 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is American Issues Take Two, and today the title of our episode is A House of Jokers and Cards. We'll explain that in a minute. And it's all about destructive directions under Kevin McCarthy. And for this show, we have our regular contributor, Stephanie Stoll Dalton, and our esteemed guest, Chuck Crumpton. Welcome to the show, you guys. In a moment, we're going to get to the discussion. George Santos is still there, and he has received committee assignments. Marjorie Taylor Green is best friends with Kevin McCarthy. Oversight committee assignments have gone to Trumpers. Green, Scott Perry, Lauren Boebert, and Paul Gosar, who promote the big lie, the insurrection, violent rhetoric, and conspiracy theories. Furthermore, they want ridiculous investigations, and they want to impeach Joe Biden. What a scene. So for this discussion, Stephanie Stoll Dalton and Chuck Crumpton. Let's start with you, Stephanie. What does it look like going forward? I mean, none of this seems to be constructive or directed at dealing with the country's problems. We're in serious difficulty here when we have sixth graders running the United States of America and some of those aren't even at that level. So the decorum, the norms, the standards, the values, the law, there seems to be no respect at all for that. So I think we're interested in pretty hard times, but given the constraints they've put on their leader, McCarthy, it could be that we're going to just have chaos because something's going to happen that some one person's not going to like, and they'll start these processes to threaten him and alleviate him of his duties, and that will start taking up time. That's my only hope. On the other hand, if there are people in the Republican Party in the House that will please step up, I hope they feel strong enough to do that. We are getting some of that to happen with Senator Mace is not going to vote with McCarthy, and another senator's not too. So it is just beginning to break off a little bit. I think that might be an advantage. I mean, that might be an opportunity to get some sanity back into the process. Does any of that make sense to you guys? Well, I mean, it just looks like every day it gets crazier. And, you know, to me, Chuck, and I'm wondering how you feel about this. To me, I feel that McCarthy is like, it's not really McCarthy. McCarthy is a puppet. And there's a puppet master or perhaps a group of puppet masters behind it. He is being used as a vehicle, but he is not asserting any real judgment here and doing anybody any favors. What do you think drives him, Chuck? Well, I think that's right. But I think we also need to be aware. McCarthy is an extremely ambitious person. Self-serving is his primary agenda. This has become the age of narcissism, narcissism and leadership. McCarthy, DeSantis, Trump, Pompeo. I mean, the number of really destructive anti-truth, anti-democracy narcissistic leaders that have developed in the right wing and the Republican Party generally have made what Trump was able to turn into a control of the narrative for four years that the media gave him into a situation where the media is now questioning whether they want to do that anymore. McCarthy's not getting the dominance. Green's not getting the dominance. Gates is not getting the dominance. So I think Stephanie's right. I think we're looking at chaos and that can't help them in 2024. I wonder whether they even think that far away. You mentioned Trump's name. Where does Trump play in this? And we see a lot of press about how he's down, but not out, that conceivably he could have a comeback. Is this part of his comeback? Is he speaking into McCarthy's year? I mean, after all that visit to Mar-a-Lago right after, I guess, the insurrection was a real telltale sign about what kind of a vacillator McCarthy is. Could it be that Trump is now controlling McCarthy? Well, it's a great question. Excuse me. Well, Jay, let me quickly say thank you. Thank you, Chuck. I just recalled my surprise on the TV pictures of the representatives selecting McCarthy. Once he got the vote and you remember, March Green ran up to him with the phone and it looked like she was taking a selfie of herself and McCarthy and congratulating him. No, no. She was on the phone with D.T., Donald Trump in that embrace that they had. It wasn't just for their selfie. It was to wire him Donald J. Trump in. I just wanted to mention that in case you or the viewers didn't see that move, which I think addresses or answers somewhat your question, Jay. He's right in the midst of it. Does that change your view to remember that, Chuck? Well, it's a great question, Jay, because we see two things. One, for the last few weeks, somebody in Trump's advisory team has convinced him to keep the lowest profile that he has kept in the last five or six years. So the indication of a change in his advisory leadership and in the strategy for that is really significant. Yes, he supported McCarthy for selection as House Speaker, but that was an easy one. McCarthy was going to get it sooner or later anyway. It was just a matter of which concessions he was going to have to make. So the question is going to be now, what will be Trump's strategy going forward in terms of regaining control of the narrative, which is what worked for him to get him elected and to maintain four years of a level of destructive power that we have not seen in the presidency, maybe ever? Yeah. Destructive power, I think, that's really interesting because Trump created and you can say that he didn't intend to create all of it, but he certainly intentionally or otherwise created chaos for his entire time. You know, autocrats, aspiring autocrats, they benefit by creating chaos. And if you want to look for elements of chaos, you can find it right now in the house. It's chaos. I mean, some of the absurd, ridiculous things that are happening are more or less than chaos. Of course, we will criticize the Republicans and the Freedom Caucus and all those people I just mentioned, but maybe they have a plan or through them, Trump has a plan to create chaos where he alone can fix it. So if he has two years to do this and the likelihood is he will get the Republican nomination if he wants it and somehow capitalize on the chaos. One other incredible piece that came out to me anyway this morning was that the Republicans in the House, some of them want to the Freedom Caucus people, they want to knock off the income tax completely. They want to completely defund the Internal Revenue Service in the thought that some people will like that. And instead, they want to do a 30% sales tax across everything, across most things in the country, a national sales tax. And this will obviously benefit the 1%. They'll pay a lot less. And it's regressive. It's just a perfect example of a huge regressive tax, a shift to the right. And the people in the base who think, oh, that's a great idea. It'll make life simple for us, not to have to deal with the likes of the Internal Revenue Service. What do you think, Stephanie? Do they understand that this is a weapon pointed directly at them? Jay, I think that's an excellent point. They go for the need-jerk. They are need-jerk reactors and then they go for the least challenging, the least complicated, or they won't even get into complications. So like you say, it sounds like a simple solution makes sense to them. They don't add up the numbers and they don't see the strategy below it. And that's why we have to rely on the Senate, of course. And Senator Tester from Montana is adamantly opposed to this, especially for the rural people. He doesn't see that this is of any worth whatsoever. And he's going to do everything he can to go up against it. So I mean, that's in the Senate. But I think that in the House, my questions are, we do have people like Representative Mace and one other I heard about who's against voting out the Representative Ilhan from the Foreign Relations Committee. So McCarthy does not have all those people lasso to do his bidding step by step. So if that is the case, I think there's hope because if Mace is willing, and one other is already willing to say that they're not going to vote for it in the House, that's the beginning again, maybe this 200 people will come together and do something to get in the way of that kind of voting and product that the House can put out. But then I hope you're not smoking anything this morning, Stephanie. I hope I'm not smoking anything this morning. Yes, it is enough to make you want to go do that. Very tough to, you know, abide all of this, as I said, sixth grade playground stuff going on. I just You said earlier that it was inevitable and I would have to agree with you that Kevin McCarthy would become, you know, the Speaker of the House. But what about his strength now? Yes, we all know directly and directly that he made a deal where if the Freedom Caucus didn't like him, even one member, they could move to, you know, terminate his status as Speaker of the House. Is he really at risk of losing that? What happens if they turn on him if they do? Well, they don't really need to because they can leverage him on every single vote. McCarthy's greatest weakness is he knows he can't pass anything through the Senate or with presidential approval without a veto. So he's essentially unaccountable, except to the extent that he needs to manage his constituency in a way that does not manifest destructive power and chaos in a way that's going to alienate voters moving up to 2024. That's his challenge. The media doesn't talk about that. I mean, if they really focused on that, what's going on behind the scenes, what needs to happen in order for any kind of effective legislation to pass. So the debt ceiling and related debates and legislation, that's going to be our first example of whether that can even happen in this political context. Yeah, let's focus on that for a minute. That's a primary point of this discussion, the debt ceiling. So let everybody know now that the debt ceiling has not been lifted. No action has been taken to lift it. That Janet Yellen has made it clear that they're going to take other, quote, extraordinary measures in order to keep the ship afloat. And that means not paying certain bills, like, for example, sending back refund tax checks from the Internal Revenue Service. And of course, it means slowing down or stopping certain payments on social security and Medicare. Wow. And all of that between now and July when even those extraordinary measures are no longer workable. So we are in a fiscal crisis, like it or not, and no effort and no light at the end of the tunnel is showing. What does this mean? What does this mean for McCarthy, for the Freedom Caucus, for the Republicans, and for the country? Well, I just know that when this happened before, I was in government service and we had three weeks with no budget, with no money. So we were relieved of duties to the point where it's against the law to even do any work, no matter what. But anyway, that's what we're probably going to go to again. But if you recall, in that event in the night, was that in the aughts or early aughts? Anyway, there was also another time, I think, didn't Newt Gingrich do this? There's another time. And it's always come back on the Republicans who started it, at least the voters the citizen saw who was causing the problem. And it came back to haunt the GOP for seeing it in the way of America's financial stability. Let me, before I turn that question over to Chuck, I just want to say that the news cycle works differently these days. And I think Trump and his friends they're fully aware, and maybe they're right, that you can do terrible things on day one. But all these things happen, all these other events intercede. And by day five, everybody forgot already. And you can rebuild whatever support you had, even though you did really awful things on day one. And he showed us that several times in his administration. But Chuck, let me ask you, though, there's so many implications to the debt ceiling issue, not only nationally, but internationally. And they are really taking a big chance, because although Janet Yellen has a plan, it's imperfect, and it's limited in time, and it doesn't solve the credibility problem. So how dare they do this? And they're doing it unilaterally, they're trying to extract unspecified concessions from the Biden administration, which he will never agree to. This is so destructive. You guys have been talking about destruction. This is destructive, and it is chaos. But what happens? How does this unfold? That's a great question, and it goes a bunch of different directions. One of which is that the debt ceiling is for appropriations already made. This is money already spent, debt already incurred. This is not for future spending. This is not, we're going to think this over again and change our minds about this. So the attempt to extract concessions, which Biden has indicated are not going to be indulged, isn't productive. What it is intended to do is again the idea of destructive power simply for its own sake to try and damage the credibility and the working relationships of the other side. If you damage the U.S. full faith and credit internationally, you weaken the NATO alliances, the international alliances, the support for Ukraine in its war, and the support for Europe in rebuilding its economy and trying to withstand recession and damaging impacts of inflation. So it's really intended to do damage to those relationships that are important to the Democrats in establishing both international and domestic policy effectiveness. Will that work? I don't think so for the reasons that Stephanie's brought out. You know, even with autocrats and really bad people, they are able to articulate erroneously with a lot of untruth that they have a vision, a vision for the future. Even Vladimir Putin can sell that. He has sold it using propaganda. So what, is there any, I love this question, I'm sorry, is there any arguable vision here on the part of the Republicans, or are they just messing up the sandlot? Well, that goes back to your chaos point. I'm just jumping in here. I can't help it. I'm just the red flags flying there. They're just going to have the chaos again, because now they know how to use that as an instrument of terror and destruction. So they will do that. And to your other point, Jay, which was so good, is that you can be a really, really bad boy. And then a week later, you can start rebuilding or even get most of back your good reputation. It's amazing what can be done with these negative, demonic forces. We are only getting familiar with them through this phase of having these people in government who should never be there. You know, it's interesting that, you know, when this all started out, I didn't think they were really going to do these crazy, silly things. I thought they were just going to stand fast and not agree with anything Biden wanted, and let Biden fall into a lack of credibility or a lack of influence. But it's not that. They're going further than that. They're going way further than that. And what I find interesting is that they're putting these people, these big live people, on critical committees like the oversight committees. And they're organizing, you know, these investigations, investigation of the investigation of the investigation. And it's not only a static chaos, it's an active chaos, if you will. And they're taking the regular members who have been on these committees for decades, they're taking them off. They're putting all the nutcases on the committees instead. This speaks of a really profound chaos. And I don't know if they could ever defend this in the future. But, you know, a query truck doesn't matter. Do they have to have a vision? Or are they not worried about how they look? Because they can always change how they look. And there are people out there that actually agree with them, that Perry and Bogart and Kasar and Green are valuable players and can actually do stuff to advance the interests of the country. And what they have in mind, what they have articulated is in the interest of the country. I mean, it's the inmates running the asylum. That's what it is. But I mean, what do people out there think? Do they think that this is legit? I mean, if the base believes this, things are much worse than we ever thought. Well, I'm just going to just jump in here because it's a part of the plan to tear everything down. And they are not. This is the point that we've already made that these people have no bottom line. There's no line over which they will not step. They are willing to risk. And I think it is out of some stupidity and lack of understanding at some level. But they are willing to place America in that destructive situation, which will take a decade to retrieve ourselves from, even if it's only for one day. And then they know how to do it. Anyway, so these are the new ways of gaming now, which we're learning. This is the darkest side of it ever that we've seen. So they're going full board with it. Well, my question to Chuck, and I want to be specific here. Chuck, what's left to Biden? Is he governed by proclamation? How does he govern? How does he get anything done when the Congress is now completely locked up? It's a great question. But one of the things that I think we need to do with the media has not been very good at this, and they need to develop it better, is look for what's missing. What's not there? One of the things is that Mitch McConnell, who has wielded really effective control of the Republicans in the Senate for years and years, without gaps, without breaks in his control, has been completely silent on McCarthy's ploys and problems. McCarthy's gotten no support for him at all. In fact, the only thing Mitch McConnell has done in the last few weeks is appear with Biden in Kentucky to smile about all the great benefits to Kentucky from the two acts that Biden and the Democrats were able to pass in 2022. So Biden has room to work. He's also done some amazing things which have escaped much media attention, fortunately, with executive acts in areas like immigration and areas like healthcare, in other areas where major change has come to pass at the administrative level that affects local and community, economics, systems, and people. So if you look at the difference between effective strategy wielding, Biden and the Democrats, even with this, have been extremely effective given what was expected or thought possible for them. McCarthy, on the other hand, he didn't anticipate the problems. He didn't deal with them ahead of time. He didn't go out and negotiate his votes. He didn't do any of the things that McConnell has done effectively, or Biden and Schumer. Or Pelosi. Pelosi, yeah. So he's not smart. He's not a good strategist. Is he going to be effective? I don't really see any reason to think that he will be. He's only going to be a mouthpiece for this Freedom Caucus and potentially, as Stephanie mentioned, for Trump himself, who is giving instructions to the Freedom Caucus and who is giving instructions to McCarthy. So this is all very, very uncomfortable. But let me ask you this, Chuck. This is a hard one. He can rule by proclamation. And he can rule by the bully pulpit. This morning, he made a great statement about all the economic success he has had and how his bills have improved the economy. And that's true. And he's got various government offices. He's quoting them to say things are good, good things happening now. How long can that continue? After a while, if he's stuck in dealing with the House, how can he get anything bipartisan through? Because right now, it doesn't look like they're going to allow him to get anything, anything through. And so between now and 2024, there's going to be a brick wall where Biden can no longer use the bully pulpit, where he can no longer use his power of proclamation, not in the way he has been using it, where he's going to be more stuck than ever, simply for the lack of any cooperation by McCarthy and Republicans in the House. Where does that wall come? I think that's a great question. And I think it goes back to what we were just talking about. If you want to see which side is more likely to do better in the strategy wars, both in terms of governance and in terms of politics, look at the last couple of years, look at where McCarthy is now, look at where Biden and the Democrats are now. If I had to put money on one of them, I think in the long term the Democrats are going to do better. They are more focused on actual governance of actual issues. I would hope so, but you know, Stephanie, we've had troubles with maintaining the regular federalism that was contemplated by the founders. And right now there are eight states controlled by Republicans that are either passing or trying to pass a vote in favor of a constitutional convention, a national constitutional convention under Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution. And when you see it happening in eight states, you say, well, this is part of their current conspiracy, part of their plan to change things dramatically. And so do you draw, for example, a parallel or connection between the chaos in the House and the inability of the Congress and thus the federal government to get anything done, and the initiative that is happening out there in this perverse federal wonderland by states who want to have a brand new constitution and want to have a convention. Can you imagine what kind of rationality or chaos would happen in that convention? Is there a connection, Stephanie? Well, we know that I think one of the last steps, well, I can't see it going anywhere but down because we're not in position to get to compromise. I mean, I said that Biden has done miraculously well in the face of these vicious forces that have been let loose. And if we look back at the history of that, I mean, we can go back to Gingrich. He brought a lot of that in with him, which was kind of based on the whole Agnew case that was displayed and revealed in the Rachel Matto's Batman, where you just go up against everything, no matter what, until they actually have total evidence that you've done it. And then of course, all of the stuff that Trump has done, he's always been calling on his what Larry Cohen, that he wanted that kind of a lawyer going all the way now back to the house of an American activity. So those pieces were there. So they, so that was in the 30s, right or 40s. But as you go back over 20th century, you can see these pieces of these evil malicious influences popping up and starting to flagellate all over the place. And now I think that they've been gathered and put together for strength to do more things that that side of the party wants to do in that manner. And Biden is, of course, representing our rep, our focus from the Constitution and our founders. And he's been successful that way. But I think the Democrats and Biden are going to have to get a lot, lot smarter to get to 3.0, because 2.0 has been working for these guys starting with gang rich and on up. And now the Democrats have to learn more about how to combat that or Chuck, you know, the people that McCarthy is favoring the Freedom Caucus are all, you know, they're all deniers. And they all seem to be out to create chaos and destroy representative government. It's remarkable to think that those people have so much influence through him and the House. Some people say, Chuck, that this is kind of a cleaned up version of the insurrection. No violence, arguably legal, okay, but it is no less and possibly in some ways more than the physical and violent insurrection on January 6. What do you think? Well, remember again, you know, McCarthy has no upside on the debt ceiling issues on the basic survival of the American economy, full faith and credit, domestically and internationally. He's got no support from McConnell. The greater likelihood is that Biden will craft something with the Senate that will come out and be presented for House passage. And that will put it all on McCarthy. Can he assemble enough to avoid the embarrassment of being the obstacle to America's suffering, severe self-imposed damage to its own full faith and credit domestically and internationally? There's no upside for him. If he'd picked immigration as his issue from the beginning, he might have a better shot. He might be able to get more Senate support, but I don't see it. Well, let's assume that he doesn't care. Let's assume that he's working for Trump and that the Freedom Caucus is bent on creating chaos, effectively destroying a representative government and creating a kind of new dark world for us. He's making progress in that regard, isn't he? This is sort of a cleaned up version of an insurrection where we overthrow the existing government. Isn't that what it sounds like? No. Be very aware, everyone who has served Trump has gone down in flames at Trump's own hand. He's torched Giuliani. He's torched Pompeo. He's torched Bannon. Bar every single one. McCarthy is next. You heard it here on Think Tech. So if McCarthy thinks that Trump is going to save or advance him, he has no sense of history at all. That's quite possible. McCarthy has demonstrated absolutely no strategic intelligence at all. Right. He's ambitious, but he doesn't have the goods. Stephanie, I want to ask you about DeSantis. How does this all affect DeSantis? We have chaos in the House. We have arguably the decline of Trump's influence, the decline of the Republican Party. And my recollection is DeSantis has been calling for a reorganization of the Republican Party. He wants the National Republican Party to be reorganized and new members on its boards and all this and that. And this tells you something about where DeSantis is going. Why is he doing that? Where is he going? How is he going to try to leverage this in his own benefit? Well, I think, of course, he's went a great question. Oh, I'm not really up to it, but he's going to garner the support of the mob at the Trump level of that group. He's going to pull that in by doing these continuously racist and discriminatory things. Well, it sounds more like he's what he's going to do is get the margins, not the hardcore base, but the margins who might be affected, who might be starting to think that Trump is useless. Yeah, and getting stuff done for Trump and getting stuff done for those values that they have. But here's a man who should be shamed to have been responsible for millions and millions of people dying. So once again, I just make the point because there are these malevolent influences that are out there and operable for some reason, every which way. And somehow that stuff has to get put back in the bottle, but it ain't going back in the bottle anytime soon. But that has to be accounted, and there has to be some antidote for that. But anyway, yeah, just what you say, he's going to go for all of that. And he's got a pretty good resume to bring to it. Well, if he distinguishes himself from Trump and the hardcore people who are running the house, maybe that's a big advantage. So Chuck, one last question before we have to go. And that is, we haven't talked about it, but the Freedom Caucus and the hardcore conservatives is too kind a word for them. The ultra right people who are running the house. They don't think too much of supporting Ukraine. And it seems like we're at some kind of inflection point. The Russians have threatened a big ground offensive in the spring. The spring is coming in a few weeks. Zelensky has asked for tanks. The United States, that means Biden has been reluctant to agree to tanks. And the Germans have been reluctant to agree to tanks if the United States is reluctant to agree to tanks. And that's all in a lot of meetings and all that, but no resolution, no decision quite yet. Seems like we're going in the direction of giving them tanks. Other countries in Eastern Europe want to give them tanks. The tanks are critical to defend against the ground war that's coming soon. So Ukraine's in trouble. The answer to all of that is support by this country. But we have a house that doesn't look like it's going to support Ukraine. Where is this going? Because it could have huge international implications. Another reflection of McCarthy's lack of strategic intelligence. If you're going to pick an issue to fight, don't pick Ukraine. You've got international support. The agreement for the tanks is now in place. Tanks will be coming. There will be additional weaponry provided and support provided beyond that. There's no indications from the Senate of any reluctance to continue support for Ukraine. At least the Santas has had the intelligence to pick immigration as his issue, one where he's got a better shot at finding some weaknesses on the other side. McCarthy doesn't have that. And the Freedom Caucus has not demonstrated any kind of unified support to be able to accomplish anything. Okay, so time to close here. Chuck, why don't you go first? What are your closing thoughts you would like to summarize here from this discussion and leave with people today? We seem to have chaos. What does it mean? Where is it going? I think if we focus on the strategies that wind up coming together in order to raise the debt ceiling in order to continue the strength of our economy both domestically and internationally, that's going to tell us a lot about where we're going. You bet. It is, because that's influence and resilience. Stephanie, how about your last comments? And if you wish, if you wish only, you can talk about George Santos too. Oh, okay. Well, quickly, I just want to thank Chuck for educating me a little bit here about the emptiness of a McCarthy agenda and lack of any tactical or strategisms that make any difference for the country. And also his vulnerability and lack of support. Really, very, very interesting. Anyway, with Santos, I just want to say that I heard that there was a White House party and everybody went and of course he wanted to go too, but turns out if you go to a White House party, you have to tell them your name and you have to give them a social security number and maybe even a telephone number. And so Santos was nowhere to be seen in that lineup for getting in the front gate of the White House because all of those names and numbers get checked out thoroughly to make sure you are who you are. I remember in the United States Congress, we don't know his social security number. Right. Just a bunch of numbers. Yeah, he knew he would never, never register, right? Or maybe it would have revealed. An unending list of jokes about the man, but it's tragic that he's still there and he's on committees and he's a liar and everything. Why isn't there a recall? Why is Gavin Newsom there? A recall in the state of New York. Okay, so that's a state thing to not have that. But yeah, I think that probably there'll be some criminal proceedings against him for lying in one context or another. Stephanie, thank you so much for this discussion. Chuck Crumpton, thank you so much. We'll see you again soon. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.