The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump And Allies Doom Latest GOP Speaker Nominee, GOP Regroups

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

"I have many wonderful friends wanting to be Speaker of the House, and some are truly great Warriors. RINO Tom Emmer, who I do not know well, is not one of them," Donald Trump said in a post on his platform Truth Social.Emmer, a Minnesota Republican and former head of the House GOP's campaign arm, withdrew from the race soon thereafter after failing to garner support roughly 20 firm detractors. The conference will now regroup in an effort to find a new path forward.This episode: campaign correspondent Sarah McCammon, congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, and congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh.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 Mark, recording a timestamp here on my patio while I look out at San Francisco Bay. As a retired guy, I'm not scaling mountain peaks or running ultra marathons. I'm just sitting here, listening to podcasts and watching the world go by. This show was recorded at 5.32 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, October 24th, 2023. Things might have changed by the time you hear this, although I kind of doubt it. Anyway, here's the show. Ah, well, we're not retired, are we? We're working. Can we train more? I'm a former San Francisco resident, so I'm jealous, man. Same. Let's trade. I'm not doing ultra marathons either, but that's okay. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the campaign. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress.

I'm Deirdre Walsh. I also cover Congress. Well, Republicans had a new candidate for Speaker of the House. We've heard this before. It was Tom Emmer of Minnesota. He rose to the top after a day of voting and then had to drop out this afternoon because he couldn't get enough votes to win on the House floor. It keeps happening, and we're going to talk about why. What were the sticking points and why did he have trouble winning over the 20 or so holdouts? Deirdre, Claudia, what's going on? I mean, Emmer faced the same problem that other nominees before him had. I mean, he had a block of hardliners that weren't ready to vote for him on the floor.

He won inside the conference, but you need 217. And he wanted to get there before another embarrassing debacle on the House floor. So he stayed in the room to try to convince some of these 20 or so holdouts. A lot of them wouldn't budge, but I think his biggest problem was former President Donald Trump came out against him right after he won the internal nomination. Yeah, I think if we look at the previous candidates, it seemed that Trump was probably most aggressively fighting the Emmer nomination. And just as quickly, we saw him forced out of the race. I think the other thing, too, is that Emmer is another current member of the House Republican leadership to be taken out by the far right. First, it was Kevin McCarthy.

Then it was Steve Scalise. Then far right conservatives put up one of their own candidates, Jim Jordan. But he couldn't get the votes from a lot of the folks in swing districts. So when another so-called establishment Republican current leadership nominee won, the hardliners were from former President Donald Trump, among others. He called Emmer a Republican in name only, a rhino, and said that he hardly knew the guy, although he has praised him in the past. How big a factor was that? It seemed to be a huge factor today. And it was obvious that Emmer, the rest of the Republican conference, has seen this movie before.

We saw with Scalise. He stepped away. It was over a several multi-day effort in terms of when he decided to step back as the nominee. But with Emmer, it was a matter of hours. They knew he was going down the same road, as Deirdre mentioned, of going to the floor with a humiliating deficit where he could not turn these no votes. It's worth noting, though, that just yesterday, Trump was said he was staying out of the race and was saying he talked to basically all the candidates who were running, but he was like, I'm not going to stay out. I'm not going to be in. And then his loyalists here on Capitol Hill apparently reached out to him and he decided to weigh in. You know, Trump supported

Jim Jordan, who, as we just noted, also lost his bid for speaker in recent days. So where do they go from here? So what they need to do is start on a new blank slate, start with a new candidate forum. Deirdre was there as members were leaving talking about these new plans, and they're going to see if they can speed through this process once again tonight. It sounds like a lot of the same House Republicans that were on the ballot earlier today with Emmer, people like Mike Johnson from Louisiana, Kevin Hearn from Oklahoma, are considering running again. Another new name who is planning to run is Mark Green. He's the current chair of the Homeland Security Committee. But I talked to a couple of Republicans

coming out and they are incredibly frustrated and incredibly embarrassed. And they say they're determined to have a new nominee by later tonight. It's unclear whether we're going to be back to square one and that person will have the same problem that Emmer, Scalise, and Jordan have, or they finally in that room agree this has to stop and they can get behind another person. But it's really unclear whether the full House is going to vote on a speaker this week at all. Right. And also we heard from members such as Pete Sessions before these members got back together in the room later today predicting that this may happen. They may have to start over because a lot of these no votes, they just did not seem movable. And so now they're also revisiting this scenario of expanding the powers of acting Speaker Patrick McHenry. But again, this is a complicated route that would require probably Democratic support, and a lot of Republicans remain opposed to that. Now, this has been harder because Republicans

have a small majority. There is less room for disagreement. But this isn't the first time that a speaker has won with a narrow majority. Former Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi had about the same size, securely held her spot as speaker. Senate minorities are often tighter than this. I mean, how unique is this? How unusual is this? It's never been this bad. I mean, there's always divisions inside parties. But when it comes to electing the Speaker of the House, I've covered a lot of these elections. And when the conference gets behind someone, it goes to the floor. It's like the easiest vote that the conference takes. It's turned into a referendum on the future of the party, a loyalty test for Trump, personal grudges are coming out. You know, somebody who lost against Emmer by one vote

for a leadership job is campaigning against him today. It's just super messy. And it's just so out in the open. And I think it just shows you that the party is at war with itself and can't really govern. Right. When we remember the Pelosi example, she would face her own internal revolts, but they were internal. A lot of this played out behind closed doors. We're seeing this play out very publicly on the House floor. We're seeing it play out with Republican members attacking each other in the hallways as they talk to journalists and reporters who talk to them. And it's clear they're in a very difficult position and they do not know how to find their way out exactly. Pelosi was able to negotiate with her holdouts for, you know, she term limited her tenure when she was elected speaker again or speaker nominee again and basically said, you know, I'm only going to serve this much time in the role. And she also knew that there were some Democrats who, for their own political reasons in their districts, were going to vote against her,

but they were clear and they went to her and told her that. And she accounted for that before she went to the floor. Right. All right. We're going to leave it there for a moment. Time for a quick break. We'll have more in just a minute. And we're back. So as we've said, time's running out here. They've been at this for weeks, and there are lots of reasons why they are under pressure to make a decision. Something like only six legislative days remaining on the calendar to pass a budget and fund the government. And, you know, I was in Ohio last week and was talking to voters actually in Congressman Jim Jordan's district. This was before he failed to win the speakership. And even at that point, a couple of Republicans I talked to were frustrated with what they've been seeing from the party.

You know, Russell Blue is 81 and he lives in a rural area outside of Lima, Ohio. Here's what he said. There's a division and the Republicans, they just can't seem to get their calves together. You know what I mean? Are you a farmer? That sounds like a farming. Well, I'm retired farming, retired truck driver, but you know, it just seems like you've got 100 over here and you've got 100 over here. Why can't you guys agree at least once or twice? Really, it's ranching, I guess. My bad there. But, Claudia, how much pressure are Republicans feeling to finally get something done? They're feeling an enormous amount of pressure.

We're talking about the vast majority of Republicans. Of course, there are some. You can include some of these hardline members in the party, in the conference, who would very much be comfortable going on for weeks or months more in the midst of a speaker fight. But for the majority, they are looking to move on, to get to aid for Israel, even to pass a simple resolution showing support for Israel, and as well as this immense pressure with this November 17 deadline for a government shutdown threat that they're facing. And so that's really weighing on them in terms of getting something done. Also, the kind of picture that Republicans are portraying right now is really sending a loud

message to the rest of the country that they are not able to govern. And this is not helpful just before elections next year. And so that is another detriment, another issue that they're facing if they don't wrap this up soon. And what about the Democrats? We've been talking about the Republicans for good reason here, but how are House Democrats reacting? They are sitting back and letting this all play out. I mean, they continue to say that they're united and they are going to vote for Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader on the House floor. There is a possibility that they could, you know, make a deal, get some concessions in return for helping elect a Republican speaker.

But there is no indication whatsoever that there is an active negotiation over that. I talked to Congressman Steny Hoyer today, a former top House Democratic leader, and he said, you know, we're all united. And I'll talk about whether or not I can work with a Speaker Emmer or whoever when they actually elect someone. So I think that they're sort of skeptical that Republicans can unite and they're fine with essentially staying on the sidelines for now. Right. Well, maybe a non sequitur here, but we did get a question from a listener in our email that I think is a good one. And that is about what is the Senate doing during all of this?

Has the Senate been doing any work? And, you know, what can they still do? I mean, they were on a recess, but they're back in town and they're starting to legislate. Leaders in the Senate announced a bipartisan deal to advance a spending bill, a package of three annual spending bills today. So they're going to start moving that bill ahead of this November 17th deadline that is looming for a potential government shutdown next month. So I think they're trying to show that they can work. If they are able to move that bill, you could see that potentially becoming a vehicle for some kind of deal to avoid a shutdown. They're also talking actively about how to move the Biden administration's request for aid to Ukraine and Israel. And so,

you know, they're moving ahead and they're trying. But if there isn't a speaker, they can pass bills, but they won't go anywhere in the House. The House cannot vote on anything without a speaker. And as we learned in Schoolhouse Rock, it takes two chambers to make a bill become law. Right. Well, that's where we will leave it for today. For all the latest, listen on the NPR app or head to npr.org. And you can see more from Claudia, Deirdre, and the whole team on this. I'm Sarah McCammon.

I cover the campaign. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I also cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.