The NPR Politics Podcast - Republican Chaos: Still No Clear Path To Speaker

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

After wavering and backing a temporary leader, Rep. Jim Jordan says he will push ahead with another round of voting in his bid to become Speaker of the House. Meanwhile, President Biden is set to address the nation from the Oval Office to pressure Congress to pass aid for Israel and Ukraine.This episode: White House reporter Deepa Shivaram, congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Casey Morell and Elena Moore. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Carrie. Hi, this is Olivia. And we're in our car on our way to school, both discussing how much we love the intro music to the NPR Politics podcast. The time is 1 40 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, October 19th, 2023. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll both probably still have stuck in our heads. Enjoy the show. We should use that now. I was going to say, we need to replace our podcast music. It is a catchy tune. One that's shooting to the top of the charts, clearly.

Oh, clearly. Oh, yeah. Number one on iTunes. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. All right, we're going to dive right in here. Claudia, there is continuing drama around Representative Jim Jordan's bid to be Speaker of the House. We were expecting a possible third ballot vote on his nomination today after he failed two previous votes. So what is the latest that you are hearing from Capitol Hill? Right. They were looking at a third ballot as recently as yesterday. And then that plan was nixed.

And what we heard next is it could happen today, but we were heading into today with a lot of skepticism because Jordan, on his first round of votes, lost 20 of his own Republican members. Then that list got longer on the second day. It was 22. And a lot of these defectors and more were warning that list was going to grow today if they went for a third ballot. There's a conference meeting that began several hours ago. These Republican members are wedged in this room. They've given up their cell phones. It's all in a caddy, you can see. And they're coming back and forth just for restroom breaks. That's the only time we're catching members. And it seems like

it's incredibly tense in the room. You know, I'm fascinated by the fact that Kevin McCarthy of California took one approach to compromise his way into the speakership after 15 rounds, basically giving up a lot of the powers that he had, giving out a lot of committee assignments or changing rules, all to get to this point, Jordan decided to take a different tack and his what a lot of members are referring to as almost bullying, you know, putting phone numbers online, having supporters called their offices. It actually has had a backlash and the reverse effect of what Jordan wanted because he wound up losing supporters. So that approach hasn't worked either. More than one of these members who voted against Jordan has said they are receiving death threats. They're having to reach out to law enforcement to get support. They're worried about their family members being targeted. They're talking about robocalls in their districts that are sharing false information about them. It's gotten very ugly.

And they blame Jordan and his allies for pushing this. You know, the crazy thing that I think for a lot of people that they see is the fact that there probably is a majority to pick a speaker or to give more powers to speaker pro temp. But that would mean that Republicans would have to work with Democrats. There probably is a majority for actually getting that done in the House. when they start to get picked off by primary opponents, having the former president weigh in and say that they should be primaried because they're rhinos, Republicans in name only. And it really is just sort of eating themselves when a lot of people, including the rest of the world, are looking to the United States Congress to act on things like funding for Ukraine and Israel. Right. And also funding the government, which will run out in a couple of weeks.

And also Speaker of the House, second in line to the presidency. These are no small things that are being deliberated. And clearly the Republican Party is so fractured within itself when it comes to this. But if there was a world in which Democrats might look to join Republicans on some kind of a vote when it comes to this. What kind of concessions would they be looking for if they do decide to throw their support behind any name at this point? Well, there are a few proposals out there in terms of what Republicans can do in terms of legislation on the floor, for example, aid for Ukraine, aid for Israel are two major issues that they're pushing for that they want to see more bipartisan work in terms of what comes to the floor. One struggle that Democrats face is the House Rules Committee. These are essentially the

gatekeepers on what gets on the floor. And this is largely dominated by members of the Freedom Caucus, for example. And this was part of one of the deals, many deals that McCarthy made that led eventually to his ouster. And so that's one issue that's also being tossed around in terms of Democrats perhaps gaining more power on the Rules Committee and having more say on what can get on the floor. But as you mentioned, that deadline for government funding to run out is the biggest critical deadline they're facing. And that's what I heard from members today, the worry of whatever path they take, if they can address it in time, which is November 17th, and time is running out. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a quick break and we'll contestant in a future bonus episode by signing up for Politics Podcast Plus. If you already have, thank you.

If you haven't, here's your chance. You get bonus content, sponsor-free listening, and get to support NPR and the work we do. Go to plus.npr.org. And thank you. And we're back. Domenico, it looks like Biden wants to ratchet up the pressure on Congress here. He's giving an address from the Oval Office tonight, which is a pretty significant thing. What are you going to be watching for? The White House says that he's going to be talking about needing funding for Israel and for Ukraine, which, by the way, has been out of the American news largely since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. And that's a big task because, as we talked about, the Congress is having such a problem right now on the Republican side, actually picking a leader that it is not able to get out any of the money that it needs to be able to get out. And that's really the strength of Congress. It controls the purse strings and it's not able to really address any of the problems in the world. It takes money to do anything in the world. So we

know that Biden is going to be having that one audience, which is Congress. And then this other audience, which is the American public and trying to rally support for Israel, which is what Biden's stance is currently. And we're going to be listening for how much nuance does he get into? You know, how much does he talk about the humanitarian aid that, you know, he wants to try to get into Gaza, where he said he talked to Egypt yesterday to try to open the Rafah Gate in the south to try to get some of that aid in. There's going to be pressure from some members of his party eventually, the longer this march is on, for him to lean on Israel to potentially pull back if too many civilians start to die in what is going to be a huge campaign and already is a huge bombing campaign where thousands have died. Right. And the thing about the public support for funding Ukraine that's been waning is that there are members of Congress who are Republicans, Jim Jordan included, who have not been particularly enthusiastic funding Ukraine. And that pressure seems to be growing as well.

So what are Republicans thinking in terms of, you know, Biden has this proposal to continue funding Ukraine's war against Russia, but will Republicans in the House be on board? Right. So that is probably one of the major reasons that Jordan has struggled in terms of his candidacies. He's facing a lot of opposition from members of the House Appropriations Committee, as well as members from the House Armed Services Committee. And the concern I hear from these detractors is that Jordan is known for fighting government funding, for fighting aid to other

countries, for example, even in the U.S. when we've had public disasters. And so that's one of the major issues that Republicans have been talking through is these concerns of whether they can move forward with any kind of aid for Ukraine, for Israel, much less address government funding demands and what have you. And Jordan has made some commitments behind closed doors, but clearly a lot of these members, including the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, Kay Granger, do not trust him. And this is an issue that has come into center stage because there are a lot of House Republicans who want to move on this aid, especially aid to Israel. There is a lot of divisiveness when we talk about Ukraine.

Some want to see that decoupled, that want to see both issues on separate pieces of legislation. Others want to keep it together. We've heard Democrats, for example, in the House want to keep it together, follow Biden's lead on this. But that's where a lot of the struggle is. And a big part of the speaker fight is whether they can trust Jordan or someone else to address these funding demands. And I want to zoom out, Domenico. I mean, Republicans on one side can't pick a full-time leader. And meanwhile, the president, who has years and years of foreign policy experience, is traveling the world. He's been to Ukraine now, Israel just this week, two countries that are at war in the span of a year, trying to show American strength abroad and stability abroad. Whether those two sides of the spectrum can kind of not necessarily meet somewhere in the middle,

but come to any agreements is still up in the air. But regardless of that, it's a pretty wide contrast. Would you agree? It's a huge test for the United States right now to be able to show world leadership. You know, Biden overseas has gotten a lot of praise for how he's handled the Ukraine situation. Certainly he's gotten a lot of praise within Israel for how he's handling the Hamas-Israel situation. But there's so much entrenched partisanship in the United States that it really does threaten whether or not democracy can function at its core effectively to be able to address some of the most pressing needs domestically and abroad. And we've seen that repeatedly over and over again. And we saw it in our NPR PBS News, our Marist poll, where even though two thirds of people said that they wanted a strong show of support for Israel publicly, that when Biden has done that, perhaps to a level stronger than any previous president, that he's not really getting any political benefit from that.

You know, still 52% of people disapproved of the job that he's doing in handling the situation, which reflects exactly his disapproval rating overall. And that just shows you how difficult it is to pierce any of this partisanship and really the test that American democracy is really under right now to show that leadership in the world that they had shown post World War II for so many years. Right. And to your point that you made earlier, this is not exactly an issue in itself that every Democrat is aligned on. There were hundreds of protesters that we saw yesterday on Capitol Hill, protests outside the White House when it comes to how Israel is responding and retaliating in Gaza right now and those thousands of civilians who are being

targeted. And so I think that's also something to watch. But Claudia, I wanted to turn back to you. When it comes to this House Speaker fight, what Jim Jordan is doing, what are you expecting to watch in the next couple of weeks, but also the next couple of months? Yeah, you know, maybe it's down to the next couple of hours. It's changing minute by minute. So it's really hard to say what's next. Those House Republicans are still wedged in this room without their cell phones, trying to figure out their next steps. They're being asked questions and basically doing kind of their own polling in the room on what they could do. So it's going to be a really critical moment for the party to see if they can get on the same page. It's obvious they're exhausted, they're angry, and they're trying to sort through this. So the big

question is, can they figure out what the next step is? And can the entire conference get on the same page in the coming days and weeks, and especially in time for this government shutdown deadline, November 17. Yeah, that's the day we're all watching for. All right, that's it for today. And if you want to listen to Biden's Oval Office address tonight, you can tune into your NPR station at 8pm Eastern or find it at npr.org. I'm Deva Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.