might or might not pan out, but, you know, he's just going through the courts and that's fine. And so the problem is when you go down this road of lying to the public about elections, lying to a lot of angry people, telling them that the election was literally stolen from them. This is the kind of thing that can happen. It happened in the United States. It's happening

in Brazil. And so we need to crack down. And I don't know, I'm not saying that we need to constrain free speech, but we need to think really hard about people going out and lying in a way that incites violence. Yes. In case anybody thought that January 6th was a one-off, I mean, I think that there'd been some discussion of the fact that, you know, what is a failed coup is merely a rehearsal for the next coup. Well, clearly the failed coup of January 6th is a rehearsal, not just for more political violence here, but around the world. And what an interesting example that we have set. I mean, that's the world. And what an interesting example that we have set. I mean, that's the bizarre thing that what we are exporting now to the rest of the

world, this sort of thing. It is interesting. I'm not cutting Bolsonaro any slack whatsoever, but there's a slight difference between the way he's handled it and Trump. I mean, while Trump was actively egging it on and inciting it, Bolsonaro actually left the country, interestingly enough, headed to Florida. So you get two Florida men. Did you see the picture of him wandering around a Publix grocery store the other day? It was the weirdest damn thing. That was incredible.

In Bolsonaro's defense, he's clearly learned from the Trump case. He is going to Florida before his insurrection. Trump did it the other way around. And he is not specifically egging it on in the way. I mean, yes, he's engaged in election denial. I don't want to be misunderstood here. He's engaged in election denial, but he at least is not playing the active role that Donald Trump made. But it is interesting because I think, was it the last time you and I spoke that one of the contrasts was kind of amazing was that Brazil was having a better, you know, peaceful transfer of power than the United States of America. But of course, Steve Bannon and his buddies have made sure that that doesn't happen. Okay. So speaking of chaos, let's talk about

what's going on in Washington. What an amazing, what an amazing story. And for people who think that it's just funny and it's just theater, by the way, it is funny and it is just theater. I mean, you know, almost beating up Matt Gaetz on the floor of the house and everything. This is just a preview of the next two years. I mean, the dysfunction will be the point. The nihilism is the point. The gridlock is the point. So I guess the question is, how bad will it be? Given what Kevin McCarthy has given up, I think people think, well, it's going to be, you've got the crazies that are in control. I don't think that people have fully understood the way in which Kevin McCarthy's concessions, his self-gelding, is going to turn the house over

to people who, frankly, are burn-it-all-down nihilists. What do you think? Yeah, well, I mean, structurally, obviously, McCarthy has opened things up. I mean, Mike Waltz, Republican congressman from Florida, was on TV this weekend saying, you know, it's not just Matt Gaetz or anybody on the Republican side who can suddenly call a motion to vacate, right? It's the Democrats, right? So McCarthy has dealt away all this power. But Charlie, you're right. There are very specific aspects of this chaos caucus on the Republican side that make this even more dangerous.

First of all, these guys, they just proved that they're willing to shut down the House. They did it over the first vote, over the speakership, right? So they're going to do it again. The second thing is McCarthy has paid a ransom, right? They kidnapped the house and they said, we're not going to give it back to you until you pay our ransom. And he paid it. And every hawk for sure knows if you pay a ransom, you're going to get more hostage taking. You incentivize it. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. So the tactics exceeded. We can expect both because of the nature of these 20 and however many others they may get, plus the fact that McCarthy incentivized it, that we're going to see a lot more of this in the next two years. And very specifically, we're going to see a very nasty fight over the debt ceiling. And as I wrote this morning, I think that a lot of people are thinking, well, you know, calmer, wiser heads will prevail. We certainly will not shut down the government. We certainly would not have a market-killing default on our debt. Well, if you think that wiser heads are going to prevail, you haven't been paying attention or understand the nature of some of these concessions. So for example, he's given three seats now on the crucial rules committee

to the Freedom Caucus. Nothing gets to the floor. Nothing even gets a vote unless it's approved by the rules committee. As you pointed out, if he negotiates with the White House, if he tries to compromise on this, any member of the House can move to basically throw him out of office. And they're also now committing. I find this to be somewhat interesting. I mean, we're all focusing on the real crazy stuff. I'm interested in getting your take on all of this. I know this is not, as I wrote, I kind of was like struggling with saying this is new, but of course it's not new. It is kind of newish to sort of, you know, quote George Santos, that the GOP is turning

its focus to open warfare over what they call fiscal conservatism. And so these fiscal hawks are intending to force the White House, this is the Washington Post, force the White House to agree to massive spending cuts, threatening a return to the political brinksmanship that once nearly crippled the economy and almost plunged the U.S. government into a default. Now, again, this is not new. This is kind of a back to the future to that pre-Trump, kamikaze, Ted Cruz, Tea Party politics, right? But this is what's interesting. Even though Trump sort of came from that world ideologically, Trumpism, as you know, Will, has never been about debt reduction, deficit reduction,

fiscal conservatism. I mean, they may talk about it, but Donald Trump in just four years added $7.8 trillion in budget deficits. He added more money in deficits than Barack Obama and George W. Bush added. And yet now, you know, what a difference a presidential election makes. They've decided they're going to go all in and they're targeting not just Social Security and Medicare, and good luck with that, but also threatening massive cuts in the military. So the politics of this is really going to be, shall we say, problematic, but also the politics of actually tanking the markets and destroying people's 401ks because you're taking this position. I don't think people fully realize how awful this is going to be. Yeah. So first of all, on your point about Trump, you're right. One of Trump's great insights, I mean, what Trump was, what Trump is, is he understands exactly what his base wants, right? And he doesn't do the Mitt Romney thing of suggesting, you know, that we're going to actually cut programs, right? He finds an enemy, and the enemy is the Libs. The enemy is the Mexicans. The enemy is the Chinese, whatever. So through bashing immigrants, through bashing trade, you know, he was always tough on the other guys, never on you.

What these House Republicans are talking about is drifting back away from Trumpism and going back to sort of pre-Trump Republicanism. And when you start talking about cutting programs like social security, you are starting to hit the Trump base. And that is what Trump understood. Don't do that. Okay. So this is a really important point here. One of the major Trump deviations from quote unquote, establishment Republicanism, and certainly Ryanism, Paul Ryanism, was when he said back in 2015, 2016, I will protect Medicare and Social Security. And that really was a key element in his new populist coalition. So one of the dirty little secrets of the Republican Party and the Tea Party has been that

they may talk a good game about spending cuts, but the actual rank and file don't have much appetite for cutting that. They do not want to cut Social Security. They do not want to cut Medicare. They want to cut programs for the needy. They want to cut foreign aid. They're willing to do, you know, things like that. But to go to the wall, to cut funding for, you know, national defense and for Social Security and Medicare is almost like a textbook case of political suicide for the Republicans. I mean, I posted some polls, you know, which have been consistent over the years. You ask Republican-based voters, even Tea Party folks, about specific spending cuts, and they're like, meh, no, not really.

And now suddenly you have this party that has spent the last five, six years wallowing in culture war politics going, hey, why don't we pivot a little bit to fiscal conservatism, which we basically didn't give a shit about for the last four years? I mean, how's that going to work out? Right, right. And, you know, this gets to an important point, which is, you know, we sat and we watched, you know, Dr. Seuss and whatever, you know, crazy, stupid, cultural non-issue people that were raised on Fox News. And we would look at this and we'd say, this is so trivial and stupid. Why are they doing this? And the answer is what you just said. By focusing on those fake issues, they didn't have

to deal with real issues, with real things like, you know, the massive spending that we were doing and not paying for. So if they're going to shift back towards dealing with real issues, they're going to pay a real political price. I'm sure nothing excites Democrats more than the idea that Republicans are going to go back from Trumpism to Mitt Romneyism and they're going to pay the attendant consequences. Well, and going back to something else, too, I mean, this is the party of fire and fury. I mean, I know it's old now to say that this is, you know, no longer the party of Ronald Reagan. But for the Republican Party to say, yeah, we ought to slash military spending, which we just voted to increase at a time when the threats from Russia and China and the global threats are rising every day. This is not where they want to be. I mean, you have Democrats like Abigail Spanberger, who's already out saying, you know, this is a very, very dangerous time. We should not be doing that. The Wall Street

Journal editorial board has a lead editorial today saying that this is not that smart, given how dangerous, obviously dangerous the world is. So it's going to be interesting to see how they play that. So can I just share with you my favorite read of the day, though? Go for it. I probably shouldn't even acknowledge this, but I just share with you my favorite read of the day, though? Go for it. I probably shouldn't even acknowledge this, but I just love it so much. The Media Research Center has a thing called Newsbusters. And for years, it focuses on liberal bias and it's whatever. And they have a whole piece today about something I said on television yesterday. It's very critical of me.

And I love it, which may tell you a little bit about, there's a little bit, I don't know, what does it say that I actually enjoy? Okay, so the headline is MSNBC's Bulwark Snark. Yeah. Kevin McCarthy has self-gelded himself as speaker. And I'm not going to kid you, Will, I'm very proud of that phrase, but there was some serious pearl clutching over at the Newsbusters. Let me read. The liberal media likes to depict never Trumpers like Charlie Sykes as the voice of center right reason and moderation. But in recent days, founder of the bulwark and MSNBC columnist has revealed a spiteful vulgar streak. No, no, really. By the way, I just want to put in the bid. I want that on the t-shirt

spiteful and vulgar streak okay last week okay it gets better last week we caught him literally laughing as he reveled in kevin mccarthy's sticky predicament in seeking the speakership and pronouncing with malicious glee the names of George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene as people McCarthy had to rely on. And by the way, everything there is true. I was literally laughing, and I did have a certain amount of glee that Kevin McCarthy's speakership depended on the votes of George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene, which is literally true. But they go on. But that was tame compared to his spit take.

On Jonathan Capehart's Sunday show, now that McCarthy has secured the speaker's gavel, Sykes took Sunday's Democrat talking point about how the House Republicans will be incapable of governing. I think that's more than just a Democrat talking point. And headed House Republicans will be incapable of governing. I think that's more than just a Democrat talking point. And headed straight for the crotch. See why I love this? Okay, I'm sorry, I'm waiting. You look at the kind of concessions he's made, putting the bomb throwers on the rules committee, the motion to vacate. It is extremely difficult to see how Kevin McCarthy can negotiate anything because the man has self-gelded his speakership. And then they point out to the readers of Newsbusters, gelded is, of course, a synonym

for castrated. Okay. You might have thought, they write, that the normally proper Capehart would have been offended by Sykes' crude metaphor. No, you would not have thought that. But to the contrary, he, Jonathan Capehart, and Michael Steele, former RNC chairman, but they described him as the disgraced Lincoln Project, whatever, could be heard laughing off camera. This would be literally laughing off camera, with one of them saying that is true. For the liberal media, rules of decency and decorum are apparently suspended when it comes to belittling Republicans. Oh, my goodness.

I just, I just, I'm sorry. I know I should not be wallowing in that. But I think it's hilarious. Also, Will, it's pretty apparent that this particular individual, intern whatever wrote this has never listened to our podcast this is i was i was gonna say all these descriptions of you the vulgar no shit no shit yeah we should invite you to listen to the bulwark podcast because it will blow your fucking mind okay so on this issue of back to being serious here, here's the segue to being serious. So the problem of the debt default is huge because, you know, even though Joe Biden is, sits in the white house and the Democrats control the Senate, you can't raise the debt ceiling,

which by the way, is a stupid idea that forced Congress to have to go through this particularly meaningless step with all the risks of it. But anyway, they can't do it without an affirmative vote of the House. Now, clearly, there would be a bipartisan majority of members of the House who would vote to raise the debt ceiling because they're not crazy. But under the concessions that Kevin McCarthy has made, that becomes irrelevant because you can't get any sort of a vote to the floor of the House without the approval, basically, now the veto of the Freedom Caucus members, and they don't care. So the Democrats have said, look, we're not negotiating with the nation's full faith and credit. We are not going to negotiate cuts in Social Security and Medicare and social safety net and the military in return for the debt. I want to play for what Chris Christie, his spin on this yesterday on ABC News and get your take on the other side. Well, here's Chris Christie saying that, well, you know, this wouldn't be just the Republicans fault if they managed to shut down the government because they've turned the keys of the House over to the crazies. Here's Chris Christie. Clearly, he made a promise about the debt limit that he was going to have to tie it to spending cuts, which President Biden has absolutely ruled out. Are we heading towards a major fiscal crisis sooner rather than later?

Well, George, I'll tell you, I governed for eight years in New Jersey with a Democratic legislature. And if I ever stood up and said on the budget, for instance, I'm not negotiating. I'm not negotiating. This is my budget. I'm not negotiating. Not the budget. People would say I was an obstructionist. They say a lot of it.

President Biden, to say he's not going to negotiate, defies the reality of his situation. He lost the House. He's got to negotiate. And so to say that the Republicans would be the obstruction as well, now you have divided government and you have to, both sides are going to have to give. Chuck Schumer is going to have to give, Joe Biden's going to have to give, and Kevin McCarthy's going to have to give ultimately. So if we have a fiscal disaster because of some of these things, it's going to be

us judging who's been willing to negotiate and who hasn't. So Will Salatin, that sounds so reasonable, right? That everybody has to make concessions, divide a government. And that is what's so tempting about this lie, right? So what Christie's doing is he's obliterating, without quite saying so, the distinction between negotiating over a budget and negotiating over the debt ceiling. Thank you. What Christie's saying about budget negotiations is entirely sensible. You do.

Should we spend more on this? Should we spend less on that? And you have a negotiation over that because you're making a decision. The part where you raise the debt ceiling is not a budget negotiation. That's where you're paying the bills for what you already agreed to spend. And it would be like, you know, in the case of Republicans and Democrats, the Republicans having sort of paid no attention to the debt ceiling, specifically during the Trump years. A lot of attention before, now paying attention under Biden.

Imagine that you and your spouse have differences about what you spend money about, right? And you run up a big credit card bill on things you care about. And then your spouse starts paying for things and you decide that you're not going to pay the credit card bill for what your spouse is purchasing. Not for what you purchased, but what your spouse is purchasing. So now you're threatening the credit rating of you and your spouse, right? And you're doing it selectively. And you're not doing it at the point where you should have had a discussion about what the two of you are going to spend money on or not. And that's basically what Christie is talking about here. McCarthy and the Republicans are going to hold up the debt ceiling and threaten a default and with consequences to the credit of the United States and borrowing rates and everything that affects ordinary people over what should have been a budget negotiation. So this is why what Christie is saying is so wide as bullshit.

And I'm sorry to offend the folks from Newsbusters on that, because, as you point out, he is conflating budget with a debt ceiling. And he never had a vote on raising the debt ceiling in New Jersey when he was the governor. He never had to give up something in order to keep New Jersey from defaulting on its bonds. So there's not the same thing at all. But you can already see that even the normal Republicans are preparing to rationalize and spin something that will put the nation's economy at risk. This is what's extraordinary about it. And this is why I am very frustrated that we even have to have a vote on raising the debt ceiling. It's like writing into law a process by which every year or so the U.S. government has to put a loaded gun to its head

and you hope for the best. And I think the hoping for the best is probably not the best soundest strategy. No. And as you pointed out at the best is probably not the best soundest strategy. No. And as you pointed out at the beginning, that language that Christie is using about negotiation, and we're going to hear a lot of that. This is what we're going to be hearing coming up to the debt ceiling. Reasonable people negotiate. Biden is refusing to negotiate. McCarthy is offering to negotiate. So McCarthy is the reasonable person. That's the spin. But as you and I just discussed, on principle, that doesn't make any sense because we're talking about whether you're going to pay the credit card bill, not whether you're going to buy the thing in the first place. But what's really notable about what Christie's saying there

about negotiation is there is no principle involved. What he's saying is because the Republicans now have power in the House, because McCarthy now has a majority, you have to negotiate with him just as a matter of practicality. So this is part of the evacuation of the Republican Party of any principles and where they're just saying anyone who has power, you have to negotiate with them just because of that power, even if what they're defending is not morally defensible. So they are pivoting from almost a sole focus on the culture war issues and the border to fiscal issues, but not completely pivoting from that. Three of the 12 bills that they're going to be taking up first deal with new restrictions on abortion. I think we got a little flavor of how hard it's going to be to govern with this majority on some of the Sunday shows yesterday.

So here's Nancy Mace. And there's two parts to this, and I'm interested in both of them. Number one, you know, she doesn't hold anything back on her contempt for Matt Gaetz. And it raises the question, she's answering the question, well, how hard is it going to be to work with members of the caucus who just behave this way? And then she makes some very interesting comments as a pro-life Republican about this strategy of pushing through anti-abortion bills. So let's play Nancy Mace from yesterday morning. It's going to be very difficult. Matt Gaetz is a fraud. Every time he voted against Kevin McCarthy last week, he sent out a fundraising email. What you saw last week was a constitutional process diminished by those kinds of political actions.

I don't support that kind of behavior. I am very concerned as someone who represents a lot of centrists, a lot of independents. I have as many independents and Democrats as I have Republicans in my district. I have to represent everybody. I am concerned that common sense legislation will not get through to get a vote on the floor. And for example, we have 12 bills that we're supposedly going to be voting on in our first week in office. Three of them are abortion bills and pro-life bills. I am pro-life, but I have many exceptions. But they are not legislation, pieces of legislation that can pass us in and get onto the desk for the president to sign into law.

And so if we're going to be serious about protecting life, for example, maybe we should look at more centrist views like ensuring every woman has access to birth control. Because if you can reduce pregnancies, you can reduce the need or want for women to have abortions. For example, a very common sense, pragmatic point of view. But that's not what we're going to be voting on this week. And I am concerned. I want to see pragmatics at work, common sense, fiscal conservative issues at work that represent all views. We ought to note that Nancy Mace, despite being the voice of reason there, was the one who actually flew up to New York to stand in front of Trump Tower to plead and pledge her endless fealty to

the orange god king. And now she is shock, shock to find out that, hey, we're not doing reasonable, pragmatic things. But your thoughts about that, I thought that was interesting that unprompted she brought up as a pro-life Republican, brought up her concerns about these anti-abortion bills that are going to be rammed through the House in the next few weeks. Yeah, well, I mean, what Nancy Mace is getting at there, in my opinion, and especially as you're pointing out the distinction between the Nancy Mace wing, if I can call it that, and the Matt Gaetz wing is this is not fundamentally about where you stand on the issue. They're both pro-life. It's about what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to solve a problem or are you trying to perpetuate an issue and raise money off of it by polarizing,

right? And so what Nancy Mace is talking about there on abortion, about providing better access to birth control and frankly, birth control that you can put in your arm and not have to worry about for, and don't have to think about every time you have sex, that actually, and I've looked at this a lot, that's actually the best way to reduce the number of abortions, if your goal is to reduce the number of abortions. However, if your goal is to just raise money off the abortion issue, then you do what Matt Gaetz do and what most Republicans in the House do, which is you try to pass all these messaging bills to say, we're against abortion, and the other side, not really true, is for abortion. And so that's the fundamental difference that's emerging in

the Republican Party. So and they're really really talking past one another because Matt Gaetz is not interested in actually passing legislation that will be signed, that will go into law, that will deal with a real world problem. He is interested in striking a pose, sending a message, and then raising money off of it. I mean, there's a completely different philosophy here. But it is interesting that Nancy Mace is throwing out these pragmatic ideas, including about, you know, more readily birth control. This is the kind of thing that we didn't hear before Dobbs, did we? We didn't hear this a lot. And now we are in kind of a new age and a new reality. So we're starting to hear some different little nuances. Nothing's going to come of any of this, but it is interesting.

Yeah. You know, Charlie, do you remember the old saucer theory that basically in any Congress, somebody would sort of fall into the middle? And if somebody disappeared from the middle, like sort of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger out of Congress, is Nancy Mace falling into that role? Who else might fall into the role of saying, you know, the middle is unoccupied, the sensible center is unoccupied, and I'm going to occupy it? Well, this is a question, and I know this will sound like the same old, same old question, but let's try to pretend that it's quasi-fresh. Will moderate, reasonable Republicans begin to speak up? I know we've had this conversation, but you are seeing a number of them who are going, wait, wait, wait. When Kevin McCarthy gave away his power, he also gave away our ability to influence things. And we have our own agendas here. And some of them are just showing some signs of being more outspoken. I'm assuming that that rules package is going to pass anyway. I mean, it's a test for him

because, you know, some of the moderates were making noise that, well, you know, we're not going to go along with this. You've given away to the store to the Freedom Caucus. What about us? But I'm assuming it's going to pass. Do you assume the same thing? I do. And I worry about that, Charlie. I mean, I want the House to work, but I fear that what we're seeing is this fundamental advantage that the fringe has, that the extremists have over the middle, right? The extremists just proved they're willing to shut down the House for four days over the very first thing, a speaker. Meanwhile, you have these moderates. You have people like Nancy Mace, Tony Gonzalez. Gonzalez has said, Republican congressman who said he's going to, a moderate who said he's

going to vote against the rules package because too much was conceded to the extreme. Nancy Mace said she might. I mean, we'll find out today how many are doing that, but I don't want the House to be held up over the rules package. And yet at the same time, I worry that the moderates are going to lose power because they're not willing to threaten the whole institution while the extremists are willing to do that. No, I think you're right. I actually spent a lot of time over the weekend with a very, very smart Republican lawmaker who had kind of a gripe about some of the things that we do. And it was a very friendly conversation. I want to make that clear. But his point was that he was very frustrated by the fact

that folks like us at the Bulwark will often portray everybody in the Republican Party as being nut jobs, as being part of MAGA. And he said, you know, look, look at what's happening in Congress. Look what's happening in various other legislatures. Well, you'll see that the vast majority of Republicans are normies. They are not crazy. They are actually normal people. And they get lumped in with the crazies. And I understood, you know, where he was coming from. But here's the problem. The normies get lumped in with the crazies because they I understood, you know, where he was coming from, but here's the problem. The normies get lumped in with the crazies because they won't stand up to the crazies because when push comes to shove, they enable the crazies. So the normies that he was talking about

who got their speaker in Kevin McCarthy, right? What's the first thing that Kevin McCarthy did after being elected speaker? He had a selfie taken with Marjorie Taylor Greene. So, Guy, do you understand that this is not us saying, hey, you people have become reckless and extreme and irresponsible because, you know, you go along with all this. You have gone along with all of this now for more than six years. And I understand that it's frustrating that people think they know that you're indistinguishable from the crazies. But I don that it's frustrating that people think that you're indistinguishable from the crazies, but I don't know. Isn't there a thing about you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas kind of thing? I mean, where'd those fleas come from, guy?

Look, in fairness to your friend, I think he's right. We should draw distinctions, but the distinctions are not necessarily going to be flattering, right? So there are extremists in the Republican Party. And by the way, we can draw some mirror images on the left, although it's not as big a problem over there. There are extremists, there are liars, right? There are people who are just going to like lie about election fraud, for example, when they know better. They're not, maybe not extremists themselves, but they lie and they cause a lot of damage. And then there's a large class of cowards. And these are, you might call them normies. They are the Republicans who knew better, who tried not to join in, but they

wouldn't stand up to Donald Trump. They wouldn't stand up to election lies. And today they don't stand up, you know, to the fringe in the House. And then you have people who are normies and are brave, or just simply do the right thing. You know, Adam Kinzinger said, look, we're not heroes. We just stood up when it was morally necessary to do so. And those people got kicked out of the House Republicans, Kinzinger, Cheney, right? So we're left with these weak, cowardly normies. I'm willing to say they're not extremists. I'm willing to say they're not liars, but I'm not willing to say they're brave or that they're doing the right thing. So let's talk about the Democrats for a moment.

You've been watching Democrats in Congress for a long time. Have you ever seen anything like the show that we saw last week where they were actually having a good time and were completely united? Yeah. How long does that last? What do they say? Never interrupt your opponent when he's in the process of destroying himself. They played that role quite well. Well, then they got that. Yeah. Who was it who was sitting there reading the

book about the subtle art of not giving? Katie Porter. The subtle art of not giving a fuck. And there's Katie Porter sitting on the floor of the house. And I was shocked, shocked, Charlie, to learn that you did not write that book. I regret that, you know. I have many regrets in life, and I'm sorry to say, Will, that is one of them. Yeah, but they were having a good time, and they were solidly united. When you think about, you know, two years ago, the entire year was spent with Democrats fighting with one another. And it's really interesting to watch how they pull together. And also there's the contrast between the continuing self-immolation of Kevin McCarthy and the new leader of the Democrats in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, who I didn't really know much about, but gave a speech. Was this like at one in the morning, Saturday morning, Friday night? After the vote, after the 15th ballot, he had given Kevin McCarthy his heart's desire.

He finally got his hands on his precious. Hakeem Jeffries gave this very, very short speech, the alphabet speech. And I want to weigh into the argument about this. So I'm going to play it and I want you to grade this speech because again, Hakeem Jeffries stands up and as far as I can tell, pretty much without notes, he looks down occasionally, but it's pretty clear that he had this one planned. And it is the whole alphabet. So stick with us here. Here's Hakeem Jeffries. We'll always put American values over autocracy, benevolence over bigotry, the constitution over the cult, democracy over demagogues. Economic opportunity over extremism.

Freedom over fascism. Governing over gaslighting. Hopefulness over hatred. Inclusion over isolation. Justice over judicial overreach. Knowledge over kangaroo courts.

Liberty over limitation. Maturity over Mar-a-Lago, normality over negativity, opportunity over obstruction, people over politics, quality of life issues over QAnon, reason over racism, substance over slander. Triumph over tyranny. Understanding over ugliness. Voting rights over voter suppression. Working families over the well-connected. Xenial over xenophobia. Yes, we can over you can't do it. And zealous representation over zero-sum confrontation. Oh, my. He did the whole alphabet. He even got through X. Thank you, Donald Trump, for being a xenophobe. That would not have been possible. All right. So this is just between you and me here. Among some of our Bulwer colleagues are people who think, yeah, it was overrated. It wasn't that great. And then there was kind of a back and forth on Slack about it.

What did you think? You know what I thought, but what did you think? I am in the overrated camp. This was an okay speech. First of all, this is the kind of thing that you can do, right? This is not the kind of thing that the leader of the House of Democrats should do. First of all, he lost. He lost the vote for speaker, right?

You don't get up there. The other guy's about to take the gavel and you proceed to go on for quite some time, in my opinion, doing this whole speech that is with lots and lots of digs, you know, Mar-a-Lago and, you know, QAnon and stuff like that's all the kind of thing that you and I can do. We're the ones in the bleachers who can do that. I think that Hakeem Jeffries stepped out of the proper role there. I think he should have given a shorter speech, a nicer speech, and just handed over the gavel. Amazingly, I completely disagree with you. I thought it was fine. I thought it was impressive. I liked the fact that it was fun and entertaining. And the fact that three days later, anyone is still talking about this speech. Can you tell me

anything else any other member of Congress has said in the last 10 years that people talked about three days later? And not because it was stupid, but because it was like, hey, did you hear that great speech on the floor of the house? No, nobody pays any attention to that stuff. Hakeem Jeffries has apparently decided he has no moral obligation to be boring and stuffy like you want, Will. I plead guilty. I want him to be a little boringer and stuffier in that context. Look, Charlie, there will be lots of opportunities to dig at the Republicans. There are going to be lots of House Democratic leadership press conferences, and Hakeem Jeffries can do that. Actually, I think he should leave it to somebody else by and large. I mean, Nancy Pelosi didn't do so much of that. She left that to other people.

And I would hope that the democratic leadership of the new generation will do the same thing. But in this moment, I just don't think it was the right move. I'm thinking preach. Preach, brother. I don't know how this happened. I don't know how you have become the guy who's going, no, no, no, we need to have stability. And I, well, I guess, no, that's not that surprising. That is your position generally. But I thought it was okay. And also the fact that he pulled it off at one o'clock in the morning.

Pretty good mnemonic device there. You know, I have to say that I looked at that with a little bit of admiration, particularly when he got about to the Gs. I'm thinking, is he going to do this? Can he actually get through the whole alphabet? And so normally I don't listen to these whole things. Honestly, a congressional speech is like, oh, you know, Migo, mine eyes glaze over. Right. And yet when he got to, I'm thinking, okay, all right, he's rolling. Is he going to roll all the way? Right. And I'm cheering him on. One of the weirdest things about that night was that basically Jeffries and McCarthy each gave the speech that he intended to give all along,

right? It was canned speeches with good lines and all this stuff, but they just did it at one or two o'clock in the morning instead of, you know, normally, like if this were a political convention in the old days, they would have said, you know, okay, this is what I planned to say when it was going to be nine o'clock, but now that it's happening at 1130 or 12 or whatever, I'm going to do something shorter or different. They just went right ahead with it. And it made me wonder about the whole media cycle and whether it just no longer matters what time it is when you say it, because it's all going to be recycled. Well, this is why I think Jeffrey's had the right instinct here. I mean, can you remember anything that McCarthy said? I can't.

You know, I mean, he came on, he said, thank you, Donald Trump, you know, about it, you know, it was kind of a tale. No one should doubt your influence. I mean, that struck me as a lot more, you know, balm for the endlessly needy ego than it was an actual analysis. You know, King Jeffrey's speech probably been watched, I don't know, what do you think, 10 million times on YouTube? Yeah. So good on him. Yeah. All right. I need you to help me on this.

You have President Biden rather belatedly going to the border dealing with the crisis. He's being ripped by both the right and the left. He announced a border crackdown before he went there. He actually met with Governor Abbott on the tarmac, and Governor Abbott actually hands him a really insulting letter demanding all kinds of things. I'm struck again by how incredibly intractable these problems are, how deeply complicated they are, how politically almost insoluble they are, given our current environment. So I want your thoughts about Joe Biden and where he's at on the border. This has been a significant negative for him. They have, by and large, I won't say ignored it. That's too strong.

But this is his first visit to the border. Give me your take on this. Why is he doing this now? And is he doing the right thing? I think he is doing the right thing. And I think he should have done it sooner. And it may be, Charlie, that he decided, the White House decided, or Democrats decided, they were going to pass all of the legislation and focus on the issues that they could get

their whole coalition behind while they had the House and the Senate. And now that they're losing the House, he's going to sort of pivot over and work on an issue that Republicans are willing to work with him on, theoretically, which is border immigration, right? I have been frustrated increasingly over the last several months because I like the Democratic Party as it is now better than the Republican Party as it is now. And the Democratic Party was not showing me and was not showing most people in this country that they were going to be serious about restoring some sense of order about the influx of people coming up the hemisphere and coming into our country. What Biden is starting to signal is

that yes, he will take a position on this issue and he will try to do something. And what really made me happy, Charlie, was Biden signaling that he is going to change the incentives because the incentives for months, for years have been show up at the U.S. border, claim asylum. Our system can't handle it. You'll get to come into the country. You'll get it'll be years before you have your case gets heard. If you don't qualify, don't worry, it'll be years before then. Maybe you don't have to show up, et cetera. Now he is saying, look, there's an app. And yes, these people do have apps, by the way. They apply for asylum first where you are, right? And give us some time to work on your case and determine whether you merit this. Don't show up at the border. In fact, if we send you back, you're not going to be able to come again. So he's reversing the incentives and making it better if you apply elsewhere than if you show up in person. And that is extremely important. And he said in his remarks at the White House, this is already having an effect. They're already seeing a sharp decline in the Venezuelans showing up because they've gotten

the message about what's the best way to get in. I agree with you. And it is interesting that there are folks on the left who are jibing that Biden's policies are pretty much indistinguishable now from Trump's policies. And this reportedly infuriates the Biden people because they're saying, no, you need to make these distinctions. You need, you know, everything is not black and white. You need to make these distinctions. You need, you know, everything is not black and white. You need to understand what we are doing. And I think they have a point there. I think that there is that Trump seized upon and exploited in a very, very bad faith, a xenophobic way. But that does not mean that there's not a responsibility to deal with this. And Joe Biden, I have to say, over the last couple of days, did a pretty good job of creating this contrast of being the grownup, the very elderly grownup, but the grownup in the room who's actually trying to solve a problem as opposed to the, you know, food fighters going on

in the Capitol. So I, I admitted you before we started this, I, I realized this week as I was watching the debate that I've, I've kind of lost the handle on it. It has become so complex, so, so fraught. There are so many different moving parts. And also there's a certain futility to thinking that Congress is ever going to work in good faith on all of this, because whatever Joe Biden wants, this House of Representatives is never going to work in good faith on the border with him, are they? No, I don't think so. But I don't agree with the argument that all of the immigration stuff has to be dealt with together, that it has to be comprehensive reform. That would be great. The Republicans are never going to do the part about where you try to stop the flow of people coming up the continent in the first place, right? They're

not going to do foreign aid. They're not going to do anything like that. But they're going to focus on the border security. And I believe that it is possible to work out a sensible border security plan separate from all the other stuff, and that Biden is beginning to do that. I agree with you. OK, so we have successfully launched Charlie and Will Monday for 2023. Yes, we have. So thank you for coming back on. Thanks, Charlie. I missed you. I missed you, too. And thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow and we'll do this all over again.