Preet Bharara:
From CAFE, and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Stay Tuned In Brief. I’m Preet Bharara. Last Tuesday, Kevin McCarthy was ousted as the Speaker of the House of Representatives after fellow Republican representative Matt Gaetz introduced a motion to vacate the speakership. This is a historic moment. McCarthy is the first speaker to ever be removed in such a fashion, and his exit has highlighted the intense fissures in the GOP, and the larger tensions in Congress. Joining me to discuss these issues is John F. Harris. He’s the co-founder and global editor in chief of Politico, and he’s written extensively about the dysfunctional McCarthy speakership in his Politico Altitude column. John, welcome to the show.
John F. Harris:
Thanks so much Preet.
Preet Bharara:
So let’s go back to when Kevin McCarthy became the speaker, and others have suggested, and you have also suggested that the seeds of his own destruction were sown at the time he became speaker. What do you mean by that?
John F. Harris:
Well, in order to win the speakership, and recall that it took 15 votes, he had to trade away a lot of the authority that speakers traditionally have. In the old days, that was a really, really powerful position, and I would say we have to tip our hat also to Nancy Pelosi because even in this era of a less governable House, she exerted quite a lot of authority through the strength of her personality. No Republican has been able to do this for a generation now. It’s such an unruly House Republican conference, and the nature of the institution has changed so profoundly that the old days of, “Look, I’ve got control over what committees you sit on.”
“I’ve got control over fundraising. I’ve got control over whether you’re influential, or you’re just a ghost at the back of the chamber,” no speaker has held that kind of authority. But even the remnants of that kind of authority Kevin McCarthy effectively traded them away to actually win the speakership on the 15th vote back in January. He traded away his influence on the Rules committee, and basically advertised to the world that he was vulnerable, that at any time, a small number of Republican votes could dethrone him.
And that’s exactly what happened. In some sense, he was never really speaker except he had the title. He had nothing like the historic power that we associate with this office.
Preet Bharara:
So why now? Was this because of the argument over the shutdown of the government, or something else, or was it a combination of things?
John F. Harris:
Preet, my own view is that was just a pretext. This was going to happen in due course. I think as you said, the seeds were laid in the ground back in January, and at some point, this was going to happen. Now, the pretext, or the precipitating event was of course the deal that Kevin McCarthy took to avert a government shutdown last week. And that allowed Matt Gaetz and the others who have been critical of Speaker McCarthy to say, “See, we told you he’s not really a true Conservative, at least in the modern incarnation of that word, and let’s dump him.” Now, in fairness to McCarthy, 210 Republicans stayed with him. It was just a handful that were able to join with Democrats to oust him, but that showed just how precarious his position always was. As I say, his speakership was effectively an optical illusion. He never really had it.
Preet Bharara:
“Speakership was effectively an optical illusion.” I like that. What was the motivation for, I know we’ve talked about it, but I want to understand it better, the motivation for the seven other Republicans to get rid of McCarthy knowing it’s going to throw the caucus into turmoil, knowing it’s going to hopefully knowing or presumably knowing it was going to weaken the caucus vis-a-vis the Democrats. What’s really in it for them?
John F. Harris:
Well, of course there’s an ideological component in anybody who’s trying to defend their actions is going to assert that they were on principled grounds. I think you have to say that really this was personal animus. Certainly Matt Gaetz had not disguised his personal animus. He effectively wanted McCarthy’s antlers on the rec room wall, and he got them. The others I don’t think it was necessarily quite, is fair to describe it as a fit of personal peak the way it might be. That might be a fair description of Matt Gaetz’s motivations, but I don’t think you can understate the lack of respect that Kevin McCarthy holds among the most Conservative members of the House Republican Caucus. And that would include a lot of people who are in the 210. They just see him as a strictly transactional politician. They don’t see him as guided by convictions really of any sort other than his personal survival, and they just see him as a transactional figure. And I think it doesn’t go too far to say that they feel contempt toward him.
Preet Bharara:
Well, that seems to be something about which there’s bipartisan consensus. Democrats despise him for the same reason, at least some of them do. Right?
John F. Harris:
Precisely. And in some moods, you can have a certain amount of sympathy for Kevin McCarthy like, “Hey, you try doing the job when at any given time, just a small handful of members can throw you out of it.” I’d say the sympathy is really limited when you look at Kevin McCarthy’s own actions in the period leading up to his speakership, and while having it. If he was really trying to build bridges of any kind, he certainly wouldn’t have backed the Conservatives in trying to impeach Joe Biden. He certainly wouldn’t have taken the opportunities as he did to practice the most flagrant partisan combat with Democrats. So he has zero reservoirs of sympathy. I think it’s notable that not a single Democrat said, “Hey, you know what? We’re better off with order in the House rather than chaos. And certainly if it has to be a Republican, I’d rather have it be Kevin McCarthy than somebody else.” No one said that.
Preet Bharara:
Really?
John F. Harris:
No one thinks that.
Preet Bharara:
Explain that because there was some speculation that some Democrats would vote that way. All it would’ve taken is a small handful of Democrats to save Kevin McCarthy, and now the Democrats can get someone that they’ll have to deal with who will be more conservative and more intransigent. No?
John F. Harris:
They’ll be different.
Preet Bharara:
Yeah.
John F. Harris:
I don’t know that. We are going to have to see. I don’t want to make those predictions. That’s certainly one possibility. But one does have the sense of the House taking a emetic of sorts, like what you take when you swallow poison, you can swallow the syrup and heave it up with apologies for a vulgar word picture there, but one does sense that’s what’s happening. The House is retching, and they wretched up Kevin McCarthy. So it’s possible that there’s something more like certainly not civility or cooperation, but normality could emerge from this.
Preet Bharara:
What’s the fate of Matt Gaetz? There had been discussion that there could be something emanating from an ethics review of him, and I guess the McCarthy people or McCarthy himself was suggesting that Matt Gaetz could be ejected from the House. Is he completely safe now?
John F. Harris:
Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Just as Matt Gaetz wanted Kevin McCarthy’s antlers up on the wall, there’s plenty of people who would like to see Matt Gaetz’s antlers up on the wall. And there’s plenty of people hunting for him. As near as I can tell, and I haven’t spent a lot of time around Matt Gaetz, had spent some time around Kevin McCarthy, I don’t think Matt Gaetz cares. He’s an anti-institutionalist. He’s somebody who has learned the politics of contempt from closely watching former President Donald Trump. And in his own way, he’s as transactional a politician as Kevin McCarthy is. He does face an ethics review. We don’t really know the status of that. We do know that he’s quite interested in running for Florida governor, and if that’s his aim, and really stimulating a hardcore Conservative base is his perceived pathway to getting the Republican nomination, he’s probably played his cards rather effectively in this.
Preet Bharara:
How do you think Hakeem Jeffries, the democratic leader conducted himself, and managed the caucus in all of this?
John F. Harris:
Well, as we discussed, zero Democrats voting to help Kevin McCarthy out, even as some initially were wondering that scenario you described earlier, “Hey, wouldn’t we be better off doing some deal making?” Minority leader Jefferies said, “Nope, we’re not doing that.” And I think it was notable in one of his very early tests of his ability to unify the Democratic Caucus. He succeeded perfectly. No dissenters. So I think that’s a fairly favorable sign early about his ability to manage the Democratic conference.
Preet Bharara:
Can we talk about one hypothetical?
John F. Harris:
Absolutely. Politicians say I never answer hypotheticals, but I’m not a politician. I love talking about hypotheticals all day.
Preet Bharara:
Although you said you didn’t want to make predictions. So hypothetical is slightly different.
John F. Harris:
I suppose it’s a certain species of prediction, isn’t it?
Preet Bharara:
And I speculated about this before the midterms, and I think people weren’t taking it seriously enough. Now I don’t think it’s really on the table, but we’ll talk about it for a moment anyway, and the possibility that there’ll be a movement in favor of Donald Trump, the former president becoming Speaker of the House, because the rules of the House don’t require the speaker to be a member. There is this rule, Rule 26 that some people say would bar Trump because he’s indicted in multiple places, and there’s a rule that the House has. I don’t know if it’s a Republican rule …
John F. Harris:
I think it is a Republican rule rather than a House rule, yeah.
Preet Bharara:
… that if you’re a member of the House, and you’ve been indicted for a crime that could be punishable for more than two years, you have to step aside from leadership. So discuss the possibility of Trump as speaker.
John F. Harris:
Well, it’s a certain fantasy that some Republicans clearly hold. I’m with you, Preet. I don’t think it’s actually the most plausible scenario. The reason I don’t think it’s the most plausible scenario among several reasons I don’t, is it would be an awful lot like work. And I’m not sure Donald Trump really wants to do that kind of work running the House, even in a symbolic way, I suppose. But it’s an awful lot like work, and not the kind of work. It’s not that President Trump doesn’t enjoy doing work, but he likes basically doing Trump related work, and not trying to do the hard work of keeping this unruly caucus organized. I’d be a little surprised if that job at the end of the day was attractive to him. But I will say. Well, I’ll say two things. One, there’s a certain elegance to the idea.
The fact of the matter is Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party, and no one else is. Obviously Kevin McCarthy wasn’t. I don’t think Mitch McConnell really is. I don’t think any of the other people vying for the Republican nomination not really breaking through are. Donald Trump runs the Republican Party, so why not just acknowledge that. In a sense, there would be a certain elegance to that scenario you described. And the other thing I would say, the reason I’m careful about my predictions Preet, is that anybody running the tape would know that so many of them don’t come true. So this would be a totally outlandish, surprising scenario, but we’ve had no end of outlandish scenarios that have actually played out over the past seven, eight years. Maybe this would be another one. I don’t discount it entirely.
Preet Bharara:
Well, more likely candidates include Representative Scalise and Jim Jordan. How do you think they will fare in balloting, and who has the advantage if anyone?
John F. Harris:
I do tend to think that Steve Scalise has a slight leg up precisely because the Republican conference up on Capitol Hill is so disorganized. They’re so angry with one another. They’re so rudderless. He’s not in great health. Of course, he’s got the aura around his reputation. Unfortunately, he was a victim of gun violence a couple of years ago at a House softball practice in Alexandria, Virginia. He might be the kind of person that the conference could say, “Look, let’s unify around Steve Scalise, and stop fighting. And he, given his age, given his health, might not be in the job that long anyway, so let’s just give it to Steve, and move on.” And anyway, that’s the scenario that I’m betting on, but not with any special confidence.
Preet Bharara:
Do you think Jim Jordan has a shot though?
John F. Harris:
He might because it is President Trump’s party, and he’s the person most of those candidates is most allied with the Trump brand of conservatism.
Preet Bharara:
Okay. Well then describe what a Jim Jordan speakership would look like.
John F. Harris:
I think what it would do is take Trump style politics, and that we’re very accustomed to now in the presidential context, and inject it firmly into the House. I think it would be nonstop partisan combat in a very-
Preet Bharara:
No legislation.
John F. Harris:
I wouldn’t think so. No. And math is math Preet. He doesn’t have-
Preet Bharara:
Math is math, yeah.
John F. Harris:
He doesn’t have any greater margin than Kevin McCarthy did. So I really think until the election’s a year from now, 13 months from now, we’re going to have an effectively ungovernable House. Any switch of just a couple of votes means that there is no speaker.
Preet Bharara:
Back to McCarthy for a second. Is there anything he could have done differently to save himself?
John F. Harris:
I’ve been pondering that, and I’m not sure that there is a good answer to that. He never would’ve become speaker most likely back in January without making those compromises that he did. They were effectively fatal compromises. They almost guaranteed this outcome. I suppose that if he had been more consistent from the beginning in signaling that, “Look, I’m going to be running the House around a governing agenda, which means occasionally I’m going to be trying to seek bargains with the Biden White House. I’m not going to be expressing open contempt toward Democrats through pursuing the impeachment of President Biden, for example.”
It’s possible that he might’ve commanded enough grudging respect from both people within his own party and from Democrats that there would’ve been more of a inherent sympathy like, “Look, I don’t like all Kevin McCarthy’s choices, but I do fundamentally respect that he’s making these choices in a principled way.” I guess if you could imagine the last nine months, if he had fashioned that reputation, but it’s exact opposite of what he did, and I think it’s the opposite of who he is. He’s simply not somebody that commands respect, fear, deference from either party.
Preet Bharara:
The chaos in the House Republican caucus, does that say anything about the larger Republican Party, or is it confined to the House?
John F. Harris:
Well, it says everything about the larger Republican Party, doesn’t it? It’s Donald Trump’s party. He’s interested in tribal politics. He’s interested in the politics of contempt. He’s not really interested in fashioning a governing agenda, at least there’s not been a lot of evidence lately of that. And the chaos in the House is a reflection of a party that is virtually impossible to lead by anyone but him.
Preet Bharara:
That’s fair enough. John Harris, thanks for joining the show.
John F. Harris:
Thank you.
Preet Bharara:
For more analysis of legal and political issues making the headlines, become a member of the CAFE Insider. Members get access to exclusive content including the weekly podcast I host with former US Attorney, Joyce Vance. Head to cafe.com/insider to sign up for a trial. That’s cafe.com/insider. If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me @PreetBharara with the hashtag #AskPreet.
You can also now reach me on Threads, or you can call, and leave me a message at (669) 247-7338. That’s (669) 24-PREET. Or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE, and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The editorial producer is Noa Azulai, and the CAFE team is Matthew Billy, David Kurlander, Jake Kaplan, Nat Weiner, Namita Shah, and Claudia Hernández. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. Stay tuned.
