Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
CROM CARMICHAEL:
Michael, you know it was interesting when you were talking to John Harris about the Constitution. The Constitution as a document was designed to do two things: One was to empower a national government and the other was to then limit those powers. And there is a whole section in the Constitution that enumerates the powers that the federal government has.
And then it goes on to say that if powers are not enumerated in the Constitution and given to the national government then they are left to the states. And over time, that part of the Constitution has more or less been forgotten and ignored. And the left-leaning justices on the Supreme Court don’t even think the Constitution is relevant anymore if they like the proposed outcome by either Congress or apparently the president.
Because the case yesterday was brought before the Supreme Court and argued about whether or not Biden has the authority to eliminate 20,000 of student debt regardless of anything else. And without congressional authority to do so, that case was argued.
And the two sides were apparently doing the questioning during the arguments. It was fairly laid out on the left-leaning side where their argument wasn’t even to the question of whether Biden can do it. They simply argued that the states that were the plaintiffs in the case had standing.
And they didn’t want to touch the actual argument. But here is the law that the states say apply. I’m going to read from an article in The Wall Street Journal and quote this. The law that Biden is trying to use is the Heroes Act, and that law says, “Relief can be given as necessary ‘in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency.”
That’s when you can grant student debt relief. I’ll read that again. In connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency. It’s not a big long law, but this part of it is clear from the text of the law and from the arguments that various parties, even Nancy Pelosi has said in years past. Student debt cannot be forgiven by a president.
She said this when there was a Republican president. Biden has said while he was president that he didn’t think he had the authority to give $50,000 in debt relief. If you can’t give $50,000 in relief, why do you think you have the authority to give $20,000 in debt relief?
So that’s what that case is about. What is also interesting is when Biden said he wants to give that debt relief, there was no set-off. And that is also something that historically, and when I say historically, this has been so loosely handled and this is why these types of things don’t work very long.
You should have set-offs if you come up with some kind of spending initiative. You have to cut spending someplace else or you have to raise taxes. And he isn’t proposing any of those things. He just wants to spend another half trillion dollars on debt relief. What does that do for the incoming students?
Doesn’t do a thing. It’s one little group of students in a period of about 10-20 years where most of them it turns out middle income or upper-income white people. Even by his equity standards, he is not holding true.
The arguments have been made. The questions that were asked make me predict that the court will rule that the president, not Biden, a president does not have the authority to give debt relief for students without an act of Congress.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this Crommentary:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Grassroots Engagement Director of Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee Grant Henry, who weighs in on infrastructure spending and budget reconciliation in a partisan Democratic Congress.
(Mitch McConnell clip plays)
Leahy: That’s Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. I have two thoughts on his statement. First, it’s very obvious that inflation is a problem. Second, we need to have him here in the studio, and I need to give him a cup of the TriStar Trio coffee because he sounds like he’s asleep. (Laughter)
Ogles: Unlike the rant we just heard a moment ago.
Leahy: Unlike the three of us who are duly caffeinated and ready to rock and roll. Grant Henry, grassroots director for Americans for Prosperity of Tennessee. This infrastructure bill.
I can’t see any other direction – the consequence of this infrastructure bill – other than to dramatically continue the increase of inflation. What’s your thought on that?
Henry: Milton Friedman told us that inflation is essentially taxation without legislation and typically hits the lower-income individuals. Von Hayek told us that he said this: “I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation. Usually, inflation is engineered by governments for the gain of governments.”
Leahy: Okay, now let me pause. People know who Milton Friedman is. You say it like he’s your best buddy, von Hayek, (Laughter) and he probably is your best buddy.
Friedrich von Hayek, a great, great economist. His famous work, The Road to Surfdom. That’s the guy you’re talking about there, right?
Henry: That is correct.
Leahy: And he is your best buddy.
Henry: (Laughs) Sure. Let’s say that. Let’s go with that.
Leahy: Andy Ogles, I look at what they’re trying to do, and there are a couple of elements here that really strike me. Number one, I don’t see how this is at all consistent with the American tradition of the legislative process. What’s your reaction to that, Andy?
Ogles: I mean, anytime you’re using budget reconciliation to legislate, it’s a slippery slope.
Leahy: Let’s talk about that. Explain to the audience what we mean by budget reconciliation. The Senate has a procedure by which they can essentially allocate monies and appropriated dollars for things that otherwise did not go through the normal legislative process. That’s a simplified version.
Leahy: And they’re supposed to be able to do it once, maybe twice a year, right?
Ogles: Yes. Look at legislative intent. This is something that should be done only as of the option, of last resort, and where there’s something that has to be done at the last minute. Otherwise, that could not flow through the normal process.
But what’s happened is that Congress is so partisan that it now is just the normal course of business, which is now stripping we the people of our normal representation. Because whoever is a majority controls the purse strings.
Leahy: Right. And it’s not a give-and-take legislative process. It’s my way or the highway with no give-and-take whatsoever from the Democrats. That’s what it seems like to me.
Ogles: The Senate has a lot of very formal rules that they can use, like the filibuster and things like that. And so it’s now become an issue of which side is better manipulating the rules to control what happens in the Senate.
Leahy: Grant Henry, you’re a graduate of law school, and my question to you is, the parliamentarian plays a role in the Senate.
Are you familiar with what their job is and how they can determine whether or not something should be included in this budget reconciliation process?
Henry: I’m not as familiar as I should be. And frankly speaking, I think there are very few people out there that are qualified to comment on that. There are a few.
Leahy: I may not be qualified, but I’ll comment on it. (Laughter)
Henry: But here’s what I’m saying. I think Mayor Ogles is correct that in the early 1970s we had this process of a reconciliation that was introduced primarily because we said, look, if we’re entering the day and age of partisan politics, we still have to pass a budget. We still have to spend money and make the government operate effectively or at least at all.
Leahy: This is a very interesting point because before the 70s and before the 80s, Congress ran through what they called regular order. That is, all bills would start at a subcommittee, and then they’d be vetted and then they’d to move up to a committee, and then they’d be vetted, and then they’d be going to the rules committee to see if they could go to a vote.
At each step back and forth continued, and then there would be a vote on the floor. Regular order has been disbanded by the Democrats, Nancy Pelosi in particular. And so they’re just in the land of the jam-through is what it seems like to me.
Henry: Yes. And I think that jam-through, which you really see a lot of times, is coming through this thing called the Byrd Rule, which is where this sort of parliamentarian is supposed to play a major role.
Leahy: Now the Byrd Rule, we’re talking about the former Ku Klux Klansmen, Robert Byrd, right?
Henry: I believe so.
Leahy: From West Virginia. He’s a Democrat by the way and his big ally in the Senate, Joe Biden.
Henry: So the primary thing about the reconciliation process that people need to understand and why your voice matters so much now is that the reconciliation process does not require 60 votes in the Senate. You can get it through with just 50 votes. And a Kamala Harris flip, right.
That’s the point of the reconciliation process that you don’t need bipartisan support to push something through. This Byrd Rule is a process by which Republicans should – in big air quotes in the studio here – should be able to say these certain things that are included in your $3.5 trillion package have nothing to do with what said that we’re spending money on.
That being if you’re gonna spend $3.5 trillion or rather, $500 billion on healthcare spending and call it an infrastructure spending, we’re gonna cut that out of your spending package through this Byrd Rule.
Now, much of that, I think, is left up to this sort of parliamentary procedure or that one individual to say what is and is not considered a part of the spending within that overall proposal or package.
That’s again, why I personally believe your voice matters so much now, to contact those senators, contact your legislators. Let them know if it’s this razor-thin, listen to me now more than ever.
Leahy: Andy Ogles, so there is a parliamentarian, and that recently appointed parliamentarian has ruled, that you can do it once and maybe twice, but only with certain circumstances.
What do you think Chuck Schumer is going to say if the parliamentarian says, you know what you want to do in that reconciliation package on the infrastructure bill? You can’t do it. What do you think Chuck Schumer is going to do?
Ogles: Well, just my opinion, but I don’t think they’ll care. The question is, can he move forward without an official ruling? I’m not a huge Mitch McConnell fan, I won’t go into the details. But all that to say, he has been a master of the Senate rules, which is why he’s been such an effective leader over the years.
This is where the Republicans are going to have to use the rules to their favor to try to block this, because, again, they’re not trying to pass a basic budget.
They’re not trying emergency spending for troops that are overseas or something that really necessitates this emergency action. And I think that’s really how you should look at budget reconciliation.
This is, again, the option of last resort. It should only be used where, again, you’ve hit gridlock to the point where basic functions of government are no longer working.
Leahy: The problem with that is that the Democrats have abandoned the concept of bipartisan cooperation. It’s my way or the highway.
Ogles: And they’ve abandoned the Constitution altogether. Look at what they’ve done during COVID.
Leahy: Minor point. Minor point. Actually a very good point.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed GOP candidate for Nashville’s Fifth District, Robby Starbuck in studio to discuss his top two priorities if elected to Congress in 2022.
Leahy: In the studio with us, Republican congressional candidate Robby Starbuck, running for the Republican nomination in the Fifth Congressional District. We asked you this question before the break, Robby. If elected to Congress and sworn in January of 2023, what would be your number one legislative priority?
Starbuck: I’ve written two already that would be immediately put forward. Number one would be banned Critical Race Theory, not just in public schools, but also if you want a government grant, you want a government contract, you cannot train your employees with Critical Race Theory, and you cannot impose it on anybody within your business.
Leahy: Now that is a very good idea, number one. And what you’re combining, it’s interesting, the way you’ve structured. It’s not just banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory.
But what you’ve done there is you have incorporated in the legislative proposal Donald Trump’s executive order that banned federal funding for contractors that taught critical race, of course, the legal but not legitimate occupant of one those hundred Pennsylvania Avenue to Biden. One of the first things he did was to reverse that executive order.
Starbuck: And every other executive order.
Leahy: That particular idea, I think, is very, very interesting. And so that would be the bill that you would introduce.
Starbuck: That I would introduce right away.
Leahy: That would be your number one priority.
Starbuck: It’s essential to freedom. Education helps define what our national identity is. And so if we’re educating our kids to hate our country, then guess what? In 20 years, our national identity is going to be hating our country.
Leahy: By the way, that’s what public schools are doing right now.
Starbuck: 100 percent.
Leahy: They’re teaching kids to hate America, and your tax dollars are paying for it.
Starbuck: And we’re the adults and it’s our job to step in and stop it. And so that’s why that would be the first thing. The second thing would be a very simple immigration bill that says if you come here illegally, you will never, ever be allowed to become a citizen of the United States, and you will never be entitled to benefits.
Obviously very small caveats to that. If you’re being hunted down by your government or something along those lines, then maybe we have a different path.
Leahy: Well, there’s existing law for allows for asylum,
Starbuck: For true asylum. But there’s a process.
Starbuck: Exactly. There has to be a process. Merit-based. But our big problem with immigration is we’ve changed everything from incentivizing legal behavior to incentivizing illegal behavior.
When you have the Democratic candidates, now the person occupying the White House saying, we’re going to give you free health care, free this free that free everything. And then they act shocked when you have the borders getting flooded on a daily basis.
Obviously, they’re not shocked. They knew what that was going to do. We have to incentivize legal behavior again, which means saying, hey, if you ever want to be in America legally, you need to do this the right way, because if you do it one time the wrong way, you’re not going to be able to ever become a citizen here.
That will change the migration patterns right away. I’m not saying it’ll stop it, but it will change that pattern.
Leahy: Let’s talk a little bit about how successful such legislation would be. Now in the current makeup of Congress, where the Democrats have a nine or 10 vote margin and Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House, such legislation would go nowhere. She wouldn’t even bring it forward.
Starbuck: She wouldn’t bring it forward or allow it to be.
Leahy: If Republicans maintain a majority, that legislation would have a chance. What do you think the odds are that the Republicans will win back the House of Representatives in November 2022?
Starbuck: We are going to win back the House in 2022. The Senate, I’m not making any promises, but the House I feel 1000 percent that we are going to take the House in 2022.
The energy on that level and just the wind is in our sails in many ways in terms of redistricting happening. And you saw a bunch of blue states lose districts as part of the census consuming New York. And people have fled their States.
Leahy: California lost one district.
Starbuck: And New York lost one or two. I don’t remember if it was one or two. I’d say it was I think seven states that lost seats were blue states and they went almost entirely red.
Leahy: We kept the nine congressional districts, but probably were right on the edge of adding a 10th.
Starbuck: Yeah, we right on the edge. And I would guess that in 10 years we’ll add another one.
Leahy: I think you’re probably right about that. Now, our listeners looking at this could say, you know, if a Republican won the fifth congressional district in November 2022 that would be a plus one for Republicans and increase the likelihood that Republicans win a majority of the House. And I think your argument would be…you can do it, right?
Starbuck: Absolutely. I’m a different candidate than we’ve ever had in this district before. And where has it gotten us running the same people from the same schools with the same backgrounds? We haven’t won this district.
It hasn’t done any good for the people here. We have to think outside the box. I’m an outside-the-box candidate. I’m fully, fully cognizant of that. But I can win this. We can flip Independents.
We can take a message in about freedom, especially after COVID. And with the background my family had fleeing Cuba and Marxism to be able to say, did you enjoy this free trial over the last year and a half of Marxism and socialism?
Leahy: We had a 15 month free trial of Marxism.
Starbuck: You got a free trial and I think a lot of people are ready to make the return. And you saw how the Coopers treated you like they were Kings and you were just their pawns that had to do whatever they told you to do. That’s not what America was founded on. We’re supposed to be free.
Leahy: First, would you engage in a debate if I don’t know, The Tennessee Star were to host it between you and any other candidates who are seeking the Republican nomination?
Starbuck: Absolutely. I will always debate people.
Leahy: Okay. So if we had one in-studio here at five in the morning and or six in the morning, we could do a two-hour debate from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.
Starbuck: Absolutely. I’ll just pray for them beforehand.
Leahy: We’ve got enough room in the studio. We will start identifying other candidates and we’ll start putting that out here. We might even, like, do it on a monthly basis.
I’ll have you in here from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and all the Republican candidates, and we’ll just have a nice conversation. And then after the August 2022 primary, we’ll invite the incumbent, Jim Cooper.
Starbuck: I’m not so sure Jim is going to be the person in a general election.
Leahy: Now, that’s interesting because he does have an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes type challenger.
Starbuck: He does. AOC backed a socialist to run against him. And if we’re being perfectly honest, the energy on the left in Nashville is the Progressives. It’s not the Blue Dog Democrats.
Blue Dog Democrats are being pushed out of their party. So who is his constituency? Especially after the last year and a half. The far left and the groups that have all this grassroots energy on the ground, they’re going to be backing AOC’s candidate.
They raised $100,000 in a week, which is, you know, they’re going to make him spend money. They’re going to make him spend a good deal of money if he decides to run. I think after redistricting it’s not a foregone conclusion that he even doesn’t retire.
Leahy: He did kick off his reelection campaign.
Starbuck: He could always quit.
Leahy: He also has had some personal problems with his wife who passed away.
Starbuck: I was very sorry to hear that.
Leahy: And again, our condolences to Representative Cooper about that, and we criticize his policies.
Starbuck: But he’s a human being. It’s terrible. I can’t imagine losing that person you love the most.
Leahy: Now the challenger on the left is Odessa Kelly. She did play ball for Tennessee State University. But she’s worked for the city government most of her career. That’s her main accomplishment.
Starbuck: And she would like a bigger government.
Leahy: And she’s not Jim Cooper. That’s her other accomplishment.
Starbuck: You know what? On that one, I will say that’s gonna help her out. I don’t understand how anybody can work in the government and then at the end of it, go, you know what’s going to fix things? More government.
Leahy: Well, that’s how they think. Whoever wins, whether it’s Odessa Kelly or Jim Cooper, or whoever their Democratic nominee is, we will invite them to a debate with the Republican nominee. Will you attend?
Starbuck: Oh, I definitely will. I think the question is, will they attend?
Leahy: I don’t think they’ll attend because they don’t believe in a free exchange of ideas, because their ideas are so very bad.
Starbuck: Absolutely.
Listen to the third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Robby Starbuck” by Robby Starbuck.
Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Philip Hamburger who is a Professor of Law at Columbia Law School to the newsmakers line to discuss constitutional covenants and abuses of administrative law.
Leahy: We are delighted to welcome on our newsmaker line, one of my intellectual heroes. I’ve never had a chance to interview him. But Professor of law at Columbia Law School, Philip Hamburger. A leading intellectual in America today on issues of the Constitution. Welcome to The Tennessee Star Report Professor Hamburger.
Hamburger: Thank you. It’s a great pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.
Leahy: Well, look, we have talked often on this program about the overreach of the administrative state. And you’ve talked about administrative law. You’ve written about when administrative agencies regulate us, they exercise the legislative power that the Constitution gives to Congress un-elected bureaucrats, thus displace elected representatives.
This has been a dangerous trend. You’ve written about it extensively. Can you briefly describe what kind of difficulties this is cause for our constitutional Republic?
Hamburger: Well, there are so many. I don’t know. We can take the whole program listing the problems. (Chuckles) The real danger is that we are established as a Republic in which we elect our lawmakers.
We govern ourselves. Our laws are binding on us because we consent to them through elections. And we don’t always win the election. We don’t always get our way. But we know we participate in a process in which we get to elect those who make our laws.
And the problem, of course, is that much of the law-making, in fact, I’d say about 90 percent of it these days is not made by legislators who were elected but by unelected bureaucrats. And their tastes and their interests don’t coincide with ours and even if they did, they’re not terribly responsive to our needs. So that’s a disaster.
Leahy: It’s entirely a disaster. Professor Hamburger. Crom Carmichael, our original all-star panelist and another big fan of yours has a question for you.
Carmichael: Professor, the question that I have is this. Suppose an administration came into power and I would assume it would have to be a Republic administration but they haven’t done much better on the subject that you’re addressing. (Hamburger chuckles)
But suppose one did come into power that proclaimed during the inaugural address that under this person’s administration that the practice of administrative law will be believed to be unconstitutional on its face, and that any bureaucrat who presumes that they have the power of the legislature and tries to assert that power shall be terminated. Is that legal?
Hamburger: It certainly is up to the point of termination where there are some complicated questions. But I entirely agree with you. I think this is absolutely on point. You don’t have to wait for the Supreme Court.
A President who understood the problem could, I think, quite wisely, decide simply to instruct all federal officers not to pursue administrative power at all. And by the way, I think the President has a duty to do this.
The President has a duty to take care that the laws are faithfully enforced in the highest law of the Constitution. Although the question I think constitutionally, the President should be able to fire such officers, there would be a legal battle over that.
But the President, I think, could quite easily simply insist that administrative power not be exercised. It’s complicated but possible.
Carmichael: Well, then what I think I’m hearing you say is that the laws protecting government bureaucrats are a powerful law. But if a President did assert in the inaugural address and then a bureaucrat shortly after that, I’m sure somebody would test it.
And if he fired that person, that person would then have to sue to get their job back. And the court would then resolve whether or not a bureaucrat has a power greater than that of Congress.
Hamburger: That’s right. I must say I actually have proposed something like this in the past, and I think ideally it would be done in a proclamation followed up with executive orders.
I think one would have different orders and proclamations for different agencies because in some cases it would be a clearer path than others. But constitutionally, in the end, I think the President certainly has the power to do this. The real question is whether President would have the fortitude and the wisdom to do it.
Leahy: Absolutely. You started in 2017, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, and you’re using the courts to stop this administrative overreach by bureaucrats. How is that succeeding? And are you stopping this growing tide of bureaucratic power?
Hamburger: Well, as a friend told me, Rome was not burned in one night. (Leahy laughs)
Leahy: I love that line.
Hamburger: (Chuckles) Yes. I wish I had thought of it. But we are having some remarkable success with such a young organization. The New Civil Liberties Alliance now has about 20 employees who are litigating every day.
I’ll give you just one example of where I think we’re having a real effect on the ground. I just learned that the Security and Exchange Commission has greatly reduced the number of prosecutions it conducts in its own in-house administrative tribunals, these Kangaroo courts that are biased, that don’t give juries.
They now only have 12 of these proceedings. And I think that’s very much in response to our litigation against the Security Exchange Commission. Our goal is to have that effect across the administrative state.
And it’s actually very gratifying that already they’ve been forced to cut back so much at such a leading administrative agency. So I think we are having a very real effect, but we just want to keep on pushing and pushing until we restore constitutional covenants.
Leahy: We have a couple of our friends who are on the board of advisors at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, our good friend, Professor Randy Barnett from Georgetown University and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit is on your advisory board. That’s a great lineup.
Hamburger: And we are honored to have them on board. And we actually also been gratified not only by our success but also the backing we’ve had from intellectual such as these.
Leahy: Is this a 501 (c) (3) and can people donate to it?
Hamburger: That’s right. It’s a 501 (c) (3) and we’ve had a remarkable outpouring of support, some very large donations, but also small donations, but also the people, all walks of life who really get it and who realize there’s a danger. And we have a chance to overcome it.
Leahy: It’s on the web at Nclalegal.org. You can go there and hit the donate button for it. And Professor Hamburger, I want to extend an invitation to you, if you’re interested. Every October for the past five years we’ve been hosting for secondary school students a National Constitution Bee here in Tennessee.
It’s open to any student around the country. Last year Alan Dershowitz addressed the group. The winner of the Bee gets a $10,000. educational scholarship and second and third also. I want to invite you down. Come down and be one of the judges in that event.
Hamburger: I would love to do that. I’ll have to consult my wife because she is the chief administrator of this agency. (Laughter)
Carmichael: She would enjoy coming to Nashville also.
Leahy: Have you been to Nashville?
Hamburger: I have not. I have driven through it but I wasn’t able to stop.
Leahy: We are going to give you a tour of Nashville.
Carmichael: And your wife will love it.
Leahy: By the way, I know you are at Columbia Law School and you are probably paying state and city income tax. (Hamburger chuckles) I don’t know if you know this, but in Tennessee, we have no state income taxes.
Hamburger: I’m jealous. I’m very very jealous. (Laughter)
Leahy: Hey, look, will you come on again? Because as I said, you have been an intellectual hero of mine for many years. I’m just delighted to get to meet you here.
Hamburger: I would love to join you anytime. It would be a pleasure. And thank you so much. The more the word gets out of this stuff, and you guys seem to be doing a great job on that, the more we can actually restore our own self-governance. Thank you very much.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to give his take on the future of the Republican Party.
(Liz Cheney clip plays)
Leahy: That’s Liz Cheney trying to explain why she’s gone anti-Trump and is parroting the lines of Nancy Pelosi. She was elected as a Republican in a state that loves Donald Trump in Wyoming.
Carmichael: Well, and also, apparently, she is completely oblivious to what the Democrats are trying to do to destroy our democracy in Washington. Apparently, she’s completely oblivious to that. Let’s assume that she believes what she’s saying. I don’t believe politically that it is sustainable in the Republican Party.
I just simply don’t. I think she thinks that the last election was a perfectly fine election and that all the mail out ballots and all of the stopping of counting of voting from midnight to 4:00 a.m. in the morning and all of the irregularities and all of the Zuckerberg drop boxes, all of those were perfectly normal.
Leahy: She obviously missed all of our reporting at The Georgia Star News, where we documented more than six months after the election that there still is no chain of custody for more than 300,000 absentee votes by mail-in ballots placed in drop boxes.
Carmichael: Right. There’s a guy named Miles Taylor. Now, I never knew who Miles Taylor was, but it turned out he’s the guy that wrote the book Anonymous.
Leahy: He’s like a very low level.
Carmichael: Low-level guy, but he was part of the internal government ‘resistance’ while he was a member of the Trump administration. Now, here’s the question to me. If you’re working in an administration and you don’t like what the administration is doing, it seems to me that you have a duty to quit.
If you want to criticize quit. But you shouldn’t be a member of the administration and trying to thwart what the administration is doing. And I’ll guarantee you that anybody in the Biden administration who’s acting like that…
Leahy: They are out.
Carmichael: They are not only out, but their lives are also ruined.
Leahy: Yeah, exactly. By the way, Crom, we just got a statement from former President Trump hot off the email presses.
Carmichael: What does it say?
Leahy: Statement by Donald Trump the 45th President of the United States. The Republicans in the House of Representatives have a great opportunity today to rid themselves of a poor leader, a major Democrat talking point, a warmonger, and a person with absolutely no personality or heart. As a representative of the great state of Wyoming, Liz Cheney is bad for our country and bad for herself. Almost everyone in the Republican Party, including 90 percent of Wyoming, looks forward to her ouster. And that includes me.
Carmichael: Well, there you go.
Leahy: But tell us what you really think, Mr. Former President. (Chuckles)
Carmichael: It’s statements like that that bother people because there’s no nuance. (Leahy chuckles) And by the way, there’s no nuance in what Liz Cheney has said. There really isn’t. You have Liz Cheney essentially calling out former President Trump, and you have Trump responding.
Leahy: Punching her right in the nose basically.
Carmichael: But she punched him in the nose too by calling him a liar. Now the Republicans in the House will determine whether or not she remains in a leadership position.
And assuming that the Republicans vote today that she does not stay in a leadership position, then it’ll be up to the voters of Wyoming to decide if she stays in Congress.
I’m betting that she doesn’t even run. I’m betting that she’s angling for a different position. Just as a House member with no committee chairmanships and no power that just doesn’t strike me as appealing to her. Plus, I don’t think she’ll win reelection. I don’t think she’ll win the primary.
Leahy: She’s got a lot of money and she loves the power just like her dad did. But I’ll tell you what I’m tempted to do, Crom.
Carmichael: What are you tempted to do? A lunch bet?
Leahy: Not a lunch bet because, you know, we’re expanding. We’re now in seven states. The Tennessee Star, and we’re in Florida. We’re in Virginia. We got The Virginia Star, The Michigan Star, the MinnesotaSun, The Ohio Star, The Georgia Star News. Now we are planning to add the Arizona Sun-Times, The Wisconsin Daily Sun, and The Texas Loan Star in the near future.
Okay, but I’m really tempted. I am tempted to open up The Wyoming Daily Star in Cheyanne just to track what ole’ Liz Cheney is up to over the next year or two. I am tempted to do that.
Carmichael: We probably could find somebody up there.
Leahy: We could find somebody.
Carmichael: Who could do that.
Leahy: In all of our states, we have reporters in those states who know the states. So if you know anybody in Wyoming who is interested in reporting, we might like to talk to them.
Carmichael: It’ll be interesting. But the future of the Republican Party had this Miles Taylor who I mentioned earlier. He was in the Trump administration and he resisted.
Leahy: He was in the Homeland Security Department as an aid, to an aid, to an aid, or something.
Carmichael: Yeah, and he was part of the resistance. So he wrote this book Anonymous, which is a really childish and cowardly way of doing things. He is now organizing a group of 100 Republicans and former members of Congress and former Bush administration people who will ceremoniously leave the party.
Now, among those people are Charlie Dent. Now, these are all people who used to be in the House who either quit or got beat. Charlie Dent, Barbara Comstock, Reid Ribble, and Mickey Edwards.
Leahy: Mickey Edwards, he’s a Democrat.
Carmichael: Is he a Democrat now?
Leahy: He’s a Democrat.
Carmichael: Okay, well, he’s already left the party. And then former governors Tom Ridge and Christie Todd.
Leahy: Oh, Tom Ridge awful. Mickey Edwards was a Republican. I stand corrected.
Carmichael: What I’m saying is these are a bunch of has-beens. They really are. They really are a bunch of has-beens and they’re going to ceremoniously leave the party going back to the 70s and what you and I think is Biden is doing a replay of the Carter years.
Leahy: Except worse.
Carmichael: Yes, I agree. There were millions of Democrats who left the Democrat Party and voted for Reagan. And so I’ll trade millions for 100. (Leahy laughs) I’ll trade out millions for 100 because Trump has inspired millions of people who previously didn’t vote at all to come out and vote and support policies that put America first.
Depending on how you want to describe it, that’s not a nationalist isolationist policy. What it is is just saying that when he’s negotiating with foreign powers, Trump always put America’s interests ahead of the interest of those that he was negotiating with. And he said I expect them to do the same thing.
Leahy: That’s the way sovereign countries should work.
Carmichael: And that’s how you end up with an agreement that is satisfactory to both parties. They may be a win-win, but at least it’s satisfactory. And one party doesn’t capitulate.
Leahy: The Biden Harris Winken, Blinken, and Nod philosophy, and I say that because Tony Blinken is Secretary of State. Their philosophy is basically to concede America’s interest to the other party. That’s basically it.
Carmichael: Yeah. And then they’re also interested in only the politics. If they can bring in two or three million people into this country, that helps them win reelections even if bringing those people in increases drugs, increases the death from overdoses, increases rapes, murders, and crime in general. Even if it does all those things, they literally don’t care.
And that’s really the difference between the two parties. One is a party of government, and anything that empowers government is something that Democrats will do. Republicans have become the party of the working men and women of this country and stand up for standing up for the American worker.
Leahy: The Biden, Winken, Blinken, and Nod’s foreign policy is weakness and appeasement. And we’ve seen what happens with that. Iran is taking advantage of us and then Hamas is bombing Israel. And they’re trying to now appease them both. It’s just ridiculous.
Carmichael: Bad policy.
Leahy: Weak, weak, weak.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
