 I'm Tim Appichell, your host, and today's title is Dump Maga, work with the Democrats. Here we go again. We've got the clown show going on in the House of Representatives. 21 brave souls of the GOP decided yesterday that they were not going to cast a vote for the proposed speaker of the House, Jim Jordan. 21 brave souls says enough's enough. And but the bad news is that means about 90% of the GOP in the House of Representatives weren't brave enough to say no to Jim Jordan. So I understand tomorrow, Jim Jordan will give it another crack at it. And he'll, we'll see if he prevails. So down in votes from the previous day. That's not good. I think the count was 199 votes for speaker of the House for Jim Jordan and I believe you need 217. So, he's failing miserably, and that's a good thing for America. Let's talk about this topic with me is my, my esteemed and always dependable co host, Jay Fidel. Hey, Jay, good morning. Morning, Jim. The show continues as we sometimes refer to it. Jim Jordan has been voted down yet again and he's going to give another whack tomorrow. Your thoughts about Jim Jordan and certainly an obstructionist in Congress. And now he thinks he's eligible for the speaker of the House position, your thoughts. His actions against his life experience at coaching wrestling qualifies him to be the third in line for the presidency. That is as scary as it gets, because everything he's done in Congress or putting it another way, nothing he's done in Congress doesn't qualify him for anything. He is simply unqualified. His only claim is that he's a trumpet. In fact, he's as close to Trump as anyone. And furthermore, he was involved in the insurrection. He, he skirted the questions when they asked him whether he had been on the phone with Trump on January 6, but the fact is the phone record showed that he spent plenty of time before the insurrection on the phone with Trump. That was part of the planning team that planned the insurrection. The other thing is that he voted, he voted against confirming the ballots. And to this day, Tim, are you sitting down to this day, he still will not agree that Joe Biden is the legitimate president. Unbelievable. This guy would be the speaker of the house. I mean, if they vote for him, they are, you know, it's an inflection point. And they are destroying the country if they vote for him. It's not, it's not simple. It's not insubstantial. So I hope that they realize that, you know, this is really important and anyone who votes for him is voting for Trump, which is really an awful sort. One thing in terms of the clown thing, I remember when I was a kid, my father used to take me to the Ringling Brothers Bottom and Bailey Circus in Madison Square Garden on 34th Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan. And one of the fun things that we always looked for was the clown car. We drove a car somewhere into the, you know, the rings of the Ringling Brothers Bottom and Bailey Circus. And the door, any little car, the smallest car you ever saw. And the door would open and the clowns would start getting out. And I swear, it must have had 217 clowns in that car because they kept on coming out. The exact number needed for the vote. Anyway, I mean, this is really a test of not only the GOP, not only, you know, Jordan, not only, and if he gets to be Speaker of the House, we are all in deep kimchi. I hope they see that the problem. May I tell you the problem? Who else, you know, what are the other possibilities? There are no Republican possibilities, only a Democrat possibility, and a lot of Republicans. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me let me interrupt you on that point. Are you saying now the 21 brave souls that said no to Jim Jordan. There can't, there is not one of them that would be considered an old fashioned GOP that's conservative for sure, but believes in the rule of law and believes in the continuation of Republic and believes in the defense of the Constitution. Are you saying there's no one in Congress, or excuse me, the House of Representatives that qualifies for that? I'm saying, and this goes to our pre-show conversation about the media. If there is somebody among that group, do we know him? Has the media spoke of him? Has the media elevated him and extolled his virtues or even discussed his virtues? Answer no. So what you have is day after day after day, the grind is all about, you know, Jim Jordan, spell his name right. It is not about any other living GOP. They may be somebody out there, but it's theoretical. After all, there are 330 million people in this country, and the press hasn't mentioned anybody as a competitor to Jim Jordan right now. This troubles me greatly because it is another failure of the media that they don't give you other options, other possibilities, other qualified individuals. So then you have to go look at a Democrat, and, you know, a lot of Republicans, even in their most enlightened moments, are not going to vote for a Democrat, especially in black. That would be the end of their political career. But let's look at the second half of this title of the show. The first half was Dump Mega. Mega meaning the Freedom Caucus of the House of Representatives, the Jim Jordan's, the Marjorie Taylor Greene's, you know, the Wackledoodles of the Freedom Caucus. The second part of the title is work with Democrats. What's to prevent a viable candidate who thinks he'd be a good, he or she may be a good speaker of the House to knock on the door of the Democrats and say, look, how long have we not got anything done because we're completely polarized? And what would it take for you to vote for me to be speaker of the House, not to say that you get what you want from me, but to say that we'll cooperate, we'll negotiate. We'll do what Tip O'Neill and President Reagan used to do, and that is sit down, maybe have an Irish whiskey or two, and discuss matters of the day discuss difficult policies, difficult positions of policy, a particular bill that needs to be passed for the entire country, but you know politics gets in the way. What's to prevent someone from approaching the Democrats to say, let's get back to those days. Nothing, nothing except, you know, the vengeance thing that comes out of Donald Trump, those midnight calls, those threats of retribution, those threats of primarying that person later. He probably keeps them in line. He's the wit. And, you know, yes, logical possibility, what you describe is, is what should happen put sort of 1000% for sure. It's a noble thought, but Trump stands directly in front of that and will do everything he can to stop that. After all, he's looking for chaos. Trump serves him. And if he can maintain the chaos, he can maintain his own political strengths, such as it is. But I agree with you totally. A moderate Republican comes around talks to the Democrats, will you vote for me, I will give you a fair shake, I will be moderate in office, I will serve the people. I mean, really, how much would it take would be. And frankly, I think the Democrats would warm to that. They would love to see a little resolution here after all Congress is doing anything. Well, let me let me hit on that point. Maybe they wouldn't love that and here's why I mean, if Jim Jordan is elected speaker of the House, that all but guarantees, I think that the House falls with the Democrats in 2024. Are they looking down the road as a strategy or would it be better just to say, yeah, let's, let's both look good in Congress and get some bills passed, particularly funding for Ukraine, particularly funding for Israel, particularly the the crisis at the border pertaining to immigration. It would serve both parties well to get a reasonable speaker of the House on the GOP side now and tomorrow. Yeah, the GOP would look good if that happened and maybe with the Democrats actually. So the Democrats, they, they, you know, for my money, they look really good now because they're the constructive ones that would like to resolve the crisis. And I think a lot of people know that. So that even if there was, you know, bilateralism going, going forward because of the scenario that you described, I don't think would really hurt the Democrats that would help. It would help the Republicans but this is not a win-lose game. This is a win for the country game. And I think people like Jamie Raskin, you know, the leaders have spoken from the Democrats side and they've made it clear that they, they want to see the country served. They want to see the country benefit. They want to see some public policy resolution of the issues. Right now, the Republicans have made it clear they couldn't give a rip about those things. If they show that they cared even a little bit, they benefit. But that doesn't change the scenario in an election time, I don't think. Before the show, you and I chatted a bit and I asked the question, do you think Donald Trump's been busy with his late night calls to certain GOPs to force and intimidate those GOP representatives to ram down Jim Jordan down their votes because, remember, Donald Trump endorsed him. This, this failure for Jim Jordan to become Speaker of the House is also a reflection on the failing influence of Donald Trump. Has Donald Trump been busy during the night with these late night calls to certain representatives? Do you think? Yeah, I do. I think he's worked very hard to put Jordan in an office and he's failed to put Jordan in that office. But, you know, KS also serves him, as I mentioned, and if he can keep someone moderate out of that office, it also benefits him. So, you know, either way, it's something he would want. But let me say that I believe that Trump does make midnight calls. And, or he has his proxies make midnight calls and they're threatening calls. They are threatening it on a political level. You know, I will primary you. I will give money to your opposition. I will find some cockamami opponent for you and push him and try to keep you get you out of office next time around. And I think a lot of them believe that because they really want to hold onto the office and the perks and the salary and all that stuff that goes along with being in Congress. They shouldn't, but they do. The other aspect of it is that part of Trump's program is to intimidate people. Now, it's only my personal reaction. But Michael Cohen was supposed to testify today in the civil trial in Manhattan. You know, and in show up, said he was couldn't show up because of quote health problems and quote, he's not there to testify. He's one of the most articulate voices, one of the most powerful witnesses against Trump. He's not there after appearing on television how many times. He's not there. And maybe I'm just maybe I'm slightly, you know, over concerned about this but I do think there's a chance that Trump did something to keep him out of that courtroom. You know, for all Trump, you know, goes around in public and in private, trying to contaminate juries and grand juries, trying to scare the prosecutors and scare the judge. He is, he is the worst element in our justice system, not only that he does these things. And I know he's going to do it in every case to him at every case, where he's at risk, you know that he's going to do it. Midnight telephone calls, what have you. What is also very troubling about this is that other people, equally smart and pathological will do the same. It undermines our justice system in general, you will see people take these cockamamie positions. You will see people make these crazy threats, or have others make threats. This is already becoming normal. I just mentioned one other thing and that is that, you know, we have a fair amount of controversy going on about gerrymandering around the country. And there are a number of states that did horrible gerrymandering unfair should be turned over. I mean, reversed. But all the Republicans who were involved in that gerrymandering are taking the same position. They're coordinating your position. You can't, they don't want to do discovery with you. They don't want to talk about it on the claim that it is somehow privileged, which is, you know, crazy defense, but they're all coordinated. And that's what troubles me this coordination thing, among the Republicans, they take these positions, they coordinate, and they stand by these positions. And they do it on every level. Does that sound like Trump? Well, obstruction is Trump's middle name. Yeah, it does sound like Trump. Clearly, Trump is still in charge of the party. After the 2022 election, we thought and we said on this show that Trump's influence is waning that he'll just disappear into the middle of the night. Not happy to announce, but I was wrong. And that proclamation was wrong. Trump is as strong as ever, perhaps, given his poll numbers. Now again, a lot of people don't believe in poll numbers, but I think to a certain degree those poll numbers are are valid and exist. What's Trump's influence on the party other than trying to browbeat 21 GOP representatives. Is it the subcastic talk? Is it direct phone calls? Where's Trump's influence? How is it being applied in today's political environment? It's all of the forgoing. It's intimidation, it's public statements intended to contaminate. It's public statements intended to contaminate juries and judges and prosecutors and witnesses, of course. It's everything and anything. He's got a playbook of all these things. And it's hard to catch it because if he doesn't, if he's not able to do one of these things, then the other. So I think, you know, you have to watch him carefully and the judges could be watching him carefully and they should be taking, you know, direct steps against him. Judge Shetkin gave him this very limited gag order. I'm not sure what's going to happen. You know he's going to violate it. And what is she going to do then? If it was me, I'd put him in jail the first time he violated it. And I would have made a much broader gag order too, by the way. But one thing you said I want to, I want to just comment on. Yes, he still is running the Republican Party despite the indictments and the 91 counts against him felony counts. Despite all that he's still running the party and those people out there, they're running on empty tanks, they continue to support him, whatever he says, and whatever trouble he gets into, and whatever outrageous things come out about him. You know, he's effectively running a in house insurrection. The other one was the insurrection from outside. This one is from inside with guys like Jim Jordan. They're running an insurrection in Congress and Jordan is the leader of that insurrection. But about Trump, I want to say I see him, but give me this as a kind of pimple. He's a pimple. And it's not so much that he still has control of the Republican Party is that his control is perhaps fragile. And one day between now and November, something is going to happen, my view, to break the pimple all over the mirror, so to speak. And he is going to fall and fail. There's a visual I'm trying to get out my brain right now, Jay. So, okay. Okay, so let's talk about the resistance. We have 21 GOP representatives that said no, not now no, no way. They may have been the recipient of a midnight call from Donald Trump they may not have. What do we say about the resistance in the house right now to say Trump's golden boy is not our choice. He's working hard. Trump be damned we don't we don't care what Trump says. Is that an indication that Trump's influence may be waning. That's a powerful extraction of the of Donald Trump but slowly, you know, the air is escaping from the Donald Trump balloon. Yeah, I think it is. I think otherwise he would have had Jim Jordan in office already doesn't. And, you know, I hope it stays this way but it looks like is it influence among the GOP is declining. And the question is, where does this will go, you know, because look what happened with Kevin McCarthy. I mean 15 votes, and he kept he kept sticking to it, the way Jordan keeps sticking to it. And, ultimately, they put a lack of a viable alternative. They elected Kevin McCarthy. Again, an obvious Trump or we have photographs, you know, you know, indicating that for sure. This could happen again. If Trump tells Jordan, keep on keeping on. Don't, don't hesitate. You just push this. Well, I tell you not to. And, and he keeps on with that sort of willful repetition thing of his. Jordan could get to be the leader and as I mentioned earlier and as you and I have discussed is if the media doesn't provide another person as a viable alternative, not only to the members of Congress and the GOP who might be more reasonable, but to the public to the world. You know, Jordan stands a better chance because there's no other name in the circle. Why the media has to look more carefully. Well, let me think and you name somebody. Well, no, not really, because you're right, no, no real name is floated to the top. I suppose you could argue that Steve Scalise missed the speakership by about four votes. You may well see him take another crack at it. We have the pro tem Patrick McHenry. I mean, his name is being floated out there is, you know, let's let them continue on. And remember, you don't have to be a representative of the house in order to be the speaker of the house. Now, in the case of Donald Trump, I think there's an existing rule that if you're indicted criminally indicted and that term of the indictments could equal 15 years or greater. If you're prevented from being nominated as a speaker of the house. That might be a GOP rule. And maybe they'll change it and say, gee, Donald, won't you be our speaker. Donald Trump has always suggested that he would do it to quote unquote, help out. What's what's the plausibility of that, Jay. You think Donald Trump would like to be speaker. You know, if the number of votes for Jordan is declining, it's hard to believe that Trump could get in there, even if there were no rule, you know, prohibiting that, aside from the section three of the 14th amendment, which is another, you know, and there are those who would argue that being speaker of the house is not an officer of the United States and I say to them Wow, my understanding of English is way different. My understanding of English may be way different than the Supreme Court. Well, you take an oath to office. When you're an officer or not, you take the same oath and that's the oath you're required to live by. I don't think he's going to get the votes, although I think that's what he'd like to see. Let's can we go back to Scalise for a minute. Whatever happened to him, he seemed to be the front runner. He had it, I thought. And all of a sudden, he withdraws. Was that a midnight call? What was going on there? Very good. Well, could be. Now, remember Steve Scalise had another of the skeletons in his closet and one was some degree of association with David Duke. For the audience that doesn't know who David Duke is. He is the former head of the Klu Klux Klan. There was some, you know, some interactions between Steve Scalise and David Duke. I think that settled down and hasn't been talked about. Not nearly as much as the association of Jim Jordan covering up allegations of pedophilia from the team doctor. Remember, Jim Jordan was an assistant assistant coach for the University of Michigan, and many players, many wrestlers came to Jim Jordan pleading for him to do something. He did nothing and now he claims he was never approached by those wrestlers. Those wrestlers have gone on on the record and depositions and under oath that that's, yes, he was approached. He was told of the situation and he chose to do nothing about it. So there's another little star and gold star and Jim Jordan's cap that he was very permissive is allowing these sort of things to happen and like a worm. He did nothing. Assistant coach. I'm sorry to qualify him for the third highest office in the land. Assistant coach of wrestling I'm sorry that's crazy. But what about, you know, what about having a Democrat in there what do you think the possibilities are. What took you so long to answer that. I don't know. But hey, what about Liz Cheney. If you want to throw out throw out some names I mean, she's a star word of the DLP back in the day and Democrats may not like her politics or her her policy positions, but they serve. Look at her as a true patriot of the country trying to preserve the Constitution and the Republic. I'm pretty sure they would vote for if given the opportunity. What about Liz. I agree with you that Democrats would vote for her she presented very well in the select committee hearings. He was excellent in trying to reach the truth and being fair minded, you know what you only need then five GOP votes or four or five GOP votes to get to the 217. Well, she needed a lot of GOP votes that's the problem and I think she's been damaged. And Trump damaged her. I mean, he cost her her job. And exactly. And he, you know, he, he, you know how that radio activity thing works, you know, you, you, you make a few criticisms and people buy it. And all of a sudden, you know, the political career that individuals is radioactive and damaged like forever. And so I don't think she's going to be able to get a whole lot of Republican votes, although I would vote for her if I was a Republican or a Democrat. Well, again, you got 21 that said no, we don't like Jim George brand of obstructionism. We don't like the fact he was on the ground floor of the January 6 insurrection. We don't like the fact that he's not qualified. He's never brought a bill before the floor. The fact that he covers up pedophilia. So if you're one of the 21 maybe say, you know what Liz is an honorable Liz Cheney is an honorable Congress person. And why not. Yeah, so 21 plus a lot of Democrats is what you're saying, you get to 17. You would have to convince Hakeem Jeffries that that's someone he and the rest of the Congress could work with as far as not controlling but certainly, like I said between Tip O'Neil and Ronald Reagan, sit down and pragmatically look at issues and policies and move things forward so the country benefits. Yes, and I wanted to suggest that to you know it. I thought in preparation for this discussion that would be nice if we could have two of them serve you know that's not impossible. They could both be co speakers like, you know, working together. I didn't know that was possible. Well legally it's not possible. Right. Nobody would agree to that, although what you said a minute ago is where I come out on it is, you could have a deal with a Republican, I mean, a moderate Republican speaker. And then that speaker would collaborate, collaborate with the Democrats and specifically with Jeffries. And they could work together even though the the office would be held by the Republican did the deal for the Democrats to vote for this person would be we want you to act in a bilateral bipartisan way. And then you have to talk to Jeffries or whoever it is. Before you make decisions and advice and consultation would have you some kind of arrangement when they work together even though, even though only the Republican is the speaker. To me that's that's an agreement that should be made. If Democrats are going to vote for a moderate. Yes, what we've run out of time but let me ask you this before we depart. Would that break Trump fever that kind of cooperation. Yes. If we could demonstrate to to Congress and the world and especially to the, the MAGA Republicans and the base that bipartisanship actually works. You can fund the government. You can get by all this negativism and, and you can solve problems, including some really pressing problems like right now like Ukraine and Israel. Then, you know, maybe that's a lesson to all of us. And it would restore confidence in a great number of people around the country, and in various sectors of the political, you know, the political landscape that maybe this cause for optimism, maybe this cause for, you know, a return to the old way of democracy and collaboration. That would be a wonderful thing if that happened and, and maybe we are there at that point but let me ask you a final question though. What do you think is going to happen here. I think you're going to see a movement to install Patrick McHenry. Or, you know, some slight bargain with the Democrats to allow this to continue on and give them some authoritative powers that we can pass funding bills. That's coming up here in the next three weeks or so to pass funding bills for Ukraine and Israel, Taiwan. So the people's business needs to get done. And right now it's not getting done and the clown car of the geo stalled in the center of the ring, Barton Bailey's circus ring. It's stuck and all the spotlights are on it and people are going, what kind of nation is this. And it's an it's an international embarrassment, if not a national embarrassment. And he uses the mechanics, you know, the devil is in the details so Patrick McHenry takes this because he's kind of like the vanilla guy. He's the Gerald Ford of the House of Representatives. Right. And so there's a positive side of that is the vanilla guy can go to the votes because he hasn't offended a whole lot of people, but the other side of it is that maybe he is vulnerable. Maybe he's vulnerable to the freedom caucus into the midnight call and to threats by Trump and his acolytes. And that that is a concern. So whoever it is has to be strong enough to resist that we read whether McHenry is strong enough. All right, Jay, have any last thoughts before we move on. And I'm feeling a lot better that Joe Biden in his investigation of what happened in in the hospital in Gaza has agreed with the Israelis analysis. That was a real, that was awful. And it would have been much more awful if the press had continued in its reporting that it was all the fault of the Israelis. I'm happy to say that that was debunked and the work of the media to gee whiz to make it make make make falsity the truth that is to blame the Israelis for what happened. I'm happy to say that was debunked but the lesson is that we don't, we don't make falsity out of truths and truth out of falsity here in sync deck and you don't and I sure try to avoid that too. And I'm very concerned about MSNBC and CNN and for that matter BBC and for that matter all the stuff gets on social media that the world is getting disinformation like crazy these days. And we have to be very mindful of that. Alrighty. We're out of time Jay thank you very much for co hosting this show and offering your thoughts and great suggestions. Won't you join us next week for American issues take one. I'll tell your host and until then. Aloha.