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 Washington Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmaker line to weigh in on Mark Milley’s DUI history and the current mood in the US Congress.
Leahy: We are joined now on our newsmaker line by the very best Washington correspondent in the country, the Washington correspondent for The Star News Network, and The Tennessee Star, Neil McCabe.
Neil, before we get into the craziness of Congress, I’d just like to get your comment on this story that we broke at The Tennessee Star on The Star News Network yesterday. Headline Wrong Way, Milley. Beat a 1982 DUI Charge, Paid $100. Fine.
The Star News Network confirmed that a person by the name of Mark A. Milley was the same Mark Milley as Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley, who was charged with driving under the influence in Cumberland County, North Carolina, after a November 1982 traffic stop.
Turns out the drunk driving charge was dismissed. But Milley was found guilty of driving the wrong way on a one way street. He paid a $100 fine for going the wrong way, plus a $31 court fee. Neil, I don’t know. We went back 39 years to find that out.
McCabe: Well the people have a right to know Mike.
Leahy: (Laughs) They do. And isn’t it kind of emblematic of the kind of guy Milley is, right?
McCabe: There’s a lot of people who we accused of going taking things the wrong way. He was actually convicted of it. (Leahy laughs)
Leahy: He really was. What’s interesting is we tried multiple times to get the Joint Chiefs of Staff Public Information Office to comment. We tried them on September 15 and the 16th and on Monday, no comment, no comment, no comment.
It’s a minor embarrassment. Why not just say, yeah, that was him and on to the next. Why would they refuse to admit it? We got the goods on him? Why won’t they just say, yeah, 39 years ago he made a mistake.
McCabe: I think Peter Dulet gets a lot of credit for sort of grinding this thing down and actually getting Major Powers. The unnamed first-named Major Powers. Major Powers refuses to give his name.
And so I don’t know, I don’t know what the harm is. He talked to his supervisor, and I guess the supervisor said that Powers wouldn’t give a comment, but his boss would. And then that comment was not forthcoming.
It was an opportunity for General Milley to sort of talk about the importance of driving while sober. (Leahy chuckles) I think it was an opportunity missed as a teaching opportunity, certainly for his soldiers.
The crazy thing is, I give Peter probably the most credit is, why was Milley’s birthday listed? Like when you Google Milley’s birthday, it comes up the 18th. Forgive me if I got it screwed up. One was June 18 and one was June 20, right?
Leahy: If you go to Wikipedia, it now says, although a year and a half ago, it said something else. But it said June 18, 1958, was his birthday.
That’s what Wikipedia says. But Peter Debrosko, who wrote the article for us, contacted the clerk at Winchester, Massachusetts and found out that Mark A. Milley was born on June 20, 1958, which is the date of Mark A. Milley who was arrested for drunk driving and driving the wrong way back in 1982 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which is where Fort Brag is. That area.
McCabe: Right. Milley was right out of Princeton. He was commissioned out of the Princeton ROTC program and served in the 82nd Airborne and later became a Green Beret.
And you look on paper, it’s a fantastic military resume. I’m not sure I want him in charge of the army, but he’s got great credentials.
Somebody did suggest to me that maybe the idea of putting out the wrong birthday was to sort of avoid people connecting the dots with this DUI. But who’s to know? I think it has symbolic value then will have impact on national policy.
Leahy: Yeah. I think you’re exactly right. You got wrong way Milley, who apparently now former President Trump says, advised him while he was president to leave all the equipment in Afghanistan because it would be cheaper.
That’s what Former President Trump. I mean, it’s just utterly idiotic. That’s what they ended up doing. They left the equipment there.
McCabe: Now the Taliban have more attack helicopters than England.
Leahy: It is kind of crazy. It’s a funny story. Just tell the truth, joint chief of staff, public information people, and then on to the next. But I think they won’t tell the truth about it. They won’t admit it. That’s I think indicative of the fact that they just are not transparent or competent. Speaking of competence and transparency, what kind of craziness is going on in Congress right now?
McCabe: Well, you know, I’ll say it again. The real chance that Biden had to push his agenda ended with the 4th of July and everybody sort of went home for the August recess. You come back after Labor Day after getting an ear full from your constituents, and you’re just in a different mood.
And Congressmen, especially Democratic congressmen, are in a much different mood today than they were six months ago. And there’s a lot of programs and taxes that they probably would have voted for six months ago, but now not so much.
And what you’re finding is this $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill, which is actually more like $5 trillion because they deceptively said that when they did the 10-year outlay projections, they deceptively said that some of these programs would end after three years.
As if they would end in three years. And you have the estate tax. You have some tampering with the deductibility of state and local taxes.
SALT, which is very important to these Democratically controlled, high taxes, allows rich people to deduct their state and local taxes in say New York or Connecticut, or Massachusetts from their income.
Leahy: And Neil what happens then is Tennesseeans end up subsidizing rich New Yorkers. Crom has a question for you, Neil.
Carmichael: Neil, I also saw where you’ve got a bunch of people in the House who are adding additional spending of up to $800. billion. So your $5 trillion is now closing in on $6 trillion.
And then I saw an article where if they change it so that wealthy people in blue States can deduct their state and local taxes, that is another $88 billion dollars a year.
In Washington, speak that’s close to a trillion dollars in tax cuts for the rich. And so all of a sudden, where do they make up the revenue for giving the richest people in America tax breaks?
McCabe: Right. This is definitely flipping the script. Since when were the Democrats demanding we cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans, which is exactly what expanding SALT would do.
What you’re finding is that people are sort of choking on this spending because the Social Security increases. Six percent, which is the highest in, like 20 years and inflation is a real problem.
And people in Washington understand that Biden is going to get blamed for the inflation that’s all around us. But it hasn’t really broken nationally as a full-blown story.
And if they’re attached to Biden and they’re attached to voting for this bill, they’re just really going to blow the bank. It’s also a hostage situation. The progressive Democrats understand that this is their one shot to get something done.
The moderates understand that this is a shot to get something done. Pelosi only has five or six seat majority, and so it’s very, very tight.
Leahy: Neil McCabe, the very best Washington Correspondent in the country. Thank you for that outstanding report. Come back next Wednesday.
Listen to the third hour here:
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Photo “Neil W. McCabe” by Neil W. McCabe. Background Photo “Mark A. Milley” by U.S. Secretary of Defense CC BY 2.0
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 Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs to the newsmakers line to discuss his background and political philosophy motivating his quest for U.S. term limits.
Leahy: We are joined now on the newsmaker line by Glenn Jacobs, mayor of Knox County and the state chair for U.S. term limits. Good morning, Mayor Jacobs.
Jacobs: Hey, Michael, how are you this morning?
Leahy: Well, we’re delighted to have you on. I think you’ve been on our program a couple of times before to talk about politics in general.
Now you just became the state chairman for U.S. term limits. Tell us why you’ve chosen to accept this responsibility and why it’s important.
Jacobs: Term limits, I think, are very important. They’re a way that specifically talking about congressional term limits here, that maybe we can start the process of fixing Congress.
The country is extremely divided and Congress is broken. That’s the one thing that we can all agree on. I think that term is can help start the process of maybe fixing Congress or at least getting people in Congress that can help fix it.
So I think it is very important. And I also think it’s something that everyone pretty much agrees on across Tennessee. Congressional term limits have 78 percent approval rating.
So it’s something that we all agree on. And in this time when our nation is so divided, if nothing else, that’s a good thing and a positive cause that we could all get behind.
Leahy: And that’s a very important point. It’s something that we can all get behind. I was reading over the weekend a book by Daniel Boorstein about the Americans, the late Daniel Boorstein.
And what he said was what really made America great was not what we disagreed over, but the fact that there were a number of things upon which we could agree. So it sounds like you have a similar political philosophy.
Jacobs: Absolutely. A lot of the issues I think the country faces, they start with the media and how the media divides us, and how politicians divide us.
There are some things that people aren’t going to agree on frankly. And I know that and you know that, too. There are folks on the left, and I’m just never going to agree with them on a lot of issues.
But instead of concentrating on those, let’s work with the people that we can work with on the issues that we do agree on. I think what happens too often is we start where we disagree and kind of work our way from there, instead of starting where we agree and understanding that there are things we’re going to disagree on.
Agreeing to disagree on those things but working on the things that we do agree on. I think we’d be in a much better place.
Leahy: I note here in Tennessee that you’re backing a passage of House Joint Resolution Eight. Our good friend State Representative Chris Todd from Jackson was the sponsor of that bill. It passed the House 53-34 in April.
It hasn’t made it to the Senate. It is going to come back in January when the Tennessee General Assembly reconvenes. Will you be coming into Nashville to speak before the Tennessee General Assembly in support of that resolution?
Jacobs: I’m sure I will. We’ll be going around the date, actually, to build support for the Senate passing the HR8. So far, four states have called for an Article Five Convention, which is what we’re talking about here.
It is a convention called by these states to propose an amendment to the United States Constitution. In this case, would be to term limit Congress.
Once that legislation passes the Senate, Tennessee would become the fifth state. Then the amendment would go back to the state legislatures for modification.
Takes three-quarters of the state legislatures voting affirmatively to ratify that. It’s about 38 of them.
The process is still in its early stages, and I think it would be wonderful if, like we do with so many other things, Tennessee would be one of the states that leads the way.
Leahy: When you come to Nashville next time to promote this resolution, will you come in the studio? We’ll get a big, big extra chair (Jacobs laughs) so that you can fit into it.
I think your what, your 6’9? On a good day, I’m 5’9 and a half. So you’re a little taller than I am.
Jacobs: Man, I’d love to come by and visit with you. And I’m used to not really fitting in furniture, so you don’t even have to get a big chair out. I’ll just come in whenever you want and we’ll make it work.
Leahy: We will make a special Glenn Jacob’s chair. By the way, we’re very interested in your transition from being a professional wrestler to being a politician.
Some would say there’s not that much difference between those two occupations. (Jacobs chuckles)
Jacobs: I would actually disagree with that. There is a lot that the two have in common, and I think that’s really true of anything.
Politics is everywhere in human relations, right? Anything that we do, if it involves more than me and if it involves me and you and someone else, it becomes political.
And it’s the same in WWE. I had to deal with a lot of backstage politics. How do you get things done? How can you persuade people that our way is the right way?
How do you build influence among people? And that’s really what politics is all about. A little bit different than government, but nevertheless, it’s really about that human interpersonal relationship aspect of it.
In WWE, I took a lot of physical abuse. And now in government, I take a lot of verbal and mental abuse. So you have that too.
Leahy: (Chuckles) Mayor Jacobs, I don’t know that much about your backstory. Where did you grow up?
Jacobs: I was actually born in Madrid, Spain. My dad was in the United States Air Force. I was born on Torhone Airbase in Madrid. Shortly thereafter, my folks came back to the states. I grew up about an hour and a half north of St Louis on a farm five miles outside of a town of 350 people.
Actually a lot like what we see here in East Tennessee in some places. Good people that worked hard. Of course, my parents instilled a work ethic in me and a love of America.
My dad is a 21-year military veteran. He served on the USS Antietam in the Navy during the Korean War. He then switched services and was a loadmaster on the C130’s the big cargo planes during Vietnam.
I ended up going to Truman State University on a basketball scholarship. Switched to play football. I had a career-ending knee injury, and that’s when I got into professional wrestling.
Moved to East Tennessee in 1995. I think this is the greatest place in the world to live. I love it here and I don’t ever want to leave.
Leahy: You grew up an hour north of St Louis. How far were you from Hannibal, Missouri the home of Mark Twain?
Jacobs: Hannibal was about 20 minutes. It was the big town in my area. That was the place where you go to at the time, that was the only Walmart. Hannibal played a pretty big role in my life.
Leahy: Well, I’ve been to Hannibal, Missouri. My personal story, the first time I went to Hannibal, Missouri, was the summer of 1974 between my freshman and sophomore years in college.
I decided it would be cool to try to hitchhike across the country. Hannibal was as far West as I made it. I went from New York to Hannibal. (Jacobs laughs)
I had, like, 10 bucks in my pocket, something like that. And I got to stay overnight at the Catholic Church there. The priests had pity on me.
And the deal was I had to sing for my supper. Literally, sing for my supper. There were a bunch of nuns there over for dinner, and I was in a singing group, and I sang for my supper, literally.
But I had great memories of Hannibal, Missouri. Hey, can you sick through the break with us Mayor Jacobs?
Jacobs: Yes, Sir.
Listen to the second 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 “Glenn Jacobs” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
Live from Music Row Friday 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 U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) to the newsmakers line to discuss his proposed bill that would outlaw Critical Race Theory training in U.S. Military Academy.
Leahy: We are joined on the newsmakers line by our very good friend, Congressman Mark Green. Good morning, Congressman Green.
Green: Well, good morning to you guys. Thanks for having me on the show.
Leahy: Well, we’re always happy to have you on. Is Congress in recess today or this week?
Green: We are in what’s called committee week. All of our Zoom meetings are committee meetings. All our committee meetings are Zoom meetings. Yesterday we met on the AUMF and stuff like that.
Leahy: Can you do your Zoom meetings from the district or do you do them in D.C., typically?
Green: Usually the district for me. If it’s a committee that I’m actually running, I’m a ranking member of the Western Hemisphere, I prefer to do that in in Washington because you just have the assets of the staff there. If something changes in the middle of the committee, you can make things happen. So that’s much better. But if I’m just a member, I can be home and doing the meeting from Clarksville or really anywhere in the district.
Leahy: We’ll invite you to come in studio someday and you can do your Zoom meeting from the studio if you like. (Chuckles) Live and on-air.
Green: That would be interesting.
Leahy: You can come in anytime. Just come on in the studio. We would love to have you in the studio. Now on Wednesday, Congressman Green, you introduced a very important bill to block Critical Race Theory training in U.S. Military Service Academy. Tell us about that bill.
Green: Certainly. Well, we had learned that Critical Race Theory was being taught at West Point, my alma mater. And Critical Race Theory makes various assumptions because of the way the theory came from, the critical theory itself. It’s a complete rejection of America’s founding principles. The theory rejects toleration of any kind of different viewpoint. It rejects equality under the law.
It rejects self-government. It’s a terrible Marxist-based ideology. Essentially, if you assume someone is racist because they look a certain way, that’s racism. And so Critical Race Theory only divides us, it doesn’t unite us. And that’s why it can’t work in the military. We are here at these academies teaching these young people how to lead warriors someday.
And we’re teaching them to hate their country and to hate each other. And you don’t get unit cohesion that is necessary for victory and combat by teaching this incredibly flawed, intentionally flawed ideology. We basically said you can’t teach this in these academies, and hopefully, that will pass.
Leahy: How did it come to be that Critical Race Theory is being taught at the U.S. Military Academy and apparently other service academies?
Green: The previous superintendent of the universe of West Point hired academicians and did so under the, I think, assumption that they had to be liberal to be good. I don’t know really how he hired these people, but they’re in there and they’re teaching it. And then they push back on academic integrity and say, well, we’ve got to be able to teach what we want to teach.
And so despite the fact that many of them, in fact, most of them are military officers. This tension existed. The last superintendent allowed it. And the current superintendent, who actually is an African American guy, he hates Critical Race Theory, and he’s doing everything he can to get it out of the curriculum. And we’re going to make it really easy and make it against the law.
Leahy: Now, here’s the thing. You have a slight disadvantage in the House. What is it now, like, 218 to 210 Democrat advantage? Something like that?
Green: No, we have a Delta of five.
Leahy: Delta of five. Not eight. That’s a very narrow Delta. What happens with your bill?
Green: What we have to do is convince enough guys on the National Defense Authorization Act inside the House Armed Services Committee to put it on the National Defense Authorization Act. It probably has no chance of passing as a bill. But what we’ll oftentimes do in bills like this is attach it to the National Defense Authorization Act, which everybody knows we have to pass.
We have to authorize our military. If I can convince enough Democrats in that committee to put it on, and there are some real moderate Democrats in that committee, they wanted to be on that committee because they’re pro-military, which puts some conflicts with the heart of the Democrat Party anyway. So we get those guys convinced and we get it on the NDAA and they can’t take it off. They can’t say no.
Leahy: It sounds like you’re somewhat optimistic you’ll be able to get it in there.
Green: I think there’s a good chance. Adam Smith, the chairman of the committee is not afraid to push back against Nancy Pelosi. He did so on the National Guardsmen around the capital and wrote her a scathing letter, made it public, and humiliated her on that. That was part of the big step down from thousands of these guys to a few hundred.
Leahy: Do you find being up there in a situation where the very narrow majority seems to have zero interest in doing the legislative process the way the founders of the country envisioned it with thoughtful consideration at the committee levels. And then when you have a bit of a consensus, bring it to the floor for a vote. They seem to be hardcore ideologues interested in pushing forward a far left agenda. Do you find that frustrating right now up there in Washington?
Green: Yes. It’s very frustrating at times. I’m like, what is going on here? The thing that they’re doing is they’re justifying their actions by saying, if a bill passed a previous Congress’s floor, then they can bypass the committee process. Which makes no sense because now there’s a new Congress in there and they should have a voice just because it passed the last Congress doesn’t mean it should not bypass the committee process.
That’s what Nancy Pelosi is doing. And all these radical, liberal leftist stuff like the Equality Act being a prime example that strips religious freedoms from people. And that, by the way, tells you where they think the rights come from. If the government can take them away, they believe our rights come from the government, which you and I think totally differently.
They come from God, our Creator. But they’re doing this stuff and ramming it through. But now we picked up two more of the special elections. One out of Louisiana. Looks like we’re going to pick up one in Texas. So that’s going to make it even harder for them. We are getting there. There’s a strong chance we win the majority in 18 months.
Leahy: But it’s going to be a long 18 months, isn’t it? (Chuckles)
Green: Yeah, it is. It is very frustrating, Michael.
Leahy: Look, I have great empathy for your circumstance there because you’re a very gung ho get it done kind of guy. It’s a situation where the leadership has subverted the congressional process to such a degree, it makes it virtually impossible to get anything done in a bipartisan way.
Green: Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, the truth of the matter is there isn’t much overlap between the two parties anymore anyway. The areas where we can actually do something in a bipartisan fashion are very small. We certainly hope the military and national security, things like that. But even there, we’re running into walls.
Leahy: As an example of that, let’s take Steve Cohen from Memphis, who I think is a kind of a crazy left-wing person. If you were to be in a room with them him, is there anything that two of you could agree on?
Green: I would only be there if it was my duty to be there. (Leahy laughs)
Leahy: That’s a good answer. That is a very good answer. Are you going to spend a lot of your time helping Republicans win the House back in 2022?
Green: That’s my key goal. I did it last time. I worked for 30 different candidates. Every one of them got either elected or reelected. We’re slowly putting together the people that we’re going to support in the next cycle. And my job is to make sure that we take the House and make a Republican Speaker of the House.
Leahy: Well, that sounds great. I really appreciate you coming on the show today.
Listen to the full second 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 “People Voting” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.
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 Tennessee State Representative (R), Chris Todd of Jackson, to the studio where he explained his new resolution HJR0008 calling for term limits for members of the U.S. Congress.
Leahy: We are joined in studio by State Representative Chris Todd from Jackson. We’re going to talk a little bit about a resolution he has here. It’s fascinating. If you want to chat with representative Todd our number is 615-737-9522. Chris, you have introduced a resolution HJR0008. Tell us about that.
Todd: This is a resolution that once it’s passed it will be sent to the U.S. Congress and it will be a request for them to call an Article V. A constitutional Article V convention for the states to meet for one purpose and that is to propose amendments to the Constitution. And this particular resolution is for one single topic and that is for term limits on the U.S. Congress.
Leahy: Now in the resolution, you don’t specify what those limits should be. In other words what you don’t say members of the House of Representatives can only serve six terms.
Todd: Exactly. Yes. This is up to the delegates. Once they get there and debate this if they come to an agreement. That’s if they come to an agreement, then they would propose that amendment to the Constitution back to the States and it would then take 38 states to actually ratify. So any change to our Constitution whatsoever takes 38 states to ratify that change.
Leahy: And there are two ways to get it to consideration by state legislatures for ratification.
Todd: Yes.
Leahy: One is to have the House and the Senate pass it. I think that requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate to get it to the states for consideration. But the other way is to hold this Article V convention. Has there ever been an Article V Convention held in the United States?
Todd: There is not. Congress has always proposed every single amendment to the Constitution and then given the states the ability to ratify that. Many have failed, but as we know many have passed. We just celebrated the last summer the 19th amendment that gave women the right to vote. Tennessee was the last state to actually ratify that.
Leahy: I did not know that.
Todd: Very interesting history on that one. When you look at the Constitution, it’s an amazing document. It was certainly divinely-inspired. There’s no question about that. And to have this particular article in there that gave the states the ability to amend the Constitution when Congress would not respond. And I know our own famed U.S. Senator Fred Thompson many years ago had a strong push to get this done and it failed at the last minute.
They pulled the rug out from under him. And so we know as citizens that Congress is never going to limit themselves. That’s been proven and it’s probably more so now. And so it’s up to the states to deal with this. And this is the way that our founders put it in there. You can look at all the documents that they wrote about the Constitution and all the opinions they had about it. And they certainly line up to support this exact method and effort to rein in Congress.
Leahy: What you just said about the divine inspiration of the Constitution. This is something that Os Guinness has written about Os is a descendant of the Guinness Brewery guy, but he’s a scholar. He has written about what he calls the Golden Triangle of Freedom. And in that he says in any society freedom requires virtue. Virtue requires faith. And Faith requires freedom. And the entire basis of our constitutional republic he says is built on that Golden Triangle of Freedom. I tend to agree with him on that.
Todd: I would too. I certainly would too.
Leahy: Now the Article V convention I think there’s a group that my friend Mark Meckler one of the early founders of the Tea Party Movement. And now he’s acting as the interim CEO of Parler. A very accomplished guy. He put this convention of states together idea to get an Article V convention. I think they’ve got like 16 states that have signed on to it. This would make Tennessee the 17th state except this is a very narrow purpose, right? The only thing under this resolution an Article 5 convention could address would be term limits.
Todd: Exactly. And our delegates that we send from the state of Tennessee are bound by whatever our legislature tells them to do at that convention by law under punishment. If they do not we can remove them as delegates and charge them with a Class E Felony.
Leahy: Class E Felony. That’s something you do not want to have on your record.
Todd: No sir.
Leahy: So in theory, if they got up to I think they need like two thirds of the state 36 states.
Todd: 34.
Leahy: 34 states to have an Article V convention. If this went if this passes would this would make Tennessee like the 17th state?
Todd: Potentially. The convention of the states has not contacted me since I’ve started running his this year. So I’m not really sure all of those 16 if they are a single article resolution or multiple. Because in the past they’ve had multiple they’ve had balanced budget amendment for another lumped into that. And so there’s some I guess debate as to whether or not you could call a convention if 34 states had a mixture of calls basically.
Leahy: That’s an interesting point. The resolution could say the state legislature of I don’t know Nebraska as an example. I don’t know if they’re on the list but they could say yes, let’s call a convention of states and we’ll talk about anything. Anything is on the table. But that’s not what your resolution does.
Todd: Correct. It is very very narrow. And because of that debate us term limits is another nonprofit organization that is really striving to get this done. They’ve started this new effort to do just single a single article of all the states and that way there’s no debate. There’s no question. when it goes to Congress the Constitution says they shall once 34 states gives them this resolution. They shall set a time and a place for the convention.
Leahy: Now, why did you decide that this was important? Why did you decide that you wanted to spend your time working on this resolution in this session of the general assembly?
Todd: Well a couple of reasons. One I believe in the effort. I believe the effort for term limits is a necessity. On a state level and I’ve had many people ask me this question. Are going to propose the same thing for the state legislature? and years ago I probably would have said yes, but as I have seen elections. Not just because I ran. But I was probably more involved running for office and I watched other elections. And I’ve seen in the last go-around how easy it is to turn over this particular legislature in the state of Tennessee.
Leahy: So you don’t see the need here.
Todd: The money is so big on a national level that’s what is the barrier.
Leahy: And, the money to elect somebody in Tennessee 90 percent of it can come from all like California and New York.
Listen to the second hour here:
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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.
During the third hour, McCabe weighed in on how he thought the joint session of Congress would go on Wednesday as Vice President Pence has the ability to object to the certification of Joe Biden as president-elect. Unfortunately, he believed that Mike Pence would not object and that the former vice president would be certified.
Leahy: We are in the studio with our good friend, the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael. And on the newsmaker line is our Washington correspondent for the Star News Network and the Tennessee Star Neil McCabe. Good morning, Neil.
McCabe: Men, good morning to you.
Carmichael: Now you can’t say that on the house floor. (Laughter)
Leahy: Now that is funny Crom. That is funny. So Neil, what is going to happen?
Carmichael: That was good. Neil was good. That was good. Just jumped in there.
Leahy: You can’t say that on the House floor. So today we’ve got a big rally in Washington. How many people are going to be there? Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? Quite a few. They’re going to try to stop the steal. The joint session of Congress begins at 1:00 pm Eastern time. The big question is what will Vice President Mike Pence do? The New York Times and ABC News reported last night that he met with the president and told the president that he wasn’t going to object to the certification of Biden and others. The president says not so fast. What do you think is happening? Do you think Pence will do exactly that?
McCabe: I think Pence will do exactly what Biden did four years ago. And what some of the other vice presidents have done. And he will gavel this thing over as quickly as he possibly can. And if Republicans go through with their challenges he will he will follow the rules. He will recognize people when you supposed to recognize people. Pence is not going to throw out any of these results even from the wacky states where there was obvious fraud. And you know, he’s going to want this thing to be over as quickly as possible.
Leahy: I think you’re probably right. Crom, what do you think the vice president will do?
Carmichael: That’s what I’ve been saying, Michael. You’ve been saying that that’s not going to happen.
Leahy: No, I haven’t been saying that.
Carmichael: You’ve been hoping it’s not going to happen.
Leahy: No. No, no.
Carmichael: You are hoping Mike Pence will do something more.
Leahy: No. No. What I’ve been saying is he could and he has the authority if he wanted to. Maybe you could weigh in on this Neil. I think he has the authority. First, since he’s presiding over the joint session, he would have the authority to first entertain a motion from Ted Cruz to do this 10-day audit of the swing states. What do you say, Neil? Do I have that right or wrong?
McCabe: As a presiding officer?
Leahy: Yeah.
McCabe: He cannot only recognize but he could also you know, make a ruling from the chair and then they would have to rule against him.
Leahy: Who is they? Who could rule against him?
McCabe: Well, both chambers would have to vote. If you oppose the ruling of the chair then both chambers would have to excuse themselves. Then each chamber would have to vote whether or not to overrule the chair. But you know he’s the guy in charge. He’s the presiding officer. What’s going to happen is you he’s just trying to try to get this thing over as quickly as possible.
It’s my understanding that although there are 13 Senators who are willing to challenge some of these states they don’t have Senators who will challenge all of the states. I would be curious to see how many of these states are actually challenged. And then what Matt Gaetz was saying last night was that the Republican leadership, so when they break off the first one up would be a for Arizona.
Leahy: A for Arizona.
McCabe: So when they break off into their separate chambers to deliberate whether or not to throw out Arizona or what Gaetz was saying is that the Republican leadership is going to give some of the Republican debate time to Republicans who opposed to the challenge.
Leahy: There’s not many of them, but they would give them some time right? I saw that.
McCabe: Well there’s not many of them, but the people who like committee chairmen Like Liz Cheney who is number three in the House leadership. And so she’s opposed to the challenge. And on the Senate side the number two Republican Senator John Thune.
Leahy: He’s opposed as well.
McCabe: And he’s a Whip. And he’s whipping against the president. So it’ll be very interesting to see. But the Republican leadership is basically joining with the Democrats to shut this thing down. And so once again conservatives find themselves on the outside looking in. And you know, it’s that paradigm that there are two parties in this country. There’s the party that wants Washington in charge and in control of everything and then there’s the party that doesn’t.
And so there are members of the Washington party both the Republican and the Democratic party. There used to be members of the sort of I’m not Washington party in the Democratic party. But they’ve probably been flushed out. And so if you stop looking at Washington as Democrat and Republican and conservative and liberal and just start looking at Washington as there is the Washington party and the not Washington Party then everything makes sense.
Leahy: So Neil, Crom, and I have been having lively discussions this morning about this whole process. So let me see if I understand this. Now my advice to the vice president if he were to call me this morning would be as the presiding officer of the joint session to first entertain the proposals from Ted Cruz to do this 10-day audit of these disputed states.
McCabe: Absolutely.
Leahy: And what you’re saying is if you were to make that ruling then there would be objections and they would break into their different Houses and they would vote on that. Is that what you’re saying?
McCabe: No. If he was the rule if he was to by Fiat rule out say when Arizona comes up, if he was to rule that Arizona is not certified that would be…
Leahy: No, no, no. I’m saying even before that as a presiding officer as the very first thing that he would do would be to entertain a motion from Ted Cruz on this 10-day commission. That’s what I would recommend he do.
McCabe: You couldn’t object to recognizing somebody on the floor if you get the second, that motion is in play.
Carmichael: And then it gives voted on by each House. Is that how it would work? Can the vice president just do that and would then they break up into each House and vote on that proposal for the 10-day Commission?
McCabe: I don’t know if they’re under House or Senate rules. In the Senate, you could actually rule something like that. And then the Senate would just have to object. Of course, anything can be done by unanimous consent. So they could just take it just you know by you see unanimous consent if nobody objects then it’s done. But what they would have to do is there would have to be a motion there would be a second and then folks would have to vote on it.
Leahy: Here’s what I’m getting at and this is I think more along the lines of Crom on this. So if the vice president were to do that and if and say I want to do the 10-day commission before I open the certificates, which I’m required to do and I’m the presiding officer under the Constitution. I think what you’re saying is if they were breaking up into the House and then into the Senate what would that vote be on the 10-day commission?
McCabe: They would lose.
Leahy: In both ones. And so rather than do that symbolically, the vice president is not going to do that. Is that your take on it?
McCabe: I think that you may be forced to go forward with the action. If Cruz is recognized, of course, that’s the other decision, right?
Leahy: Yeah exactly. Hey, we have 30 seconds. Tomorrow morning what will have happened? Where will we be?
McCabe: Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will be recognized by Congress as the president-elect.
Leahy: I think your unfortunately correct Neil.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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