New Congress Plagued by House Speaker Vote

This is Jay Sekulow. It's a brand new Congress and a Congress plagued by a House Speaker vote. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now, your host, Jay Sekulow. Well, it's a new year and a new Congress, and it's supposed to be a new Speaker of the House. Well, there's a new Congress, it is a new year, and there is no new Speaker of the House. As it stands right now, Kevin McCarthy, the presumptive Speaker of the House, has about five votes short from actually getting the Speakership.

The vote with the second, the person with the second highest votes, and this is where you need to be thinking, folks, is Hakeem Jeffries. You're thinking, well, he's a Democrat, how could that be? Well, it's because he's got his entire caucus of 212, he's got every one of them.

Kevin McCarthy has 217, he's got all but five. The problem is that right now those five are not budging, which means Jim Jordan, who wants to start a select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, is not seated as the chairman of the committee while all this is pending. So let me ask you a question. Do you want to have Congress spending their time figuring out China's liability for the COVID crisis, the weaponization of groups like the FBI, which we've been litigating at the ACLJ, or do you want to be fighting over for the next four or five days, which will end up being inevitable, that Kevin McCarthy is going to be the Speaker of the House? So you got to make a choice, fundamental choice here. Do you want to govern or do you want to have infighting? And right now there's at least five members of the Congress that are inclined to go, Logan, with infighting. Yeah, that's really sort of a bad time for this to happen. As you said, we're starting a new year, you think there'd be some really important things we could get going, but instead you have this situation where we cannot place a speaker. And look, we understand there are a lot of people with a lot of different opinions on where this could go.

A lot of people like McCarthy, a lot of people do not, or quite a few do not. But at the end of the day, you're going to end up with a mess if this doesn't happen soon. The mess has started. The mess has started because rather than the committees being sworn in today, they're not. And they're not because, look, a Speaker of the House doesn't even have to be a member of Congress. No.

But generally that's the case. By the way, we haven't had this problem for 100 years. It's been 100 years since the Speaker was not elected on the first ballot.

The last time the Speaker election took more than one ballot was in 1923 when the Speaker was Frederick Gillette Republican from Massachusetts was re-elected as Speaker on the ninth ballot. So, C.C. Heil's here, and C.C. ran for Congress, so she knows what this is like. And the fact of the matter is, the longer this goes, the less productive the Republican-led House of Representatives is going to be. Yeah, and I think the thing that's most disappointing to me is just like you said, the Democrats are unified.

They have every single vote together. But, you know, as the Republicans, we're starting off right off the bat showing that Republicans are not unified. And like you said, he needs 218 votes to have the majority.

He has 217. Let's not push this down to later on today or tomorrow before we can actually do some business, because you can't do business until you have the Speaker of the House elected. Let's get that done and get down to business.

Folks, our Office of Government Affairs and ACLJ Action are working on this. Look, I mean, I think Kevin McCarthy is going to be the Speaker. But I think it needs, if it's going to, if that's inevitable, which I believe it really is inevitable, then let's get on with it so we can talk about governing. But this is what happens when you win an election and you're not united going in.

And as C.C. just said, Logan, they are always united going in, the other side. Yeah, absolutely.

I love your thoughts as well. Phone lines are open. We're going to take some calls here in the new year.

What 800? C.C., you're going to be the first one to say, open. We're going to take some calls here in the new year. 1-800-684-3110. A couple lines again are open right now if you want to call in. 1-800-684-3110. Get your call in. Maybe you have your thoughts on how this should all play out. Can I also ask for prayer?

I'm sure you all have seen this. Buffalo Bills player, Damar Hamlin, suffered a horrible injury on the field yesterday and I was watching it and I'm sure as many of you were and we're just praying for him, his family, and his teammates. They postponed the NFL game. It was in the first quarter and they postponed it.

That rarely happens. So your prayers for his family I'm sure would be appreciated. As Logan said, we want to take your calls on the speaker situation. 1-800-684-3110. What do you think should happen here?

800-684-3110. Back with more in a moment. And thank you for those of you that supported the work of the ACLJ in December. We had a great month. Thank you very much. We appreciate that. We'll take your call.

It's 800-684-3110. So it's a new Congress. It's a new year and there's no new speaker of the house. The two leading candidates right now, if you really are being honest about how it looks, are Kevin McCarthy.

He's at about 217. And Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat who's at 212. And you think, boy, I thought the Republicans won the House of Representatives and have the majority. Yes, but they don't have the 218 necessary for the speaker of the house unless they all voted for Kevin McCarthy as the speaker of the house. But right now you've got holdouts.

So we're taking your calls on this at 800-684-3110. But let me tell you what it is stopping, folks. It's stopping committees being formed, things being addressed for the American people.

That's what's at stake in all of this. Some people are asking who's not voting for him and is there anything they can do to help try to, not necessarily help Kevin McCarthy, but just help motivate them to move forward? Well, there's five. It's Andy Biggs, Republican from Arizona.

It's Matt Gaetz from Florida, Bob Goode from Virginia, Matt Rosendale from Montana, and Ralph Norman from South Carolina. Those are the five holdouts right now. Now, they haven't voted yet, but normally it's one ballot.

It's only been this and last time this happened was 100 years ago and it was the same and it took nine ballots to get the speaker confirmed, who ended up being the speaker that it was going to be. But meanwhile, nothing's happening. Jim Jordan's not chairing a committee. The special select committee on the weaponization of the federal government agencies that's going to happen is not happening. None of that's happening. The reports are saying soon the house is going to vote. That's on Fox's headline right now. So we'll vote, but if he doesn't get 218, he is not the speaker of the house. That's right.

And the house, like you said, the house cannot swear in members or conduct any official business like voting until a speaker is confirmed and put in place. Yeah, this is frankly absurd. Let's take calls. Yeah, we got a good call. Jeff's calling in North Carolina. I think a lot of frustration that everyone's got. Jeff, you're on the air. Hey, Jeff.

Hey, thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I'm just, I'm disgusted and frustrated with, with this. I mean, the opportunity here that the Republicans have with everything that's been done since 2016 and then we have an opportunity to do something about it and they're doing this, it's just disgusting to watch and it's, and it's, I'm just frustrated with it. I totally concur. Frustrating is, I don't even like saying we, I like saying they. I mean, it's like, you gotta be kidding me.

You can't figure this part out? Yeah, we think there's an understanding that people may have issues with a specific person, may not like Kevin McCarthy. You've had months to figure this out at this point. Yes. Since November. Since November. And really you kind of had an inkling this was going to happen.

Like six months before that. Right. So the fact that we are now at the point and still know, it just shows you the failure in our government.

Yeah, but this is the thing. This is where Republicans have to get in and lead and govern. You can't lead in government. How do you lead in government?

You can't pick a Speaker of the House. So we're taking your calls at 800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. And we do want to hear from you on this. Our government affairs team is working away. I'd like to see this matter resolved on the first ballot. I certainly want to see it resolved today. I'd like to see these committees sworn in. I mean, we're going to talk about what we're doing on our Freedom of Information Act request with, for instance, the FBI, but it'd be great to have a subcommittee that was looking at CC, the weaponization of the federal government. That would be a good thing to go inside with our work.

Yeah, absolutely. What the GOP has announced is that it's a working name, but select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government. And we absolutely have foyas on that, specifically on the FBI being weaponized against its citizens.

But that's great. Except if there's no Speaker, as we all have said, there is no committees. If there are no committees, there is no oversight. So just give Joe Biden a free pass because that's what you're doing right now. Every day this goes by, you're giving the Biden administration more of a chance to do what they want to do.

And they'll do it by executive fiat. You want to take another call? Sure. We can go to Antoinette in Georgia on line three. A question about Kevin McCarthy on the air. Hey, Antoinette.

Good morning. My question is, do you think this is the lesser of two evils and that it might lead to some accomplishment for a greater good? I don't think these are evils. I don't think Kevin McCarthy is evil. There's a lot of comments coming in going, why are people so against him? And I think some of it is- They think he's the swamp because he's been in Washington a long time.

There are some people that are disappointed in the results of the midterms and are blaming it on Kevin McCarthy. So these are, I'm not saying these are not legitimate discussion points, but the fact is he has 217 out of 222. And you may end up with number two. Well, number two is Hakeem Jeffries right now.

I want everybody to remember this. So if six Republicans- Explain who that is so people don't know who that is. If six Republican, Hakeem Jeffries was an impeachment manager during the first impeachment.

I know him pretty well. Smart guy, very left of center, impeachment manager. He's got his entire caucus lined up for him at 212. So the difference right now is five votes and those five votes could be McCarthy getting in or not. And who's the number two in the Republican?

We have no idea. Mike Waltz was on a representative from Florida, from the Daytona area. He was on Fox News this morning. You guys have seen him. He's been a lot of our stuff. He's been on this show. He was at our Afghanistan documentary series.

He had sort of a good thought process. Look, and this is someone who I think a lot of our audience likes. So let's hear from Mike Waltz. The thing I think so many of us are so frustrated about is that this standoff is over a lot of procedural gobbledygook, frankly.

Five members to vacate the speaker, one member to vacate the speaker. Every American that I talked to when I was back home in Florida doesn't understand this stuff. It's a bunch of procedural Washington swamp talk.

What they want us to get to is China, is what's going on with Hunter, is getting subpoena power to get to the bottom of the origins of COVID that have damaged so many kids. So here's the truth. I think Mike is exactly correct. But the problem is no speaker, none of those things happen. And every day that goes by, more of that doesn't happen.

That's the real problem with this. And it's shameful, I think, again, that you said, and it's true, we've had time, conservatives have had time to know this day was going to come. And to show up on this day and not have a unified front is really shameful to me. I can't even imagine what, Logan, to be honest, whatever side you're on in this debate, Kevin McCarthy has 217 votes. He needs 218.

He's going to get it. Or else we're going to end up with more chaos. So we're trying not to be the party, the Republicans are trying not to be the party of chaos after putting up candidates that were the chaos candidates who did not win. Some people are asking, is this the RNC to blame? Is this to blame just a handful of members? What's the real issue here?

What's the cause? I think the five holdouts are to blame. I don't even like saying blame. That's where the, I mean, if they would say yes to McCarthy, he would be in. And listen, I'm not saying that Kevin McCarthy deserves to be standing ovation when he gets in.

I'm just saying though, it's inevitable. So going through this process doesn't do anything. We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110. I was hoping we're going to be talking about, you know, the subcommittee on the federal weaponization of the federal agencies, which the ACLJ is working on in our FOIA cases, but that's not what we're dealing with. Let's take another call. Let's go to Timothy in Missouri, line four, you're on the air. Hi, Timothy. Yes.

Thanks for your call. Listen, I heard you guys frustration and I tell you for the past couple of years, past four years, eight years, I've been very frustrated. I think a lot of Americans have been frustrated with the Republican party. So I was just thinking before all this happened last year, that the correction needs to take place within the Republican party.

It needs to start with the American people, but it has to take place in the public party. And so this is what I see as correction. And they're not going, they're not the people who aren't voting for McCarthy, aren't sure he's going to do the things that need to be taking place. And I think this procedural thing with being able to vacate the speaker, if that's not in place, then McCarthy gets to do like Nancy Pelosi. And listen, and the Democrats love what Nancy Pelosi did.

Don't kid yourself. They got a lot done. I mean, so I understand your frustration, Timothy, and I don't discount it, but I want to be clear here. All these things we're talking about that we want to have happen, none of it happens until this is resolved. So every hour this takes is another hour of not getting the job done for the American people. And then you wonder why the Republicans didn't get the Senate. They can't even control the House that they are the majority in. I mean, that's the frustration I think of the American people with all of this.

Yeah. Again, I think it's because here we are on the day of the vote and we don't have our ducks all in a row. That's I think what is the most just disturbing and frustrating thing is, yes, you can have debate of who's going to be in and who's not going to be in, and you get your voice and your vote and you can hold people accountable.

But the fact that you don't have this already settled the day that it comes to the vote is the shameful thing. And a lot of the terms that our caller brought up, McCarthy's actually agreed with. Yeah, she's agreed you could have the recall with the one. Yeah. So, and again, they still have the holdout.

So it's this sort of constant spinning. And some of it is clearly for their own election and their own constituents because they think that's what their audience wants from them. I do say that, their social media audience. But who knows? We'll see what happens. We'll see what plays out. I know in the next segment you want to talk about some of the actual work. Yeah. But again, I'm going to still talk about this too because there's no actual work unless this is resolved.

Here's what it is. There's 434 members of Congress that are supposed to be sworn in at some point. 222 are Republicans. McCarthy will need 218 as a majority of President and voting because if you're not President voting, it reduces the number. Five Republicans are firm knowns.

That's Andy Biggs, Bob Good, Matt Gaetz, Ralph Norman, Matt Rosendale. There are several other maybe soft votes, but this is the issue that you got to understand. None of these committees go into place. None of the stuff that we want to see happen in Congress takes place if we're fighting over this for the next week.

It delays it for a week, then delays it for two weeks if you don't get it resolved. I mean, on and on it goes. But let me tell you who's lined up.

Hakeem Jeffries. He's got 212 votes. He's got the whole Democratic Caucus ready to go for him.

We'll take your calls when we come back, 800-684-3110. Well, as I said, it's a new year, a new Congress, and no new speaker, which means no new committees, which means no new movement on a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee on the weaponization of federal agencies. We would know about that because the ACLJ has filed three lawsuits that we have right now against just the FBI. We're not talking about other agencies. Abuse of FISA for Section 702. We've got the whole thing with the social media platforms and the FBI, and the whole story about the Swalwell matter with the Chinese agent. All these have been filed, and we have other ones as well.

Three of these are in litigation right now. The House wants to, when the Republicans take control, which should have been this morning, which it's not because they don't have a speaker, because this is what Republicans do, don't get their act together. It's not like you didn't have one month, two months, three months, maybe six months, figuring you were going to win the House. Thought you'd get up with more of a margin.

But the end result of that is there's no speaker put in. You don't get the select subcommittee on the weaponization on federal agencies because there's nobody in the committee chairs. So that's the reality of what's happening right now. And we had a lot of other topics I wanted to get to, but I'm staying on this because this is where I think the rubber meets the road for the American people at state calls. Yeah, and a lot of people are calling in with their thoughts on kind of both ways here. Let's go to Roger first in Oregon on line two. You're on the air. Hi, Roger.

Yes, thank you for taking my call. My wife and I understand the current turmoil and its effects as this thing keeps being delayed. However, we do not support Kevin McCarthy as speaker. We have heard him a number of times, interviews leading up to the last election. We left shaking our heads saying this is a typical politician. To us, he has shown neither the backbone nor the resolve to do what is right and moral for this country.

The only bulwark against the destructive Democratic agenda is a solid Republican front to lead and govern without a backbone. This is what we want, Jay. Okay, Roger. So let's talk about that.

You don't want Hakeem Jeffries, right? Correct. Okay, well, he's got the second highest amount of votes right now. He's got 212. He's got the whole Democratic leadership and the Democratic members back in him. So he's at 212. So it's not like we're starting with 225 and he's at 190. He's at 212, the Democrat from New Jersey.

Kevin McCarthy is at 217. So let me ask you this, Roger. How long, and I appreciate your calling, and I understand the frustration, but how long do you let this go on before we lose control of the ability to govern?

That's what I'm asking you. I understand your wife's upset. You don't love Kevin McCarthy. But the fact of the matter is he does have 217 out of 222 votes.

So he's by far, the other ones have five, if there is another one. So how would you respond to that? Are we going to just let this go for weeks? Because let me tell you what happens for weeks. Nothing.

Go ahead. I agree, Jay. Something, they have to go ahead and approve him. Unfortunately, it's the thing that has to be done is he's that close. He has made some concessions. I agree. But this is a Republican issue, Roger.

I agree with you too. I mean, I understand the frustration, but you know, the Republicans had many, many months to get this together and they didn't do it because this is the party that doesn't ever get it right on this stuff. You've got to go in, you know, we should be swearing committees in, putting new chairs in, getting real investigations going. And Roger, as you said, instead we're fighting over the speaker and that's where it is.

I understand the frustration. The problem is we got to govern. Conservatives have to govern and this is not governing. That's absolutely right. We should be hitting the ground running today. We should, just like you said, we should be getting committees subcommittees. We're like hitting the ground. That's right.

I mean, like pounding sand because it's not happening. Absolutely. We need to be unified and we need to be unified from this moment on. And maybe this is a wake up call. Hey, we're fighting over five holdouts, but that's actually one vote.

We're missing one vote for him to be confirmed. Let's get our act together. Let's get on the ball. You got concessions. You got negotiations. Now go govern.

All right, Logan. Can you tell them a little frustrated? Yeah. And I think we're seeing that in the comments. There are a lot of people who also just feel like they're, they're being told that McCarthy isn't the right person, but not necessarily even told why he's not the right person. From a lot of the callers and the comments, there are some comments that are coming in that some people do say, well, look what happened the last four years or him as minority leader when that's been the case. Well, you're a minority. Let me tell you what your control is.

Zero. We know that. But you know, James Ruckus who heads up our government affairs office said, Republicans should be the party of solutions and good governance and a protracted fight does not project competence to the American people.

I think that is a very accurate statement. We're taking everybody's calls. I want people to be able to talk about this. Yeah. Mary from Tennessee is calling. She got a question.

I think we have an answer for that too. Mary you're on the air. Yes. Good morning. Thank you so much for taking my call. Thank you for what you do. I urge everybody listening to financially support your work.

It's it's vital. Anyway, my question is, um, I get that McCarthy is a swamp creature and I'm wanting, my question is about, is there a mechanism that the Republicans can use to remove him? Should he not do what we need him to do?

Yes. And he's made some concessions on making that process easier, but a speaker of the house can be removed. Uh, the problem you've got here is, uh, you got to have a speaker of the house first and right now we don't. And I was hoping that committees were going to be sworn in the next 24 hours. Instead, I'm worried about whether we're going to have leadership in the house of representatives to carry this forward. But right now it doesn't, but yes, he's made concessions.

Part of the negotiation process. I get that. I think that's fine to have that, but you have to hit a certain number two 18, if you don't have two 18, then what happens?

Well, it goes to, they keep doing ballots until somebody gets to 18. But here's the thing you got to worry about. Okay. You know, Hakeem Jeffries in the back there has got two 12, five or six white. Do you get five or six Republicans that say, you know what, I'm going to shake them up really hard. I'm going to vote for Hakeem Jeffries. I'm going to show the leadership of the Republican party. What happens when you, you know, do you disrespect the, this group of the Republican party and then you put Hakeem Jeffries in there? I don't think anybody wants that, but that's where this is going.

If we don't, if we're not careful. All right, let's continue on Tracy in Texas. You're on the air.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Well, I agree with Roger, the previous caller that it's super frustrating and we might not all think that Congressman McCarthy is the right person.

He is the right person for right now. And we need to call these five holdouts. Like I appreciate everybody calling you, but we also need to call our five holdouts and let them know, get off the bench, get unified, get behind it. Let's get going with the people's business here. You know, Tracy, you're a hundred percent correct. I'm, I'm thrilled people are calling to the broadcast.

You can do both. You can call us and we want to hear what you have to say, but you can also call the leadership and the members that are dissenting. I'll give you those five names and anybody can call and be polite when you call and say, you know, if you think that it's time to get a move on here, get a move on. It's Representative Andy Biggs. It's Bob Good. It's Matt Gaetz. It's Ralph Norman.

It's Matt Rosendale. Those are the five that are the, you know, the very clear votes on this. And I think that is problematic for the Republicans moving forward with an agenda that actually governs. And what we're missing here is governance. Absolutely. We need action and we need to be taking action right out of the gate and we're not because we're stuck on a vote that should have been already determined well before we got to this day.

Well before we got to this day. I mean, it's the idea, Logan, that we're doing this now. It's honestly, can I be blunt at the last minute of our broadcast before we go to the second half hour? It's absurd. This is not how you govern. Okay. This would be like arguing about a portion of the Supreme Court brief the day after it's due.

That doesn't mean much. And that's the problem with all this. All right. We're going to take your calls when we come back from this break for the second half hour. We got a lot of calls coming in on this. We do have a full second half hour of this show broadcasting live on all social media platforms and also on ACLJ.org. We're broadcasting on Rumble, Facebook, YouTube. You can find us on all those outlets. And again, also at ACLJ.org if you don't get us on your local station, which a lot of them just carry the first half hour. So you can catch the second half hour live right now.

Clued video if you're listening to just audio only. Full video production. Find us there online. Give us a call. We do have some other lines open because we took some calls.

1-800-684-3110. For those who are waiting to stay on hold, we'll get to you coming up in the next few segments. I'll be right back with more on Sekulow.

Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jay Sekulow. So I said this before, it's a new year, it's a new Congress, and there's no new Speaker of the House. Because Kevin McCarthy, as it stands right now, doesn't have the 218 votes necessary to be sworn in as Speaker. He doesn't have all the Republicans, which is 222. But don't worry, the second place candidate, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat from New Jersey, he's got his entire caucus, which is 212.

Right behind Kevin McCarthy. So for the five holdouts, you may be making a point because now you're on TV, but you weren't on TV talking about this in November when the cameras weren't covering. But now it's a big topic for you. But the five of you are holding out, and guess what happens with those five holdouts? We're not governing. When I say we, I'm talking about conservatives. And I'll tell you something, we've got three cases, four really, against the Federal Bureau of Investigation right now in oversight. And Jim Jordan, as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, wants to have a special select committee on the weaponization of federal agencies, including the FBI.

Not happening. Because we don't have a Speaker of the House, it means we don't have Chairmen of committees. So this is where you are. And I'm just going to give you the reality check. I'm not saying Kevin McCarthy wins the popularity contest.

You may have a lot of issues there. But he has got the votes, except for the five. And every moment this is wasting is moments we are wasting. And the frustration that you hear in my voice is, it's the party that governs. And how come we can't have it organized as conservatives to get in there and govern? Instead, we can't even pick the leader of the House of Representatives.

It's pretty pathetic. Yeah, absolutely. Let's go ahead and take some more phone calls. Let's go to Julie in Florida on Line 5. Julie, welcome. Hello.

Hey, Julie, you're on the air. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Just wanted to call in and say my husband and I have been discussing intently on going to independent because I cannot take this anymore with the Republicans and the Democrats.

And Matt Gaetz is my next phone call because I'm calling him out too. I'm, I'm upset. We're upset.

Nothing ever gets done. I'm tired of the infighting on both sides. And I'm just, I think we're going to switch parties because I both of us are disgusted. You know, Julie, where, what part of Florida do you live in?

I'm on the West Coast. Okay. So, you know, Matt Gaetz has the whole kind of the panhandle area of Florida, which is very conservative. And I think people need to, like you're talking about doing, reach out, be kind to their office, be polite, but say, hey, look, I get it. He's not your first choice. But the reality is we got to get a move on here, folks. Every day we're not governing is another day we're not holding anybody accountable. That's what we need to be thinking about.

Right. And, and just because you vote for him now at the Speaker of the House and we can get going, that doesn't mean that you can't hold the Speaker accountable. We still hold the Speaker accountable, but, but conservatives need to be unified. We need to have a goal and a plan and we need to get on with it. Like you said, we need to be governing, not fighting over a vote.

Logan, here's the problem. The left is always organized on this stuff. I mean, they've got, Hakeem Jeffries has got every member of the Democratic caucus, 212 votes. Now, is some of it that we just didn't put up somebody who, or someone else to sit and decide who had the right amount of oomph to get behind him? He got 217. I mean, I don't know who else would get 217. Andy Biggs isn't getting 217. Matt Gaetz isn't getting 217. Bob Goode's not getting 217. Ralph Norman's not getting 217.

Nor is Matt Rosendale getting 217. So let's just be realistic. They're not getting it. So ask yourself then what is going on here? And that's what I think is the real issue that we've got to deal with as a country and as a party and as leaders. Get it moving. And that seems to be the problem.

Yeah. We'll continue to take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. We like to hear from all sides of this.

There's plenty of comments on both sides coming in right now. And if you're on hold, please stay on hold. We are going to get to you coming up in the next couple of segments.

Got a few more segments left in the broadcast. So stay on hold. If you want to give us a call, there's one line open right now, 1-800-684-3110.

1-800-684-3110. Some people are saying, why the rush? Because every day you're not governing is a day you don't have committees doing oversight of the current President of the United States and his administration. That's why. Is that a good enough reason to say, let's get organized and do it? There's a unifying principle.

But let's start thinking that way. And again, I want to thank everybody that supported the work of the ACLJ in December. You made a huge difference as we move forward into a new year. Back with more in a moment.

Welcome back to Secula. We're going to go straight to the phones as our phone lines are just jammed right now with a lot of comments on this. As you'd expect, thanks for calling. Kathy is on line one in Colorado. You're on the air. Hey, Kathy.

Hello. I appreciate you taking my call and I respect you a great deal. And normally I agree with you, but on this, my husband and I absolutely don't agree. It's kind of surprising to hear you say it's a done deal and get on with it because, you know, the pro-life industry has been fighting that mantra for decades. And I think if the Conservatives and the Freedom Caucus are going to stand up, this is the perfect place to be standing.

So what if we delay the vote or don't have a vote or don't have a speaker for a few days even? It doesn't matter. Okay, Kathy, let me ask you, I appreciate what you're saying.

Let me ask you a couple of questions because I want people to walk through this and I respect people who have differences here. You don't want Hakeem Jeffries to be the Speaker of the House. I take it.

I know that. I think that's taking it to the extreme. Well, let me give you the extreme, though, because you've got to be careful here because extremes happen in Washington, D.C.

I've only been doing it for 40 years. He has 212 votes right now. 212. Yeah, it would be extreme. But what if these five members say, you know what, we're going to stick it to the Republicans that are, you know, leadership here and we'll just vote for Hakeem Jeffries? But they're not saying that. They're saying we're not going to vote for McCarthy. But you don't want a situation where, let me ask you if it was flipped the other way, Kathy, if it was five liberal members of the Republican Party that were saying this, what would you be saying? Well, I wouldn't be supporting five liberals and they wouldn't, if they were supporting McCarthy, I wouldn't be supportive.

I just want to talk to you about this. If you had five liberal Republicans, okay, they're not pro-life and they're saying, you know what, we're not going to put this particular speaker in who has 217 votes because he's pro-life. So we're not going to go there. So we're going to just muck it up by just saying we're not voting for him.

What would you think about that? I want the conservatives to stand up and to stand together. And if that means opposing McCarthy, that's what it means. And if it means delaying the agenda, that it isn't going to make any difference in the long run. Okay, let me ask you this and let's say, okay, so it's the first vote, it's delayed.

Second vote, delayed. Let's say three weeks from now, they still don't have an answer. What do you think then? I would say hooray because our government isn't doing anything- Okay, let me ask you this then.

Kathy, let me ask you this and I appreciate you calling in. Let's say it's six weeks from now. Hooray? Mm-hmm.

Six months from now? Say hooray. I don't care because as long as our government isn't doing- Kathy, you got to care. And this is where I appreciate you calling in and you're a smart woman.

I mean, I could tell. But you got to care because if you go six months without governing, guess what you're not going to do? Govern. I do care because the House is only one-third of the governing. No matter what the House does or doesn't do- Not if they're not seated. There's no committees.

Nothing happens. You don't block the moves of, you know, the House's biggest role right now is block and tackle. They're not going to be able to get laws through positively unless there's bipartisan agreement, but they could block a lot. You're not blocking when you don't control the committees. Absolutely.

And I think the frustration with Kathy- And I understand Kathy's frustration. She said it was she wants the conservatives to stick together. And I think what is maybe being lost is, yes, the conservatives do need to stick together and they can do that even after McCarthy is elected. Whoever's elected as speaker, conservatives can stick together. They should stick together.

We should govern. We're acting like those five members are the five conservative members of the United States House of Representatives. That those five are the ones. And that's ridiculous.

I mean, I'm just being honest, okay? There are five out of 222, okay? Most of which are conservative. But let me tell you, there's a lot more conservative than five and there's five people supporting this. So I appreciate Kathy's frustration and I get it, but I don't think you can go keep going and going and going. I don't think that's good for the country. Take your calls. This is very good though.

It's a lesson in the constitution and how it works. Let's give you another few that we'll hold for a while. Let's go to Judith, who's calling on line six.

Judith, you're on the air. Thank you. When our forefathers came to this country, there were two different groups, the strangers and the saints, and they were very different. Some were spiritual, the others weren't, but they found that they had to live together.

They had to work together and they got together and they call themselves pilgrims and they made a Mayflower Compact. So our Republican Party, they need to work together. They need to find unity in their... That's because politics is not a perfect science nor perfect art. Politics is the law of the possible. It's negotiation. But I go back to what we said earlier, you got five members holding...

It's not like you got 50 or 70, you got five. Right. And like you said, there are lots that are voting for McCarthy that are conservative and the conservatives can still stick together even after McCarthy gets elected and hold him accountable. So what is the bottom line here is that we need to be governing. We need to hit the ground running. We need to be unified and we need to be doing business, not stuck on a vote where if you don't... If the speaker is not in place, you don't even get to swear in members or conduct any official business at all. So that's the first piece of business is to get the speaker in place and then let's get down to business, blocking things like you said from the Biden administration and putting in committees like the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Those are things... Which we were gonna talk about today, except you're not gonna talk about it because we don't even have a Judiciary Committee Chairman because we don't have a Speaker of the House.

And that's what I think... I don't want people to lose sight of the reality of politics. Politics is not perfect. You can be principled, but you have to be able to negotiate. That's the art of politics, is the art of the possible. Right. I think what a lot of key points a lot of people are missing is most conservatives are standing together right now. Yes, because they're saying, okay, McCarthy is the one who it's gonna be. We're gonna hold his feet to the fire on the conservative issues, but we're gonna get a move on here and start governing.

And there's a way to get him out if you need to. All right, let's actually... Someone actually asked that. Let's go to Bonnie who's calling in Texas on line four.

Hey, Bonnie. Hi, thank you for taking my call. My question is, if this law to make it easier to get rid of a sitting speaker, is it only for this term or does it go into future sessions? Each session sets its own terms. That's a great question. So this incoming Congress sets its rules and regulations for this Congress. They can't find future Congress because majorities change, party politics change.

So that's a great question, but no, it just is for this session of this representative government in the House of Representatives for this new incoming Congress that can't get their act together, which I hate saying it that way, but that's what it says. Yep. We still have a ton of calls. Should we just keep going? Yeah. All right. Let's go.

Let's still go in order for right now. Let's go to Craig in West Virginia on line two. Craig. Hey, Craig. Hold on. I think we went to Rich.

Okay. Put him back on. Let's go to Craig. Craig. Rich, stay on hold. Craig, you're up.

Hey, Craig. Sorry about that. Go ahead. You're on. Sorry.

Okay. Thanks for taking my call, guys. Hey, the question I have for you is, is this not a perfect example of the way Republicans have been for the last four to six years? Uh, we had the Senate House and presidency and said, we're going to put in a new healthcare system and yet did not do that because we couldn't come up with a good idea. We talk bad about the other side. We talk about what they can't do or what the wrong that they're doing, but yet we can't come up with their own solutions to move forward and to govern, as you're saying. No, you're exactly correct, Craig.

I mean, precisely correct. And the problem is the other side, they've got it together. Now, you know, Hakeem Jeffries, the chance of him being the speaker, very, very low. But, but why are we saying this is even a possibility?

Why are we not just getting on with it? And I go back to Joyce's call. You have five Republicans, not the entire freedom caucus, by the way, five of them that are saying, I don't want McCarthy. I'm willing to not let the vote go forward to, to confirm the speaker of the house and just muck the works up.

And you, you know, Joyce said she'd go for, and it's a free country. I appreciate her calling it six months, a year, you know, then really you do nothing. Well, some of the people are even saying, well, shouldn't have that coalition had a better candidate up in place if they really felt this way already, since they had months to do this? I think the fact is, and I'm not trying to besmirch anybody, but how come they weren't talking about this in November? Because the TV cameras on weren't on it like they are today.

Cause we were just coming out of midterm elections and everybody was analyzing the midterm elections. So now we're here with this and now all of a sudden, oh, a lot of media attention. Let's do it.

We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. But the fact of the matter is, while this is all happening, no one is governing. Nothing is happening.

Absolutely. Until you get a speaker in place, nothing is happening. Members can't be sworn in. Votes cannot be had.

Nothing is happening. And this is the problem with, with, you know, not having your ducks in a row. I mean, I'm a litigator. So I go to court. I mean, it's just like saying, you know, as I'm walking up to the podium of the Supreme Court, you know, I really need so-and-so's vote, but you know what, I'm really mad at them. So I'm not going to try to get Justice Sotomayor, even though I think I have an argument I can make because she's not really with me on everything. It's all politics, folks.

It's the art of the possible. And that's what you got to remember. We're going to the last segment of the broadcast. We are taking your calls at 800-684-3110. And I appreciate the people that are calling them with a different point of view too.

It's a free country. There's a lot to talk about. I know it's complex, but we're going to walk through some of the basics of it and continue to take your calls when we come back from the break. A huge thank you to those of you that supported the work of the ACLJ in 2022. We're now in 2023. So happy new year, happy new Congress, happy no speaker. No, I'm not happy about that. I think we got to start governing, folks.

We'll take your calls, 800-684-3110. Well, Logan, it's a new year. It's a new Congress.

And I've said this now for every episode, every segment of the broadcast. And there's not a Speaker of the House, which means there's no new committee chairs. By the way, the Biden administration though, just so you know, they have put through a new policy regarding the EPA, Environmental Protection Agency. While the Republicans are fighting to see who's going to be the speaker, Joe Biden's administration reinstates the EPA rule, potentially regulating what they call puddles and ditches. And they put it in because the Republicans are doing what? Fighting about who's going to be the Speaker of the House.

Because five Republicans, not 50, not 100, five are saying no. Yeah. And I want to say, shout out real quick. There's a lot of people watching currently on Rumble.

A lot of you may be new here. We do a new broadcast each and every day. We love Rumble.

We have great friends there. Hit the subscribe button. We do a new show each day at noon Eastern. So I just wanted to say to our Rumble audience, welcome if you're new.

But if not, thank you. It's same to Facebook and YouTube and all those. You can subscribe and all those as well.

But Rumble specifically, this topic seems to engage you as well. It has engaged the phone lines probably more than I've ever seen in the last few years. So let's continue taking some of those calls. Go to Rich in New York on line three. Hey, Rich.

Yes. Listen, I'm a recovering Republican. So Jay, don't yell at me too much for you.

I think we all are by the way, Rich, but go ahead. Pardon me? I think we're all recovering from Republican leadership right now, but go ahead. Okay. Well, you know, I think if Kevin McCarthy is a real leader, the next three questions, the next three calls he should make are to Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and Newt Gingrich and say, please come to the aid of the country and the party and assume the speaker's podium until such time as we can get this sorted out or for a whole year if they were willing. I mean, they all are capable and able and they're leaders. And I think it's time to use that provision that you don't require.

Yeah. You don't have to be a member of the House of Representatives to be the speaker of the House. Here's the problem. If you're Mike Pence and you're Mike Pompeo, I'm not so sure you'd want to jump into this. And Mike's a colleague of Mike Pompeo is a colleague of ours. I'm not sure you want to jump into this because the difference here, Rich, is it's not like the Republican party is split. There's 222 Republicans and 120 of them are saying, I don't want Kevin McCarthy or 90 of them or 80 of them or 50 of them or 40 of them. Five of them are, and that's stopping the whole thing.

So I agree, Rich, that that could be, that kind of thing could be a solution, but not when you have five. That's why we're losing momentum here and losing the ability to govern while Joe Biden's putting through EPA regulations to rewrite our laws in the United States. While we're fighting over who's going to be the speaker. Getting a Pence, a Pompeo, or a Gingrich in, that would take how many more months?

Are we talking about then? I mean, they've had so many months already and we're at 217. And then there'll be people that don't want them. And people say, I'm not going to have, I don't want Pence. I don't want Pompeo. The comments are saying to both of those.

Yeah. And I love Mike. I like both Pence and Pompeo. I'm friends with both of them. And of course, Mike Pompeo is on our team here at the ACLJ. He's done great work. And I'm in this, you know, but Mike Pence, they're not going to do it.

Why would you do this? Go ahead. All right. Let's try to get through the rest of these calls as we wrap up the show. Let's go to Glenn, who's calling in California.

You're on the air. Thanks for taking my call. Well, my question would be, aren't these holdouts basically looking out for their own interests and everything, rather than ours who we elected with our votes to represent us? And I'd like to just say that it sounds to me like a breach of contract. No, you know what? That is a great point, Glenn. Cece said something during the break.

I'm going to get a repeat. And that is, you know, we're saying that these five are sticking it to the leadership, but in reality, that's not what it is. It's more than that. It's actually sticking it to us, the American people. That's what they're doing by being a holdout and not letting a speaker be put in place, stopping everything that Congress is doing. We cannot vote.

We can't even swear in the members or conduct official business. Who it's hurting is the American, us, the American people that voted for them in. And we want some action. We want some action on China and COVID. We want some action on the weaponization of the federal government. We want that, and we don't want a delay. Yeah.

And people are saying, well, like Joyce Collins was a good call. You know, I don't care if it takes a week, but I'm saying what if it takes five months? Then you had a problem. If it takes five weeks, you have a problem.

I think every hour it goes by, it's a problem. All right, we're taking your calls 800-684-3110. Logan? Yep. Sharon in Kansas on Line 1.

Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. I support you guys with money and, you know, the petitions and everything. I lean Republican, but I'm more what I would call independent because I don't go total support of a party. I go by the policies.

Okay. And everything I have seen on all sorts of places, people don't want McCarthy. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe the holdouts are doing what their constituents want?

Well, I think that's a legitimate question to ask, Sharon, but here's what I would say. This, I go back to the numbers. It's not like this is 20 or 30 or 50 or 80.

It's five. I'll tell you what their constituents don't want. They don't want not governing. They don't want not chairmans of the committees. They don't want the investigation of what the FBI is abusing to not go forward. They don't want the China COVID situation not reviewed with an oversight committee hearing. They don't want the Hunter Bynes stuff ignored.

I think that's what they want. So, you know, you got five, it's five members here. We're not talking about 50. We're not talking about 80. We're talking about five.

And I think that impacts how this needs to move forward. We're going to keep taking calls right to the end. Let's go to Bill in Wyoming. Hey, Bill.

Hi, thanks for taking my call. It's been my happy new year to you folks. Forgive my ignorance, but from what I've been getting all this time is that the past year, everybody was in line about getting things situated and taken care of. Now all of a sudden, where they're all elected, and they're against McCarthy, and what for? Is it bruised egos or what?

Well, that's a great question. Why weren't they doing this six months ago? Or when they were six months ago? Or when after the election, November 8th, they could have been doing it then. Instead, it's now becoming the TV moment, as I'm watching it on TV right now, and the House of Representatives are voting for the speaker as we talk.

Now here's the problem. So no one's in the speaker chair. That's the interesting part of this. Look back behind the person calling it to order, and there's no one behind her because there's no one in the speaker's chair right now, because Nancy Pelosi is gone. Hakeem Jeffries has got his 212.

The next highest is 217, and that is, of course, with Kevin McCarthy. The objection is, I think part of it is disappointment with the election, that a lot of the candidates did not do well. I think it's all part of it. Yeah, I think let's take that real quick.

Marianne in Pennsylvania, she kind of has that thought. Yeah. Hey, Marianne. Hello, Jay? Yes.

Jay, thanks for taking my call. Sure. Okay. Isn't this the reason why we lost so many of the races in the midterms, because everybody was being so picky about who was running, and the guy they picked wasn't running? Right. And that's why we lost so many races?

Yes. I mean, we need... Yeah, we're running out of time. Yeah, we're running out of time on that, Marianne.

But we lost because we had chaos candidates, and now we're in chaos again. And I think that's what... I think it's sticking it to the American people. That's who's getting stuck here.

I think what she's... Absolutely. We need unity. We need a Speaker of the House.

You can change it later if you need to, but we need to be unified right now, and we need to do business on day one today. Our government affairs office is working on all of this as we always do. But again, folks, I got to do a huge thank you to our supporters for 2022. We're now in 2023, but we had a good year, and I appreciate your support for the work of the American Center for Law and Justice, the ACLJ. We can't do it without you. So from all of us, I don't want to leave this moment without saying thank you for all of the support you've given us. And of course, I also want to mention the prayers for the football player. It was a horribly tragic situation with DeMar Hamlin. Praying for his family. We'll talk to you tomorrow.