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 newsmaker line to discuss the political futures of anti-Trumpers of Liz Cheney, Anthony Bouchard, and Adam Kinzinger.
Leahy: On the newsmaker line, the best Washington correspondent in the country. And the Washington correspondent for The Star News Network, and The Tennessee Star, Neil McCabe. Good morning, Neil.
What is going on with Liz Cheney? She sounds like she’s a Democrat these days and she’s on this select committee to look into the ‘January sixth riot’ at the capitol. What does she want to do?
McCabe: I think that Liz Cheney has now decided that she’s going to be on a suicide mission. She’s basically piloting a kamikaze plane for USS Trump. (Leahy laughs) And I just don’t think that she’s going to sink USS Trump.
Leahy: What is she thinking? Does she think she has a chance to win the Republican primary in Wyoming when she is making such outrageous, outrageous statements about the Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy who she’s defying by serving on this Kabuki theater Kangaroo court with Nancy Pelosi? What is she thinking?
McCabe: The feeling in Wyoming is that Liz Cheney is not going to run for her seat. She tried to run as sort of a non-Trump true conservative. And we’ve seen that in other states, people sort of presenting themselves in that light. And of course, as I wrote for The Tennessee Star, and The Star News Network, how Liz Cheney uses Paul Ryan’s fundraising operation.
So she’s completely tied up in the Paul Ryan sort of rebel alliance against Trump. And so maybe she thought that was going to work for her. But the way she’s polling right now, she is not going to win that primary. She could run as a Democrat or an Independent, but that’s just not going to fly in Wyoming.
That might fly someplace else. The feeling is that she’s setting herself up for either a Democrat or an Independent or Republican run for President in the United States. She’s just getting her ducks in a row. She’s checking all her boxes so that the left-wing media can present her as the heroine.
Carmichael: Are you talking about 2024?
McCabe: Yes.
Carmichael: I think her aspirations aren’t that high. I just think she wants to be another Nicole Wallace. And so she’s applying for a gig at CNN or MSNBC.
McCabe: I’ll tell you one job she’s not applying for and that’s Congresswoman from Wyoming. (Leahy laughs) She has basically shredded that resume and will never revisit it. You look at what Donald Trump is trying to do now.
He’s meeting with some of the other candidates who are running for that seat. He pointedly did not invite Anthony Bouchard. And Bouchard’s that state Senator and the first guy out of the box to say that he would oppose Liz Cheney. Bouchard has raised close to three-quarters of a million dollars.
He’ll have more than a million dollars raised by the end of this year. Right now he has thousands of individual donors from inside the state of Wyoming. This is a primary that usually get 60,000 votes.
So you compare percentage-wise that you have a thousand people who have already donated to that campaign that usually gets 60,000 participants, and you compare that percentage-wise to other states. It’s really remarkable the magnitude of his support statewide. Bouchard was not invited to meet with Trump.
Carmichael: Why?
McCabe: The feeling inside the Bouchard camp is that Trump is trying to avoid a primary, and he wants to sort of gauge who these other guys are before eventually backing Bouchard. Bouchard is being trashed actively by the Wyoming Republican leadership.
And obviously, Cheney has dropped some opposition research on Bouchard. Almost like a kill-shot type story because of what happened in his first marriage. It didn’t have any effect. And it’s my understanding that the polling for Bouchard actually got better after that negative story dropped.
The Bouchard camp is going to run for Congress, whether Liz Cheney is in the race or not, and whether Trump endorses them or not. No one else in the campaign has raised anywhere near the money that Bouchard has raised.
There is another candidate that’s raised $200,000. of his own money, and he’s raised another, say, $90,000. from other people. But no one else has anywhere close to what the machine that Bouchard has built.
Because remember, he’s the founder of Wyoming gun owners, and he’s been working the gun rights advocacy in that state for 10 years. Plus he’s a state Senator. He’s not somebody who just dropped in and decided to run for Congress. It will be very interesting to see how it plays out.
Carmichael: Two questions, Neil. Would he be a Trump-type conservative or is he a Trump-type conservative?
McCabe: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Carmichael: Okay, let me move to another race. And that is what’s the name of the guy? The fellow who cried all over himself?
Leahy: Oh, Adam Kinzinger. The fashion model who represents a district in Illinois. That guy.
Carmichael: Is he going to have primary opposition?
McCabe: He does have a primary opponent. Her name is help me, Michael. It’s Lauf. Remember the young Lady she ran last time and she’s running again. She is sort of a 20 something conservative Republican. Her name escapes me right now.
Leahy: It doesn’t sound like a real problem to be a real serious challenger though.
McCabe: The reason why Kinzinger is not returning to Congress is that Illinois is losing a seat, and the Democrats and the Republicans and the state capital are going to take care of him. And it’s always an awkward thing.
Leahy: They are redistricting there.
McCabe: And so basically, the Democrats can redistrict him out of business. Republicans aren’t going to wait for him.
Leahy: Catalina Lauf is the one that would challenge him. That’s the name of the woman who would challenge him if he has the same district.
Carmichael: So he, too, is applying for a gig on CNN or MSNBC with his antics on the committee.
McCabe: Yeah. And they’ve raised some anti-Trump money, but there just isn’t a future for him in the Republican Party. And he’s still touting himself as a Republican. But it’s just not going anywhere for him. And we’re finding over and over and over again, and we saw this with the great Bob Corker, not to speak ill of the dead. (Leahy laughs)
Leahy: Now that’s funny.
Carmichael: I like Bob Corker personally.
McCabe: I’m sure he’s a swell guy. Just don’t make him a Senator. He thought it was a smart idea to go up against Trump, and it got him great play on CNN. But he returned to private life. Almost went to jail.
Leahy: But, Neil, what’s the impact, by the way of the last night’s victory in a Texas Republican primary by Jake Ellzey, who was not the candidate endorsed by Donald Trump? Donald Trump endorsed a widow of the former congressman right there.
And she lost, I think, like 53 to 47. The guy who won, Ellzey, though, embraced the Trump agenda full on. We got 60 seconds. Any impact on that or not?
McCabe: They’re always going to be local factors, and they’re always going to be some districts are going to want to have the widow take over. And there are some districts that say, you know what?
We want a new guy. It’s like a quarterback controversy. You have two great quarterbacks. It’s a good problem to have. You have two pro-Trump candidates and one of them won.
Leahy: So not really significant in a long term.
McCabe: There is no such thing as a post-Trump GOP.
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.
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.
