Is There Anyone in the GOP That Has Fewer Than Four Enemies?
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Well, it's been 16 days and on Capitol Hill, still no one has won the speakership. It's been a tragic and embarrassing moment in American history, especially when we've got a major war going on in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Jim Jordan, who was nominated, has failed twice on the House floor to become speaker. In the second round of votes, he actually lost more votes than he gained.

And yet he still wants to go forth for the country and try for a third time. He'll do that on Thursday. We'll see if he actually ends up picking up more votes and becoming Speaker of the House. I'm sure he's whipping very hard right now. In the meantime, there's been more serious talk of making the temporary Speaker, Patrick McHenry, into a Speaker with...

some sort of powers, giving him the ability to put bills on the floor, making him a temporary speaker for a few months. But, you know, Republicans will probably need the help of Democrats to pull that off. We'll see if they actually go along with that. There's also some talk about a dark horse named Mike Gallagher. He's a national security hawk. Obviously, with the war in Israel, he's seen as someone that people could rally behind. There's also some intriguing gossip about how

Kevin McCarthy may be plotting his revival by way of picking his successors like Jim Jordan and Patrick McHenry, who will most certainly fail just like he did when they try to pass a spending bill and they need to work with Democrats to pass it. Because after all, to actually govern, you need bipartisanship because

Republicans barely won the House by a handful of seats. So I figured I'd head to the Hill and talk to one Republican

particularly dejected but clear-eyed congressman Kelly Armstrong, who's been whipping for Jim Jordan but was pretty despondent when Kevin McCarthy was deposed and who's got a pretty good pulse on the conference and where they stand. He also had some very sober analysis on what this means for the Republican Party in 2024, and he thinks it just spells losses.

that it shows that they're ungovernable. So I headed to his office in the Rayburn building to talk to him. Okay. So what's it been like the past 16 days? Has it been since the Republican party lost its speaker of the house? Do you hate all your colleagues or anyone you want to strangle right now? I,

I don't. There's some people I think frustration is there. There's a reason this is a motion to vacate has never happened before because turns out when you organize a coup without a successor, you get chaos. I think people have a lot better appreciation for Kevin McCarthy keeping this whole thing together with duct tape and silly putty than maybe they did before. Obviously, lead

Leader Scalise couldn't get there. It doesn't look like Jim's going to be able to get there. And we're sitting here and not doing any of the work of the American people because we're having palace intrigue and parlor fights. Right. So are you surprised by this at all? Unfortunately, no. I think it's very difficult to get 217 votes. I think we saw that with Kevin at the beginning of this Congress. I'm disappointed because I think Jim would do a good job.

The Jim Jordan I know, he's been my ranking member and chairman on three committees. And I think he gives us the best chance to do the things we need to do, which is stay out of a shutdown, sell the plan to our base, and keep this going forward. I don't see how Jim Jordan would be able to keep you out of a shutdown because, I mean, that sounds like exactly what he wants. And you have to actually negotiate with the other side to keep the government open.

Yeah, but so his plan is to put a CR up that gets to the 99% sequester, which both the Senate and the House have voted for it, and the president's already signed it. One of the weird things about the people who oppose the rules and things is it's not the same five people every time. It's strategic chaos. Okay. Is there anyone...

in this conference who has fewer than four enemies? Because that's about how many people you can't lose to become speaker. So the other night I had a couple of things that I went through the list on our things. And I'm like, I was just trying to think of people who are really good on policy that actually could get there. I came up with two names, Mike Johnson and Bruce Westerman.

two people that I think are incredibly politically savvy and have policy chops, but I'm not sure they could get there either. Really? Yeah. I mean, we haven't proven we've been able to do it. So we continue to do this and we go on the floor. And I mean, I think if we go to another vote, unfortunately, my friend Jim will probably lose more votes. Is he going to go to another vote? I don't think so. Not today. I don't think so. We'll

we'll have an idea what's going on tomorrow. What was the vibe you got from the conference meeting this afternoon? So the conference didn't meet. Apparently, a bunch of pizzas got delivered. So if you're looking for something to eat and you're dealing with that, and I actually think that's a good idea. I mean, our conference...

Our conference meetings have been frustrating in that they are really just a therapy session at this point in time. But it's essentially the same 96% of us that actually want to follow our conference rules talking to each other. Okay. Because we have rules without consequences.

And if you have rules without consequences, all you have is virtue signaling. I'm confused. Well, we have conference rules that say you support the majority of the majority. Right. That obviously didn't work for Kevin. That's how the motion to vacate happened. It didn't work for Steve Scalise and it's not working for Jim Jordan. So it's a math problem. So people are just breaking the rules on the House floor. They vote for things in the conference and they break the rules. And I think this is a little different because I think after last week when the motion to vacate happened, Matt Gaetz talked a lot in that that we just have to pull off the Band-Aid and get rid of Kevin.

Kevin McCarthy. Well, I think he pulled off the bandaid, but I'm not sure he knows what sorry opened up because there are people that are fed up. They're tired. They're not going to follow the rules when they know others don't follow them and they're ready to take a stand and have a fight. Okay. And these people have long been called the squishes, right? The moderates. People have thought that they would be the ones who would just go along with the rules essentially would go along with whoever was nominated, whether it was Steve Scalise last week, Jim Jordan this week,

even Jim Jordan, from what I've been told has been sort of applying pressure being like, you have to go along, you're going to get primaried. Um, his tactics have been described as bullying. Um, you know,

Is it fair to say that this is like the revenge of the moderates right now? I think there are really smart people who I have a tremendous amount of respect for that have been pushed far enough. And they're like, I'm not dealing with the eight people and the people who care about getting Twitter clicks more than governing in this town. I will push back on the Jim Jordan thing. I think Jim Jordan has tremendous amount of support with the grassroots.

Jim Jordan is not organizing a protest campaign and a pressure campaign against these guys. Last night, he spent his time talking to holdouts, seeing if he could figure out a way to get them there. The fact that the grassroots and people, I mean, our calls are 50 to 1 in this office to support Jim Jordan.

I think that is natural and organic outside of maybe President Trump. He has more credibility with our base than any other member of Congress. And that's probably because he's on Fox News twice a week and has been for the past 15 years. That's true. And I've said that before, but also organized, I think, the best defense of a Mueller investigation and all of those different issues. But he also works with other chairmen really well and coordinates and actually has a plan to implement his strategy.

But it looks like he's going down anyway. Yeah, I think... I mean, he had less votes today than he did yesterday. That's never a good sign in this race. Up until that point, he had always shrunk it from 90 to 55 to 20, and then it bounced back up to 21 today. And I think...

This is very different than January. I don't think we have 15 votes in us. I don't think the world can wait 15 votes. Okay. I've heard the name Mike Gallagher. So I heard that today floated around too. I mean, the problem is, is when you get into that, you're always going to find a reason to say yes to somebody. You're also going to find a reason to say no to somebody. To be honest, if it wasn't going to be Jim or Kevin or Steve, I think anybody else who takes this job, it's probably a career killer. Who would want it right now? Okay. It would be a career killer. Maybe.

But maybe you transition it into something totally different. Yeah, I mean, if somebody's willing to stand up and step up and go up to the conference and say, I will do this job and deal with that. I mean, there's a lot of talk about giving...

and Patrick McHenry, temporary powers as well. We'll see where that looks. I think you still have a constitutional issue, those types of things. But I mean, until the person whose name is floated says I'm interested in it, a lot of this is just ways for people to get names out there to reporters. See, I think that actually having the expectations being so low makes it less of a career killer. Yeah, except we still have to get a rule vote out.

That has never happened before. Just describe that for a second to the listeners, a rule vote. Every member of Congress gets to vote however they want, at least in the Republican conference on any bill, on an issue vote. But in order to wield the power of a majority, you have to have the majority vote for procedural votes. And those are rule votes and how you get things to the floor.

And this is really the first time in history that we've had a majority that couldn't pass a rule vote. And the rule vote right now is to vote for the nominee. Vote for the nominee. But this is where it all started in the approves process and then the CR. And then we couldn't get approves bills to the floor because we couldn't pass a rule. Okay. It's how a majority uses the power of the majority.

So when you have members of your own majority not willing to use the majority, you don't really have a majority. I have a friend that calls us minnows, majority in name only. And he's not entirely wrong right now. But you only have a majority by like, what, five votes? Four votes right now. Four votes, right. I mean, you barely won the House. So any five members can become Joe Manchin at any given time. And the crazy thing is that the right is holding on to so much power within the party, but

really the reason that the Republicans have the majority right now is because of a handful of moderates in upstate New York. New York, Florida. I mean, that's exactly right. And we continue to ask those guys to walk the plank on messaging bills. And they're part of the people who are kind of fed up with this right now. And I don't blame them. That's why you saw Mike Lawler, who's from a D plus how many? I can't remember. But like,

or 10 voted for Biden in the last election. Upstate New York, Rockland County, I think. Yeah, he decided not to vote for Jim Jordan this time around. I don't think a fundraising email that got sent out last night was very helpful. What was that? Matt Gaetz sent out a fundraising email or fundraising, I don't know, social media post trashing Mike Lawler. So that wasn't very helpful. Okay. They're in a little bit of a pissing match right now because Mike Lawler also said that he wants to have Matt Gaetz expelled right now. So which doesn't help when you have a four vote majority. Right.

And personalities matter. It's an emotional body. I wish it wasn't. I wish everybody grew up, but it is an emotional body and that's what we deal with. Yeah, these are men in their 30s basically having a pissing match on Twitter right now. But one of the reasons the eight people who voted to vacate Kevin McCarthy have so much power is because they're not scared of any vote.

I mean, you have a tremendous amount of power if you're not scared to take any vote. And I like even when we're talking about when like the revenge of the squishes, I know that's a DC term. The guys who are that the guys who get qualified as that are people who want government government to work. And so they're willing to eat a little because they know that it's a divided government and compromise.

But it's obviously they've decided right now that they've had enough and they've drawn a line in the sand. And whether I think that's right or it's not, particularly as it comes to Jim Jordan's speakership, they've decided this is the line they're drawing. So they are now squishes with vertebrae, as they say. Yeah, it's...

I wish people got to know these guys because these aren't the guys necessarily running out to do media hits all the time and doing all of that stuff. They're great people. I tend to disagree with them on this particular vote, but I mean, they feel like they've been backed up against a wall and they're just not going to take it anymore. Would you call yourself a squish? I hope not.

I get referred to as a moderate a lot, and my friend Thomas Massey called me a squishy conservative. So I appreciate that more. Okay, just to go over your positions. You've endorsed your governor. Yes. Doug Burgum for president over Donald Trump. Obviously, he's the governor.

Richest man in your state, I'm sure, a supporter of yours. You also voted against impeachment, the second impeachment of Donald Trump, but you voted to certify the election for Joe Biden. I did. And you're very passionate about justice reform. Yep. And you voted in support of gay marriage. I did. So you...

You're not a squish. You go different ways when it comes to different legislation. You're not a hardline conservative by any means, but what would you call yourself? At the risk of getting the anger of my base again, I voted against fighting Adam Schiff's $16 million too on a censor resolution. I spent 10 years as a criminal defense attorney. I tend to usually go with the Constitution as my guide.

Uh, I think if it's unconstitutional, we shouldn't do it. I was the state. I was, I was the chair of the Senate judiciary committee and state government. And I was also the chair of the Republican party. So I handled the policy side and the political side of elections. And the last thing in the world that we should be doing is deciding North Dakota elections in Congress. Uh,

There's 53 legal cases that existed around the 2020 election. They won zero of them. None. They didn't win a single one. So eventually, you got to put up or shut up. And that's why you certify the election. Got it. Okay. How do you think this speaker fight will end? I don't know. I think something has to break in the next 48 hours. I think there is going to be a lot of momentum for giving Patrick McIntyre,

some kind of temporary powers over the short term. I don't know what that looks like. I've been pretty heavily engaged in trying to get whoever our speaker is elected. And over the last week, it's been Jim Jordan. So I'm assuming we're going to talk to a lot of different people and see what the plan is moving forward. Okay. And if it's Patrick McHenry, you will help whip for him as well? Yeah. The resolution's a little different. I'm not entirely comfortable with it yet.

The House can make its own rules and we can operate and we have to get in the game. Obviously, Israel's going on. Ukraine is still an issue. The world's basically on fire. I got to spend a little time with it and figure out what I think about the constitutional line of succession problem, which is a nerdy constitutional argument, but it matters to me. You probably have about 15 minutes to figure that out. No, I think this will... I think... I mean...

Everybody's like, go and go. And this is very different than when Kevin went through 15 votes because we didn't have rules. So you couldn't get off the floor. Now Patrick can enforce the house rules so we can kind of schedule when we go back in. Okay. Do you think there'll be a solution where everyone sings Kumbaya and is happy? Absolutely not.

I think we're incapable of that right now. I think the question is, can we form some kind of structural detente so we can actually move forward and keep... I mean, we're 30 days from another shutdown. And I'll call this right now. If the Republicans walk us into a shutdown 30 days after this mess, we deserve everything we get in the next election cycle. Everything. Yeah.

I'm sure that all of this is very much ingrained in the American psyche. A speaker fight, motion to vacate, multiple losses of nominees. I got a text from a very good friend of mine at home right now who happens to be a Jim Jordan supporter and knows where I'm at. And he's like, why would anybody vote for any of you right now?

It's a hard question to answer because we're not very good at this right now. And we should, at a time where I think the world needs our leadership. One of the biggest frustrating things about this is there was not a better voice for Israel in DC than Kevin McCarthy. And somehow we decided to sidelight him because he didn't shut the government down. Right. But I don't think that the Israel attack didn't happen then. It was two days after Kevin McCarthy was killed.

But that's my point. As soon as Kevin got vacated, the first good speech about what the U.S.'s role in Israel should be was from a speaker of the House who had just been kicked out of his office. Right. He said, I would have put an aid bill on the floor immediately. Yeah. And he would have. So...

Hakeem Jeffries said that he would support making Patrick McHenry the temporary speaker, right? Or what would the name be? Well, it would be speaker pro temp, but it would be with a vote. Otherwise he has no duty. I mean, he's, it's a, it's a ministerial position unless the house votes to give him more authority. And, and,

You would probably need Democrats to support this since you most likely could not get all the members of the House to support this. Yeah, I mean, I would be shocked if any member of the Freedom Caucus voted for that. And I think if you want to look at it, it would be the CR vote last Saturday. Okay. I think once a couple Democrats break, they're really good at this. They'll all vote for it because they'll be able to say that they had more votes for a Republican whatever happens than Republicans do. Well, you...

I got to give them a lot of credit. When they decide to move, they move. I mean, I think in the debt ceiling negotiation, we did a great job. But when they figured out it was going to become law, they snatched victory out of the jaws of defeat, whereas we tend a lot of times to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. See, I thought that having the support of Hakeem Jeffries would be a kiss of death for McHenry. It will be very... I mean, and first of all, Patrick's got to decide if he wants it. We all talk about him like,

He's a pawn up there that will just do this. Somebody has to, he has to make a decision if he's willing to go down this road, whether it's a legal argument, whether it's a responsibility argument, whether it's a patriotism argument, whether he wants to take that job if he thinks he's going to have more, if the vote is going to require more Democrats than Republicans. These are all things that these guys got to...

factor in because they have lives and families and careers and a constituency of their own. Yeah, but they're all ambitious too. Sure. And to be Speaker of the House even for a minute is an accomplishment. Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on where you're at in your career and what you want to do. Yeah.

I mean, given the current scenario, if we can't get Jim across the finish line, I would hope we would figure out a way to get 217 Republican votes to allow us to function at the most basic level. I just don't think that's possible. Yeah, I noticed that Patrick McHenry is no longer wearing his bow tie anymore. So maybe he's like in his like dark Patrick phase, you know, he seems like a little bit more edgy instead of buttoned up.

He takes the role of what he's doing seriously. Patrick's a serious guy. He's a serious legislator. He's got serious policy chops and he cares about this institution. So he's got a great sense of humor and he's always quick-witted and has a smile. But I mean, he's taking even what he's doing right now very seriously. And his sartorial choices, because I can't imagine a speaker who wears bow ties. I always tell people, you should learn to tie a bow tie, but I only wear them with tuxedos. There's very few people that can pull off Patrick's look.

So you would support Patrick McHenry, even if all the Democrats support him? Yeah, I got to see what it looks like. And I'm still in the phase of, I mean, I've been helping Jim through this process for a week. I'm going to talk to those guys and see what their plan forward is. I think somewhere along the line in the near future, we have to figure out how to open this place back up. Republicans need a voice in what's going on. And right now we don't have one and we have to get one. I would very much hope we can figure out a way to elect somebody with 217 votes in our conference.

I just don't know if we can. But you wouldn't not support him just because Democrats are supporting him? No, Kim Jeffries and I have worked on lots of legislation, the Equal Act together, that it might be a kiss of death for some people, but I'll work with anybody if I think it's good for my constituents. How many votes do you think he'll get from Republicans? I have no idea. We don't even know if it's coming yet. Yeah, got it. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. You know, for me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've been a lot of, or dialing up a sweat session.

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Do you think Jim Jordan, when he put his name out there for the third time, just didn't understand the politics of these members? No, I think Jim, and I believe this too, is actually the guy who could have kept us out of a shutdown, kept a lot of our members from having tough primaries in districts where we need the right members to run to win elections. And I don't think two weeks ago, Jim Jordan had any ambition of being the Speaker of the House.

He likes where he's at on judiciary. He likes where he's at in that space. He's incredibly good at it. When we do all these depots and all these things people talk about, those are almost always done by staff, except Jim. He goes to everyone. He likes his job. I think even when they started talking about some kind of power sharing agreement with him and Scalise, I think his answer was,

I would rather be judiciary chair than majority leader. I mean, I just don't know how he would work with Hakeem Jeffries, you know, President Biden when he didn't vote to sort of buy the election. Yeah, I think, and I don't think this is any secret, he's going to want to pass legislation with 217 Republican votes.

But I think he's also smart to recognize in order to get any appropriations bill signed into law, 60 votes in the Senate have to happen and the president has to sign it. I think his strategy would be to get policy wins and appropriations bills the best we could in divided government. So he won't be the kind of right-wing warrior he was in the past. People are going to start calling him a sellout too. So I actually said that when some of my friends and colleagues are like, well, he's going to cater to...

the more conservative side of the conference, I personally believe, because I know him and I know how, I mean, he wants to win. He wants to be effective. I think the bigger question is, is what are we going to do when they turn on him as well? Because I think that would have happened. Yeah, they will. Yeah. And his fundraising comes from grassroots. So he needs those people. I don't think the grassroots would turn on him. I think members of Congress would turn on him.

Really? I do. I think Jim Jordan is as good at communicating to the base why what we're doing is important to them as anybody I've ever met. How does he not lose the grassroots when you have like probably Matt Gaetz turning on him? Because he means what he says and says what he means. And I don't think in a fight with my base, Matt Gaetz stands any chance against Jim Jordan now, six months from now, two years from now, or three years from now. Well, we'll see. I mean, once you're the guy in power, it's easy to throw stones. And who knows? I mean, he...

the interesting thing is that I think Matt Gaetz lost a foil. If Jim Jordan was to become speaker, he, you know, Gaetz loses a foil. I think that is very much true. And it makes me wonder sometimes who, who people are really working for and who people are really working against. The one thing Jim Jordan gives you that I don't know that is very unique in politics is he'll tell you where he's at. What if Gaetz just turns on Jordan? Well, my odds in that, if that would happen, I'm betting on Jim. Okay. So,

here's something that I've heard from a lot of people around town that, you know, the Republicans lost a golden goose in Kevin McCarthy. Yes. He could raise money like no one else. He raised $80 million last cycle. I think 15 million in the past quarter or something like that. You know, he's a top fundraiser. He loves to actually hobnob, like spend time with these billionaires, go to fancy resorts for fundraisers. And Jim Jordan hates that. Uh,

um he's just not that kind of guy he is like to be rather be at super pack you know he raises money from his grassroots and he's he's i think he raised 14 million last year which is pretty good right but you have to really hustle to be speaker and i wonder do you think that first of all

Could McHenry even raise the kind of money that Kevin McCarthy is raising? Nobody can raise the money Kevin raises. Nobody. Okay. I mean, there's a reason you don't kick your speaker out, particularly when he's actually been effective. I think two things to that that I think are important. One, Jim's relationship to our voters is significantly different than Kevin's. He can help us in different ways, but more importantly, they're very close and they trust each other. And the single best way you keep that fundraising operation in

and moving forward. And there will always be a hit. He's not the speaker anymore. As if Kevin's got buy-in and is willing to help. Because nobody can do it like Kevin. So Kevin will do it from the outside, probably? Well, I don't... He said he's not leaving Congress. And I'll take him at his word. And I think if Jim Jordan... I think Jim Jordan... I've watched Jim Jordan and Kevin McCarthy work together for three years. They work very well together. Frenemies, though. Not anymore. Not anymore. And I wasn't here when all that went on. But...

There is nobody that was more helpful and loyal to try and help Kevin succeed as speaker than Jim Jordan. And they do trust each other. And if you have that trust, you put them both in a room together. I mean, you still get my redneck oil CEOs that are very rich, very successful, have made a ton of money, but they love them some Jim Jordan. And I think they would be a very effective act if they could work it out.

Okay, got it. Could you see Kevin McCarthy sticking around as, I don't know, the emeritus role that Nancy Pelosi has, sort of guiding the party in some way? I think he's actually helped a little bit doing that over the last two weeks. I think his speech on Israel was very much needed. It was the first one from anybody. I mean, the Senate was out of town. The White House was putting

putting a lid on things at noon. And Kevin McCarthy did a speech and said, this is what you're supposed to do. He's done. I think he's done a good job of bouncing in and out. You know, nobody likes the past chairman when they're the chairman of anything. It doesn't matter if it's a school board or anything. So he has come in once in a while, particularly to, you know, give some ideas and a path forward, considering he's done all of this. But he's also careful. He's been very good about letting other people, I mean, operate.

Yeah. Well, I mean, you guys have already lost a few weekends of fundraising already. Yeah. We've lost two weeks. We haven't done anything in two weeks. It's crazy. We've lost. I mean, we had a 44 day CR. We're now under 30 days. We're staring at another government shutdown. Israel's about to roll tanks into Gaza. The Ukrainian Russian conflict is still out there. And oh, by the way, we still have to figure out how to do a farm bill and things that really matter to a lot of our constituents. Has Jim Jordan ever passed a farm farm bill?

I don't know if he's ever voted for one. And one of the first things we did was a biofuels caucus. And they was set up from our rural areas because that's a very big concern. And he said, we need to get a farm bill done and we'll work to do it. Okay. So this ugly spectacle is not sending a good message abroad. There's no doubt about that. Also, no one is talking about your agenda anymore.

which was impeaching Biden, right? Right before all this happened, the Secretary of Energy had a staffer block an electric vehicle charging station and had the cops called on them because they were trying to do an EV tour. You think that's something guys like me from energy producing states would like to talk about?

I'd like to talk about that. I think it was pretty embarrassing. I think it was actually ridiculous. I think it proves the point of what we're trying to do. Instead, we're talking about palace intrigue because we can't get 217 votes for anything. It's not even palace intrigue. It's out there in the open. Yeah, and it is. And it's there. And it's...

It's consequential. I mean, it's the only Republican voice we have, right? I mean, we have great senators and all of that, but they are in the minority over there. Republicans have a majority in the House. The American people sent us here to be a check on the Biden administration in the Senate, and instead, we're fighting with each other. Okay, let's make predictions. Okay. This is fun. We can be wrong. I mean...

You know what? I'm in politics. The only place you get to be wrong more often is as a weatherman. Right. Okay. Patrick McHenry is speaker by or speaker...

or is that what they would call him? Or temporary speaker? Yeah, speaker pro temp, but voted on. Speaker pro temp, but with actual powers. Yeah, and what those are. And by the way, do Democrats get something out of this? The best way I can describe that, if that happens in that scenario, that only gets you into the minefield. Yeah. Like that only gets you to the minefield. You still have to figure out how you get a rule on the floor, how you get any of those things. I think that'd be a very, that'd be almost an unworkable situation for anybody in our conference.

And why would they actually help and bail you guys out? Because I think there are a lot of them that have some buyer's remorse over what happened 14 days ago. You really think so? Well, they're sitting here and our closest ally in the Middle East is taking incoming from all sides, literally and figuratively. And we're sitting here paralyzed because we can't get a speaker elected. You mean the members in the swing districts?

I think, yeah. I mean, are people who think, you know, we should have a functioning House of Representatives? I have a lot of colleagues on the other side of the aisle that I disagree with wholeheartedly, philosophically, but they're actually here for the right reasons. And this isn't it. Yeah.

I don't know. I think they're enjoying this at the same time. I think they enjoy it. I think, I mean, you know, and they can talk a lot about trust issues with Kevin and all of that. They very much enjoyed sidelining our best fundraiser. Yeah, I'm sure of that. I mean, there's nobody else that can raise enough money to drop $12 million on anybody's head in a competitive seat. And they know that too. Okay. So we still have to make bets. So I said by next Tuesday, Patrick McHenry is the speaker pro tem and he is able to lead the

the house until...

January 1 with governing powers when I say that. Yeah. I mean, some of it depends on what that was. Like I said, I mean, even for guys like me who want to figure out how to open this up, we got to see what it says. And we got to say, I mean, we actually have to see what the resolution entails and who's writing this resolution. I don't. So yesterday it was Dave Joyce. I was, I was very much a part of trying to help Jim flip votes for the last 48 hours. So I wasn't engaged in any of those conversations. I'm still not engaged in those conversations. Um,

I don't know how likely that is. I think, unfortunately, that's probably the most likely outcome right now. What I said. Yeah. Okay, cool. We'll see what happens, actually. Or the second part to that is the, you know, I don't want to say threat, but the pressure of having to go that route may actually get something to break. You've done this a long time, right? You can be in gridlock. This thing, if something breaks, it'll move fast.

And that could happen quickly. It could be coming back to Jim, which would be my desired outcome, but I think is getting less likely every time we go to the floor. I just think the math is problematic. Or somebody else shakes loose that we can get 217 votes for. I just don't know who that person is. And I know this conference pretty well. I think the moderates would probably rather see Patrick McHenry be speaker. But again, this all depends on whether or not he's even...

I mean, if he seriously, you know, seriously wants to do that job. I mean, I always doubt when people say that someone doesn't want to do the job. I do too, except he's got three little kids at home. And I mean, there's a lot. I mean, seriously, this is, I mean, watch what's happened in the last nine months. I mean, I don't know anybody who could have navigated that the way Kevin did. You're about to become Speaker of the House. I don't know. And maybe just for a month. You're not going to say no to that.

lead the free world? I think unfortunately, we put a date certain on there. I think it's more likely that it ends up being January, but it has to at least get us through the funding cycle. But that's going to be an incredible mess. The biggest problem with that, and maybe it's time to pull the bandaid off. Again, we're using that reference, is whatever cold war you think is going on inside the Republican Party is going to go hot. Is there any chance we go back to Steve Scalise? I don't

I don't think so. I think, um, I just don't, I think, but in, I mean, and I would love to figure out a way to get Kevin back in there as well. Obviously somebody who really supports him and thinks he did a great job. I think the math problem exists for those two in a different way.

Okay. In the more hard line. Yeah, I think. And by the way, once you stand up and say you're not going to do it, it's a lot harder to unring that bell. Right. And he doesn't have the kind of grassroots support that Jim Jordan had. Yeah, I see. I think that's a little unfortunate. And I think that's all outside media. Steve Scalise is truly a conservative. He's been a conservative. He's helped...

get conservative candidates elected all across the country. And somehow just because he was running against Jim Jordan, he got called swampy. And that didn't come from inside. That comes from Twitter influencers and people who don't understand how this place works. Steve Scalise has always been a good fundraiser, which means you have to have like tentacles and case tree and you have to have more relationships with funders. You know, it's just, you have to play the game more.

You get around for a long time and you're actually in leadership. Yeah. So you have to know that, you know, you're an inside player. But you also have to be able to raise money to get candidates elected. Otherwise you don't have a majority. And so people who criticize that can criticize it all day long. I mean, it's from both sides of the aisle. Yeah. But the other answer is if I'm getting a $20 sent to me by a Republican in Arkansas, they're not sending it to me because I have some nuanced policy on permitting reform. It's because I'm sending him an

all caps, double exclamation point email telling them who to be mad at and why I'm fighting for them.

Got it. So, I mean, there's two sides of that. Our grassroots is incredibly important. Nobody gets elected without a base. Making sure you recognize what their frustrations and where... And by the way, right now, there are a lot of them. But also being able to raise money and help other candidates get elected is how we have gavels. We wouldn't know any of this stuff that we've been investigating without gavels. We wouldn't know any of it. Okay. So big picture...

Yeah. Last question, big picture. Is this all just like an inevitable conclusion of Trump's stranglehold on the party? I think a couple things have happened. And I think...

I think one of the best things Donald Trump did as a president, he was the best president in my lifetime for North Dakota, for ag and energy and the things we do. He recognized that we're no longer necessarily the party of corporate America. We're the party of blue-collar workers and we're the party of small business. And I think that reset is good. I think the downside to that

is I've never met a tool pusher who couldn't run an oil company better than the CEO. And when we start going down these real populist trends, I think that's bad policy. I think it moves away from conservatism. And I think...

Trump is, I mean, Trump's omnipresent. I mean, he's omnipresent and everything. He's the biggest character we've seen in politics in my lifetime, but there's a bigger fundamental like fight coming in the Republican party that we have to figure out what it looks like moving forward. So you're not blaming him? No, I don't blame him. I mean, I don't blame him for any of it. I think he, uh,

He definitely, I mean, even people who dislike Trump, the smart ones, say that he was the symptom. He wasn't the actual disease. He taps into something. Far too long this time, Republican Party was really interested in ideological think tanks, military industrial complex,

corporate America and a lot of people at home were like, you say you're fighting for me when you campaign, but you're not actually doing that. And I think Trump tapped into that in a meaningful way. And I think whatever friction exists, to survive as a viable party moving forward, he identified some serious problems that we had as Republicans that we have to correct. But does he help you guys at the top of the ticket in this next election? Well...

In 2020, there was not a single general election poll that had Donald Trump ahead of Joe Biden. Not one ever leading up to that election. There's been six in a row now. I know, it's crazy. So I think conventional wisdom that he's a drag on the ticket, the polling's not saying that right now. What that looks like closer to November next year is a whole different question.

What might be a real drag on the ticket is the past 16 days. Yeah. I mean, so I tell you, you know how many times we talked about Mueller during the 2020? I spent nine months of my life in Schiff's secret bunker and impeachment hearings and Mueller investigations because I was on judiciary and oversight. You know how many times we talked about Mueller in the 2020 election?

Almost never. Almost never. Cause there's a year, there's a year difference. Yeah. And COVID happened and all of, and all of those different things. Two years actually. Yeah. Moeller was 2018. The first impeachment vote in judiciary was in December of 2019. Um, I,

I think the one thing that we better recognize as Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives is if we walk out of this mess and into a government shutdown, we are in real trouble. So no shutdown, no bueno. I've never been a fan of shutdowns. I don't think we win them politically. I don't think any of my constituents who need a passport or a VA check or an FSA office open...

are all that concerned about my ideological purity when they can't get any of the work done. I do think we should cut spending, and I think we should fight for our conservative wins, but we can't do that if I have problems in my conference not allowing us to bring bills to the floor. See, I would just think electing Jim Jordan, he's like the shutdown king. I see, and his plan for staying out of a shutdown is the best plan I've heard. That doesn't mean it's a great plan. It's just the best plan I've heard. By the way, that isn't new from his speaker race.

He's been arguing that for nine months. In conference, publicly, privately, he's been saying it. And one of the reasons I think we don't know as much about it is because he doesn't get beat up by conservative Twitter when he says it because he has credibility with those people. Well, thank you. This was great. Thank you.

Thanks for joining me for another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I want to thank my producers, Christopher Sutton and Connor Nevins. It wouldn't be possible without them. If you like this podcast, please subscribe, rate it, share it with your friends. And if you like my reporting, go to puck.news slash Tara Palmieri and sign up for my newsletter, The Best and the Brightest. You can get 20% off the discount code Tara20. I'll be back on Tuesday when who knows, maybe my prediction will have worked out.