← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
We Go Behind The Scenes Of The Senate Leadership Fight Over Mitch McConnell!
00:34:27
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- [00:01]
Ted Cruz
Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. And Senator, it is a very big moment that we're dealing with right now with Senate elections. Also the shock happening in Poland with these missiles from Russia, apparently. And we have the president's announcement for everyone. If you missed it, here is what Donald Trump had to say about running for a third time for president.
- [00:26]
Donald Trump
You use two words, I don't want to be Joe. It's two words, American dream. That was not good, what he did. There are a lot of bad things like going to Idaho and saying, welcome to the state of Florida. I really love it. In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.
- [00:51]
Ted Cruz
I tell you, Senator, it was fun watching Donald Trump mock Joe Biden right before those words. Tonight, I'm announcing my candidacy for the President, United States of America. Want to get your reaction to this.
- [01:04]
Ben Ferguson
Well, listen, Joe Biden and the disaster of the last two years deserves mocking because it has been horrific. It's hurt the American people, and all across the country, people are suffering. I will say, when Donald Trump was president, we accomplished tremendous things together. I worked with him every day. I think I was the strongest ally in the U.S. senate. And I'm really proud of the policy successes we had together in terms of peace and prosperity and people being lifted out of poverty into abundance. So all of that is where we need to move back. We need to get back to a common sense agenda and away from the disasters of the last two years.
- [01:44]
Ted Cruz
You mentioned disasters the last two years, and that brings us to this Senate vote.
- [01:49]
Mitch McConnell
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- [03:21]
Ted Cruz
Mitch McConnell now has an approval rating. The last number I just saw was a 7% among Republicans, 7%. Not a typo, not 17%. Not 27%. 7%. You have this rush that you warned Americans about just two days ago to make him in charge of the Republican Party in the Senate. And now there are many people that have been calling their senators asking for there to be a delay in this vote. You were in the room. Senators only. What happened?
- [03:49]
Ben Ferguson
So yesterday we had a lunch. We have a lunch whenever we're in session. We have lunch together, all the Republican senators, every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. But yesterday's lunch was unusual. It lasted three and a half hours and we had as vigorous a debate as I've ever seen in the United States Senate. I have called publicly for delaying the leadership elections. I think we should delay them till after the Georgia runoff. The Georgia runoff is on December 6. And the argument that I made in that room yesterday, as I said, look, number one, we don't know who's in our conference. Georgia's not decided and Alaska's not decided. They're still doing ranked choice voting. So we don't know who the next senator from Alaska will be. And this is a serious contested election. This is a serious choice. And I think her, Herschel Walker and whoever the next senator from Alaska is, either Lisa Murkowski or Kelly Chewbacca, deserve to have a say in the leadership elections. But more fundamentally, it's not just about knowing the conference and knowing who's in it. We need to have a fundamental debate about the direction of the Republican conference and about Republican leadership. Listen, I'm pissed off. Millions of Americans are pissed off because Election Day should have been an historic victory for Republicans. We should have won a majority in the Senate. We should have won a huge majority in the House. And we didn't. The Democrats kept the Senate and we have a tiny, tiny majority in the House. And that was a cluster. That was a colossal screw up. And any rational organization, any rational group would sit and assess. Okay, what went wrong. What did we do wrong and what do we need to do differently? And so what I, I stood up and I made this case to my colleagues. And I'm going to refrain from telling you what other senators said because I think it's their prerogative to say what they said. But I'm going to tell you what I said. Here's what I said. I said, number one, this blown opportunity is historic. It is a screw up and we need to have a serious discussion about why. I said, number two, leadership wants to blame Donald Trump. That's their talking point, is it's all Trump's fault. It's all Trump's fault. Now, there's lots of blame to go around and all sorts of people bear some of the blame. But the idea that Mitch McConnell and Republican leadership have no portion of the blame, I think, frankly, is ludicrous. And what I argue to my colleagues is I said, listen, I've been in the Senate now 10 years. This is the sixth leadership election I've ever been in. Every single leadership election is not actually a debate and a choice over who should be leader. Mitch McConnell's never been challenged in the time I've been in there, in every instance. And we have five new brand newly elected Republican senators. All five of them were there in their lunch. It was actually the first lunch they've ever attended. So they came in and it was an epic gladiatorial battle for their first lunch. We were all joking, sort of welcome to the Senate, a very, very functional body. But what I told him is, I said, Listen, I remember 10 years ago when I was newly elected and it was the year Obama was reelected. It was a big Democrat year. There were only three new Republicans who'd gotten elected. We had a tiny freshman class, and I go to leadership elections and deliberately they schedule leadership elections just a few days after the election because they want the freshmen not to know what they're doing, to be still in their brand new basement offices, not to know where the men's room is. And the idea is they can't possibly vote against leadership because they're so brand new. And what I described to the freshmen, I said that first election, I stood there and I assumed, oh, okay, leadership is going to tell me what their vision is going forward. And you know, you think about it, when, you know, in junior high or high school, when someone was running for student council, the candidate would stand up and give a speech and say, here's what I want to do if you elect me to student council, if you Elect me class president. I'm going to have free chocolate pudding in the cafeteria. And if you're like, oh, I want free chocolate pudding, okay, I'll vote for so and so. I kind of expected that. The bizarre thing is the United States Senate doesn't do that. Instead, what happens, and this has happened every single time now for 10 years, is you have a series of senators that give speeches nominating Mitch McConnell. And they describe how Mitch McConnell is the greatest and most handsome and most eloquent wise human being to have ever lived. And then Mitch stands up, says, thank you, I appreciate it, and the entire conference votes to accept him by acclamation. So there's no so. So there's no actual vote. There's no discussion, there's no agenda. And it's bizarre. And what I argued to my colleagues yesterday as I said, listen, leadership is not accountable to us. There's no agenda, there's no proposal. And I said, listen, if you look at these election results, we screwed up, the conference screwed up, and we ought to ask why. And I said, I have. I believe I know why. Which is, over the last two years, leadership's agenda has been to unify the Democrats and divide the Republicans. There was bill after bill after bill that had every single Democrat on it and anywhere from 10 to 15 Republicans, and they passed Joe Biden's legislative agenda one after the other after the other. And I put it out. I said, look, the Democrats don't do that. The Democrats. We had a Republican Senate. You know how many bills were passed in that Republican Senate? With all The Republicans and 10 to 15 Democrats? Zero. None. The Democrats actually have discipline to say, we don't support your agenda and we will block it. And I said, we have a reason to ask, why does our leadership want to stand up and pass the Democrat agenda? I also pointed out, I said, look, for the last two years, we had a 50, 50 Senate, the most narrow Senate imaginable. We won zero conservative victories because our leadership would not use the leverage to get anything. And I asked our leadership, I said, it's perfectly reasonable for the conference to ask, what are you willing to fight on? And maybe the answer is nothing, but we got the next two years. Now, in the minority, there are only two lever points that the minority has to force a fight. One is government funding, either continuing resolution or an omnibus. The other is the debt ceiling. Those are the two things that take 60 votes to pass. And they're the only places historically that a minority has been able to get leverage to get the majority to Agree to concessions. Now, the view of Mitch McConnell over the last two years. And I said, listen, we need to have a real discussion. Is there something we're willing to fight on? I said, look, we're getting ready to take up the ndaa, the National Defense Authorization Act. Are we willing to fight to say no service man or woman can be fired because they declined to take the COVID vaccine? I believe yes. But we will only have a chance in that fight if Republicans will stand together and say, we will not give you 60 votes to take this up. If we're not. If 10 Republicans will say, oh, we're going to give you the votes, then you know what? SEAL Team six, you're screwed. You're getting fired by Joe Biden and the Democrats because Republicans were not willing to fight. And I said, all right, fine, go ahead.
- [11:44]
Ted Cruz
No, something that I think was so shocking was Mitch McConnell had his press conference and you mentioned this. And for a guy that apparently has a higher approval rating in the Senate than he does with the rest of the American people, it was very interesting to see the way that he described his own party. And he said, this candidates knew what.
- [12:05]
Unnamed Republican Senator
They were for, expressed it quite clearly. It's pretty obvious. And all of you have been writing about it. What happened. We underperformed among independents and moderates because their impression of many of the people in our party and leadership roles is that they're engaged in chaos, negativity, excessive attacks, and it frightened independent and moderate Republican voters.
- [12:36]
Ted Cruz
I mean, that's what he thought about hardcore conservative candidates. Make no mistake, he's talking in code there. But what he's basically saying is if you found more Mitch McConnells and guys like me that don't stand up to the Democrats, more of us could have gotten elected. But it was the party's fault. On the conservatives, that, as he describes it, that stand up for this country, that stand up for a secure border, that stand up for balance budget amendments, he says that is you being involved in chaos and excessive negative attacks. He says that's the reason why we lost the opportunity to win back the Senate.
- [13:10]
Ben Ferguson
So look, Mitch McConnell believes if you fight the Democrats, if you fight the socialists, if you fight the cultural Marxists who are destroying this country and you actually fight to win, that you're being. What was the language he used? Divisive, you're being mean, that to show you're mature, you should just surrender the country and roll over. And what I raised to my colleagues, I said, for Pete's sake, look, I don't think you should fight everything. If you fight a thousand things all at once, you're not, you're not actually fighting anything. You should set priorities. You should pick a couple of big fights that really matter and stand up and draw a line in the sand and say, this is what we stand for. So like I suggested, we're not going to pass the National Defense Authorization Act. If you're firing American heroes just because they didn't succumb to your demand that they get the COVID vaccine, that's a good fight to have. How about a fight to say we're not going to fund the 87,000 new IRS agents that the Democrats just passed to harass and attack the American citizens? We're not going to fund it. Now here's what's going to happen. If we say we're not going to fund it. Joe Biden and the White House are going to say, you mean Republicans are shutting down the government. And the press is going to say, you mean Republicans are shutting down the government. And if past is prologue, Mitch McConnell is going to say, you mean Republicans are shutting down the government. Our leadership echoes the message of the Democrats and the left. And I just raised, I said, look, the conference has a right to know. Is there anything, is there one issue that you give a damn enough about that you're willing to say, we will use the levers of legislative power we have to fight to win. And as I said, the two historically have been either funding the continuing resolution of the omnibus or the debt ceiling. And by the way, history has shown those levers work. So, for example, the Budget control Act in 2010, Republicans came in the Tea Party wave and they said, we're not going to fund everything. And Obama screamed, you're shutting down the government. You're shutting down the government. But actually, for a moment, Republicans discovered a backbone and the Budget Control act resulted in the greatest fiscal restraint you and I have seen in our lifetime. And they did it in a fight over the debt ceiling. Go back previously. Graham Rudman. Graham Rudman was the most significant long term spending restraint that has ever passed into law. They did it in a fight over the debt ceiling where they said, we're not going to let you raise the debt ceiling unless you do something to stop the out of control spending that's driving inflation, that's driving this out of control debt. What is different, Ben, is our leadership believes there is nothing worth actually fighting for, that we should surrender on everything. And I pointed out, I said, look, we ought to have this very real debate. I also Pointed out there's a reason why most Republicans don't get amendments on bills. Because our leaders, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, block amendments on bills, which means they draft all the spending bills, they drop them on the Senate with an hour's notice. We don't even get to read them because they're thousands of pages and they give it to you as a take it or leave it proposition. I said the Senate used to operate with freedom of amendment. Historically, the two prerogatives of a Senate senator were unlimited debate and unlimited amendment. And I described to folks, I said, look, many of y'all didn't know some of the old bulls of the Senate who have retired people like Lamar Alexander. I know Lamar well. Lamar described to me a Senate where he said the Senate majority leader would take up a bill, whatever bill was on the floor, and would say, we're going to go through all the amendments. And senators would fire file 300amendments. And the majority leader would say, fine, we're going to start working through them. And you'd work through a few, work through a few. And then you'd get to about Thursday afternoon. And the phrase they use in the Senate is jet fumes get in the air, which means senators start wanting to go home to their states. And suddenly the 300amendments would become 100amendments, would become 50amendments, would become 30amendments. People would say, well, I don't need my amendment voted on. I want to get home. And then the majority leader would move through and process the 30amendments that remained, and they'd finish Thursday night or Friday afternoon or Friday night or Saturday, but they'd finish and everyone would get an amendment. You wonder how you get these multitrillion dollar spending bills, how you stop them. Well, you allow amendments. You allow people to force amendments saying, don't spend on this, don't spend on this, don't spend on this. And you force votes on everything. But our leadership doesn't want that.
- [17:57]
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- [19:24]
Ted Cruz
Senator, let's talk real quick about this part of this press conference. And I pulled this because I watched the whole thing on C Span and there was a moment where Mitch McConnell, and it just seemed like it was the good old boys club at work where there was zero concern that he was not going to be the leader, Even though only 7% of Republicans support him as these new poll numbers. But this is what he said. Kind of laughing at the idea of anyone challenging him on anything.
- [19:55]
Unnamed Republican Senator
Well, as you notice, we had a rather lengthy and fulsome discussion, not only of the election but the way forward. And I think it's pretty obvious we may or may not be voting tomorrow. But I think the outcome is pretty clear. I want to repeat again, I have the votes. I will be elected. The only issue is whether we do it sooner or later. And I think we'll probably have another discussion about that tomorrow.
- [20:36]
Ted Cruz
It's almost like the fix is in. He's basically saying, I'm your guy whether.
- [20:40]
Mitch McConnell
It'S now or later.
- [20:41]
Ted Cruz
If we wait till Walker gets here, if he wins or not, and I have the votes. And if you want to be on my list of people to never get anything done the Senate or never have my friendship or never work with me on anything, be blackballed, go ahead and do it, I dare you, because I have the votes whether it's now or later.
- [21:02]
Ben Ferguson
Well, that is very much his approach. I gotta say. Mitch got up and what he focused on entirely was money. And his super pac had over $300 million in there. So his initial speech, he got up and he pointed to the new guys. And he said, I spent $30 million for you. I spent $40 million for you. I spent $50 million for you. That was the whole speech, which is basically. It's like the Godfather going, you know, I. I did a favor for you, and there's going to come a time, and it may be today, it may be tomorrow, when I'm going to ask for a favor back. That's basically what he stood up and said.
- [21:42]
Ted Cruz
It's also a threat, though, in your future career, because you and I talked about this the other day, and you had the most expensive Senate race in.
- [21:48]
Mitch McConnell
History of the U.S. senate.
- [21:50]
Ted Cruz
And $0 came in from Mitch McConnell when you were running against Beto in the Senate a couple years ago. In other words, you want any of this money in the future, you better get in line and vote for me, AKA I have the votes, whether it's now or later. And if you don't, you'll never get a dime for me, even though I'm in your own party.
- [22:06]
Ben Ferguson
Yep. He spent zero dollars on my race, despite having the most expensive Senate race in US history at the time in 2016. He spent $0 on Ron Johnson's race, despite it being an incredibly contentious race where Ron pulled it out, but did it entirely without Mitch, Mitch McConnell's help. He spent zero dollars on Mike Lee's race this cycle, despite the fact that he faced a very real race. If you're a conservative and you stand up to Mitch, you get zeroed out. He pulled the cash out from Blake Masters in Arizona, arguably cost us winning the Arizona seat. He pulled the cash out from General Bolduc in New Hampshire, potentially cost us that seat as well. And so it is all about cash and power. And my view is we ought to actually have leadership that lays out a vision of what we stand for. And by the way, so the way this works is there were, I don't know, about 20 senators who spoke. And about half the senators were raising concerns about leadership and arguing for delaying the delaying the vote, which is, I think, clearly the right thing to do. The other half, the senators are allies of Mitch McConnell, and they stood up and gave speeches. We've got to vote tomorrow, and it's incredibly important we reelect Mitch. And so one of the talking points they used is they said, georgia, Herschel Walker, because we want Herschel to win, we need to all immediately vote for Mitch McConnell. And I gotta say, I stood up and I said, okay, that is the dumbest argument I've ever heard. I was just down in Georgia I did the first big rally in the runoff with Herschel. You want to talk about how to demoralize conservatives in Georgia? Have all of us come back today and say, you know what, we got clobbered in this election, but we learned nothing and we're going to reelect the exact same leadership and do the same failed policies that didn't work for the last two years because charge ahead and never mind that we're actually going to stand for something and I'll point out something else.
- [24:13]
Ted Cruz
Well, and it's not just that, though. It also sends a message to voters that we've already moved on past and accepted, quote, defeat. And so it really doesn't matter if you give you work, you door knock, you make phone calls, you do whatever it is on Herschel Walker's campaign because Washington has already admitted defeat and we just move on.
- [24:38]
Ben Ferguson
Well, and there's another argument I made. I said, you want an example of this Right now the Democrats this week are prepared to take up their bill embracing gay marriage and they plan to pass it with all the Democrats and there's a very good chance you'll get at least 10 Republicans supporting them. I said, you people say you want to win Georgia. You want the Republicans in the Senate to embrace gay marriage. And by the way, it's not just gay marriage. This bill is designed to empower the Biden IRS to go after churches, to go after universities, to go after schools, K through 12 schools to go after charities, Christian charities, Jewish charities, Muslim charities, any charity that believes marriage is the union of one man and one woman, any charity that does not embrace same sex marriage. This bill is designed to strip their 501c3 status, to persecute the churches and universities and schools and charities. And I said, you think you're helping Herschel Walker by kicking evangelical Christians in Georgia in the teeth? You ought to call this whole damn thing an in kind contribution to Raphael Warnock because it's designed to drive down our turnout. Now, they don't want to engage in that. And our leadership, God forbid, would actually try to stop a bill that unifies all the Democrats. 100% of the Democrats support it and that divides our party brutally. That doesn't make any sense to me. And it's why we need leadership that is actually trying to fight and win instead of trying to find ways to acquiesce and roll over to Democrats.
- [26:28]
Ted Cruz
Let's talk about money. Very quickly, was there any guarantees from Mitch McConnell that he was going to open his purse strings to his war chest to help in this runoff election in Georgia.
- [26:43]
Ben Ferguson
Oh look, he'll spend money in Georgia. Of course they will, because it Georgia matters. And he will spend money in Georgia. But what he's not interested in doing is changing how leadership occurs. Now let me give you some good news on this, Ben. I've been in the Senate 10 years. We have never had a discussion about leadership like we just had yesterday. A three and a half hour bare knuckles serious discussion of the failures of leadership and how we need to do better. That's a step forward. I'm encouraged by that. This morning at 9:30 we're going to go and have leadership elections. They will be in the historic Senate chamber in the Capitol. The very first thing that will happen, I will stand up and I will make a motion to delay the elections until after the Georgia runoff. I don't know whether it will pass or not. There are about 10 senators or so who have publicly supported delaying the election. There are about 10 senators or so publicly opposed it. The remaining 30ish Republican senators haven't said. Mitch seems serenely confident that he has the votes. And it is true that almost all of my colleagues are dependent on Mitch for their campaign cash. So maybe he has the votes. Some of my colleagues are resting serene saying, well, the vote will be a secret ballot, so I won't be held accountable for how I vote. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm going to tell people how I vote. I'm going to vote to delay the elections. And everyone who votes to do that will tell the press and tell their constituents how they vote. Which means any senator who says I'm not going to tell you how they vote, they just told you how they voted. They voted not to delay the election. They voted with Mitch. And I think that is an unfortunate vote. I hope that the majority takes the reasonable decision, delays the election and doesn't just do it. Not just to give Herschel Walker and whoever the senator is from Alaska the opportunity to participate, but in order to have a month long debate about as a conference, how do we want to operate? Do we want to be a one person dictatorship or do we want members of the conference to actually have input in, okay, this issue matters enough to fight. Let's fight together. I don't know how that'll play out, but we will find out later today.
- [29:23]
Ted Cruz
Lastly, on this issue, for people that are listening that do still want to get in the fight, how important it is for them to call their senators, is that going to make an impact? Can it still make an impact to call your senator right now and say I want you to delay this leadership vote until after the special or after the runoff in Georgia.
- [29:42]
Ben Ferguson
Well, I'll tell you the window. We are vote, we're meeting to vote at 9:30 Wednesday morning. So if you're listening to this after 9:30 on Wednesday morning, East coast time, and most people will be listening to this after 9:30 Wednesday morning, it's probably too late to call your senators at that point because we're going to be physically in the room casting the votes. I will say this has been an important fight to have and I will tell you in the middle of it. So leadership spent a lot of time trying to blame number one, Donald Trump, but number two, trying to really stick it to Rick Scott who was the head of the nrc, the National Republican Senatorial Committee. And I called out leadership, I said listen, it is staff for the Republican leader who is planting article after article in the press slamming Rick Scott because they want to blame Rick Scott and say it's all Rick Scott's fault and not Mitch McConnell's. And I said for one thing, why is the Republican leader spending more time attacking Republicans in the conference than Democrats? Like that is not kosher. That is not playing fair to plant nasty stories slamming the people that you allegedly represent and are working for. But I think that helped prod Rick. So at the lunch he stood up and said, okay, I'm going to run. And so Rick has announced that he intends to run for majority leader today. So starting at 9:30 this morning, I assume Mitch is going to give some form of a speech saying why Republicans should vote for him. And then Rick Scott. Rick is promising to run a more collaborative leadership to actually listen to members, to take the views of the conference and follow the views of the conference rather than just dropping multi thousand page spending bills on the conference an hour before ahead of time and giving it as a take it or leave it. I don't know how that outcome will resolve. I think the odds are high Mitch McConnell gets reelected. Why? Because he's the biggest donor to almost every single member in the conference. But it's an exercise of money and brute power. And I do think this election is significant because I'll tell you, every member of the Republican conference, when he or she goes home to their home states, is going to be asked by the voters, who did you vote for? And look, it's, it's no secret, I'm not going to vote to reelect Mitch McConnell because I think the current model hasn't worked.
- [32:34]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, it's broken. And the American people, I think, obviously, are with you. With a approval rating of 7% among Republicans, that's where Mitch McConnell is right now.
- [32:44]
Ben Ferguson
And Ben, one important thing to keep in mind, the way I have laid out this case among the conference, I haven't been personal. I haven't been nasty. I haven't been attacking Mitch McConnell personally. What I've been saying is the American people have elected us, expecting us to stand and fight, expecting us to actually give a damn about what we told the voters we would give a damn about and lead smart, strategic fights. And my complaint is we haven't been doing that. My complaint is about the substance of the leadership. It's not a personal attack. It's that we need to behave differently if we're going to win these fights. Let me tell you something amazing, Ben. The Democrats leadership election is the second week of December. So they've delayed their own leadership election till after the Georgia runoffs. How in the hell is it the case that the Republican leadership respects the voters less than Chuck Friggin Schumer? Yeah, that makes no sense.
- [33:47]
Ted Cruz
Well, it goes back to the fix it's in and you could hear it in McConnell's voice saying, I have the votes. I have the votes. Whether it's now or later, I have the votes. Senator, it's really fun to get the behind the scenes look here at what this what actually happens when it comes to McConnell. And this is why I love doing this podcast with you. For anyone listening, make sure you hit that share button, hit that subscribe or auto download button. You get the show for free three days a week.
- [34:13]
Mitch McConnell
When you do that automatically on your device.
- [34:16]
Ted Cruz
You can also tell Alexa or Siri at any point play Verdict with Ted.
- [34:20]
Mitch McConnell
Cruz and it'll play it automatically free for you.
- [34:22]
Ted Cruz
And we will see you back here on Friday morning.