Star News Network’s Washington Correspondent Neil McCabe on S1 Fail and Biden’s Agenda Coming to a Halt
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 Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmakers line to discuss the S1 ruling in the Senate, Biden’s failing agenda, and more spending despite hidden signs of inflation.
Leahy: On the newsmaker line, the very best Washington correspondent in the country, Washington Correspondent for The Tennessee Star and the Star News Network, Neil McCabe. Good morning, Neil.
McCabe: Michael, very good to be with you, sir.
Leahy: Big news last night. S1, the Corrupt Politicians Act, or, as the Democrats call it, the For the People Act, would have nationalized all elections went down in the Senate on a filibuster vote was 50 to 50, purely partisan.
All the Democrats voted for it. All the Republicans voted against it. It didn’t reach the 60 vote threshold. That deal is done. What do you make of that, Neil McCabe?
McCabe: I think what we have to recognize is that the entire Biden program is coming to an all-stop. Let’s just go through a shortlist. You may come up with something else but think of all of the things we were worried about on January 20. D.C. statehood, Puerto Rican statehood, packing the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster, the federal takeover of local voting prerogatives, increasing the taxability or getting rid of the cap on the tax-deductibility of local and state taxes, raising capital gains, bringing back the estate tax, and the infrastructure bill.
And we’ve got a Senate that now is taking off for two weeks. We basically have a House of Representatives that will be voting through July first. Then they’re taking a two-week break. They’ll be back from July 19 to the 30.
And then after July 30, they’ll be gone, in effect, except for sort of committee work, they will be gone from July 30th to September 20th when they will be back in town for the budget cut.
The Democrats still have the opportunity to use the reconciliation process. You’re allowed one bite of the apple and basically, you are allowed to pass a budget that is exempt from sort of the filibuster and other procedures. It’s a privileged motion because you don’t want someone to be able to stop the federal budget.
But that’s there. They have one bite of the apple and you can only do so much. And we saw that the restrictions on the reconciliation rule and why we didn’t get as big a pot from the 2017 tax bill, because that was passed through reconciliation. So that’s basically the state of play right now, Mike.
Leahy: Neil, let me ask you this question. So the legislative agenda of Joe Biden is stalled, but Crom thinks that’s a head fake. Why don’t you pose your question to Neil about that?
Carmichael: Neil, the administrative state is forcing many of the issues forward that the hard left would like to see pass in legislation. They’re doing it through the administrative state.
For example, when the Secretary of Defense, often unilaterally just came out and said that the Court of Military Justice and that whole procedure will now not apply to cases of sexual harassment in the military that will move over to the Department of Justice and out of the purview of the military.
He did that on his own with a stroke of a pen. There are corporations all across this country, I mean, thousands of corporations that are being forced to have sessions where white employees are being shamed by Black employees.
These are meetings and Zoom calls where Black employees are actually encouraged to tell white employees how terrible they are as people under critical race theory. And that’s going on because it’s being forced on companies and banks.
And the FDIC is using its power to tell banks who to lend money to, who not to lend money to, and under the threat of having bank examiners race in and wreck the banks.
Leahy: So what do you think about that, Neil?
McCabe: Well, listen, the great Andrew Breitbart said that the media is more powerful than the government, and the media is controlled by the left. And the media has created that permissive environment where all of these things can happen.
And that is true. And, yes, the president has enormous power to do things administratively. And Biden has a unified administration. He doesn’t have what we had for the previous four years which is Donald Trump and a bunch of establishment Republicans.
Because Trump tried to run a coalition government with the Republican establishment, and the Republican establishment basically blocked him at every turn. All of the leaks coming out of the Trump White House were about how bad Trump is.
Whereas, like I said last week, all the leaks coming out of the Biden White House are factions, one faction versus another faction. But nobody’s saying we are defending America from this crazy President.
Which is what Trump’s own people were saying. I would say the vast majority of Trump’s staff was working against him. And so he was not able to exercise that extreme power that he has as the executive.
In the next midterm, the Republicans take back the House, and the Republicans probably pick up three Senate seats and things change. And when you control the House and the Senate, you can then restrict the presidency and the administrative state.
And I like what Senator Inslee said. He said hey, instead of making a one-term President will make him a half-term President. And I think that’s basically the mindset. But, you know, it’s up to the Republicans.
Basically, if McCarthy flipped five Democrats will become Republicans today, he would be the Speaker of the House today. He does not act like a guy who is within five seats of becoming the third most powerful person in the government. And that’s the problem. He’s trying to run out the clock. He’s got three and half years to go.
Carmichael: Let me ask you a quick question. When we get to September, will we have a giant budget that passes or we have a continuing resolution?
McCabe: They’re going to have continuing resolutions. And it’s going to stop and start from, say, the end of September to Columbus Day from Columbus Day of Veterans Day from Veterans Day to Thanksgiving.
And then they’ll sort of careening into the end of the year. And when all of these Congressmen and senators have to go home and they start to whiff the jet fumes from Reagan Airport, they’ll just pass whatever they have to pass to get out of town.
Leahy: Yeah, it’s the get out of town and pass whatever is in front of me by Congress. Go ahead.
Carmichael: I guess what I’m asking is Biden’s got a 6 trillion dollar budget that he’s put in front of the House. Will a 6 trillion dollar budget eventually pass in December?
McCabe: The Democrats and the Republicans will write a 6 trillion dollar budget. And there may be something of Biden’s priorities in there but it’s just going to be a continuation of the same.
And they’re going to pile on because there is a permissive environment for spending right now. And you’re going to see this empire strikes back on inflation is incredible. Read all the articles telling you that inflation is not a problem.
And it’s like a lot of people in Washington know that inflation is a problem. Let’s just get one more budget in before people figure it out.
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