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 Tennessee attorney John Harris in studio to explain how the Bruen decision applies to the state of Tennessee’s gun laws.
Leahy: We welcome back to our microphones in studio our very good friend John Harris. John is a graduate of Vanderbilt Law School. And also you have your own practice. But in addition to that, you have been for what, 30 years?
Harris: 28 years now.
Leahy: 28 years. I’m off by two. For 28 years you’ve been the founder and CEO of the Tennessee Firearms Association, protecting the Second Amendment rights of Tennesseeans. We were talking about this decision called Bruen. A recent Supreme Court decision. Lay out the facts of that case and what the Supreme Court ruled, who the plaintiffs and who the defendants were, and then let’s talk about its applicability here in Tennessee.
Harris: The US. Supreme Court in the last 14 years has been on a Second Amendment kind of theme with a couple of cases, three in particular. In 2008, they started with the Heller decision, which held that it’s an individual right to own firearms.
Leahy: And the Heller decision was a guy by the last name of Heller.
Harris: Dick Heller.
Leahy: Who lived in Washington, D.C. of all places. And the city basically said you can’t own a firearm.
Harris: Correct.
Leahy: And he said, oh, yes, I can.
Harris: And the Supreme Court agreed with him. It was a great opinion by Scalia. And then, two years later, in a case called McDonald versus the City of Chicago, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with the question of does the Second Amendment apply to the states, which was clear from the way it was written and from then basically 200 years of case law that it did not. But what the Supreme Court did in McDonald was they took the 14th amendment. And if you recall, I wrote the chapter on that in the constitution book.
Leahy: Indeed you did. You wrote a couple of chapters for us in the Guide to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students, which is the basis of our National Constitution Bee, where we give out scholarships to kids, and $10,000 to the winner.
We’ve had some great winners. You wrote two chapters in that book and the one on the Second Amendment. This is the briefest, most precise amendment in the entire Constitution.
It was adopted on December 15, 1791, I think, when the Bill of Rights was adopted. It says simply, a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Pretty simple.
Harris: Pretty straightforward. It’s been misconstrued a lot by progressives and even what some might refer to as RINOS in the last couple of decades. (Chuckles)
Leahy: And it’s interesting if you look at the language, the clause at the beginning of it, a well-regulated militia being necessary to the state of a free security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
If you just look at that from a logical perspective, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, in part because of a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state. That’s one way you could interpret it. Let’s talk about the Bruen decision. Who are the plaintiffs?
Harris: Bruen, following off of the McDonald decision, was a case that came to the Supreme Court in 2021 and was decided in June of 2022.
Leahy: Less than a year ago.
Harris: Less than a year ago. Written by Justice Thomas in the majority opinion.
Leahy: And by the way, I love it when I hear written by Justice Thomas in the majority opinion or written by Justice Scalia. You know it’s going to be a good decision.
Harris: It’s a great decision. The named lead plaintiffs were the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association. And Bruen is a public official. It’s just a proper defendant in this kind of case. And Bruen is essentially the state of New York.
And so the issue was that in New York they had what’s called a may issue permitting system, which left the burden on the individual to demonstrate good cause, substantial need, unique need, in order to justify being issued a permit to carry a handgun. And all of the discretion on whether or not that need had been met was vested in a local government official with really no criteria as to what the standard was.
Leahy: Let’s remember, the Second Amendment says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Harris: And New York doesn’t get it. Most states don’t get it. Tennessee doesn’t get it. So the issue was this permitting system that New York was using was constitutional. And in the Bruen decision, the main thing the court really did, and this is a little bit in the weeds, is the Court rejected the last 14 years’ worth of intermediate appellate court decisions which had adopted this two-pronged balancing test that said, yeah, the Second Amendment is there.
But if the state can give us a good reason why they need to regulate permits or where you can carry gun-free zones, then we’re going to allow the regulation, based on the reasonable need of the government to police powers. And the court said, no, that doesn’t apply anymore in Bruen. That’s the big change in Bruen.
Bruen says the Second Amendment is an absolute right. It’s a pre-existing right. It doesn’t derive itself from the Constitution. And in order to interpret a constitutionally protected right, this applies to the First and the Second Amendments.
The courts shall look at what the law was in 1791 when it was adopted. And if the regulation existed then, then that regulation or an analog or something similar to it could exist now.
And if it didn’t, then it’s unconstitutional. And so the Supreme Court struck down the New York licensing scheme at that time. And then, based on Bruen, there have been almost 400 cases since last June decided by lower courts based on the Bruen decision already.
Leahy: Now, let’s get to Tennessee. How does Bruen apply to Tennessee?
Harris: Some people think because Bruen is a federal decision that it really doesn’t apply in Tennessee. It has no relevance to, for example, Tennessee statutes or regulations or even the decision of Bill Lee to post the Capitol as a gun-free zone. And that’s just completely short-sighted, if not misleading, for that assertion to be made because McDonald 2010 said the Second Amendment regulates the states fully under the 14th Amendment. Bruen says the same thing.
And then we’ve got a Tennessee appellate court decision coming out of Maury County, where the court applied Bruen and struck down a local government housing regulation on public housing that said tenants can’t possess firearms. And then more recently, in January of 2023, the attorney general for the state of Tennessee submitted an agreed order in a federal case over in east Tennessee called Beeler, where the attorney general, in a disagreed order, agreed that Bruen applies to Tennessee.
And that the regular violation by the state of Tennessee that restricts 18 to 20-year-olds from getting permits, violates the Second Amendment, violates the 14th amendment, and constitutes a federal civil rights violation.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
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 founder and president of the Tennessee Firearms Association, John Harris in studio to discuss what first prompted his interest in the Second Amendment.
Leahy: Right now we are delighted to welcome to our microphones here in studio our very good friend the first advertiser on The Tennessee Star more than six years ago, the founder and president of the Tennessee firearms association, Mr. John Harris. Good morning John!
Harris: Good morning. Thank you.
Leahy: It’s always fun to have you here. What time do you usually get up?
Harris: Normally somewhere between 4:30 a.m. and 5 a.m.
Leahy: So this is not really extra heavy lifting for you to come in at this time.
Harris: Particularly during hunting season.
Leahy: During hunting season?
Harris: In hunting season it’s 3 a.m.
Leahy: You a big hunter?
Harris: I’m a big hunter. But I love wild game, and the only way to get it is to get up and go do it.
Leahy: When is the last time you went hunting?
Harris: First of January.
Leahy: What did you get?
Harris: Went deer hunting this year. Mainly deer hunting.
Leahy: You talk about hunting because you know I do a lot of history reading, and pretty much if you read about English history from the time of Alfred the Great 860 AD until 1700, the nobility of England all they did was hunt and fight in wars. And hunting was practiced for wars.
Harris: A lot of it yes.
Leahy: They were just crazy about hunting and didn’t do much of anything else. (Chuckles) But they hunted and went to war. Was it your hunting experience as a child that got you interested in the Second Amendment?
Harris: Not really because growing up in Nashville there wasn’t a lot of hunting that went on as a child. (Laughter) That came on much later as I started dating a girl that grew up in western Kentucky.
Leahy: Ah ha! Tell us about your interest in the Second Amendment. You went to Vanderbilt Law School. Did you have an interest in the Second Amendment before law school?
Harris: Yes, I would say so because by then I picked up shooting as a hobby. And so that was there. And it was amazing even back then that there were so many restrictions on what you could do. There was no way a civilian for a practical purpose could even carry back then.
At that time, the law in Tennessee was you could carry a military-style handgun openly in your hand, and you didn’t have to have a permit for that. But you couldn’t holster it or conceal it. Like 1911, and it had to be literally carried in your hand.
Leahy: That pesky Second Amendment, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. Shall not be infringed. It doesn’t say, might now be infringed. (Chuckles) Will be infringed unless these circumstances are met.
Harris: Right.
Leahy: Shall not be infringed. That seems pretty definitive to me.
Harris: It is absolutely. The Second Amendment hasn’t changed since the 1700s. But there has been a great deal of debate over what it means. And frankly, the courts pretty well understood it all the way through the 1800s. It was the early 1900s when they started getting it wrong. And that came on with the prohibition era.
Leahy: Back to the prohibition era. 1919, that period of time, the progressive era when the federal government began to think you know, we are going to tell citizens what they can and cannot do. We’ve been in that era, for now, a century.
Harris: Yes.
Leahy: It has started to become worrisome. Wouldn’t you say?
Harris: Oh yes. We can’t have real toilets anymore because of the federal government.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
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 Thursday 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 John Harris of the Tennessee Firearms Association to define the three bills pertaining to constitutional carry gun rights in the state of Tennessee.
Leahy: Joining us in the studio, the man who wrote the first check to get The Tennessee Star started, John Harris! Welcome, John.
Harris: Good morning. Thank you.
Leahy: Do you remember that day I came into your offices and I said, John, I have this idea because we want to start a conservative news site? This was back in January of 2017.
Harris: It goes quite a ways back.
Leahy: Quite a ways back. I said, John, I have this vision. And the vision is to actually report the news that’s the honest reporting of the news from a conservative worldview. And I said I’m talking to a couple of advertisers. And the way that we do this is we’re going to have advertisers prepay for a quarter. Guess who stepped up? The very first guy to write a check to get it to launch us?
Harris: We did that right under the law office that day.
Leahy: We did. We did. I couldn’t believe it when you actually wrote the check. I said, Wow! We’re in business! And then we got four or five other advertisers to do the same thing. So a tip of the hat to the Tennessee Firearms Association and to John Harris’s law practice.
Harris: Thank you very much. Well, yeah. You’ve gone quite a way since then.
Leahy: We sure have. (Chuckles) No doubt mixing it up, telling the truth, whether the left likes it or not, who cares about them.
Harris: Or some on the right.
Leahy: John, now, Tennessee Firearms Association, tell us about the big bill. There are several versions of constitutional carry. That’s the big issue now, right?
Harris: That is the biggest issue that we’re seeing right now. And it’s actually an issue that we’ve had for probably two decades in Tennessee.
Leahy: I was going to say you’ve been trying to get this bill in the form that you want to be passed for about two decades. Persistence.
Harris: It has been.
Leahy: You are persistent.
Harris: We hear about incrementalism, and people don’t understand that we’ve been fighting this vital in Tennessee for over two decades. And actually, we’ve passed this bill in the past on the Senate side. Senator Beavers passed it on an overwhelming vote back in, I think 2014. But, you know, we’ve been perplexed by the fact that since 2010 we’ve had a Republican governor and a Republican supermajority, and yet we can’t even get the bill to the floor for a vote.
And frankly, I don’t think we would have it to the floor for a vote now if it had not been for Bill Lee coming out last February and saying it’s going to be my bill and I’m putting it on the floor. If it had not had the governor’s initiative behind it we would not be having the conversation we’ve had the last two years in Tennessee.
Leahy: So tell us, there are a couple of competing bills?
Harris: There are at least three competing bills.
Leahy: And one of the three is the governor’s bill.
Harris: One of the three is the governor’s bill. And the first thing I want to do before I discuss the bills is to really define what constitutional carry is.
Leahy: That would be good.
Harris: Yes. Because it’s a term that the news media has used a lot. They don’t understand it. But constitutional carry is a concept that says any person who can legally possess a firearm can carry that firearm. You don’t have to have a permit. You don’t have to have a state training requirement. You don’t have to have state licensure or an exam. If you can legally possess it, you can carry it. And not that it’s an exception to a criminal charge, there’s just no criminal charge attachable to it. So that is distinguished from another category of laws called permitless carry.
And permitless carry is a situation where you have a law that makes it illegal for a citizen to carry a firearm, which is what Tennessee has. And then you have exceptions or defenses to that law that carve out classes of people who could carry a weapon, notwithstanding the prohibition on doing so. So you’ve got these two competing concepts. Constitutional carry and permitless carry. Now Bill Lee came out and said he’s introducing constitutional carry last year. But he really didn’t when we saw the bill.
Leahy: Just for our listers, let me just reiterate what the Second Amendment actually says. “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” That’s it.
Harris: It’s that simple. And some people get hung up on that preparatory clause about the militia. But the operative clause, as Scalia called it, is the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Leahy: Yeah, there’s no qualification to that part of it. The previous clause and the militia we can talk about that a little bit when we get back. But the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That’s pretty definitive. And that shall not be infringed.
(Commercial break)
Leahy: We’re talking about the various constitutional carry bills. There are three out there. One being called the governor’s bill. What’s the status of these three bills right now?
Harris: Okay, the best bill is probably the one filed by Representative Chris Todd, House Bill 1388. It simply deletes the statute that says it’s a crime to carry a firearm with the intent to go armed. It leaves provisions in that say, if you’re a convicted felon and you’ve got a gun, those criminal penalties still exist. But for the average, everyday citizen, it just deletes the statute.
Leahy: That is Representative Chris is from Jackson, right?
Harris: Yes.
Leahy: He’s been in studio sitting in your very seat.
Harris: He is a great guy, and we’re really proud to have him up there and working with us. And so his bill just recently started moving.
Leahy: Where is that bill right now?
Harris: It is in the House Criminal Justice subcommittee.
Leahy: In a subcommittee. Is it anywhere in the Senate or is it going to go through the House first?
Harris: It is not even moving in the Senate. We expect the Senate under McNally’s direction is going to send all the bills except for the governors to the general sub, which is an easy way of saying the McNally is going to kill the bills.
Leahy: Got it. Okay, so that Chris Todd bill going through the House doesn’t have a Senate sponsor.
Harris: It does have a Senate sponsor. Janice Bowling.
Leahy: But it’s not moving.
Harris: It’s not moving. And that’s largely McNally’s directive.
Leahy: Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally.
Harris: And I think what will happen with even on the House side is that it’s got a little over a two million dollar fiscal note and they’ll put it behind the budget, which means it’s effectively dead.
Leahy: Okay, so that bill, although you think it’s the best, does it have good prospects of passing it?
Harris: It doesn’t. And part of the reason I say that is the second-best bill is House Bill 18 by Representative Bruce Griffey.
Leahy: Now, the second-best bill, is that the governor’s bill?
Harris: No, it’s not.
Leahy: Okay, so we have three bills. The first best bill is not the governor’s bill.
Harris: No, it’s not.
Leahy: The second best bill is not the governor’s bill.
Harris: No, it’s not.
Leahy: I’m guessing then the third-best bill…
Harris: Is the governor’s bill.
Leahy: Also known as the worst of the three.
Harris: The worst of the three. (Leahy chuckles) And I will say this in all, candor. If it passes as to this constitutional permitless carry concept, it is slightly better than the situation we have now.
Leahy: Okay, the worst of the three bills is slightly better. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement John. (Laughs)
Harris: No, it’s not, because there’s so much negative baggage to the bill. One thing, for example, is it’s not even really a permitless carry bill.
Leahy: Before we get to the governor’s bill, just give us a synopsis of that second-best bill by Representative Griffey.
Harris: Griffey’s bill creates an exception to a charge which says anyone who can legally possess a firearm if they remembered our first segment, can carry it. Straight up constitutional carry language. And it also equates someone carrying pursuant to that provision to having an enhanced permit, which is a critical nuance, because we have so many laws on the books right now that say, for example, it’s a crime to carry in a public park unless you have a permit. And so with Griffey’s bill equating permitless carry with having the permit, it would open up parks, greenways, employee safe commute, a park in certain places. It would open up all of that which the governor’s built omits and therefore leaves all of those activities as punishable crimes.
Leahy: And the Griffey bill is probably it’s not going to pass either?
Harris: It came out of the criminal practice.
Leahy: It did come out of a committee?
Harris: It went to House finance, and they put it behind the budget which kills.
Leahy: Okay, so that’s killed. So then let’s go to the shall we say the third best or the worst of the three? The governor’s bill.
Harris: The governor’s bill.
Leahy: Let’s talk about that bill.
Harris: The governor’s bill is the least desirable, although, but as I said, it is a step forward.
Leahy: So you’re going to say good things about the governor for putting it on the agenda?
Harris: Yes.
Leahy: Okay.
Harris: He raised the attention and the rhetoric. Although we’re not sure it’s because he really supports the issue upon what he said as a candidate for governor as much as it’s because he’s done so much political damage to himself that he needs some political capital.
Leahy: In other areas.
Harris: Penny Schwinn for example.
Leahy: Okay. I hear you. That’s, by the way, our Commissioner of Education, perhaps the least popular member of the cabinet. But that’s another story.
Harris: That’s another story. But he needs capital.
Leahy: Okay, so he’s got this bill, the worst of the three.
Harris: The worst of the three. Where is it? And why is it the worst of the three?
Leahy: It’s fully passed the Senate?
Harris: Yes.
Leahy: Thank you, Lieutenant Governor McNally.
Harris: He ramrodded it through. The easiest to do with the least desirable.
Leahy: Where’s is it in the House?
Harris: It has come all the way through the House finance, and we expect it to be on the House floor next week.
Leahy: And I guess it’s likely to pass.
Harris: Oh, yeah. It has been given all the royal blessings from the man standing behind the green curtain, (Leahy laughs) and it’s going to apparently sail through without any real critical observation or debate.
Leahy: Okay, so let’s have that discussion. Is there any opportunity for changing the content of the bill now?
Harris: Yes. If you recall, a few years ago with the hall income tax bill, it came through a sort of an undesirable format. It got to the House floor. And about the last day of session at the time, Representative Pody put an amendment on the floor that overwhelmingly changed the bill to a much better bill.
Leahy: And that passed.
Harris: That passed.
Leahy: That passed in that past, and it was accepted by the Senate and signed into law.
Harris: A much better bill, all at the result of one person at the last minute.
Leahy: Do we have any opportunity or any expectation that a similar improvement could happen before this bill becomes law?
Harris: We are talking with House members. We got a lot of support for the idea of offering those amendments on the floor. And the critical part is getting people to call their House members and say we want it amended on the floor.
Leahy: Ah ha! So that’s our point of action. I think there’s a commercial here on our radio station that has that phone number.
Harris: Just general advice.
Leahy: Okay. So tell us what is wrong with the governor’s constitutional carry bill.
Harris: Okay. The first step is constitutionally it ought to be any person who can legally possess. His bill says you got to be 21 and up, or you have to be the age 18 to 20 and either in the military or honorably discharged from the military. Right off the bat, we’ve got an equal protection problem.
Leahy: When you say equal protection, what you’re saying then is, if somebody who’s 18, 19, or 20 years old, it’s not treated in the same way by this bill as somebody who’s over 21?
Harris: Over 21 or even someone in the same age bracket that just happens to be in the military instead of working for a police department. So it’s creating an unconstitutional distinction between adults with respect to a constitutional right. The second problem with the governor’s bill is it is a handgun-only bill as opposed to any firearm. And of the states, there are 18 states that have adopted this kind of law already. Eight of them have any firearm kind of language, which seems to be the trend. I mean, they’re going to say if you can carry a handgun as Virginia does, there’s no big difference.
Leahy: Do you recall any of the other states? Virginia and anybody else?
Harris: There are several that I’ve seen on the news reports would be gathering capitals in different states. Virginia is the one I remember because I was tens of thousands of people standing around.
Leahy: And they haven’t ruined that law yet in Virginia. But they could at any moment.
Harris: And the odd part is, Tennessee passed a law in 2014 called Vehicle Transport, which does allow any legal possessor to carry any firearm in the vehicle loaded or unloaded. It doesn’t matter. So the governor’s stepping away from something that we’ve had for seven years with respect to vehicles. That’s the second big distinction.
Leahy: There are more.
Harris: There are more. The third distinction is it has this really odd clause in it that says you have to be in a place where you’re legally entitled to be. And we didn’t really know what that meant.
Leahy: What I’m trying to figure out is what does that mean, John?
Harris: Well, we got a little bit of a hint from something that was said by the bill’s sponsor, Representative William Lamberth in the House Finance Committee.
Leahy: Representative William Lamberth is the majority leader.
Harris: He is.
Leahy: He’s second in command. And the job of the majority leader is to carry the governor’s agenda.
Harris: Yes.
Leahy: So he’s doing his job.
Harris: He’s doing his job. But he made this odd comment in response to a question he was asked about if this would impact, for example, posted properties? And his response…
Leahy: What’s a posted property?
Harris: Under the current law, a property let’s say a movie theater or a restaurant can put a sign up that says no guns allowed. And if you violate that standard.
Leahy: Or a Toby Keith restaurant. (Laughs) Thank you, Toby.
Harris: If you violate that standard it’s a chargeable misdemeanor and it’s a class B misdemeanor in Tennessee. Something that Representative Lamberth said in the finance was this may result in a second chargeable offense if there is a violation.
Leahy: A little bit of a curveball there.
Harris: Yes.
Listen to the full third hour here:
– – –
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 Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil W. McCabe to the newsmakers line to weigh in on the potential anti-gun vote in the House and whether or not President Biden will fall and fail at tomorrow’s press conference.
Cunningham: Crom, we’ve got Neil back on the line. Neil thanks so much for calling in again. I know you are overseas. Hopefully, you can hear us ok.
McCabe: Absolutely.
Cuningham: Great.
McCabe: Let me just say that obviously, what’s gripping Washington right now is the shooting in Boulder, Colorado. And President Joe Biden is now coming out of the shadows. He has been hesitant to make a push to restrict gun rights, but he feels the confidence to exploit the crisis and make that push. And he’s going to run into some significant headwinds in the Democratic Party. You were talking before about Joe Manchin.
There are five Democratic senators who are up in 2022 who won with less than 52 percent of the vote. I’ll just read them off for you: Colorado, Mike Bennett, New Hampshire, Maggie Hassan, Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto, Arizona, Mark Kelly, and then Georgia, Raphael Warnock. These are five senators in culturally conservative states who do not want to take a gun vote.
And Schumer has been very good about protecting his Democratic senators from having to take bad votes on abortion, immigration and guns. And so it’ll be very tricky to see if the president pushes this thing. It will go through the House and Nancy Pelosi has a tight grip on the House. She will pass whatever she wants to restrict gun rights in the House. But those are five senators right there who do not want to take an anti-gun vote.
Cunningham: Can we depend on the Republicans to stay with us?
McCabe: There’s always going to be Republicans who flake. Of course, the Republican leadership, the staffers, and the consultants they’re all culturally left-wing. They are opposed to gun rights. They think that people who support gun rights are nut jobs. And so they’re personally hostile to it. And there’s a lot of social pressure in Washington, D.C. to sort of go along to get along. But as I’ve said this before, I wouldn’t count on McConnell to advance anything from step one to step two.
Cunningham: Hallelujah.
McCabe: But on defense, there is no equal. And so if McConnell can hold the line long enough so that these Democrats start to flake, that’s where you’re going to have a problem because there’s a razor-sharp margin in the House. And it’s more so in the Senate and they might run into some problems. The other problem you run into is that Biden hasn’t even given a State of Union address.
And so that’s supposed to be the kick-off of his legislative season. The Biden administration is running out of runway. And I’ve written about this in The Tennessee Star, and I’ve talked about it before. But this three trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, there just isn’t enough runway to get it done. And so your program is already getting stalled out.
You’re already running into problems where he’s having trouble getting his people confirmed. He doesn’t even have a confirmed director of Office of Management and Budget. And to throw a gun vote in the middle of all this is just going to create chaos. And that’s sort of been the hallmark of Biden’s career. And it’s the hallmark of his failed presidential campaign, chaos. And that’s what we’re starting to see right now in Washington.
Cunningham: Well, I sure hope you’re right about the gun legislation. I hope we can push that off. By the way, Neil, congratulations on your scoop of the John Kerry Photo on the plane. That was amazing.
McCabe: Was that fun? (Laughs)
Cunningham: It showed for everybody in one clean photo, the hypocrisy of the left, and it was just a beautiful thing. Thank you. As a reader of The Tennessee Star, thank you so much for that scoop. Crom’s got a question, but I just want to ask you real quickly, do you know anything about the press conference tomorrow? Everybody’s got so much anticipation about how it’s going to come off. Are the questions going to be given to him in advance? You got any information about how that’s going to happen? Surely they’re going to try to protect him.
McCabe: It’s we saw that during the debate. He had an iPad with him that was basically feeding him answers live. And so we’ll see if they’re able to feed him the answers that he needs. It’s really going to be interesting because the expectations game is such that if this guy can put one foot in front of the other, everybody says congratulations. I mean, the expectation game is it’s like people are just thrilled that he doesn’t drool and fall (Laughter)
Cunningham: If he remains upright.
McCabe: Yeah, it’s a huge win, huge win.
Cunnigham: Crom, you had a question.
McCabe: What’s your question.
Carmichael: Well, I had two questions. One Neil, when you’re walking into the press room or wherever he’s going to be sure that there’s not a single step that he has to negotiate in order to get into the room. Is it as flat as I think it is?
McCabe: Oh, Yeah. The Oval Office is actually a little higher than the briefing room. So there’s a floor that a bunch of the floors are on. And then he has to come down some stairs. But that’s that’s very much behind the scenes. I haven’t seen if they’re going to have it in the East Room or not. But this thing will be very tightly controlled. Remember the vast majority of the White House press corps are committed leftists and they’re not going to do anything to jeopardize their guy. And it’s just so funny, the same people who are chirping and hollering and interrupting President Trump, they just clap like seals now.
Cunningham: That’s a great phrase. Neil, thanks so much for calling in from overseas. We sure do appreciate you taking the time this morning. I know, it’s got to be a considerable amount of effort to get a call through and we really appreciate you calling. And we’ll look forward to see what happens tomorrow.
McCabe: Take care guys. Be good.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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