 Hey guys, this is Stowe Bishop with Radio Rothbard, and I want to let you guys know about another great Mises event We've have coming up on November 4th and Fort Myers, Florida As you know every day Americans feel the political capture of the economy Inflation taxes and regulatory costs hit our paychecks in our savings the regulatory capture of the medical industries food and energy Production and the various instruments of big tech empower the regime with new tools to promote their latest ideological cause The ever-growing burden of government debt has become a crisis without any political will to address it We're gonna be talking about these very issues at this event and Fort Myers and best of all We have a discount code for radio Rothbard listeners. If you use promo code RR 2023 RR as in radio Rothbard 2023 you'll get $10 off at this event. If you want to learn more visit Mises.org slash FL 2023 FL is in Florida look forward to seeing you there Hello, and welcome back to radio Rothbard. I'm Ryan McMakin executive editor with the Mises Institute, and I'm here with my co-host So Bishop and we are going to talk today about Congress and the budget battle and a little bit about Speaker McCarthy's unseating former speaker McCarthy, which is really actually fairly remarkable But really what we're gonna talk about here is does this make any difference? Does the McCarthy thing make any difference? What's gonna be the end of this budget battle? And if you've been around for a while, I mean if you're a Mises Institute listener You're probably sufficiently jaded at this point, right? You're not clueless enough to get your hopes up. There's gonna be some major reform to the federal government And we're all gonna be Cutting taxes and spending from now on so what I want to learn from though really is though as a Rothbardian Mises reader sort of person who is Generally contemptuous of news out of Washington and we don't take anything for face value in terms of how it's being reported and and we know that reports of The power of the swamp being crossed are all probably extremely overstated Really what what should our takeaways be here on? The current budget battle like is there anything specific that that's good that might actually result or are we just waiting it out like we have 10 previous budget battles where it's all just business as usual afterward Or is there is there anything new and remarkable here, or is it just more the same? Well the lead up to the overthrow of the McCarthy regime That was the shortest termed Speakership since 1876 it always comes back to 1876 The result of the kind of buildup to it was Washington functioning exactly as it has for 25 years Right you had buildup of Conservatives promising. Oh, we're gonna cut spending. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do that They weren't able to get anything passed through their caucus and we'll talk about what the kind of the objections within Because you had people like Thomas Massey on one side, right usually someone we view as Better member of congress than most you had people like matt gates who led the charge on another side But ultimately The result was predictable the congress does what it does very well It kicked the can down the road it passed a continuing resolution for 45 days That maintained spending levels at what was already in place, right? It was just a pure kick the can down the road moment it had More votes from democrats than republicans and that worked to mccarthy's Against the mccarthy when it came to the battle over speakership And congress functioned exactly as we expect it to And ultimately This was always going to be the result right the senate was not going to agree to anything significant mccarthy One of the selling points he made on the cr was that they removed Ukraine funding from the bill, but he also made a side deal with The senate that hey look we're going to put up Ukraine funding immediately and actually that played a role into what happened this week because in theory Your congress was not supposed to be in session this week. They were scheduled to be out of session He kept congress in session though So that this additional deal could be voted through And that allowed for matt gates to file his motion to vacate the chair immediately afterwards where kind of the The the feelings were still raw Because again, you had a decent amount if there was 90 plus republican members again far more than the people that voted against Kevin mccarthy they voted against mccarthy's continuing resolution Because i mean for one it was easy to do so because there was enough democrat support You didn't have to be the deciding vote. So if that allows for certain sort of theater within that But that was the laid up to it Now if we go back to Kind of the prologue to all this which was the 15 rounds of speakership votes, right that that made Kevin mccarthy speak of the house for a short period of time One of the promises that was made and this was something that people like thomas massie had been fighting for for a very long time This is one of the rules that was pushed forward to kind of restrain mccarthy Was a promise that there was going to be a return to Uh the proper procedure for dealing with the appropriations project process Which is having 12 individual spending votes on various aspects of the government, right? So, you know, the department of labor would be handled differently than military budget than education, etc, right? That is the way that congress was supposed to operate had been more or less operating up to the mid 90s since mid 90s All the budget deals have been, you know, with kind of consolidated together what's called an ominous package, right? So there's very little debate on specific issues This allows for spending to kind of just continue, you know, there's there's without any debate spending levels Just keep going up and up and up. It's a past of lease resistance Which is why it's been so beloved within Washington and so that was where The spending battle lines were drawn on the one side. You had people like matt gates pounded the table saying anything short of Dealing breaking up these spending bills was unacceptable You had people like thomas massie on the other side where one of the proposed short term solutions Was a hitting up resolution with certain cuts in spending Growth baked into the pie there. And so, you know, I can sympathize with with both arguments. Hey, look Let's pass this something. It's passed this the short term thing that has something resembling Um, you know spending cuts over, you know, you know better than what happened, right? The other side saying well spending levels are less important than the process because if we don't return to process Then we're not going to be able to have any longer lasting conversations here And so that's what divided, you know, what we might call the the physically conservative members of the house So that's why that original continuation their continued resolution package, which again was never going to pass the senate anyway That's why that failed led to this dysfunction that created this bipartisan agreement To kick the can down the road without any changes And this was kind of the build up to the drama with the motion to vacate Which in the first time a speaker the house has been removed from that position Through kind of an up and down vote kind of a you know, basically a vote of no confidence Which again, we see all the time in kind of european parliaments First time it's ever happened within the american project Well, and I know that One significant part of this has been funding for Ukraine for the u.s. Is Involvement in the war there And so from what i've seen is that The senate of course Obviously in favor of plenty of ukraine spending But that the certain republican activists are against it I assume that mccarthy was all about just cutting a deal to keep the ukraine money going And so how does that work out in the end? I could see the house voting repeatedly to cut the ukraine funding and then just the senate rejecting it over and over again I mean Was is there any like Is there any end game here here for that or where are we going to end up with ukraine funding? Well, it's been interesting watching the house conference Kind of change over time on this issue Because when in the early rounds of ukraine funding came up there were members of congress. I think it was about 20 something votes So you had matt gates. You had marjorie taylor green. You had thomas massie you had You know, you had a small coalition of members Tim birchett from tennessee is someone who's been very good on this issue. He decries You know, he calls the military industrial complex a bunch of war pimps um You you had a small coalition to at the very beginning That you have 20 something members by the time that They were voting on ukraine spending in the last couple weeks That number had grown to about 100 members of the cock of that conference. Now again, that's still a Minority relative to full numbers, but it was about it was almost to a 50-50 split Um, and of course democrats all on board Senate, you know, you have mitzvah connell out there saying this is the most pressing, you know Issue for american interests and yada yada and they're like what's interesting is that And again, all this could change in a heartbeat, right? You know, we should always expect it to uh, the the the war machine will continue to to fund itself But all of the reports right now with the debates going on over who will replace kevin mccarthy the consensus is that further spending is On ukraine is one of the biggest losers in the fallout here Several of the leading People that have been voiced as a potential replacement for met kevin mccarthy Includes jim jordan Includes the leader of the republican study committee Tim herne Who's a kind of interesting guy made all his money with mcdonald's franchises and he was actually part of the original Vote against ukraine funding, which again i i'll take i'm sure batting plenty of other issues, but i'll take that there is a a Strengthening view that ukraine funding which again mccarthy had already made this deal. This was going to happen It was not allowed that process was not allowed to start up because of Gates's motion to vacate But that that deal is essentially right now off the table No, you can't even vote on it until you have a new speaker the house all that procedural stuff but right now it looks like Anybody who becomes the the the the the betting odds Right now within dc is that whoever is going to take up the speakership position Where you have a lot of members of the republican conference That we're not in favor of removing kevin mccarthy for a variety of reasons again thomas massie was On the mccarthy camp um part of that is because you know now don't fault him for this thomas massie has has more had more influence With the deal set in place that allowed mccarthy to take leadership That he's ever had in congress right so if if if you want a stronger thomas massie Then kevin mccarthy had delivered on a stronger thomas massie still minority views from the broader conference and the like But that's why you had people who you know matt gates and thomas massie kind of usually allies on most legislative battles particularly the big ones who comes to Military spending when it comes to you know defense issues broadly they were on different camps Because both of them in different relationships with mccarthy um and so you're right now it looks like if nothing else one victory is that The the ukraine skeptic caucus is going to be very difficult to be won over with Whoever comes next now one of the concerns out there and this is you know You know this is one of the arguments that again like a thomas massie used in defending Opposing a motion to vacate is the concern the specter that you're going to have a deal done where enough democrats Join with let's call it the moderate caucus within the um within the republican ranks and that therefore you could have a rise out of this sort of a dark horse you know pragmatic Bipartisan agreement which again as all of our listeners know anything anytime you hear bipartisanship coming out of dc You know you're getting screwed over That's the one thing that could change that calculation right now As you know as as we record this there's not an obvious candidate within that So right now it seems like the ukraine Yeah Preventing future ukraine spending is in a strengthened position now than it was last sunday So that's a small victory. We'll see how long it lasts But that that process has been made more difficult based off what's happened this week So that would be an actual minor victory it seems and it's fun to watch just how rapidly the hysteria the pro-ukraine hysteria has deteriorated just in really 18 months Where you were just supposed to we were talking about boots on the ground And this was the the next great fight for freedom and now a minority of americans care at all About continuing to fund ukraine, especially while crime surges in the u.s We're on the cusp of a recession and we're all supposed to care deeply About a country in eastern europe that few americans could find which has clearly nothing to do with American independence or safety Unless you're just an absolute Nutty Ideologue like bill crystal who's literally now paying for tv ads to tell republicans that Giving money to ukraine's a great deal And that it's containing Russia which ridiculously also contain he also says that containing russia Also serves to contain china Which no making russia an ally of the west would have contained china much more effectively Assuming you think containing china is an important goal and So this this seems to be the rap at least within the right among Republicans conservatives, whatever you want to call them. It's now being Rapidly pro-ukraine is now clearly the minority Position but now the democrats like in fdr style are now the warmonger party um, it's interesting to see that there and and uh, how they're How the senate is going to react i suppose I can't see them getting away with cutting off funding entirely because the senate will just demand something but I think this is just the next step on the way toward Uh funding for ukraine just being ratcheted down over and over again And then once the recession hits in here people are simply are not going to care much about ukraine at all but we're talking Dozens of billions of dollars each time the funding is upped, right? So that doesn't even if that's eliminated It's it does nothing about overall spending As has been pointed out um the since the last Change to the Debt ceiling quote unquote, which of course is not really at all and now it's been effectively suspended for the midterm It They've added two trillion dollars in debt in like six months six or eight months And this is just remarkable now. It's up with 33 trillion. It will soon be 35 trillion uh sometime next year most likely And It's just it's difficult to see any significant reigning in of this at all And so when we look at that, I mean that larger picture Is that just really the reality that until some sort of historical reality changes significantly To make people just really throw in the towel on federal spending. I suppose um as it becomes clear that inflation is high because of ongoing deficit spending um that Prices continue to spiral upward The yield on government bonds gets increasingly unmanageable And debt service continues to eat away more and more at social security and medicaid and medicare, which is coming As we now are spending looks like over a trillion dollars then on debt service I mean, that's what the future holds is spending more and more on debt and less and less on the social programs that The public demands What what are they going to do? There seems to be no plan whatsoever for actually reigning and spending overall. Yeah, they're fighting over Ukraine spending and that would be great if they ended that But I don't see anyone voicing any sort of real strategy here For addressing just runaway trillion dollar deficits that we're being told are occurring during a non-recession period And when the us is not in any is not actually directly involved in any major wars So, I mean just imagine what's going to happen when recession hits and we're and we're told they need to Start massive amounts of spending To get the economy going again. I mean, I just I I don't see that this congress has any sort of ability to address that issue whatsoever Right. I mean we're looking right now within a month We're gonna go up from 33 trillion dollars to 34 trillion dollars In a single day Yeah, there's over a quarter trillion dollar increase I mean just the rate right now is outstanding Um, and part of this is what we've been warning on the show. We've been talking about it at great length for years now is Congress and and you know Think that this is true across the board, right? You know low interest rates have been a global phenomenon But legislators have been dealing on easy mode for You know over a decade Right when they didn't have to worry about interest rate increases while continuing to pile on debt There's a whole lot easier To kind of hide some of the real consequences here, but now that you have rising interest rates No one saw as possible You know year and a half ago and none of this was priced in The the pressure That the legislature is is now facing again. How much of them really care about this? Obviously, we know we know there's one set of aisle that won't even pay lip service to the issue You know, there's there's very few members of congress interested in doing anything There's a lack of political will to address anything getting Spending back to pre-covid levels is going to be a crisis level of NDC There's no seriousness to deal with this issue at all But but the rate of growth right now is astonishing And again, this is what the number one You know, this was the number one complaint made Um You're dearing the the arguments over mccarthy's leadership is that there's there's absolutely no plan in place. There's no vision There's there's no attempt to even address this problem. And if you look at the makeup of the house conference you know The leadership of kevin mccarthy and i'm i'm i'm i think taking down kevin mccarthy was a Step in the right direction. I think anytime you can get a scalp from these people I mean kevin mccarthy is the embodiment of You know, he's he's a lifelong political creature, you know, he's been you know started off in the state legislature I mean he's for for decades now. I mean his only job has been in the legislature Um, you know, he was famously one of the one of the young guns back when it was, you know Eric canter and paul ryan and kevin mccarthy went to say the republican party and make it a serious party again You know during the obama years all that sort of you know nonsense um You know, there was no You absolutely no Uh uh plan no no even attempt to address this building issue And now we're now we're running, you know for the foreseeable future again Two and a quarter trillion dollar deficits every single year um and interest on the dead is You know fast approaching the largest line item budget, you know that that america's gonna face and you know If you look at the the unseriousness of the modern republican party it was on full display last week during the Presidential debate which I hope most of our audience and not subject themselves to i'm a i'm a masochist when it comes to political issues So I watched the entire thing and You know they of course, you know, you ever want to blame it on biden You had a few people pointing out that you know, trump has involvement there as well, which good fine um You know some ownership of bipartisan consensus Of course, you know ronda santas is gonna get a point to his own record when he was in congress and his vote's there But fine, whatever step in the right direction The problem is that the federal reserve didn't come up until I think last 20 minutes of the debate And it was a few throwaway lines one from vivid grant roma swami Who too is the defense has talked in greater detail about the fed in the past But you know, he talked about you know the need to change fed leadership and and you know Changing some of the mandates in the fed Desantis had a Short line about you know money printing being part of the problem. Okay, fine, whatever But there's no no awareness at all from the republican side that on top of These physical issues and just the runaway numbers and I think part of the problem is that numbers have gotten so high They've been so high for such a long period of time I don't blame average americans for kind of becoming You know Immune to it, right? There's this shock value has gone away um So fine, but we were on the precipice of a major credit event in this country right now I mean, you know the stock market was tanking yesterday Had nothing to do with kevin mccarthy What's interesting is that financial markets After the you know after we we we avoided the the the devastation of a government shutdown, right? You didn't see any sort of of you know response and from any financial markets of you know kind of projecting Oh, at least we've got some new confidence here. I get the grown-ups in charge and I No, I mean we are dealing with with runaway events right now. What's the pressure it's going on with the japanese yen um, I mean the the euro is in major major crisis here And so, you know, this would be a time where if the republican party wasn't the stupid party This would be the time where you'd go out there and being bold and kind of raising The the warning signs like look we are on the precipice of a major crisis And we've got to do something serious right now and project some sort of forward thinking I'm not expecting that at all Right. I don't think you know there is I think no one that is in contingent for leadership Right now that has those chops to them But again like this this is not a you know Kevin McCarthy Or the the drama in dc and you have all these conservative pundits, right? You know attacking matt gates for being a narcissistic opportunists that it's using You know this stand to fundraise as if that is That shocking in washington that you have people with egos fundraising off of what they're doing in dc I mean absolutely, you know deplorable behavior out there You know you had members of congress crying weeping over Kevin McCarthy You had members of congress talking about how this is a a tragic event in the history of the body Meanwhile, the world is burning it down around them. They're more concerned about you know the feelings Of Kevin McCarthy that now middle. They wrote them a bunch of of nice campaign checks that they relied upon But that is the focus right now congress is your average republican staffer is more angry at gates For kicking out Kevin McCarthy. They are concerned about these underlying issues that affect everyone in the country Well, this is of course a frequent characteristic of an out-of-touch ruling class. You read it all the time about these Monarchs of old who are Absolutely convinced that the people will rush to their defense In case of a revolution It's only it's always just a tiny disgruntled group that doesn't like the king and the people overall love me and then while they're Fleeing for their lives dressed as a woman in a carriage somewhere. They're shocked Shocked to find out that they're either hated or that the public is indifferent toward them and it's because these people are more worried about their palace coups and other other nonsense at court and who's having an affair with who And who managed to get control of Some some new little Responsibility somewhere within the government That which they all highly value meanwhile the majority population is on the brink of Losing their house or defaulting on their debts and just generally their lives being made miserable Oh, but you know the great great McCarthy has been thrown out of office and the the wonderful traditions of our congress Are being are being challenged. I mean nobody cares nobody cares about your stupid traditions in congress and Let's uh, let's just let's just recognize these people for the emotional basket cases They are and the ignoramuses they are I mean part of the reason they never talk about the fed is because they don't care And it's too complicated for them. They don't understand. I mean you and I both see I saw at the state level you saw it in congress How anytime there was any sort of finance bill that came up You had like two people testify and the tiny number of people were actually interested in it and There was it was all just agreements made beforehand and there wasn't really much grandstanding But anytime there was something to do with social policy or something that the rubes in congress could understand Well, they had immense opinions to express about it for hours on end And it was because you don't need to have any particular knowledge to have an opinion about whether abortion is good or bad whereas if you were going to have a A debate about fed policy you might actually have to read a book And so nobody in congress is going to do that And I mean, that's just the reality. They don't understand what the fed does. They don't understand why it's bad They don't understand the relationship between deficit spending and inflation and bond yields and all that stuff That's all just too complicated. The only thing these people know how to do is fundraise and get reelected They have no other skills whatsoever with a few exceptions with some people who actually had real jobs Uh before they came to congress less than 30 years ago and I mean Nothing can just demonstrate just how much contempt these people deserve than the current situation that yeah The house is burning down around them and they're concerned with the piddling little internal politics of congress Uh, and we all saw it coming too. I was pointing out on mesas.org back in 2019 that Trump was running near trillion dollar deficits in a in a period where it was a major expansion Where we were all the indicators were that the economy was great and yet they were still running 800 billion 900 billion dollar deficits And it was clearly in 2020 whether there were whether kovat had ever happened or not It was going to top a trillion dollar deficit for no reason whatsoever other than the fact that the republicans and trump love To spend huge amounts of money And we're supposed to believe that that's biden's fault is democrats fault We can look back when the republicans had total control in 17 and 18 What the realities were tons of spending no regard whatsoever for fiscal responsibility And so anyone who's still claiming that and I saw this Uh in the most recent issue of imprimis, you know that hills dale sends out Um That uh, well here's uh I have it sitting right here. They uh, they gave a they have a graph in here. It's changes in wages versus change in inflation And it's a graph and it shows how price inflation. It's a cpi. It's not money supply inflation cpi inflation Uh, look during the trump era inflation was low and wage growth was high But as soon as biden comes in well, then suddenly inflation goes up and Uh wages start to moderate and and can't keep up with inflation anymore And they're at what so what the argument here is is that everything was fine under trump and the inflation that's now incurring Occurring in the biden era has nothing to do with anything that occurred under trump that it's strictly biden's fault I mean, this is I mean, this is imprimis This is supposed to be like some sort of high brow more scholarly thing by some guy named andrew pudsger Pudzer puzder. There you go. I don't know. I've never heard of him before But he's supposed to be some sort of like economist and I mean the level of stupidity you have to have to think that What trump did in terms of deficit spending and money printing during his time period had nothing to do with What was going with what's going on now? During the biden era in terms of inflation It's just astounding the the obtuseness Is does he really believe this or is he just trying to pander to the even more ignorant readers? Claiming that the economy was well managed during the trump years But I we continue to have that right the republicans. They're just going to say hey It's uh, it's biden's fault. Just get republicans back in there Even just those mainstream republicans guys like mccarthy and everything will be under control again I mean, there's something deeply rotten within both parties, of course But I guess they can just get away with it by blaming the other guy indefinitely and I guess we'll know more when we see who's actually going to try and Run for leadership here, but even most of the guys I see who seem relatively better in terms of g.o.p leadership They're still just tend to be bad on fiscal issues. Most of all that stuff you see on youtube where they're they're questioning the fbi um and Scoring points on the left in terms of social policy or the corruption within the federal government Good. I mean, I'm glad they're doing that. That's great But these people have shown zero will when it comes to actually doing something about the economic realities They're inflicting pain upon americans So you could see the economy just going down in flames as they're focusing mostly just on the fbi Under biden and then of course if you get a republican in the white house, then most of that's going to disappear They're not going to be criticizing the fbi nearly as much if at all when there's a republican in charge So it's all just going to go back to normal And so it's this usual scam of each party saying it's the other guy's fault Vote for us and then and then everything just Then the regime just gets supported again by whoever's in power once they're in so um, I Something there's gonna have to be some sort of significant political or historical event that would seem to change the the public's overall views on these But I haven't seen evidence of that quite yet And that's part of it is that the public You know, there's no appetite there for In any any major physical forms either, right? You know you had You know when paul ryan was the the budget wonder kid on the hill and he promoted as you know the the serious wonk You know he proposed some very minor insufficient reforms to you know medicare and medicaid spending and he was immediately You know portrayed as someone, you know It was a guy throwing grandma and grandpa off a cliff You know, I have no no sympathy no love for for paul ryan. I mean he was his entire Mystique was uh, you know only probably only possible in a a town as uh as as cartoonish as dc But it was effective and ever since then You know, there's been no Serious conversation about Any anything when it comes to the economic front. I mean the tea party was was completely co-opted Most of the most fervent pro trump crowd Largely consisted of former tea party members. You had you know mcmullvaney Who was trump's head budget guy and Finished up as you had had a long tenure as the chief of staff. You know, he was a Freedom caucus guy and all that went out the window because they saw trump as a as a vehicle for Their own success and there was no there was no wheels. There was no break there get paul ryan You know speaker the house during those first two years in the trump administration nothing You know only succeeded in Failing to to make any sort of uh reforms to obama care Right, then the number one issue that republics have been campaigning on for eight eight years or so Um, yeah, and so part of it Is that you know for the few members of the house that are serious about you know that understand the gravity of the situation They're outnumbered. There's no political will for voters to reward it. I mean the the incentives there Are completely disaligned for reasons our audience is very familiar with and if you look at you know, what's going to come next You're someone who embodies, you know, precisely your your comments there would be someone like jim jordan who you know I like jim jordan more than your average member of congress, you know, he has been good on certain oversight issues and the like um You know, but he you know I think it would be a mistake to suggest that always change kama karthi with jim jordan and suddenly you're going to get You know balanced budgets. I mean that's that's not going to happen Um, you know, I think the more most likely outcome right now is steve scolese Who's house majority leader, you know most famous for getting shot by a deranged bernie bro? A few years ago, um, you know, he's not going to be some sort of radical I mean he sees arguably he'll be he'll be framed as more conservative than kevin mccarthy Not a particularly difficult job in how in the world you had a californian representing the republican party's a whole different conversation there And again, this kind of goes to You know, what doesn't mean like what what is the skill set? That leads to someone becoming a speaker of the house And I think that's one of the issues, you know, one of the one of the common criticisms out there and you know I'm not going to comment on the validity or not, right? It's like, oh, well the democrats Follow the leader the republicans don't I mean, this is skin Pretty remarkable when you consider the last three republican leaders have all been kicked out of their position, right? They they their their terms ended in infamy baner um Paul ryan and now kevin mccarthy um, and it's because you have this this clear tension this clear uh divide Between what the average republican voter thinks, you know, there's there's plenty of conflicts in there, right? You know, this is the crowd, you know get get your government hands off my medicare fine, whatever You know, there's there's some cognitive dissidents that exist throughout, you know You know accepted within political discussions fine um But the way that republics have governed have has never been particularly favored by The base the republican base and the issue is that the the the system that leads to political power Is you know your top priority? It's not being some sort of grand um, you know reformer In terms of uh, you know understanding policy and the like it's how are you as a fundraiser? And so kevin mccarthy, he was a great fundraiser He was a person that you know when you had complaints going on there about big tech censorship and the like He was the one going to to google and facebook saying don't worry I'm going to keep my crazies under control keep sending me campaign checks. I'm going to dole him out You're going to strengthen my position. I mean, this is the guy that was spending He was very active and republican primaries axing conservative members in favor of people that he could control eric breakey Up in main right, you know kevin mccarthy was Spending republican dollars to attack him when he was running for congress End up losing the seat, you know, and if you look at 2022 Uh, you know kevin mccarthy took credit for how well we fired nancy polosi Well, if you actually look at the breakdown Republicans lost most of the battleground seats the big changes came from two singular states It was new york where you had a particularly competitive governor's race That ended up having spillover effects in congressional districts There's a few member i think there was four republican members one in new york And then you had four one in florida because desantis kind of changed the map Um to make it so there was more kind of red areas That to win there so like all of the the makeup that gave republicans a short majority Came from those two states that had very little to do with republican leadership And So like there was no ford vision. There's there's no even you know, I think republicans are rightfully demoralized about what does national politics even mean right now when it doesn't matter who we elect You know, we we we tried the tea party thing. It didn't work. We tried trump We're in the situation we are right now again, obviously still a lot of of love and loyalty to trump Is what it is, you know, so it goes but you know, there there is I think a sense that it doesn't matter what republicans do The federal government's going to continue to swim left and so I think what's going to be interesting is What does this look like in terms of republican focus in the future? And what's interesting is that some of the members that have You know that that have been more willing to buck Leadership in the past a number of them are looking to leave dc for state capitals dan bishop in michigan No relation as far as I know Is looking at running for attorney general in michigan matt rosendale from montana. He's looking at running for for governor Or for for you know, larger larger office within montana Matt gates is you know highly rumored to be running for governor in 2026 in florida And I think what you're gonna have is the people that actually give a damn Actually have concerns are going to be leaving dc where there's nothing going on and ending up at the state level And that could be again, you know, I think that movement towards kind of post national politics Which I think you'll see break out in a big way if 2024 does not go in the republicans direction And let's be honest with all the headwinds all the economic headwinds that the by the administration is facing right now If republicans can't win a national race Again, you can you can blame trump you can blame whatever but it is what it is um Main voter fraud and whatever but like if if you do not have republican successful at national level with all the economic dysfunction Which again, I think we can you know be We're not in the prediction business, but I would predict that things are going to get worse between now and next november um, then that Hopefully will lead to very serious considerations on what does post national politics mean for an american right? How you want to define that and I think that's where things start getting interesting It's going to washington is structured in a way That is it's not meant to solve these problems these there again There's no political will that exists here the the hope for you know, you're not going to solve this with an election Right these these these this is basic math. It's basic economics. I mean until you have people seriously talking about Defaulting on debt when you when you start having genuinely extreme conversations um And and you know if you in some ways right breaking up the appropriations process and returning to normal would be an Extreme measure relative to how washington has governed itself for 25 years fine What's going to end up in those discussions again? You're not going to get you have multi trillion dollar cuts out of that process, but fine whatever That would be an extreme step But you're not you know, there there is no you know, there is no plan here to navigate out of this And again the only thing that that is Helping washington right now is the fact that this is a international crisis or else the internal struggles would be even worse than they are Right now So again until you have You know radical leadership the state level start taking on these concerns very seriously We're seeing a little bit, you know, texas has done a lot of interesting things in gold Wyoming has done some very interesting things in crypto and the like, you know, you you are seeing interesting Things talked about at the state level. You're seeing more things done at the state level the need of in washington and hopefully There gets to a breaking point where you know, there's enough Of the you know conservative base conservative voters that recognize states are the better solution Then you know putting all of our our eggs in the dc basket um, you know That's that I think would be a positive trend towards something of substance instead, you know, I fully expect That you know, the next week of the house is more likely to be a scolese um And part of that is just because like if scolese moves up then that creates openings for majority leader So, you know people can move up there and then if the if the whip moves up Then there's going to be a battle over who can be whip, right? So all these politicians again the same people that were blasting that gates for only looking out for his own career and his own ambitions, right? You think there's the same people that are going to be making very calculated decisions on You know, what opening if I support this person it creates an opening for my personal career to to go up, right? These this is what every member of congress is going to calculate, right? Um, I think I think that's the most likely outcome and it's going to result in something resembling the status quo You know, I'll take a scalp when I can get it You know in any time that you can make members of congress cry Because you beat up their good friend kevin mccarthy just to think of the he said nice thing He came to our weddings and he he says nice things to our children and he's such a great guide It's like well, you know, if that's your your basis right now On what leadership looks like then, you know, you're out of touch any system where someone like kevin mccarthy has a More infinitely a larger place in the hierarchy Then someone like thomas massie who actually builds things Right that that is a system that is is Fundamentally broken and it works to the left because the left hierarchy is always dictated by power and politics That is under their entire world view If there's going to be any sort of a genuine conservative movement It's going to be something that rewards merit and talent and actual accomplishment Over pure political capital Republican parties you're over close to this Again, it's it's systemically broken again We still have a freaking romney You know running the the national party, right? I mean this is the complete dysfunction of the republican party in the national level and again I think our listeners understand that but you know, I think I think murray would be enjoying the chaos and disorder And members of congress crying that we saw this week and at the very least we can we can savor that moment All right. Well that let's let that be it for this episode of radio roth bar We will be back next week with a new episode. So we'll see you next time