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Well, What Was the Point of All That?: The House Speaker Race

The Charlie Kirk Show / Charlie Kirk
The Truth Network Radio
January 3, 2025 4:22 pm

Well, What Was the Point of All That?: The House Speaker Race

The Charlie Kirk Show / Charlie Kirk

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January 3, 2025 4:22 pm

Charlie was watching live as House Republicans made their move to dump Mike Johnson as speaker — only to swerve back and elect him to another term. Even before the votes were cast (and then recast), Charlie asks: What's the point behind all of this? Kurt Schlichter, Jack Posobiec, and freshly-departed former Rep. Matt Gaetz join.

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Hey everybody, it's time for The Charlie Kirk Show. The Speaker of the House Fight is here.

We walk through it piece by piece and explain it all, what is happening on the floor of the House of Representatives. Email us as always, freedom at charleykirk.com and subscribe to our podcast and become a member today, members.charleykirk.com. That is members.charleykirk.com.

Get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa.com. Buckle up everybody, here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

I want you to know we are lucky. To have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House folks. I want to thank Charlie, he's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

That's why we are here. Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com. That is noblegoldinvestments.com. It's where I buy all of my gold.

Go to noblegoldinvestments.com. It's the opening day of the 119th Congress. The American people spoke and despite all of the prognosticators and experts, Republicans are going to control all three chambers of government. The House, the Senate and the presidency. Well, it will be two branches, yeah I guess three chambers is fair.

Well, two chambers, all three levers of power you could say. There's a lot of questions though. And today as we are doing this broadcast, it's going to be happening live. We have a very serious Speaker of the House situation. Mike Johnson's tenuous speakership might collapse today. The new Congress is assembling and that means Congress must select a speaker.

Republicans have the narrowest majority in living memory and it's making things very complicated. Two years ago, Kevin McCarthy needed 15 rounds of votes. You remember that? That was only two years ago. 15 rounds of votes to become speaker and he lasted less than 10 months. Well, McCarthy went into the House vote with 222 Republicans. He could lose more than one and still become speaker. Mike Johnson is going to this House vote with only 219 Republicans. That means Mike Johnson can only lose exactly one Republican vote. That means if he loses two, there's no majority. Thomas Massie has said he's not voting for Johnson no matter what. So that's one vote that Johnson can lose.

He needs everybody else. It's very, very little margin for Mike Johnson. Now it's possible we could be in for a day of theatrics. There are Republicans who may vote against Johnson on the first ballot to show their independence, but then back him by the end of the day. Of course, every speaker vote takes about an hour, so these stunts could waste quite a bit of our time. But that is Congress for you. A lot of people are saying that if there's no speaker, it could prevent Trump from becoming president because the House can't conduct business and so it can't certify the election results.

In my opinion, I think this is actually very much mistaken. The Constitution clearly describes how the presidential results are certified, and it does not require the Speaker of the House because the Constitution says what to do directly. We went through this, by the way, with the last Kevin McCarthy carousel of votes. With the Kevin McCarthy carousel, remember, you can pass pieces of legislation without a speaker. You can do emergency pieces of legislation without a speaker.

You could do anything without a speaker. A speaker is not technically necessary. A speaker is not prescribed as far as the Constitution of the House of Representatives. New members can be sworn in by anybody. A Speaker of the House does not need to do that.

This is all just tradition and House rules. So, but I guess for tradition's sake, you need a speaker. Trump, for his part, has loudly come out in favor of Mike Johnson, posting on Truth Social saying that, quote, a win for Mike today will be a big win for the Republican Party. That, if nothing else, may be enough to salvage Johnson because far more than ever, this is Trump's Republican Party, and any Republican seen as sabotaging his agenda will be primaried very quickly. So, look, the circumstance in front of us as the new House meets right now, the 119th Congress, is will Mike Johnson stay as Speaker of the House? And the answer is likely yes.

By the way, I want to hear from you, FreedomAtCharlieKirk.com. Do you want Mike Johnson to stay? Do you want Republicans to stay behind him? The reason this is even a discussion was the way this ridiculous December spending bill was negotiated. The reason that this is even being discussed, the reason that this is even in contention, is the way that all went down. Remember, Speaker Mike Johnson quietly and secretly negotiated a deal behind the scenes to create a multi-thousand page bill, I think it was like 1,500 pages to be specific, with Hakeem Jeffries and with Chuck Schumer, and create this behemoth. Call it a continuing resolution when it really wasn't, that included funding Ukrainian biolabs, that included the worst funding for the Democrat NGOs censorship organizations, all to try to cut a deal for a continuing resolution. House members were not let into this negotiation, they were not allowed in on this conversation, they were not in the room at all. House members were not involved in any of this or made part of the process. And it now has turned them pretty angry.

It has fired them up, and for very, very good reason. Many of these House members that we had on our program, such as Byron Donalds and many others, they've said we were not even involved in this process. And look, the final deal was better than it was, thanks to you the grassroots standing up.

The final continuing resolution was better, but we still did not win the way we should have. A CR should have been one page, we should have got a debt ceiling, and we got zero spending cuts, all because why? Members of Congress wanted to get home for Christmas. Members of Congress wanted to get home for a Christmas vacation.

Nurses, airline pilots, ER doctors, police officers, firefighters, they all have to work on Christmas, but members of Congress did not. And so look, on this program, we're not going to like lead the battalion and say we must remove Speaker Johnson. But I will say passively, we just won a mandate election in November.

This should be a no question Speaker's race. But the reason it isn't is worthy of emphasis and reflection, is that they've been trying to play games with every major issue against the will of the American people and against the will of the Republican Party for quite some time. Spending cuts, secure border, defunding the FBI and said we have more money going to the FBI, we got nothing on the border. Remember when we were told by House leadership, we must give money to, we're not going to fund the government until we have a secure border and that was all just a bunch of rubbish.

A bunch of balderdash, a bunch of nonsense, a bunch of horse pucky. And so then, of course, the counter argument is, okay, then who? We don't have a good answer to that.

That's why I'm kind of in a passive position here. But no Ukraine, we were told that there should be no money sent to Ukraine without border security. Yet we spent hundreds of billions of dollars on Ukraine, thanks to this Congress. Has Mike Johnson and the House leadership earned, emphasis on the word earned, your trust and your vote?

Is this the best that we can do? And I see the argument the president wants him and the president should get what he wants. President Trump wants Mike Johnson. President Trump should get Mike Johnson. He's gone all in. He's going to bat for him. Trump wants Johnson. Trump deserves a honeymoon.

I totally respect that. There is an anonymous letter right now circulating around Congress over the last few days, all regarding very valid criticism that we share. A group of conservatives and potential opposition votes against Speaker Johnson are circulating a document laying out a scorecard that lists out multiple failures of this last Congress. While the author remains unnamed, it hits the talking points being shared by Johnson's critics. How Republicans have repeatedly added to the nation's debt, passed aid to Ukraine about the support of the GOP majority, reauthorized FISA.

In particular, they took issue with how the last government spending bill was handled ahead of Christmas. Is this the best we can do? I suppose that is, I guess, the threshold we're at. President Trump wants Mike Johnson. That is what we are going to get. However, I'm not convinced that he's going to pass on the first vote.

Can we continue to have that picture in picture, please? I think the roll call is going to start soon. And if it's not Mike Johnson, and then who? And some people say, well, give him a hundred day honeymoon. Well, we're not giving Mike Johnson a honeymoon. The person who has earned what he wants and what he demands is President Trump. If President Trump wants Mike Johnson, he earned a mandate to get the Speaker of the House that he wants.

Period. Charlie Kirk here. For many of us, the new year brings new joys and new financial challenges. My friends Andrew and Todd from Sierra Pacific Mortgage are to help you get organized for the new year with a free financial checkup. I think the world of these guys, they helped me with a very complex loan recently.

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That is 888-888-1172. Check out my friends at andrewandtodd.com, andrewandtodd.com. Bobby emails us.

Charlie watching the opening ceremonies. Very upset with what we're seeing with Speaker Johnson, but I'm afraid we have no choice. We're getting thousands of emails, by the way. I want to hear from you.

Freedom at charleykirk.com. President Trump has gone all in behind Speaker Johnson. He's gone all in, all chips on the table. And he says, I want Speaker Johnson. And look, I've gotten to know Speaker Johnson. We have a very up and down relationship.

It's very well publicized. And I try to give people second and third and fourth chances. I'm not going to say, hey, we need to oppose him.

I get it. You got to vote for him. You got to vote for him. The thing that bothered me the most was the FISA vote, the border deception. This last CR was very demoralizing.

It was very demoralizing. Not because, I mean, look, you know that they're going to do their thing in D.C. where they spend much money and don't do any spending cuts. But it's that he was not involving President Trump in the negotiation process of this monstrosity bill, the incoming president. And all of a sudden, here it is, 1,500 pages, and we have Ukrainian biolabs and censorship industrial complex and just nonsense and rubbish all throughout this bill. That was just thrown at us at the last second.

We said, oh, we have to we have to read this thing. Look, President Trump wants him and President Trump has earned to have the speaker of the House of his choice. By the way, nobody else wants this job.

It is thankless. It's not easy. And I it's not an excuse, by the way, to lie.

I just want to be very clear. When people say, well, you know, it's a really hard job and obviously telling the truth takes zero talent, telling the truth is not something that requires a Ph.D. in physics. Telling the truth is elemental to a free society. And you in the audience are fired up right now because when you are told there is no choice, you say, wait a second, what kind of prison prisoner of another binary that does not exist? Do I have to be?

How many times are you told? Well, you have to vote for this trashy bill because there's no time. Well, there's no time because you waited to the last minute. So there's no choice and there's no time.

There's no option. So therefore, we must go with what's in front of us. And this is what creates widespread distrust. Widespread rebellion against our institutions. Cynicism. And it's very difficult for me to say, you know what, actually, you should trust all these institutions. Actually, you should think very highly of Congress.

Very, very difficult. So I get it. I get the fury. I get the rage. In fact, this C.R.

that turned into an omnibus, I can't defend that. And then we're going to have that pass and there'll be no consequences. Yes, because. Yes, because.

President Trump's in a very difficult position. I'm not going to say I even agree or disagree. I told the team I'm very indifferent about this entire thing. I don't have strong opinions either way in the sense where I totally sympathize and understand that removal. Is based on a track record, like what did you for us?

However, remove removal is probably not very wise at all. And let's say let's say President Trump said, I want Mike Johnson gone. Let's play this out. Let's say let's say President Trump said I want Mike Johnson gone. That will infuriate every single moderate that he needs with a two seat majority, a two seat majority to pass his premier legislation. So Lawler and Jason Smith and all of them would then get infuriated at President Trump and not vote for any other piece of legislation that President Trump wants.

Don Bacon. They would all say President Trump go pound pound sand. We're not going to vote for your border stuff. We're not going to vote for your tax stuff.

We're not going to vote for any of it. And then you don't even have a replacement. So there is no choice.

There is no replacement. So President Trump's in a very, very difficult position here. So I can understand why he has made the decision that he's made. And it's very annoying for everybody in this audience. And to be perfectly honest, it's irritating and it makes us very angry because we worked so hard and we won this election triumph. And then we look at Congress and we say we could do a lot better.

That's not just a Mike Johnson thing. It's a legislative results thing. By the way, I have become a premier expert on this program in every single excuse. Oh, it's too close to an election, so we can't do spending cuts. Oh, it's Christmas, so I need a vacation.

We don't have any other option for a speaker. It's too late on a deadline and the debt ceiling and the whole country is going to go into default. We know all the excuses and the base, you, the backbone, the spine of the Republican Party, the vanguard of the nation.

You're not buying those excuses much anymore. So I want to hear from you. Freedom at CharlieKirk.com. President Trump gets what President Trump wants.

He wants Mike Johnson and I bet he's going to get him. Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here. Making America great again starts with making America healthy again. I lost 40 pounds with the PHD weight loss and nutrition program. And two years later, I haven't gained a pound back. I started the PHD weight loss and nutrition program because I needed to be healthy to keep up with my crazy schedule. Most people start a weight loss program to get healthier. So why is Big Pharma spending millions to convince you to use their weight loss injections that do just the opposite?

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Text the word healthy. Joining us now is Matt Gaetz, host of the Matt Gaetz Show on OANN, One America's News Network. Great American. Matt, welcome to the program. Matt, congratulations on your new show. And also, Matt, tell me what is going to happen in the speaker fight? My suspicion is that Mike Johnson will be elected speaker, that it will likely be today, and I would anticipate either the first or the second vote. That's because for my friends who are concerned about Mike Johnson's inability to deliver single subject bills, his inability to put downward pressure on any spending, to open up the process where you can read the bills with sufficient time to analyze their impact in advance. Mike hasn't done those things, but to vote against him now does not create an ecosystem to change that dynamic.

That will have to be done after President Trump's certification and after President Trump is in office. And I knew when we put a little pressure on speaker-designate McCarthy to give us some concessions, concessions that put key conservatives on committees, where the product at the end of the day we hoped would be more reflective of where our voters are, that was because Joe Biden was president. And there was no real eagerness on the part of the Republican base to get to the Joe Biden agenda.

Whereas now there's great hope and opportunity that a lot of Americans see in the Trump agenda. So Mike Johnson will be speaker. I've suggested to my colleagues that the best way to make Mike Johnson the best version of himself is not to put him through the wringer today, but instead to start talking about the policy concessions fiscal conservatives need in the upcoming budget bill.

And you'll hear it called reconciliation, which it always seemed like a weird word to me, reconciliation, because that's like when you're getting back together. But the reality is this bill often creates a lot more tension than reconciliation. But there'll be demands for border policy in there, tax policy.

There'll be a desire to reduce spending in a lot of the agencies that have had mission creep like the Department of Education and the EPA. And, you know, our hope is that you get a speaker willing and competent to execute on that agenda. But let me tell you something, Charlie, if this had been a close one, I would have been there.

I have a certificate of election that I think still would have worked today. But I spoke to Mike Johnson last night and he exhibited great confidence that after President Trump spoke with a number of our colleagues and excited them around a unifying agenda that today would be largely ceremonial. So, yeah, you could have actually showed up and voted today, if I'm not mistaken.

Is that what you're saying? Is that right, Matt? Yeah, vote was needed.

I would have been there. I had a flight booked and everything, but the speaker gave me a ring and said he felt as though that people's concerns have been heard, that they were being addressed and that they would have a unified Republican team coming out of the day. So, Matt, let me speak on behalf of the audience. We have about 3,000 emails that have come in in the last 30 minutes and it's 99% against Speaker Johnson. They can't stand him. They call him a gutless wonder. They say he's a liar. He's deceived us. He has misled us. What is your message to the grassroots that are incredibly disappointed with Speaker Johnson?

Well, I'm disappointed as well. When we voted for Speaker Johnson, he was for single subject bills. He was against the war in Ukraine and he wanted to curtail federal powers of surveillance beyond the constraints of the Constitution.

And he reversed his view on all those things and then constructed this terrible spending bill. The hope is that courage is contagious, that if you believe Mike Johnson is a gutless wonder, that once President Trump is dictating the agenda, Johnson will be merely a vessel for that agenda. He has shown he is not going to be a change agent for the House of Representatives. Now, where I will disagree with your monologue earlier when you said, well, nobody else wants the job, that's not true. Tom Emmer, the current whip, wants the job.

Jim Jordan wants the job. You know, they're going to vote for Mike Johnson today as a show of unity. But nothing, I mean, those two guys ran for speaker in 2024.

That's typically an itch that doesn't go away with one scratch. So what can be done through this process to try to ensure the next six months are better for President Trump? So let's say he does end up getting the speakership. Is there any concessions from rules changes or packages? Because, Matt, a lot of those concessions that you were able to deliver after the vacation of Kevin McCarthy were actually never followed through upon.

Right. Here's what I learned, Charlie. The only concessions that are durable are personnel concessions. When someone says, oh, I promise this bill will get a vote. I promise we'll get a vote on term limits. I promise that we'll have spending cuts with the right accounting tricks and the right political excuses.

People can always weasel themselves out of those commitments. The commitments we got from McCarthy that are durable to this day, putting strong conservatives on the rules committee, putting people like Andrew Clyde on the Appropriations Committee. And when those folks first get on, they don't have the seniority or at times the juice to drive the agenda of those committees. That's why Lauren Boebert came on my program on One American News last night and said if Johnson would agree to make Chip Roy the head of the rules committee, a lot of those fiscal hawks would fly in formation behind him in supporting Johnson. I don't know if that deal was made.

Johnson was indicating that he wasn't interested in any quid pro quo on personnel. But if I were the holdouts, I would be holding out for getting the people who are not financially compromised by the Lobby Corps or special interests into some of the key budget positions. That's how it goes best for Trump. So let's dive into the legislative calendar. It seems as if the consensus in D.C. is one big reconciliation bill. What is a reconciliation bill?

You've mentioned this previously before. Educate our audience on how this process works so that we can avoid 60 votes in the U.S. Senate. Right. Well, that's the essence of it. On everything from immigration policy to a Mother's Day resolution, you typically need 60 votes into the Senate to proceed on to anything of substance. And here there is a unique kind of breakthrough on the Senate filibuster that only requires 50 votes plus the vice president if it is budget policy.

So there will be an analysis done of everyone's ambitious goals and ideas for this piece of legislation that already folks are working on this month to see what is true budgetary policy versus what is a policy that is not spending but otherwise in nature. And then that will be excluded from what is negotiated. Now, our friends, the border hawks, will say, darn it, we want every bit of amnesty reform in this bill and that will be challenging. And then you'll have some of the fiscal hawks saying, well, we won't vote for it unless we get the trillions of dollars cut that Elon Musk has talked about with Doge. And my suspicion is that the big spenders still occupy a sufficient majority in both the House and the Senate once you peel away party labels and that they will resist that greatly. So I think that, you know, President Trump has got the debt limit to deal with. That could be a function of the reconciliation bill. It's going to be everybody trying to get their priority in this one thing. And ultimately, this is so bizarre, but the Senate parliamentarian is the person empowered to determine whether or not a specific feature of legislation fits inside or outside of reconciliation.

How's that for in the weeds for you, Charlie? Yeah. And so let's dive deeper into that. The Senate parliamentarian, when do they weigh in? Potentially they could weigh in once the bill's already passed the House.

Is that correct? They could, yes. And that's when they have to officially determine whether or not provisions qualify. But here's what will happen. Lobbyists and special interests will go and work the Senate parliamentarian's office to try to get a specific idea or proposal either deemed included or excluded. And so before you even get a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian, you'll have committee chairs and other people who are just vessels of special interests show up to representatives and say, oh, well, we'd love to include this amnesty reform, but we've heard the Senate parliamentarian isn't going to allow it under what's called the Byrd rule. That's the rule that empowers the Senate parliamentarian to make this calculus.

And then when things fall out of the bill as a consequence of the Byrd rule, they are in aptly described as the Byrd droppings of the reconciliation. Yes. But this is not constitutional. This is just a Senate rule. Right. And so this one person who I don't know if she's good or bad, her name is Elizabeth McDonough.

She's been there since 2012, is one of the most powerful people in America. Is that correct? That's right. That's how the senators behave.

But it is sort of, to your exact point, it is a prison of their own construction. Right. If I were Senate majority leader, if Rick Scott were Senate majority leader, he would just say, no, no, no, no. This is what we deem appropriate. We're in the majority. The majority deems that for the reconciliation to pass, this is what's in, this is what's out.

Presumably, J.D. Vance could do that as the constitutional presiding officer of the Senate. He could just go and by function of the Constitution, seize that power from the Senate parliamentarian. To do that, we would then have to awaken all of the senators with smelling salts after they've clutched their pearls and passed out aghast with the violation of norms.

But we're either all prisoners of the Senate parliamentarian or there has to be some exercise of the power of the majority to get our accomplishments into this first critical piece of legislation. Matt, you have a new show. Tell us about it. How is life? You are going to be attorney general, then life takes different detours. Tell us how things are going in Matt Gaetz world.

No, I'm excited. I've got the Matt Gaetz show on One American News and the same day my show premiered, One American News was added to Sling and was also added to the Dish Network. So we're in 10 million more homes than we were the day before I started. And I'm really excited about the growth of the network and the opportunity to have the discussions that I used to have with lawmakers on the floor and in committee for the entire country to see. So folks can get the OAN live app as well or follow me on X at Matt Gaetz and we'll make sure to include you in the conversation. Matt, thanks so much.

Talk to you soon. Really appreciate it. Thanks, Charlie. Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk, you hear me talk about Relief Factor and how so many people enjoy a better, more pain free life because of it. If you're dealing with everyday pain and it makes sense, you'd want to try it first with Relief Factor. That makes a pretty well, Relief Factor makes that pretty pain free to with their three week quick start for just nineteen ninety five.

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That is relief factor dot com. The House is beginning to vote. Can we have the picture and picture up, please, as we continue to talk about this? Here's what I will say about Congress. There are some rock stars in Congress.

And hopefully even more coming. Ana Paulina Luna is a rock star. There are rock stars across the board.

Brandon Gill, who is a very promising new rock star. However, I'll be honest, most members of Congress are incredibly unimpressive. You would not hire them to be a dog catcher. And there this is the greatest thing they've ever done and they ever will do, by the way. They've never run a hot dog stand, nor could they. They're incredibly ambitious.

They're cunning and very interested in vanity. Now, again, I want to make sure it's very clear there are some rock star members of Congress like Darrell Issa. I don't agree with him on everything. Very impressive. Very smart man. Built a business. Very, very smart person. There's plenty of them.

However, there are far more than the impressive is the unimpressive. They are just there to be important, to feel as if they've done something. And for them, this is the student council equivalent. For the rest of their life, they get paid a nice wage, which, by the way, remember that other continued resolution bill that got shot down.

Had a pay raise for Congress, adding insult to injury. By the way, I will give a member, you know, I think the bill should be I think someone should introduce this bill. I think it's a great bill. If we balance the budget, every member of Congress gets a one million dollar bonus. I think would be a great, great use of five hundred and thirty five million dollars. I think that if we have if every member of Congress, if they balance the budget, everyone gets a million bucks.

Say two million bucks, make it a billion dollars. Breaking news, by the way. Representative Tim Burchette has said he expects multiple rounds of voting. I thought it was just going to be one round. That's what some of our sources were saying.

Turns out they were wrong. Multiple rounds of voting. That's why we are here on the Charlie Kirk to monitor all this, to manage it, to see what's happening in real time. By the way, you shouldn't be surprised the multiple rounds of voting. People are angry and they should be angry. People are fired up. And you got these elevated student council dog catchers out there. Some of them, some are wonderful people, some are very impressive.

That have bankrupted the country. Indicating that there's another no vote. Look, this is all going to get sorted out. Mike Johnson is going to become speaker.

It might take two rounds, three rounds, four rounds, five rounds. They want to try to create a P.R. spectacle around it. Fine. Good. In some ways, it's warranted to have the spectacle because what has Congress delivered for us? In some ways, you got to send a message to the American people. You got to shock the system a little bit. I get it.

Johnson's going to be speaker. Kind of a little bit of a reminder that he's got he's on a little bit of a dangerous terrain right now. But you can't extend this beyond Sunday.

You don't want certification to get in the way. Totally understand it. That's fair argument.

It's fine. Look, the emails are receiving freedom at Charlie Kirk dot com are ninety nine percent against Speaker Johnson. Just overwhelming. That's probably an unsustainable political equation. When you have ninety nine percent of the base of your party that does not want the speaker to continue. It's not not good at all. It is a formula that is a recipe for disaster.

We said the same thing during the McCarthy fight. What is the alternative? What is the plan?

And eventually the dam broke. Now, the difference, though, is that we have President Trump and we have the White House. President Trump is going to get one big legislative shot.

Take your shot. And I think it's going to be a big, beautiful bill. It's going to be border. It's going to be taxes.

It's going to be everything. So I get it. If I was President Trump, you almost have no choice but to get behind Mike Johnson.

Almost no choice. You can't tick off the moderates. You've got to try to bring people together.

I get it. Governing is hard. It's very hard. I do not envy those that have to govern. However, I will not continue to make excuses and I will not continue to dodge and weave when people don't tell the truth.

That is that is a category difference. You tell the truth. It takes no talent to tell the truth.

Email us freedom at Charlie Kirk dot com. Voting is underway for who shall become speaker of the House of Representatives. Betting money says that Mike Johnson will survive. How many rounds it will take?

We will see. Tell the truth. That is your one job.

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for Hillsdale dot com. OK, our coverage continues of the speaker fight on the floor of the House of the Representatives. It is ongoing right now. Tim Burchette has tweeted out saying he thinks it's going to go to multiple rounds.

And it's currently sixty four sixty four tied in the House of Representatives and it's going to come right down. In fact, they called. They said Andy Biggs from Arizona.

And he remained silent, which means they go back to him at the end. It's the most melodramatic thing. I have a feeling Andy Biggs based on that might vote for Abraham Lincoln. Just just a gut feeling that he might vote for Donald Trump for speaker.

We'll see. The anger of the base is real. What has Congress delivered for us? And it's always an excuse.

Well, I got to go to Christmas vacation. It's too close to an election. We don't have enough seats.

Well, actually, you have a House majority. There is no trust between the American grassroots and Congress. There is no trust. Trust is earned. It is not given. You don't just get trust for existing.

You earn it, you get in the arena, you work hard, you produce results. Massive chasm of a disconnect between what the American people want and. What Congress has been doing. I want to play this piece of tape here of J.D.

Vance and Kamala Harris. I don't know if we've loaded it up or not yet. Pretty remarkable. Let's play cut 50.

It's one of my new favorite pieces of tape here. Kamala Harris swearing in the new Senate majority with J.D. Vance. Play cut 50.

Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that you take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which you are about to enter. So help you God. I just love J.D. Vance smiling and grinning as it's occurring. J.D. Vance is now the senior senator. From Ohio, the senior senator feels good to say senior Senator J.D. Vance. And so therefore, J.D. Vance will resign his post, creating a vacancy. The governor of Ohio will replace him, making Bernie Moreno the senior senator from Ohio.

Timing is very important with this stuff. Very, very important. Sherrod Brown is gone. We defeated you. Casey from Pennsylvania is gone. We defeated you.

There should be other retirements there soon. The fact that Ruben Gallego is a senator, that drives me nuts. Guy's a rat. Jackie Rosen, awful. Tammy Baldwin, awful. However, we won some really, really good ones.

Some really good ones. Joining us now is Kurt Schlichter. Kurt, the House of Representatives melodrama is continuing.

How should we think about all this? Well, I'd like to think about, is there a plan? I mean, look, I was no big fan of McCarthy. I was no big fan of Mike Johnson. What's the plan, though, Charlie?

What what what are we going to do if we don't have Mike Johnson? And I'm not I don't foreclose the possibility there's a better speaker out there, although a lot of people seem to misunderstand what a speaker does. They want the guy who's most ideologically copasetic. And that's not what he does. He's really a conductor, a traffic director, a guy who puts together coalitions and raises money.

As long as he's not undermining you, he's probably OK. Ideologically. But again, what's the plan, Andy Biggs? You know, what's the plan, Massey?

Chip Roy, who I like. What's the plan, Chip? What's the plan?

I'd like to know, because if you don't have a plan, you're going to fail. And I agree. I think I think, Kurt, if you were to ask them privately, they would say the plan is performative, which I think is silly. However, is there a place in politics for like we're at least going to put up the the the motions of some sort of a fight?

Or is that just completely silly and should be dismissed? Well, look, we have been putting up a fight. We we beat back that fifteen hundred page atrocity and, you know, did a continuing resolution, which is bad, but it was nowhere near as bad as what what we beat down. So we are making progress. Look, you. We're going to take two steps forward and one step back, and I think we need to stop as a movement expecting perfection all the time. On the other hand, we also cannot never expect perfection. You were you were very eloquent when you were saying, oh, well, we can't do it. It's too close to the election. It's Christmas vacation.

My dogs at the veterinarians. We can't get this path. We don't have to accept that. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that we need to understand that we've got a three to four vote majority.

That's going to be tight. It's going to give individual congressmen the chance to be showboats. And human nature says that out of about two hundred and twenty two congressmen, you're going to have a few who want to get that spotlight.

And the way they get that spotlight is by saying no. So it's we're in a tough position. I think we'd be in a we'd be in a much better position if we had more congressmen. And I think if we had Kevin McCarthy as much as I have problems with Kevin McCarthy and I, I certainly do. I think we would have had I think we'd have won more seats because he's a very savvy operator, even if he does make me want to pound my head into the wall sometimes. So we are where we are. We've got to make the best of it. And that means acting as adults and trying to achieve 90 percent of what we want rather than zero percent. Here is here is the update right now, is that as we're here live for Republicans, Biggs, Cloud, Gosar and Harris have not responded to the speaker vote.

And of course, Carson is Democrat as well. They then get to go at the end and kind of do some melodrama. I would not be surprised if this goes to a second and third ballot.

Kurt, let's assume that Johnson does survive. Are there any should there at least be a forcing function of more concessions and more agreements to try to make sure we don't get another continuing resolution? What compromises could legitimately be offered?

Well, look, I would love to get back to regular order, but that's going to take more. Look, I think that's going to take more than four or five people forcing it. I think you need a commitment on the on the part of the entire Republican caucus. And unfortunately, we don't have that.

I mean, look, I've got today I'm vaguely annoyed with the guys who aren't jumping on board. But let's understand the root of the problem is a lot of these appropriator Republicans, Republicans who are hard core conservatives right up to election day. Then they come back to Washington and it's off to state dinners and hanging with the lobbyists.

We need an ideological commitment to putting the America first agenda that the American people voted for with Donald Trump and overwhelmingly in the Senate into effect in the House. And it's you know, I think we saw some beneficial stuff happening over in the Senate where we got focused on people who were trying to be glory hogs. I mean, Joni Ernst, before she brought the spotlight on herself with this whole Hamlet Act over Pete Hegson. Did you know she was a giant squish who supported the Langford immigration abomination and the corn and gun control thing?

I didn't know that. I just thought she was a relatively inoffensive backbencher. And then she threw the spotlight on herself. We all saw it. And boy, she beat a hasty retreat.

I think we need to do that to some congressmen. Really quick, Kurt, plug your books here. We've got a break coming up here really quick.

Plug your stuff. Check out the attack. It's my newest novel. It's about terrorism in America. And I got to say, my my my sales are huge after the last two days because this book, which I did in conjunction with a lot of people who are deeply in the know, talks about the internal threat that we have here.

And it's a huge. Kurt, we'll be right back. So far, there are four people that have at least moved their votes to the end. So it's going to be very melodramatic. We have our eyes on this as it is occurring. We are going actually six people.

I want to go right to the end when they are called. Mike Johnson can only lose two people. He's already lost Thomas Massey, who voted for Tom Emmer. So if one more person, Biggs, Cloud, Clyde, Gosar, Harris end up saying no. Now, they've got to be a little bit careful. They've got to be a little bit careful because they don't have as much flex in the joints that they did last time with McCarthy. So Hakeem Jeffries could become speaker.

So they just got to be a little bit careful. Gosar has set out of calling his name. So has Andy Harris. So you could have potentially Speaker Jeffries. However, you could do a motion to vacate, which they would do, and then they could reconvene if they realized their math was all wrong because they still outnumber him. So there are two other votes that are now outstanding of people that have not decided to back Mike Johnson. This should be a no brainer, everybody.

And no, I'm not saying it in a lecturing way. We just won an election triumph. Shouldn't it be easy to elect a speaker? No, it's because Congress has not been listening to the mandate the American people has been giving them. This is a byproduct of all of their behavior. And so when will it get better?

That's a great question. At the same time, it's very difficult to see how President Trump could have navigated this differently. The only play that President Trump could have possibly made here is having an outsider become Speaker of the House. The only play could have been a very stones the size of Saturn play. The only other play could have been finding someone that everybody likes. For example, the play could have been, hey, instead of running the EPA, Lee Zeldin comes in as civilian speaker.

That would be very interesting. The civilian speaker. Lee Zeldin, that's the only other play because nobody in this entire wretched, cancer filled, tumor infested institution is going to fix it. And so people say, well, what's the plan?

What's the plan? The plan could have been Lee Zeldin for speaker. Everybody loves Lee. I love Lee. The moderates love Lee. He's from New York. He's a Trump loyalist. He's going on to run the EPA, which is a great job for him. He's going to a phenomenal job. But that's an interesting one.

It definitely would have been something. But again, that's the only other play. So it's going to be Mike Johnson. And that's what President Trump wants.

And you've got to go within the body. Now, whether or not it's going to be on the first ballot, the second ballot, I don't know if it's going to happen on this ballot. I think they're going to make him kind of go through the Kevin McCarthy treatment a couple of times, make him sweat a little bit, go on camera, come back. This could be a very, very late night. Remember, this went on for days last time.

This was a multiple day spectacle last time. So where are we at on the vote totals? I can't see that.

It's a little grainy. There are five people, six people that they're going to come back to at the end. So once that happens, guys, let me know so we can pivot back and listen to it. It's one hundred and sixty three to one sixty one right now as they are marching their way through the roll call. These roll calls typically take about forty five minutes to an hour, if I remember correctly. Remember, we became experts in this last year.

They went through 15 rounds, went through 15 rounds of this. So now it's one sixty seven to one sixty one. By the way, some people are saying, but Charlie, no, no, no.

Come on. President Trump doesn't get to pick his speaker. There would not be a House majority without President Trump. Well, how did Chip Roy vote, by the way? The camera is on him. I can't hear it. Can we turn the volume on so I can hear what's going on here? He must have remained silent. So that's another one. There's going to be a very. Let's just say high profile reveal at the end of all this.

Roy standing in the middle of the aisle next to Keith Self declines to vote on the first calling of his name. Congress has not earned the trust of the grassroots, the American people. It's been betrayal out of betrayal. We have a thirty six trillion dollar debt, a wide open border.

They're sending money to Ukraine. The American people are getting poorer and poorer. And this is all a byproduct of that. But they would not be a red House of Representatives or not be a Republican House of Representatives. If it was not for President Trump, he he pulled that majority across the finish line.

All right. We have Jack Pacific with us as we are waiting for the final call. Jack, what is your analysis of what is happening right now on the U.S. House of Representatives floor? On here is that we're seeing the same type of pressures that came out with the McCarthy fight, which turned into the initial sort of consensus pick of Johnson. Johnson was, you know, I don't think on anyone's short list prior to any of that. A lot of people thought that McCarthy would just sort of stay as a speaker to begin with. That being said, I think it's very clear that at this point, Johnson has not done what he's needed to do to win over the entire caucus.

That's why you're seeing these defections as we are right now. And he's really only there because of Trump's endorsement. And so without Trump's endorsement, essentially he could be removed at any moment because he just doesn't have the staying power on his own. The way that you would have seen with potentially some of these speakers in the past that were more, you know, that that has just had more time and leadership. And so, you know, there's there's an interesting argument to be made that actually perhaps Johnson is better for Trump to be there for Trump to have him there because he's on that tight of a leash. And so we're watching to see how this shakes out because, of course, we know that if we get the fact, I don't think that we're going to see like a Democrat speaker or anything like that.

But certainly there are some some interesting parliamentary tricks to watch out for. So Mike Johnson is who is Mike Johnson talking? Let's go full screen so I can see what's going on here, please. Guys, trying to see who Mike Johnson is talking to right now. I don't think it's a staffer. You know, I think that's Dusty Johnson from South Dakota. Blake, is that your is that one of your people? I'm 90 percent sure. The kind of boyish look. Glasses. I think that's Dusty Johnson. Rusty Dusty.

That right? No one's responding in the chat. So. So, Jack, what is the grassroots and the conservative base are very much against Mike Johnson? What is your message to them? Look, my message to the base is this is if you don't have the votes, if we don't have the votes to put in another speaker to get someone else up there, then you've got to look towards a deal. And the deal is this.

What do you want? Right. Look at it from that perspective. This is you're in negotiation room now. You are at the table. What does Bannon always tell us? Not in the room, not in the deal. Well, guess what?

You're in the room now. And so you've got these holdouts out there. So the question is, what do we want? Is it wall funding? Is it something, by the way, on H1B, which has been a hot button issue for quite some time now?

Obviously, the administration, when President Trump is inaugurated here in 17 days, will have the ability to rule on H1B as pertains to some of these rules at DHS that control various levels of salary. But perhaps a legislative fix could be something on the table, too, and secure those commitments. So you look at these holdouts potentially as the proxy of the voice of the base and say, what do you want? What deal do you want them to carry forward to you? And then you can also be taking to Twitter. I would say take the phones.

I have no idea if they're answering the phones today, though, to be honest. Really just get your voices out there and then contact these various holdouts and say, these are the things that we would be looking for. These are the things that are important to us. And you've got a lot of power right now within the base because, look, we know that President Trump is coming in. We know we've got the Senate.

They're already seated. Now we've got this situation with the speakership. If he wants this thing, he's got to pass through the base. And the other part of it is, too, is you must maintain and secure your power. Don't just sit back. We're not doing the thing anymore like, you know, the Trey Gowdy era where we just sit back and all they've got is taken care of. And he's going to go and take care of it for us. No, no.

You need to be interactive. Speaker Johnson or Mr. Johnson right now. Mr. Johnson is to vote short so they could call a recess and call it a day.

They could go right back into another round of voting. Let's go full screen here so I can continue to narrate. Mike Johnson is doing a beeline. So Mike Johnson right now, here's what he's doing. He's going to go find his staff.

Staff is not allowed on the House floor during all these votes. So Mike Johnson is going straight to his staff and boom, he exits the special chamber. He's going to go meet with his staff.

He's going to go into the speaker's balcony and have a little bit of a powwow, a little bit of a meeting to try to work on the two defectors. That's Marjorie Taylor Greene next to Thomas Massey. Thomas Massey, who I know a lot of people try to attack him. I say two defectors because Massey's not going to move. I like Thomas Massey.

I've always liked Thomas Massey and nothing can change my mind on that. I'm sorry. He's an independent free thinker who loves liberty. He just recently lost his wife, by the way. By the way, he looks great with a goatee. I got to be honest. He looks really good. So I say that, by the way, with an unblemished record of heterosexuality.

But he looks great. Jack, am I right? Jack said something in the chat too. So Jack, welcome to the program again. Jack, what is your analysis here of how things are going to proceed? Well, I just have to comment because I saw Thomas Massey on, I guess, Matt Gaetz's inaugural program last night.

And he drops the glasses. He's got the goatee. He's tanned. I think he looks Massey. I was like, Thomas Massey? That's not Thomas Massey.

I look at him and say, wait a minute. That is Thomas. He's got his hair cut there. He looks great.

He clearly looks maxing. New year, new you. So I guess he's going down that road. And God bless him for doing so.

We should all be focused on making sure that we're all healthy and getting there in the new year. But one of the big pieces that I think looking here now is that it's very clear. So, I mean, you look at this. Johnson only has a one vote majority over Jeffries. I mean, this shows you. But one of the biggest pieces that we need to be focused on big picture here for the Trump administration coming in is that the majority is so slim.

It is so absolutely slim. So when it comes to these big ticket items that the administration wants to push forward that whoever and I do think that Johnson will end up getting it. I do. I hope that there are some great concessions for the base. I think there's a great package that's put together. But looking forward, there's going to be some big fights and there's only going to be a few folks that it takes to hold up so many of these things. And I really think that's going to be something the stuff that you're seeing today, basically, folks, when it comes to the question of Johnson, it's going to be this way for every single big fight over the next two years. Jack, in closing here, let's say we get Speaker Johnson. It seems that that is the way this is going.

It is inevitability. He's within two votes. I think he'll clean up. Mr.

I don't know anything about the self guy or Norman. What does this mean for President Trump and his agenda? And what can we learn from prior mistakes of Congress? Look, it shows you that Mike Johnson in the time that he's been speaker, the short time, the brief time, he needs to do more for the base. He needs to do more to show the base and show everyone that he's on board with the president's agenda. And what he really should be doing is becoming a champion for the president's agenda there in the House. But President Trump gave him this job, and it's his job in turn to reflect and fortify and deliver on the mandate that was given to President Trump and the Republicans writ large in Congress in the past election. One of the things that I'm going to say up front, by the way, that I'd love for Mike Johnson to do, whether it's today, whether it's tomorrow that he retains his speakership, and sit down with Mayor Bowser, and we need to see a real security plan for this inauguration.

I'm talking National Guard. I'm talking everything. We need to see it, and we need to see it fast. And you and I are both going to be there, so this is playtime is over. I think you're exactly right. They're going to go to another ballot here. I would bet very good money that Mike Johnson will be speaker of the House by tonight. Email us freedom at CharlieKirk.com. Your opinions on the whole Mike Johnson saga.

Seems as if we have no choice of what President Trump wants, and so that is the directional energy where it's at right now. Jack, thank you so much. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us as always freedom at CharlieKirk.com. Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-03 18:11:29 / 2025-01-03 18:35:13 / 24

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