Washington Wednesday: Filling the void

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 11th of October, 2023. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s Washington Wednesday.

First up: The House of Representatives is stuck. Last week, after stripping Kevin McCarthy of the speakership, lawmakers also prevented the House from taking action on a range of policy priorities.

REICHARD: When it comes to funding the government, decisively responding to the war in Israel, or taking action on the southern border, the chamber will be on the sidelines until the GOP gets new leadership in order.

EICHER: WORLD Washington Bureau Reporter Leo Briceno was in the House when McCarthy was removed, and he brings us a report on what now.

LEO BRICENO, REPORTER: After Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker last week, I spent the evening chasing down Republican leadership, trying to get a sense of what was going on.

REPORTERS to PATRICK MCHENRY: Is there a vote Wednesday? Do you mind stopping for the camera? Did you know? Did you know McCarthy wasn’t going to run again? When did you find out? You used to talk to us so much!

In the heat of the moment, even the leadership didn’t have concrete answers they were willing to talk about. For example, Republican House Whip Tom Emmer:

TOM EMMER: I’ve known Scalise for a long time.

REPORTERS: Is he running?

EMMER: I’ve known Scalise for a long time.

REPORTERS: Are you interested in running? Would you mind stopping and talking to the camera, sir?

While a few Republicans are pleased with the outcome of the vote, a far greater number are frustrated with Congress’ sudden stop. Here’s Florida Congresswoman, Maria Elvira Salazar.

SALAZAR: What’s happening right now is just not good for anybody—including the Dems. It’s not good for the country. So let's move forward QUICKLY.

But getting things done quickly in Washington is difficult… especially when Republicans control the House but Democrats control the Senate. Any new piece of legislation has to go through them too—and cross President Joe Biden’s desk. Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw says framing the issue of spending outside of that context is dishonest.

CRENSHAW: There are a lot of lies being told to our voters. They didn’t deliver on this or that or this, and it’s like, well it’s because we don’t have the votes. There’s a process, there’s a committee process which you demanded that we follow! You didn’t secure the border. We have a slim majority in the House—like, what’d you think would happen?

The question now is who can bring the partisan wings together under a new Speaker, especially when funding to help Israel counter attacks by Hamas is on the line.

As the Republican conference gets closer to electing a new speaker, there are two main candidates. Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise and Ohio Representative Jim Jordan. Both have been making the rounds, pitching their vision for why they would be able to lead the Republicans in the House.

Jordan is something of a GOP outsider. Although he’s the chairman of the judiciary committee, he hasn't been a part of McCarthy or Paul Ryan’s Republican leadership. He wants to use the moment to leverage meaningful spending cuts.

JORDAN: That’s the only way this town can operate is when there’s that kind of leverage and there’s that kind of deadline hanging there where real cuts are going to happen that we can get people to focus and get our work done. So that’s what I think we have to do.

Scalise, by contrast, has been working with Republican leadership for a while now. He worked closely with Speaker Paul Ryan, currently serves as the Majority Leader, and has closer ties to the Trump-led portion of the GOP by virtue of his involvement with party leadership. His goal is to bring the Senate and the White House to the negotiating table, as opposed to maybe strong-arming them with a shutdown.

SCALISE: As much as everyone wants to talk about the House, it’s time we talk about what the Senate and the president are not doing. Those problems need to be addressed by all of us. The president has to be in this fight too, so does the Senate. That’s where we need to go to start battling.

As of this morning, it’s clear that neither candidate has the 218 votes needed to become Speaker of the House. And there’s another complication. McCarthy himself may not be completely out of the running just yet. He says Republicans could still nominate him. And some representatives have said they won’t vote for anyone besides McCarthy, despite the fact that the former Speaker hasn’t entered the race.

As Salazar puts it, there’s a lot to work to do for whomever comes out on top.

SALAZAR: You know, democracy is messy. Whoever comes out, if they have the support of the majority, welcome. Let’s move forward. Hey, McCarthy will be welcomed but he needs to have the votes needed.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno in Washington D.C.

EICHER: Well, joining us now to go deeper is Mark Caleb Smith. He’s a political science professor at Cedarville University.

REICHARD: Good morning, professor, welcome back.

MARK CALEB SMITH, GUEST: It's always a pleasure to be with you.

REICHARD: As Leo mentioned, the two “formal” candidates to get Congress moving again are representatives Scalise and Jordan. Who do you think has an edge?

SMITH: In some ways, this is basically asking who has an edge in the current Republican Party, because to a great extent, Scalise and Jordan represent the different wings of the party. Not fully, perhaps, but I think they are representative on the whole. Scalise is much more of a product of the leadership culture and Washington and so he's been part of the leadership team for a while. Of course, he was also wounded in that deranged gunman attack in 2017. He has a lot of sympathy in the caucus, and has done a really nice job building relationships. That's probably the most important quality when it comes to leadership in a place like the House of Representatives. He's got good relationships, good connections. Broad support.

Jordan, however, does have President Trump's endorsement. You can't brush that aside. Donald Trump is, I think, still the leader of the party until something else happens. And Jordan has also been extremely effective at gaining attention for himself. He's been a pretty constant presence on places like Fox News and Newsmax over the last several years, and has done a nice job elevating his media profile. His conservative approach to things I think, will certainly resonate with parts of the caucus, but we'll also bristle parts of the caucus. And so to some extent, you know, this choice before the House is really a choice about the future, and really the struggle that's still within the Republican Party.

EICHER: Hours before endorsing Jordan, Trump said he was fielding calls asking him to become speaker… and said he would consider it. Is even possible under the current rules of Congress? And is Trump to your knowledge really pursuing it?

SMITH: You know, I think for President Trump, it's probably good enough for him to be part of the news story as it relates to this. I think he appreciates being asked about it and being lobbied to take it possibly. And certainly there are members of the House who would like him to do it, or at least like to talk about him doing it. But over the weekend, we heard a good number of more, let's say moderate or traditional Republicans, who threw some cold water on that notion that Donald Trump might be Speaker of the House, saying things plainly, like Ken Buck, saying that this is just not going to happen.

There is a rule in place right now, rule 26 for the House Republicans, that prevents someone indicted for a felony that leads to two or more years of a prison sentence, it prevents them from being in a leadership position. And so in order for the Republicans to seriously go down this path, they would have to change the rules. Of course, in order to change the rules, they would unanimously need to go and merge on the floor of the House and make that choice. That's why I think when someone like representative Buck says it's not going to happen, and that's why it's not going to happen. You're not going to see a majority of Republicans, I think, go out there and change your rule in order to make it possible for Donald Trump to be Speaker. Putting all that aside, constitutionally, he's eligible. The Constitution Article One, Section two, says the House shall choose their speaker. It does not give any conditions for serving. It doesn't say you have to be a member of the House. It doesn't give any age requirements or anything else. And so he could, in theory, be Speaker of the House. Practically speaking, I just don't see it happening.

REICHARD: Until a Speaker is appointed, a lot of business is on hold. That includes the Republicans’ impeachment inquiry…the investigation into the Biden family business and how it may or may not have illegally overlapped with political business. How much did the investigators get done before things were put on hold?

SMITH: I mean, they held a little bit of a public hearing. Not much has really happened in that regard. The leadership struggle really has overtaken the impeachment process. And you could even argue the leadership struggle is due to the impeachment process to some extent. Kevin McCarthy did start the impeachment proceedings. However, in doing so, he rankled the Democratic Party pretty dramatically. And that made them far less likely to save him when possibly they could have intervened to save McCarthy's speakership. So I think impeachment is also roiling the Republican caucus because there are a number of members. 14 I believe, if I recall, correctly, who serve in legislative districts that Joe Biden actually won in 2020. So these are Republican members of the House who serve in districts that are sympathetic to Democratic presidential candidates. This impeachment is pretty much a nightmare for them. It's putting them in a very difficult position to appeal to their districts. And so there's going to be a lot of pressure, I think, on the leadership to consider the impeachment proceeding, maybe to curtail it or limit it, because it's going to create complexities for a good number of Republicans.

EICHER: Mark Caleb Smith is a political science professor at Cedarville University. Thank you, Mark.

SMITH: Always a pleasure. Thank you.

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