Manu Raju: The Hostage Crisis on Capitol Hill

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is a busy day, a shambolic day on Capitol Hill, which means it’s another day that ends with y. Is that right? So to sort all this out for us, we are joined by Manu Raju, chief congressional correspondent for CNN And, hey, congratulations because this Sunday, you debut as the new anchor of inside politics eleven AM eastern time on Sunday.

So congratulations, man.

Thank you. I’m very, very excited. It’s gonna be a great show. I hope everyone will watch. I’ll be able to use all my reporting from the hill and roll it out on Sunday and provide viewers about what’s going on in behind the scenes.

So, hope you can tune it.

Okay. So I’m gonna ask you some tough questions about the media in the age of Trump a little bit later, but can we just sort out

Sure.

What happened yesterday what what is going on? Kevin McCarthy goes to the floor, basically dares the right wing. Vote against this defense bill. At least the rule in the defense bill. And it goes down.

Yeah.

So just give me a sense of how deeply and disarray. It sounds like we’re, like, in in some sort of groundhog day, but How deep is the disarray of Kevin McCarthy’s house this morning?

It’s really, really chaotic at the moment. I mean, there is, you know, typically in order to pass any legislation in the house, they first have to adopt the rule before they move on to legislation. What usually happens is it’s been customary in every Congress for decades is that the majority party votes for the rule. The minority party votes against the

rule. Right.

So it happens on almost every single piece of legislation. What’s been different this Congress is the handful of members on his right flank. Something are not gonna listen to Kevin McCarthy and will vote against the rule. So what we saw yesterday with this defense spending, typically a bill that has wide support among Republicans and significant support among Democrats went down because five Republicans voted, against the rule. And currently can only lose afford to lose four.

That was enough to stall the bill in its entirety. And that is the year long Pentagon spending bill. I can tell you probably talking to the members afterwards. They were just furious. Republicans at these members who voted against the five members who voted against it.

Some question, McCarthy’s strategic thinking here about actually putting this up for a vote knowing that this would go down. And we’re not even talking about the looming shutdown. That that has to be done by the end of the month. A short term spending bill just to keep the government open for a month. So Kevin Garvey is a total jam right now, and it’s just unclear.

He’s gonna try to get out of that?

So there were actually two major setbacks yesterday, you know, as with this, as you mentioned, this government shutdown is looming in me. So He’s also pulled the procedural vote on the stopgap spending bill that would keep the government funded through October thirty first. So what is the end game of the Matt Gates caucus. What do they hope to accomplish? Is this all aimed at ousting Kevin McCarthy?

Do they have a scenario in which they win and they get what they want? Because I’m not sure how that plays out.

Yeah. That’s the real question here. They probably have the votes to kick them out of the speakership. What they don’t have the votes is to elect a new speaker or achieve their policy objectives. So the end game is a challenge.

And really that’s always been the criticism of some of those members on the far right who tried to use their leverage. It’s talking about the debt limit. It’s about spending legislation in this sense, pushing Ocanauma card to achieve their objectives that there is not a real clear endgame. So look what happened in the speaker race back in January. Ultimately, they conceded the far right and gave McCarthy the speakership.

Now, because of these challenges, this is twofold. One, if you put the CR on the phone, continue resolution on the floor to keep the government open and relies on democratic votes, which is gonna be necessary here. Right. In this divided government, that’s gonna be enough to push for his ouster. If he doesn’t do that, he’s not gonna get the votes to get this out of the house and the senate, and the government will shut down.

So he is in a real pickle. And what Gates said, even if there is a stop gap resolution, and I get everything I want in there, just having that stop gap measure is enough for him to call for a McCarthy’s Ostrid because he wants him to move on each individual year long funding bill, not a short term spending bill. So McCarthy is gonna face this fight sooner or later on the floor. The question is, Will they have the votes to not come out? It seems that they probably could, but then what’s next?

And just no one knows the answer to that.

The other question is, will the Democrats bail him out? Mean, at some point Kevin McCarthy has

to call up the White House or

has to call up, you know, the, you know, Hakim Jefferies and say, hey, I’m stuck here. I’m gonna need Democratic votes. To get this defense bill through and to get the CR through. First of all, I mean, is he going to do that? And number two, are the Democrats in a mood to bail him out right now?

Those are, such key questions. And they are being very cautious the Democrats are about what they’re gonna do here. Khadim Jeffries has asked us. I’ve asked him this. He’s basically said it’s a hypothetical scenario.

We’re not even thinking about it, which they’re thinking about it, but they don’t really just don’t know what to do because they could bail him out But they it’s gonna come at a price. And what is that price? There’s things they could do. They could look present. If they look present that lowers the voting threshold, and to get a majority, it could help Kevin McCarthy out.

So there are things they could do to wheel and deal to help them here, but a lot of them, some of them who were open to it before, aren’t anymore because of the McCarthy decision to move forward with the impeachment inquiry for Joe Biden.

Oh, okay. So that’s poisoned everything.

Totally. And I talked to Dean Phillips who’s a Minnesota Democrat. Someone who had been open to helping out McCarthy if you were pushed out told me that he would absolutely not help him out right now because of the impeachment inquiry. So that is the the real challenge for McCarthy going forward. He’s got so pleased to write but then he works with Democrats.

That’s gonna anger the ride. So it’s it’s gonna maybe cause him to rethink his speakership in some way, but we’ll see how he deals with it.

Okay. So this is, also exposing all kinds of divisions in the Republican ranks. Right? I mean, it’s not just the five, you know, bomb throwers They’re moderates, people from swing districts who are, you know, concerned about this. You had an interesting conversation with a New York Republican Mike Waller who said, well, let’s just play what Michael Aller said.

This is a conservative Republican kind of manga friendly or manga adjacent. Congressman from New York who, you know, you asked about so what do you think about the Republican strategy leading to a shutdown? This is what Michael Aller had to say.

This is not conservative Republicanism? This is stupidity. The idea that we’re gonna shut the government down when we don’t control the Senate, we don’t control the White House. These people can’t define a win. They don’t know how to take yes for an answer.

It’s a clown show. You keep running lunatics. You’re gonna be in this position.

Whoa. You keep running lunatics. Yeah. Well, this is like, how long has this been going on? He shock shocked to look around and say, look,

these are my colleagues, my own party. Look, you know, he and seventeen fellow Republicans, eighteen total are in the in the pickle. They are from Biden. Dis Biden won Michael Aller’s District by ten points back in twenty twenty. He’s gonna have to run ahead against probably Donald Trump at the top of a ticket in a substantial way.

And these members simply are not helping him. I mean, McCarthy has had to cater to this far right flank all Congress long and continue to put these members in a difficult spot, but McCarthy knows this. That is the reason why the speaker did not have a vote to open up the impeachment inquiry despite promising days prior that he would because people like Mike Waller were gonna vote against it, and he wouldn’t have had the votes to open up an impeachment inquiry. But in this situation, These members have not been through, like Mike Waller have not been through a government shutdown before. He doesn’t the political backlash could be severe.

He knows it will look terrible on He could look terrible on Republicans and pass this prologue here. And that is, something that he is trying to get ahead of and say that it’s not my fault. It’s these guys fall on the far right, and they’re the ones who are holding up all progress. But this is the thing. That pressure campaign has not worked among the that far right flank.

I played that same sound to Ralph Norman of South Carolina yesterday. He said, I disagree. And if the government the government’s gonna shut down, he said, I believe it will.

And they don’t care about all of that. So just going back over McCarthy’s strategy, I mean, McCarthy’s strategy was, you know, complete appeasement, give them everything they want, you know, keep feeding the alligator, just assume that the lepros eating people’s faces party would never actually eat his face. He seemed to switch the strategy when he realized that every concession was just emboldening them. And there were all these headlines about how well, now he’s getting tough. Now he’s getting mean.

And, you know, he drops the f bomb at the conference meeting last week, you know. Bring the f in motion. So the appeasement hasn’t worked. The new tough mean, I, you know, f u strategies not working. What’s McCarthy three point o?

What is his majority now? Is it three or is it four?

Well, you just lost Chris Stewart. So He can only lose four votes at any time. So Four. I mean, it is just that’s a great question because for, you know, I talked to McArthur. These people bought this a lot.

It is a day by day strategy with them. They are just trying to get through the day. Figuring it out, survive to the next day. Survive to the next day and just get through it. So and that that was the same thing with the deadline.

Just get through the deadline and get it done. And battle out the next battle, the next battle, which he did. But now he’s facing the backlash because of that, those members are still angry about the deal he cut. He backed away from that deal he caught about spending levels with the White House. Now they’re in the predicament now because McCarthy backed away with it, from the hostage from the essentially, those members held the house hostage for a week.

He held the house hostage for a week, and it forced McCarthy to cater to them. I mean,

now they’re gonna hold the entire country hostage with the shutdown.

They certainly can if McCarthy does not change his tactics here. So at this exact moment, the idea is just to try to get this stopgap built out of the house with all Republicans, give the far right, everything they want essentially hope the moderates don’t rebel, get it out of the house, and then worry about the next day. Okay.

Then the next

What happens? When the Senate changes it and sends it back to them, and then then they have to make a decision about whether to approve the Senate bill. That will be much different than what the conservatives want.

Well, we

ought to talk a little bit about the substance. So what is it they want? What is it that Matt Gaped wants? I mean, I saw one statement where you say I’m not gonna vote in favor of this because this, you know, continues to fund the special process cuter. It continues to fund Ukraine.

I mean, what is the bill that they will vote for? We can get to the next step is that there’s no chance that any of that gets through the senate. There’s no chance any of that becomes law. So we’ll talk about the end game again in a moment. But what are they actually won.

I mean, you have people like Andy Big Dan Bishop, Ken Buck, Ralph Norman, Matt Rosendale. What is it that they’re holding out for? What is they’re willing to shut the government down for?

The challenge with that Charlie Sykes that they’re all kind of different places on this. I mean, some of them want a specific agreement on a top line funding level. For the entire federal government, much lower than even the previous bipartisan deals, something that would never pass in a center that signed into law. Some of them want specific policy objectives, like you mentioned, including provisions to defund the special counsel to go after the justice department in a more aggressive way. Even though this bill is a stop short term bill that McCarthy is trying to get through does not have the additional aid to Ukraine.

There are some conservatives who believe that it would still provide money to the defense departments so that it could help then provide money to Ukraine, and they wanna pull back the money that could potentially go to Ukraine here. So there’s a a disagreement about that from some of the members. So they are kind of all over the place. Gates has a whole lot of different issues because he says McCarthy has not agreed to this condition, this condition, that condition, and this condition is part of his initial deal to become speaker. And he says that McCarthy needs to go back to that initial deal.

So Gates is in a little bit of a different place on that, and there’s no sign that Macon is gonna go bad for that initial deal. And by the way, Charlie, that initial deal was never released to the public. So we have an actually no idea what exactly they agreed to from a car to become speaker here. So they’re in a bit of a different spot, which is which explains the real challenge for a car to be because it begins a couple of these folks on board. A couple of them, other them could say no way.

And some of them simply will never vote for a continued resolution no matter what. Ever. So Right. However, ever, no matter what’s in there. So all of that is just as to his dilemma.

Okay. So just give me the vibe sense there. Because you’re aware looking at this from the the outside, it it sounds like people are, you know, their nerves are getting strained. McCarthy certainly looked a little rattled yesterday after losing that vote. You see members of the Republican caucus, ripping one another in press conferences in the street.

I mean, so what is the move? Yeah. It was stressed earlier this year. So that’s not affiliate news story, but give give me your sense of where we’re at right now. What does it feel like?

I have not seen this level of tension really since the speakers I mean, during the speaker’s race, it was at its, you know, Apex. They were going after each other really insulting me. So then eventually they got there McCarthy enjoyed a bit of a honeymoon period. They were able to pass some bills along party lines and got his conference in line, whether it’s about immigration and border security and parental bill of rights, energy issues, things that have no chance in the senate, but at least got his confidence in line. They felt good about it.

The debt ceiling then passed that changed things a lot because those members on the right were not happy with that debt ceiling deal. And as a result, he’s had to deal with these all of these people who’ve been saying, we’re gonna fight the battle and the funding battle when it comes time. And that’s why he’s in this position all really because that the deal that he cut there. But public main calling is something else. But I just might call her calling at lunatics, but yesterday, Mike Garcia, who’s from California, another difficult seat for Republicans, came out and accused those five who scuttle the defense bill of being Chinese communist party sympathizers.

He was saying nothing about fellow Republican. And then you have others saying that they’re catering to their political agenda. They didn’t care about the country. You have Victoria Sparks of Indiana calling McCarthy a weak speaker. Then you’d have McCarthy dismissing.

I was saying she’s just quitting Congress because she’s resigning doesn’t wanna stay into in the fight. Yeah. Gates coming back and attacking him publicly. So, typically, you don’t see this. I mean, you don’t see this within an old party like this.

Democrats, you know, even when the left was battling with the moderates in the first two years of Biden, it wasn’t this level of personal name calling and bickers.

And

so that adds to the real, real challenge here of actually getting on the same page on the policy.

Yeah. So when Marjorie Taylor Green was calling Learn Bobert a little bitch, that was just kind of like a an hors d’oeuvre of what we could expect. A little bit of a prologue. It’s like, okay. If you like this, you’re going to love the main feature, which is coming in September.

So what role does Donald Trump play in all of this? He’s obviously sitting out there. Kevin McCarthy constantly looking over his shoulder. He doesn’t want, you know, a social media bleat saying that he’s sold out. Who is he citing?

Was it the is he giving Aiden Comfort to the the five holdouts? Where does he come down?

Yeah. That’s a good question. I mean, he is kind of weighed in here and there, but he has not put his thumb on the scale to this substantial way. That way is always a concern. Especially if he if it comes time to push McCarthy out of speaker.

Yeah. When Trump comes on and says it’s time for someone new. But McCarthy knows that, and that’s why he calls Trump all the time. They talk a lot and a lot of people suspect the reason why he pushed that by the impeachment inquiry is because Trump and allies are Trump who are the ones who are pushing this very hard. He wants to satisfy Trump knowing he’s gonna get into a difficult spot.

With the shutdown and likely to have a vote to push him on the speaker ship than later in the month. So Trump is always looming over the house republican conference, and Trump knows he has that level of power. But at the moment, he has not abandoned McCarthy. But, and I mean, as we know, Charlie, I mean, Loyalty is a one way street with Trump, and anything can change in any moment. So, in McCarthy, course.

Kevin knows that. Kevin knows that. Hey, folks. This is Charlie Sykes, host of the Bulwark podcast. We created the Bulwark to provide a platform for pro democracy voices on the center right and the center left for people who are tired of tribalism and who value truth and vigorous yet civil debate about politics and a lot more.

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I promise. I usually don’t get into the weeds on these things because to to me, a lot of these and you’ve covered them over the years. They feel like their elaborate kabuki dances, you know, there’s lots of hair on fire. And then at the last minute, you know, wiser heads prevail, and you cobble together some sort of a shit sandwich of an omnibus or a cromnibus bill or anything. Is there any reason to think this time is different that they’re not gonna get this thing done?

Or is this gonna be one where we spend a lot of time, a lot of oxygen, we shut down the government for a few days, and then the deal that everybody expects Will Saletan.

This feels a little different. Yeah. It feels like a shutdown. I mean, I’ve been through several shutdowns under Trump and a lender Obama. And when they’re in a spot where the two sides are just nowhere near each other, And there’s so little time to get it done that it feels like we are barreling into one.

Remember, we’re talking about just the house trying to pass something on its own, not the House and Senate and the White House come into a deal. You know? So, like, and that’s gonna take some time to hash out. And look, Charlie, maybe they get through, short term spending bill. But there’s gonna be another huge fight in a month.

Yeah. Nothing’s gonna change in a month to keep the government open until the next year.

And they’re beginning the impeachment inquiry. So so this is the other overlay over this is that they’re gonna hold their first during on the impeachment inquiry on September twenty eighth two days before the government could shut down. They’re gonna go ahead with that. And as you point out, I think this is a really important point. This obviously affects the willingness and the enthusiasm of Democrats to bail out Kevin McCarthy or the Republicans, you know, when your enemy is in the process of digging a hole or shooting himself in the head or whatever, you don’t interrupt them particularly.

So there are moderates who are talking about kind of a plan b, you know, emergency plan to keep the government open. And this is what you’ve reported on it, but this is what the Washington Post reported. Some Republicans are seriously considered getting behind a bill that could as soon as next week serve as the vehicle that allows it’s to supersede McCarthy’s control of the house floor and force a vote to keep the government open, what exactly gets included in such a discharge petition Those are fighting words. Remaine unknown, but those familiar with the planning said it would include a short term funding plan to avert a shutdown that could garner enough support from the House Democrats and the Senate. Is that possible?

Wishful thinking? What do you think?

I think it’s both possible and wishful thinking. I, you know, is I think it’s really unclear because in order to get this very rarely succeeds to go around the speaker and for rank and final members to subject force to will on the speaker. To do that, you need two hundred eighteen signatures to force any votes. There are two hundred. There would be five essentially five Republicans to sign out with all democrats.

So there’s two challenges there. There are Mike Waller’s what we just spoke about. He’s one of them. He said he’s open to finding a so called discharge petition as are some of those others in swing district. So I think that that is possible, but they do have to agree on the policy.

That is gonna be the challenge here. But what exactly is in that bill, and how they keep the government open, what conditions were right along with this effort. So it is uncertain. I know there are lots of discussions that are happening right now about doing that. But typically, when I hear someone doing a discharge prediction, I immediately rule it out, I would not rule it out in this situation given how many scenarios, the stakes at play, all that.

So I think it’s something we need to watch very closely.

And of course, you just put your finger on the irony here is that, this discharge competition would require democratic support, and they would have to have Democrats buy into the policy. So in other words, the result of the hardcore right holding out and torpedoing McCarthy would in that scenario mean legislation that would be much further to the left. Much more democrat friendly because if the Republicans can’t negotiate among themselves, then they basically have to negotiate with the Democrats, and you come up with a completely different piece of legislation.

Yeah. And that’s exactly the criticism. That a lot of Republicans level against the far right. They said, look, you guys are gonna end up with a more liberal outcome. You don’t realize that.

So let’s let’s agree on what we can agree on among Republicans trying to get that into the Will Saletan, negotiate with the Democrats, and then we’ll happy. We’ll fight it out later Jonathan Last brother other stuff that we didn’t get in there. But that they just don’t see it that way. They see it as caving in to the left by doing that.

Well, I mean, is there also just the the gap between the governing party and the performative party here? Because, you know, when when we’re talking about what is the end game, do they actually think this messaging bill go anywhere. Matt Gates obviously knows it’s not going to be be passed, but he also knows that it raises his profile. Right? He gets more clicks.

He gets more money. I mean, Is there a group in this Congress that frankly doesn’t give a shit about what the actual legislation is that they’re playing a different game? We have, you know, one group that’s saying, k. We’re actually trying to pass legislation. We’re, you know, appropriating money.

We wanna keep the government open. And then you have the other folks going, I don’t care about that. This is this is my show.

This has been the dilemma with it for within the GOB really since the tea party era. I mean, I know you’ve done this full well, Charlie Sykes, like, this after the twenty twenty elections, it ushered in a whole new crop of members who, you know, for the lack of a better word. One, they’ve actually burned it all down. Right? So They were ready to battle.

They wanted to battle their own party. They didn’t care about the leadership, and they were ready to fight. And that was John Bainer dilemma when he was speak of the house. He had a very hard time controlling them and threatened to actually use a motion to push him out of the speakership, cause him to resign from the speakership, and there’s that blank on the party is in bold. They simply do not believe that their leadership is pushing hard enough to fulfill conservative ideas.

Now what that actually means in terms of policy, that’s a whole different question, but they simply don’t believe they’re fighting. Hard enough. So that is the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. Democrats for the most part will fall in line behind their leadership and eventually cave if they are trying to hold out for their best approach. That members, they don’t they don’t care.

They are holding out because the backless they get, they’re fine with the backlash. They do have actually emboldened them.

Okay. So that is a really interesting question because, you know, Kevin McCarthy is out saying, hey, it’s really hard to get stuff done when you have a small majority and everything, which is obviously objectively true. But as people have been pointing out, Nancy Pelosi had pretty much the same narrow majority What was Nancy Pelosi’s secret sauce in holding that caucus together? What did she have in terms of her approach that Kevin McCarthy does not have Is it all about just the nature of their caucuses, or is there something about the nature of the leadership Pelosi versus McCarthy? Where do you come down on that?

I would just say fear. I think members feared Nancy Pelosi down the line. They did not wanna get on the wrong side of her because she would make it, painful to be on the opposite side of her. Suddenly, maybe you wouldn’t get that special committee assignment that you had had hoped for or maybe things wouldn’t be beneficial for you in your reelection bid in different ways. Her art of persuasion, was through the, instilling some fear within her caucus.

Yeah. She also made sure that there was never gonna be a situation like McCarthy is facing. She raised the threshold for pushing someone out of the speakership when she became a speaker the second time around making it much harder for and, you know, I needed to have a lot more support to force a vote to oust listening speaker. McCarthy is his deal to cut the the witness speakership allowed just one member to call for that vote to push him out. He had to do that.

And as a result, that threat to push him out is always over the overhanging over him. And members simply are just not as concerned, upfront about, about McCarthy. They believe that they can win primaries without them. They believe that their power and social media and other ways, they can they they’ll they’ll be fine. They know that he’s he’s not gonna kick them out of there.

It’s committee assignments because they can vote to push to vote him, push him out of there. The speakership. So they believe there’s there’s really not a whole lot he could do as a result, how do you enforce discipline on the Republican side of the aisle? It’s just a much more complicated scenario here.

Okay. So let’s talk about the Senate. Let’s talk about, obviously, the most important political story in Washington today which is the controversy over the Senate dress code.

Yeah.

This seems to be a big deal. Right? Yes. And you see, this has become the new talking point. Even Rhonda Sanders had to have a press conferencing.

We talked about John Federman’s and the dress code. So, I mean, that that’s it. I mean, because we know what’s going on over in the house. The Senate has been a little bit quieter

you know, federal man has been first, he came to the Senate wearing a suit, and then and then, you know, he checked in for He treated for clinical depression. He came back, and what I wanna go back to is normal attire, which has been a hoodie and shorts. And after the news broke about Schumer not enforcing the dress code, you saw, of course, this backlash from the right as you’re as you’re mentioning here. I should note though that there are a lot of members that are on fly in and fly out days, which in the center are Monday, evenings, Thursday afternoon, they’re dressed pretty casually themselves, Republicans and Democrats when they go into vote. Chuck Grassley on Thursday afternoons.

Usually, he’s very casual wearing jeans and a shirt and a hat. Rand Paul can dress casually at times. Ted Cruz, I see him, you know, plays basketball with the staff during the week, you know, show up, you know, after playing basketball, vote, and leave. It got a lot of attention because of federal man and just for whatever reason, but it’s actually been common for some time that members have taken advantage of the lax enforcement in the center.

But it’s also obviously a slow news week over in the senate because I mean, this has gotta be literally the least significant political story of of of the week. And meanwhile, Look, I’ve asked this question over and over and over again, and hopefully you can shed some light on it. The Tommy Tuberville hold on all of the military promotions, which continues to go on and on and on with greater and greater consequence. The political genius of kneecapping the military escapes me. But what also escapes me is why the Senate is letting him get away with this.

Why Mitch McConnell is letting him get away with this? Why Chuck Schumer, who last time I checked, is in charge of the senate, is letting him get away with this. So What’s going on there? This has been going on for week after week. Do they not have the ability to just say, okay.

With a majority in the Senate, we’re not gonna go along with this. Mitt and Chuck just sit down and say, screw this guy. Let’s get this done. Why does this not happen?

I mean, Schumer can absolutely schedule a vote at any time. It’ll take a few days per nomination. Yes. It will take months to do all three hundred that time and time will be locked, but guess what? The Senate hasn’t worked a whole lot.

They took a six minute, five weeks off for August. Then they sometimes only work Tuesday to Thursday. They can work a few Mondays and Fridays and get some nominations confirmed, particularly the most significant ones, like the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, that needs to be confirmed by the end of the month. Because there’s gonna be a vacancy that the nation’s top military position. So, you think you would need to resolve that.

And on the Republican side, yeah. I mean, a lot of Republicans are not thrilled with what Tuberville is doing, but they know that strong arming him won’t make a much of a difference. Tuberville has said as much. Some of them also believe that they may wanna place holds on nominations too. It’s a powerful tool in the minority to try to get leverage.

They don’t wanna They

don’t wanna give up the power.

Give up the power. So you know, been uncomfortable with his tactics. So this is this is something to watch though, because Tupperville is now threatening to use what is typically only afforded to the majority leader to actually schedule a vote, a procedural vote on the nomination to be the Marine Corps commandant, which has been vacant because of this blockade. Now typically that does not have only the the majority leader does it because if all the members start to schedule procedural votes, the center will be even more dysfunctional. So But Trevorville is planning on doing that as soon as today to try to force that vote, and he could do it, force the vote.

It would be a fifty one vote threshold, in order for the vote to advance the nomination to advance, it’s possibly to get that. It’s, let’s say, cinema and mansion, vote with the Republicans on this. So

why would Cinnamon and mansion vote with the Republicans on this issue? Mean, I get them on some of the others. Why this one?

You know, it’s probably because of just the fact that this is such an important vacancy that that it’s important to vote in for the Marine Corps phenomenon, but I should caution. It’s unclear what they’ll do at this point. So it’s possible we could end up in more blockade for a month on it. So

Let’s talk about the other, actually, at the sort of the opposite end of the spectrum from the dress code, the question of funding Ukraine, course, you know, President Zelensky is here in the United States. He’s gonna meet with senators. He’s gonna, is he gonna meet with members of the house? I assume the house Democrats. Is he gonna meet with Kevin McCarthy?

Do we know?

So he is meeting with a bipartisan group of house members, including

the speaker. The speaker is not

having a one on one meeting with Zilinsky, and he’s also not doing what the Senate is doing. The Senate, they’re having all the full membership, the full body, hundred members are meeting with them in the summit on Thursday. Interesting. Not McCarthy’s plan. McCarthy said I’ve asked him, why not?

Yeah. Why would you not have this same thing in the house? These house Republicans meet with them. And he said he would not answer directly other than saying, they do their thing, we do our thing. So, you know, he is in a difficult spot in Ukraine because those same members were trying to push their way on the far right.

Pushing out of the speakership are the ones who are the most opposed about spending another dollar in Ukraine. So he is trying to thread the needle on Ukraine, and it’s just unclear. I speaker will deal with it because I asked him too. Is it can you guarantee Ukraine Will Saletan the twenty four billion dollars that the White House requested? He would not provide that guarantee.

So we need to go through it we need to review it. You know, this is about us trying to figure out what is, you know, how to deal with this. So he’s been very noncommittal, which is much different than Mitch McConnell. A complete opposite. I’m miss McDonald with pushing hard to get it done as part of this bill to keep the government open.

So that could be another flash point here, if the senate sends over a bill to keep the government open with the money for Ukraine, how does McCarthy deal with it? At that point. So that that is a huge question right now.

It’s quite a divide between, the Senate and the House on this, including Republicans in the Senate and Republicans in the House on this. There’s no question about it. So let me start asking you some tough questions now. Okay? Oh, boy.

If you don’t mind, moments. Well, you know, since since you’re gonna be the anchor of inside politics Sunday, you know? Yeah. Media guy writing politics, quote covering politics. And this is a sincere non snarky question.

Yeah.

Has the media? And I know you’ve given a lot of those. Has the media learned anything from twenty sixteen about how to cover Donald Trump? And I start from the premise that there’s a lot of evidence that Donald Trump has broken the model in so many ways. He is so abnormal.

And both, you know, print journalism and network journalism, and I don’t just include CNN. Obviously, NBC’s had its own issues with this, ABC, every everybody. How do you handle Donald Trump? Do you cover him like a normal candidate? Do you give him airtime?

Like a normal candidate? Kate, you’re now an anchor. What are your thoughts on all of this? You you’re gonna have to navigate this for the next year.

Absolutely. But my view of it and, you know, everyone has their own opinion is that, you know, we have to cover him, like, the front runner for the Republican nomination. You know, you can’t ignore what he’s saying or what he’s doing because he could be present again and he needs to be challenged. He needs to be forced to respond to some key questions on the issues. And you have to do the best.

You can to fact check Trump because, of course, he is the you’re but, mildly, he’s loose with his facts often times. So you have to be very

It’s hard.

But it’s cool. You know, I I fully know it’s because he speaks a mile a minute. He says a lot of things about a lot of things at the same time. It’s hard to have that ongoing fact check, but it’s also a necessary part of reporting. But, you know, also look, he he has four criminal trials that will be playing out during the election season that need to be covered, like, the significant news that is because voters need to understand whether or not, you know, the presidential president, here, another pro you know, the presidential nominee, eventually, is a convicted felon.

So in in whether the charges have merit or not. So It

seems relevant.

Seems relevant. So, you know, my, you know, it it it may be as easier said than it is easier said than done. Of course, But, like, I fully subscribe to the notion that you need to cover every candidate aggressively including the president, even including the front runner for the Republican nomination and ignoring him or not giving him air time, because of the things he said are done, I don’t I think it is a disservice to viewers and voters. So that’s my view.

That’s not really the choice. Not not better of ignoring him or covering. Him. It’s also the question of platforming him, giving him access to airtime where he can just turn on the fire hose of disinformation lie so fast that the truth limps to keep up with him. And that’s the real problem, isn’t it?

I mean, obviously, we have to cover him when he tells a lie. He needs to be fact checked. But then there are the different formats for doing it. You know, for example, you and I both remember twenty sixteen, everybody thought, let’s air all of his rallies wall to wall because when people see this, they’ll realize he’s completely nuts. That turned out to be a I would say a major miscalculation.

I don’t know whether you agree or not, about that. So, I mean, there are other different ways. Do you give him live, you know, do you give him live town halls? Do you give him interviews in which he is allowed to go on? And spread misinformation and then put and then put the fact checks online.

I mean, clearly, you cover him. Without necessarily platforming him. Is that a distinction in your mind? Is that Yeah.

I mean, I think you gotta make a case by case decision, on what the situation entails. And I don’t see the same level of coverage in twenty sixteen where there were those every rally was covered There’s been a lot of discussion about they had not been the right decision, including by former president of the network. He acknowledged publicly that, that was not the right decision in his view. And I don’t see that happening again. But there are situations where you have to hear what he says because it’s a big key news moment.

And then at that point, you will need to do the you can to make sure you’re back checking any things that he’s saying that are not true. So, again, it’s it’s a case by case decision. That needs to be done, appropriately, and aggressively. So it’s a hard thing.

Okay. So give me your your sense about the Democratic freak out over the last week. Obviously, there were a lot of angst over these polls showing, and they they continue to come showing that, Joe Biden is basically tied with Donald Trump. But despite all of this, The Trump is either tied or maybe even leading Joe Biden, and this has led to a lot of depending on your perspective. A lot of rethinking about Biden’s role as a candidate or a lot of democratic bedwetting.

So are we in the midst of of a democratic freak out right now? And is it justified in your mind?

I think we are in the midst of a democratic freak out. But the thing is Democrats freak out pretty regularly. So, so it’s not entirely clear, whether or not it’s gonna plan out. I mean, I think the the Biden team believes that the race is gonna change when the really focuses on Trump versus Biden, the contrast that Boris share the criminal investigation, January sixth. Do you wanna go back to the trump era?

Mhmm.

Think the voters will view it much differently. But he’s got serious vulnerabilities. We’ve seen all the same polling as people are concerned about his age. People are not. Don’t believe he’s done a good job on the economy despite other passive all these bills.

They don’t feel that it’s impacted them in a positive way overall. He’s Sarah Longwell with black voters who are so central to his his victory in twenty twenty. Those are all issues that they have to rectify. They can’t just assume that the country is gonna disqualify president Trump and that will to help Biden Biden win. They can’t assume that because who knows what will happen on the campaign trail.

So I think that’s why there is that level of democratic bedwetting, that they believe time for the binding to amp it up or do more at this point. And be, we we start to engage more forcefully with Trump. So we’ll see if they do that.

But is it just fan fiction? All of this speculation that they’re gonna replace Kamala Harris is not gonna happen on the ticket or where that Joe Biden will drop out and we’ll have president Gretchen Whitmer. I mean, do do you actually is any of this playing out in reality as opposed to rank punditry. Is there any chance that Joe Biden does not run for reelection is what I’m getting at?

And, you know, I know you’re here that. He’s so stubborn. Right? Like, he believes he beat Donald Trump. He can beat him again.

He he’s tried so many times to become president. He’s president. Why would I relinquish this now? So I cannot say unless some serious thing happens, some serious health issue or something. I just don’t see him stepping aside because the polls are not looking great.

In terms of dumping Kamala Harris, like, he had probably the opportunity to do that. Some people say, maybe he should have put her on the Supreme Court the KBJ, and they had that position open for a new vice president, but it’s hard to see that happening. So, I mean, the the Biden team, believes that the it is just bedwetting. That things will be fine. They’ll get there, and the Democrats need to relax.

So but you know, this is a unpredictable environment. So I don’t think anyone who is in their position, a lot of the Democrats I talked to are relaxed right now because they’re worried about what may happen.

And so team Biden is like, just chill. Just chill. We got this. Right. Manu Raju, chief congressional correspondent for CNN who debuts as the anchor of inside politics today.

Eleven AM eastern time this Sunday on CNN. Manu, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it very, very much.

Absolutely, Charlie Sykes. And I’m on Wisconsin.

Yeah. Oh, definitely on Wisconsin. Hopefully, the agreement package can turn things around after that loss over the weekend. And thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes.

We will be back tomorrow, and we’ll do this all over again. Bohr contest is produced by Katie Cooper, and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.