Historian and national political analyst Neil W. McCabe joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Wednesday to share his insights and predictions into why he says Steve Scalise will be the next Speaker of the House. McCabe details the coming twists and turns, and lays out the history of the players and the game underway today in Foggy Bottom.
TRANSCRIPT
Michael Patrick Leahy: 7:18 AM – original All Star panelist Crom Carmichael in-studio; on the newsmaker line right now, the great national political reporter, Neil W. McCabe.
Neil, you know, Crom and I have been talking here about the Speaker’s race, and we have concluded there is only one person in the world who knows enough to tell us who’s going to win that race. Who is that person, Crom?
Crom Carmichael: Neil McCabe is the only one who can tell us.
Neil, we are breathless. Tell us, who will be the next Speaker.
Neil W. McCabe: The next Speaker of the House will be Steve Scalise.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Oh! Boom shakalaka! Well!
Crom Carmichael: And when will that vote be held? Is that this week?
Neil W. McCabe: Well, today they’re going to do sort of a test vote, and they’re going to do a lot of this stuff in private because remember that the seat is vacant. So when they elect, Hakeem Jeffries is also in play, right?
They’re going to go through the whole thing where each party has its nominee and so whatever nominee emerges from the Democratic caucus, which will be a Hakeem Jeffries, and then whoever emerges from the Republican conference – but the conference is going to do everything in private, hopefully, to avoid a spectacle of 15 rounds; something that probably Kevin McCarthy – there’s a lot of things Kevin McCarthy should have done.
You know, a year ago Ralph Norman from Georgia, he told me flat-out that the House Freedom Caucus warned Kevin McCarthy, we will not back you unless we get this, this, this, and this. And so, you don’t have to be Babe Ruth against Charlie Root to know that Kevin McCarthy was in trouble.
Michael Patrick Leahy: From the beginning. And then he ended up being a liar and broke his word. That didn’t help.
Neil W. McCabe: It’s damaging to any relationship, Michael.
Crom Carmichael: Now what the problem with Kevin McCarthy, calling him a liar is – what he did was he would give opposite promises to people, and he couldn’t keep them both.
Michael Patrick Leahy: You’re so kind.
Crom Carmichael: I mean, I’m just, what I’m saying is…
Neil W. McCabe: Also damaging to relationships.
Crom Carmichael: Exactly; you end up in the same place.
Neil W. McCabe: Right. And so, what you have now is you have Jim Jordan, who is not going to be Speaker of the House.
Crom Carmichael: He doesn’t want to be.
Neil W. McCabe: No. And nobody wants him to be.
Crom Carmichael: Right.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Really?
Crom Carmichael: Yeah.
Michael Patrick Leahy: But what I’m hearing, I’m hearing exactly the opposite. But tell me, what super-duper inside scoop do you have about Steve Scalise?
Neil W. McCabe: Well, Steve Scalise has structural advantages that have nothing to do with politics or policy. He was the Whip, and he was the Majority Leader.
And so he knows all the secrets; and he’s already been in a position for the last 10 years to be giving out favors and handing out money. He raises a ton of money from, let’s say, sugar interests and the Jones Act.
We don’t have time to talk about the Jones Act, but anybody who’s familiar with the Jones Act knows that there’s a lot of very wealthy people who give a lot of money to keep that Jones Act going.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Specialized shipping constraints, right?
Neil W. McCabe: Shipping interests.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Right.
Neil W. McCabe: And so, listen, I asked the guy what he did once. He looked at me and said, “Shipping.” And that was it.
And I was like, ‘Wow. That’s gonna be big money.’
Michael Patrick Leahy: That’s gonna be huge. Here’s the downside of Scalise.
Ready? He’s being treated for blood cancer. I saw a picture of him.
Neil W. McCabe: That’s an advantage, Mike.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Why?
Neil W. McCabe: Because the fact that none of the factions have the juice and the votes to really get what they want. So, Scalise will be Speaker, but it’s not like anybody wants Scalise to be Speaker, anyway.
It’s just that it’s sort of like a conclave, where the cardinals can’t figure it out.
So they put up some old guy to be the Pope for the next three or four years, and then we’ll fight again. It’s the same structural advantage that Trump has as a one termer. Nobody really has the juice to be president – to get the Republican nomination now, so we put Trump in as a placeholder for four years, and we’re gonna fight in ’28.
So basically, we put the next guy is going to be a placeholder, and then we’ll see what happens when we reset, you know, when we reshuffle the deck after the next election, then we’ll have the real fight.
Michael Patrick Leahy: That is fascinating.
Your buddy Chad Pergram at Fox News. Just tweeted out about an hour ago, said there’s a 75 percent chance the House could elect a new Speaker today. The earliest would be 3 p.m. when the House meets. The House Republican Conference meets privately at 10 a.m. to take a secret ballot. The winning candidate must secure an outright majority of all members of the House.
If all 433 members that are present have two vacancies, vote for someone by name. The magic number is 217.
Fox is told that most Republicans plan to support on the floor whoever wins the secret ballot members may vote for anyone on the floor.
So there you go. I think he, I think he’s kind of agreeing with you.
Neil W. McCabe: Remember the Capitol Hill runs on two things, right? Consensus and exhaustion.
Right now, the Republican conference is reaching capitulation exhaustion. And when Matt Gaetz can tweet out saying, ‘Hey, Scalise or Jordan, I’m happy.’
Like, it’s like nobody is laying down a marker for Jordan.
You know, there’s a reason why Jordan was removed from leading the House Freedom Caucus. Like, there’s a reason why McCarthy made Jordan, the top Republican on House Judiciary, to block Louie Gohmert because he knew Jordan wasn’t going to do anything crazy.
He talks great; gives great interviews. He’s been in for, what, 10 something, 15 years? Like, what has Jordan actually, like, done? Where are Jordan’s scalps? There aren’t any.
Michael Patrick Leahy: That’s a good point. You know, people in-the-know in Ohio have that same criticism of Jim Jordan. He’s got great press for a lot of statements that he’s made, but in terms of accomplishments, I think he’s kind of light on accomplishments.
Neil W. McCabe: Which is fine, I mean, you need talkers, you need show horses, and you need work horses. Don’t pretend that Jordan is going to move any kind of agenda. It’s, you know, he’s great for what he does. And I think that what’s going to happen is, the eight rebels who took down McCarthy, they want to come in from the cold too, right?
So I think that Scalise, what will happen inside that room is there’s not going to be a big change on the rules and that Scalise will make the commitment. Basically, he’ll make the same promises McCarthy made, but people trust Scalise.
Michael Patrick Leahy: I think people trust Scalise more than – I don’t think anybody trusts McCarthy.
I mean, he’s just, he’s a slick operator, right? I mean, do I have that right?
Neil W. McCabe: He’s a slick operator, but he’s also someone who, you know, when he was the Whip, he was like the worst Whip in Republican House history. When he was the Majority Leader, he was like the worst Majority Leader in, like, history.
He raises wheelbarrows full of cash. If he didn’t raise cash, he would be back selling sandwiches in Bakersfield. He raises so much money.
And, you know, going back to the contest today, the Jordan-Scalise thing goes back 10 years to the old Boehner days. Boehner used Scalise to get Jordan ousted from the Republican Study Committee.
Jordan then ousted Boehner with Mark Meadows, but really it was Meadows. Jordan gets folded in there. It was Mark Meadows who took down Boehner, not Jordan. And then of course they started the House Freedom Caucus to be what the Republican Study Committee used to be.
But this thing goes back a long, long time.
If Jordan could raise the money that Scalise or McCarthy can raise he would have been speaker a long time ago.
Michael Patrick Leahy: One last question for you from Crom.
Crom Carmichael: It’s really more of a comment. Neil, the way you’re looking at this thing is so historically accurate. Bodies bodies of legislative bodies, unless they have unless they are tied to a particular faction.
Nancy Pelosi had power because she could pick up the phone and call five union leaders and she could oust anyone in her own party in the next election. And then she knew she could send them back to their district and not give them a job and actually hurt them. So she could threaten Democrats if she wanted them to vote a certain way.
Republicans do not have that power and I think it’s a good thing Republicans don’t have that power, but also means that leadership in a body of independent thinkers is virtually impossible. And I think that’s what you’re getting to.
Neil W. McCabe: Pelosi’s power is also the other side of that coin, Crom, because what Pelosi would do is she would get, say, 230 votes for what she wanted and she only needed 218, which meant she could give ten guys a vacation.
So if you’re in a tough bit if this is a tough vote for you because of your district I’m going to give you the day off and you can vote with the Republicans this time. And then next time, if it’s a tough vote on something else, I’m going to need you.
Pelosi didn’t invent this, right? Eddie McCormick did it; Cicero did it in the Roman Senate. It’s like the Republicans could never figure this out. But it was because Pelosi was good to people not because of them.
McCarthy and Republican leadership, they actually raised money and run commercials against House Conservatives and so it’s like, you know, it’s one thing you have to worry about Democrats. Look at how vicious the Republican leadership is when it comes to conservatives, and just imagine if they were that tough and that passionate against the Democrats.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Neil W. McCabe, wow, what a great analysis. No one in the country has that level of analysis. Neil W. McCabe, thanks so much for joining us today.
Neil W. McCabe: Hey, take care guys. Be good.
Michael Patrick Leahy: We’ll be back with more. Isn’t that impressive?
Crom Carmichael: Yeah, that was very impressive. That gets into why legislative bodies oftentimes collapse.
Michael Patrick Leahy: We’ll be back with more after this.
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