This week on Here and Now Anytime, the data center revolt comes to Utah, psychedelics and the future of medicine, and we dive into the sound archives of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They filmed the aerial woodpecker of one of the last pairs that was ever documented in the wild. Was it here now anytime on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcast? Hey there, this is Kristin in Snowy, Stoughton, Wisconsin, and I am getting ready for the first round of shoveling for the day.
This podcast was recorded at 543 PM on Wednesday, January 4th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I will probably need to go out and shuffle again. Stay warm. Here's the show.
At first I thought she said shuffling, and we know a lot about shuffling right now. Hey, it's yourself Kristin. And considering she's in at the aptly named Stoughton, Wisconsin, which is how firmly I guess both sides are holding in, conge right now. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.
I'm Susan Davis, I cover politics. I'm Deirdre Walsch, I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanor, senior political editor and correspondent. And the House of Representatives remains at an impasse.
No member elect, haven't received a majority of the whole number of votes cast. A speaker has not been elected. Two days, six ballots, and still there's no speaker of the House. California's Kevin McCarthy continues to be put forward as the majority party's nominee.
Here's my Gala Garvus-Conson. They gave us Republicans an opportunity to inject some basic common sense into the federal government to pull the emergency break on a lot of the crazy we've seen in the last few years. They're asking us to do a job and nobody has laid out a plan, a proactive policy agenda for the direction we want to take this country in more detail than Kevin McCarthy. And yet the votes have not budged that all 20 Republicans continue to oppose McCarthy.
Today, casting ballots in the fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds for Florida's Byron Donald's, who was first nominated by Texas Congressman Chip Roy. Byron is a dear friend, a solid conservative. The Democrats, newly in the minority and now playing the role of loyal opposition, have shown no interest in tossing McCarthy a lifeline with any of their votes. Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar of California continued to nominate minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, throughout the day with the support of all 212 Democrats.
Man of Clerk, make no mistake, there is no frustration on our side. We are focused on serving the American people. Earlier today, President Biden weighed in, saying in part that this log jam was in his words, not a good thing. And the former president Donald Trump took to his social media platform this morning to continue to endorse McCarthy, saying in part that he would quote, do a good job, maybe even a great job.
And yet the House adjourned for a second time with no speaker in place. Dear Drat, you were on the Hill yesterday. You're on the Hill right now. Is patience wearing thin for Kevin McCarthy?
Well not for Kevin McCarthy. He keeps insisting that he is eventually going to get there. I mean, I asked him on his way into the floor today and he said, I didn't say today. Eventually, we're going to come together.
Because for other House Republicans, I think Cam X said it best, the Florida Republican who nominated McCarthy, I think on the six ballot. And she said, hey, it's Groundhog Day again. So I think that we're just in this weird standoff where McCarthy keeps saying that he's making progress, but he's not. Anything the needles moved in the other direction?
Correct. I mean, there were 20 Republicans yesterday, 20 Republicans today. There was a 20, first Republican, Victoria Sparks from Indiana, who had been backing McCarthy but voted present today as she stood with the defectors on the floor and they applauded her. So clearly she's talking to them.
A lot of super intense huddles with McCarthy allies, McCarthy critics on the House floor. And as I was watching them, I kept thinking maybe someone's going to flip, but then they would announce they were voting for Donald's the fourth time, the fifth time, the sixth time. Without any sign of a breakthrough, at least seemingly in sight, it also seems like a weird factor is going up. You know, you have former Congressman Fred Upton, a Michigan, he just left Congress saying, oh, hey, I would be speaker if they want me to.
Another former Michigan Congressman Justin Amash flew to Washington, D.C. and was in the Capitol today, basically telling reporters he's just hanging out in case people want him to be speaker of the House. I think he's smiling on the floor. I wonder, does 538 and the New York Times have a needle for weird meter?
It is definitely getting weirder, but I also think members seem to be getting angrier just tonight. A group of Republicans who are military veterans had a press conference in the Capitol and their anger at the 20 seems to also only be intensifying. Dear Dr. Eidler, it's not just about the anger towards Kevin McCarthy.
I feel like the internal Republican anger factor has also intensified. It has and they keep using lines like hostage taking and we're not taking orders from them and they're trying to hold us hostage and they're only hurting the party. They're embarrassing the party. You know, Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska said he's listening to the news and it's making him feel sick.
You know, in terms of this consequence is that this group of national security Republicans were talking about, you know, one argued that they can't get classified information or briefings because the committees haven't formed, right? There's no House Intelligence Committee. There's no House Intelligence Committee chairman. If there's like any kind of national security event, they tend to brief the gang of eight, like the top four, you know, House and Senate leaders and committee chairs of the intelligence committees and those slots don't exist right now.
We talked about this a little bit yesterday. But you know, this is the first consequence of the red wave being just a red trickle because, you know, with this kind of majority, four seats, we all knew we saw what happened with John Boehner in sort of the frustration he'd felt with this hard right conservative caucus and he just didn't want to deal with them anymore because he couldn't even pass basic legislation and we knew with a four seat majority how difficult passing legislation would be, it's amazing that they can't even pick a leader and can't even agree on that. I think they know that they could flex their muscles on this and that they could exercise a lot of demands and potentially a scalp here with Kevin McCarthy. Well, yesterday they put up a couple alternatives.
First they put up Andy Biggs of Arizona, then they moved on to Jim Jordan of Ohio. Jim Jordan said very clearly he does not want to be speaker. He has endorsed McCarthy. Today they shifted to Byron Donald's.
I think he's a lawmaker that a lot of our listeners probably don't know a lot about. He's a junior lawmaker. I mean, do you have a sense of what their strategy is here? I think Donald's also told reporters he knows he won't be speaker either.
He did. I mean, I think he said he wasn't running up for speaker, but he was trying to play some kind of constructive role to get to a consensus. I mean, I think as we noted on this podcast, Democrats are nominating New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries to be the new Democratic leader. He becomes the first black leader of either party in Congress.
And Byron Donald's who, as you said, Sue, I think this is just his second term in Congress is black and Chip Roy who nominated him in vote to Martin Luther King when he nominated him on the floor today. Yeah, I mean, Donald is a congressman from Florida. He was born in Brooklyn, by the way. So as I came Jeffries, he's 44 years old.
He represents Southwest Florida. Now he's described himself as a Trump supporting liberty loving pro life, Second Amendment black man. That is his quote about how he describes himself. He seems somewhat flattered about this sort of new, you know, attention that he's getting.
He's like, well, they nominated me, right? When he was asked if he is actually running for speaker as do do do do that. He's this wasn't really necessarily a serious bid on his part. And I think it surprised him somewhat, but he's happy to have the attention.
And he really rode the Tea Party to, you know, the legislature in Florida. He gained their support. He has been one of the most conservative members since then even voted against some gun legislation after the Parkland School Massacre. They're one of the only members to do that.
So really has been able to rise to fame through, you know, using this conservative angle, you know, and being and now kind of getting all this new found attention, which was unexpected for him. But Donald's ran for leadership position in November and lost. He ran to be, I think the number three house Republican leader position and he lost to Elise Stefanik. So he clearly has been wanting to be part of the leadership team.
All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk more about this and we get back and we're back and do I think it's worth maybe taking a step back for a minute at the battle to be speaker because it's not unusual that people in the past have faced internal party resistance to get the gavel. Nancy Pelosi faced internal resistance, John Boehner faced internal resistance, Paul Ryan faced internal resistance, but they were able to get there before they got to this point, right? There's a reason why they haven't fought it on the floor. What is it about the dynamic of this makeup of the Republican Party that is preventing Kevin McCarthy or frankly anyone else from doing that?
Well, the other thing that's striking too when you mention Pelosi is McCarthy has the same razor than four seat majority that Pelosi had in the last session of Congress that just ended and a bunch of people who didn't want her to be speaker anymore, right? And had publicly come out against her right before that election, but in the wake of that, she knew she had a thin majority. She negotiated behind the scenes, offered up to term limit herself and secured the votes and one on the floor. The difference between Pelosi and McCarthy, right, is that McCarthy is negotiating with this group that is making these demands that are a little bit unclear at some point seem pretty personal, but also seem pretty hard for McCarthy to actually agree to.
I mean, I talked to one of them, South Carolina Republican Ralph Norman, and he essentially said he doesn't believe Kevin McCarthy is really a fiscal conservative. He pointed to his record over the last 14 years on spending bills, and he said, look, I want to do some major cuts. And I want Kevin McCarthy to agree to all these cuts and essentially agree to shut down the government if he can't get them through. And he also said, I want Kevin McCarthy to agree to not raise the debt ceiling if we can't get these kinds of cuts through.
And I said, Congressman, you have a Democratic Senate, a Democratic president, like you can't pass this stuff. And he was like, we're in this fiscal crisis. We need to make a stand. We need to address our country's spending problem.
Basically, he wants the fight. Yeah. I mean, I always think that there is, I try to explain this to people when they ask about the differences in the parties, because the left, you know, there's a far left in the Democratic Party, there's a far right in the Republican Party. But the far right sort of animating impulse is almost anti-government, right?
We said it's anti-establishment, it's anti-government. They want to break it down. And the far left's animating impulse is still pro-government. They still want to build government, not make it bigger.
So it's almost easier to get the left in the fold because they fundamentally believe in government. It's a lot harder to get the far right in the fold because they just fundamentally don't want to see government continue in its current form. They really see government as the enemy. You know, as Ronald Reagan said, you know, it gets in the way, it hurts businesses.
And part of what they're here to do is to somewhat strangle government, to reduce how much it does, how much it spans, what its role is in society abroad and all of that. And it makes it really difficult if you're looking to negotiate with folks who, you know, really are just sort of sitting there in an intransigent way. You know, and it's not like they don't want anything. They certainly want a type of America that they foresee and that they would want to instill, but they don't have the power to do it.
They do have this power to be able to control at this point, who might the speaker be? And they have a Republican conference in the Senate that is not on the same page as them. Certainly not when it comes to government shutdowns and defaulting on the national debt. Deuter, there was an interesting moment I thought today, and I wonder if maybe I'm reading too much into it or if it's something we should follow.
Ken Buck is a Republican from Colorado. He voted for McCarthy in all six rounds. He's been behind him. But he was one of the first lawmakers I heard today start to float the idea that if McCarthy can't start to close this gap, he might have to entertain stepping aside and letting someone else try.
And he specifically named Czech Steve Scalise, the majority leader who has been sort of part of this whisper conversation of whether he could be speaker, although to be clear Scalise has made no moves to that end. Do you get a sense that even the McCarthy wall might be starting to show some cracks? I mean, I think there is growing concern that this public spectacle is making the party look bad. Some of McCarthy's allies say people aren't really paying attention.
They're going to work. They're going to the gas station like move on. This is not a big deal. We should just have this debate and get through it.
But I think there are some like Buck who are saying that quiet part out loud. We can't just do this forever. And Buck in this interview on CNN said, look, we could get to this point where other senior members go to Kevin and say it's just time to move forward. But I don't get the sense that Steve Scalise, the number two House Republican from Louisiana, who was close to McCarthy and has been backing him, could get the votes to win the speakers race either right now.
And Buck seemed to have a sense of urgency about it. He said a couple times that it should be and has to be today where this movement is made where either McCarthy can win over some of these folks or cut bait. And I think that it really is indicative when you think about today, looking at the split screen that we all saw happening with President Biden in Kentucky, with Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader talking about how they were able to get funding for a bridge through the bipartisan infrastructure bill while at the same time Republicans were once again failing to even pick a leader in the House. All right, let's leave it there for today.
We should know the House does plan to meet again tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time for more deliberations and possibly more voting. We'll see what happens and we'll be back in the podcast to talk about it when we can. I'm Susan Davis, I cover politics.
I'm Deer Jorwosz, I cover Congress. And I'm Dominic Montaner, senior political editor and correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR politics podcast. And thanks for listening to the NPR politics podcast.