We're back with another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Dashinsky,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of course to the
premium version of our website as well. I'm joined today by Christopher Bedford of
the Common Sense Society. We have year old Natty lights in our hands that
we kept in what I've dubbed the beer drawer. They had been in there
for a while, but our colleague Eddy Scarry had recently moved them to the
fridge, and we thought on this heroically heroically moved them to the fridge.
So we're about to find out what's happened in the last I think it's probably
been like sixteen months to the these natty lights in honor of Mitch McConnell's retirement
announcement. So, Chris, are you ready? Yeah, taste tests time.
I'll let Crisco first cheers. It's just delicious. It's the same great
taste since nineteen seventy seven, brewed in America. Naturally, late tastes just
like water, like sex in a canoe. Okay, well, I don't
know that it's appropriate even to be toasting the sort of retirement announcement of Mitch
McConnell yesterday, because, to be honest, the odds that McConnell is replaced
by as everyone is now enjoying one of the three John's, John Cornyn,
John Thune or John Barrasso, but particularly John Thune or John Barrasso. How
does this work? Does does Zelenski get to pick the next just who gets
to a point the new Mitch? Is it Zelenski? I don't know.
That's a good question. I don't know. You think Zelenski gets to a
point the next the senator from Ukraine steps down, Ki's still in power,
and then Zelensky chooses John Dune. Yeah, maybe that's right. No,
No, I mean I actually think you'd be You would have a hard time
with maybe the exception of Lindsay Graham finding somebody as dedicated to defending every centimeter
of the dombas as Mitch McConnell himself is. Well, I mean, it
depends on which version of Lindsay Graham you get. He's like one of those
last actual politicians. He'll never commit to a vote. For example, when
he's talking to his colleagues, he'll never say, you have my vote on
this. He's like, that's where I'm leaning. So so I think,
actually, I mean much McConnell's staked his legacy to the war in Ukraine.
He really did, which is why he moved, because it's that there's not
even anyone in DC who's saying that the extra sixty million dollars would allow Ukraine
to win. No, literally, nobody's making that argument. It's just making
the argument this is essential for them not to lose. But you're right,
and actually Mitch McConnell's legacy being pinned to Ukraine is going to intensify I think
between now and November. I think that's partially why he made this announcement when
he did, because he is now going to use this as a bargaining chip,
I think, and then they sort of I mean, some people might
call it, yeah, but he's going to fight for every dollar that he
wants to get Ukraine over the next several months. There's a question about it.
There's a lot of rumors going around over what exactly caused Misch McConnell's resignation.
I mean, well, let's start with this, because actually that's actually
exactly where I wanted to start. One, what you're hearing, I'll say
what i've heard. We've probably heard the same thing from people on the hill.
And then two, I want to take a walk down memory lane so
that we can kind of have come away with an accurate picture of the arc
of Mitch McConnell's career. And there's a lot to talk about with the tea
party. So start you start with what you're hearing. And I think,
I mean, I've heard it from you maybe off for me, from Sean
and from some other people, and I'm actually I've actually I'm not so sure
about it. How do you mean, well, say it off at lot
fish, Okay, So Sean say your truth. It's not my truth.
It's the truth as told to as Sean reported it out yesterday, which is
that Senate insiders are saying this is in some ways a power grab from Mitch
McConnell because he could step down now. Right. Mitch McConnell yesterday said that
one of the great like hallmarks of leadership, and I'm paraphrasing, is knowing
when to hang up your hat, which is sort of hilarious because since you
know, around twenty fourteen, and again Mitch McConnell said in his speech that
for all of his faults, reading the political tone of the moment is not
one of them. He's actually good at understanding politics. But again, since
about twenty fourteen, Mitch McConnell has been consistently wrong about the political wins.
So anyway, all that is to say, Mitch McConnell comes out and claims
that he has this great skill of knowing when to hang up his hat,
but is not giving up his Senate seat and is only resigning from his purchase
Senate Minority leader in November, and Senate insiders told Sean that it really because
of that, because he now gets to cling to power through another election cycle,
and he is very powerful in these election cycles. In some sense,
it's a power grab. He'll also be able to basically groom a replacement and
make it very clear, and he's you know, he's he is cunning,
So he can, you know, to some extent read the political tea leaves
and know that one of the names that's been sort of thrown around is like
a Tom Cotton, who has been close to McConnell. Even if he is
also a guy who's introduced a minimum wage bill and been close with kind of
the populist wing, Mitch McConnell knows who's going to carry on his foreign policy
legacy, that's for sure. Is that similar to what you've heard? Uh,
yeah, I've heard that a little bit. But I was referring to
more was how he was forced out at the end by because he knew his
days were numbered. Yes, that's a great point. There's a group of
kind of his conservative senators who've been starting the band together more and more,
like the way the Freedom Caucus does, and it's much bigger than it used
to. It used to just back in the day it was like Helms the
mint later and then it sort of grew. He had the wacko birds,
But now it's more and more people who are doing this, and they were
kind of taking credit for uh being able to push him out. But I
actually think there's a couple of things that have combined to lead to what I
what is an intelligent play by him. It wasn't the hard right, the
American right that has always disliked him that pushed him out. It was the
rank and file who lost faith in his leadership ability after the immigration debacle.
I mean, he put Republicans in a really bad spot, and he's continued
to put them in a bad spot. Mitchmacono doesn't care about these ten or
so senators. He cares about the other twenty five another another twenty five who
might say, hey, you know what we're done with you, and would
have allowed those ten and ten hardliners to actually be able to push him out
beforehand. I think, yeah, it's intelligent because he staves off that coup,
from that rebellion from a lot of the more moderate Republicans who do not
want to see the Republican Senate descend into the disarray that they've seen in the
House over the speakership battles. They don't want to see that. They'd rather
just go as long as miss McConnell says he's leaving, then they'll say,
we just wait in November. And in the meantime, Mitch McConnell controls a
huge amount of money, He controls where it goes. He maintains that power,
and he puts an end date on it, which means that there's no
actual rebellion. He gets to leave on his own terms and takes the wind
out of the sales of those rebels, who, to their credit, finally
got to a place where everyone else said, yeah, you're right. But
he also like, we can't overlook the fact that this is not you know,
sixty five year old Mitch mcconnald losing power. No, he can,
he can barely walk. He needs age to get through meetings. But he
knew when to hang up his hat. Chris. The freezing in public that
we've seen is just what's caught in public, and you see him less and
less in public, in private and in meetings. He's really just not where
he was where he was. I mean, we're seeing this in national stage
with Joe Biden. It's not as bad as that, but he's not capable
of holding on. So you combine all that and you've got it's time to
hang up your hat. A little while ago, he also reached the record
of longest serving party leader in the Senate, Yes, which was something he
really went after. Yeah, that's another good point. And your point about
the brewing mutiny is a really really important one, if not the most important
one. What we saw after the open border deal that was broken between Mitch
mcconnald's Langford, Chuck Schumer, and ostensibly Joe Biden to the extend that Joe
Biden and Mitch McConnell are able to negotiate such things. It was such a
joke and and embarrassment. You even had people that are very close to McConnell,
like John Corny and ultimately even McConnell himself saying, you know, the
politics have changed, which is just another idiotic statement, like a week after
the bill came out, saying the politics have changed. Like where were you
for the last and the Gang of six or Gang of eight or whatever they
were called. Yeah, that was twenty twelve. Yeah, that was years
and years ago. Well this is a great well I was going to say,
that's discovered that. Yeah. So this Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rick
Scott, it really started with Rick Scott and Chris. You and I were
there a few years back. This must have been three years ago at this
point. We were at a meeting with Rick Scott when some of the stuff
started to brew over and Rick Scott at the time was confident that other senators
rank and file senators were losing faith in Mitch McConnell, not just sort of
your hardcore conservatives, but that there was a vibe shift when it came to
Mitch McConnell. It wasn't you know, the heady days of the Kavanaugh victory
or the Merrick Garland victory, which didn't Mitch McConnell go on to recommend Merrick
Garland like for AG. Yeah, so that was a futures Mitch McConnell had
given his most vicious and devastating attacking speech maybe of of his late career against
Donald Trump. Yes, and Mitch McConnell who'd stuck to that even though it
was becoming clear that that was not where the rest of the party was,
and he really spared himself from the legacy tarnishing public mutiny that could have easily
and I think probably would have bubbled to the surface. We saw just in
the last month after that immigration deal fell apart, a lot of people finally
speaking out, people who had said this in private or had indicated it to
people like Rick Scott or Ted Cruz indicated privately. Ten we know ten senators
voted against Mitch McConnell becoming minority leader. Just what a year ago somewhere around
there. So again, after that immigration deal fell apart, Mitch McConnell and
the Senate still has this really heavy lift of if you're Mitch McConnell getting that
Ukraine funding pass, but having House Republicans and people like Mike Lee insisting that
there's border security, but a Democratic party that is so utterly broken it cannot
come to the table on meaningful border security because it cannot give up open borders,
It cannot give up on asylum. When Obama detained families per the law
as part of a strategy to determine Yeah, Obama started this. This is
what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying. So Democrats now could never
put kids in cages, so called kids in cages again they do. How
do you mean they're still detained at the borders as you don't get the same
photograph. No, No, they let them go though that's the thing.
They don't detain them until they process their asylum claims. They let them go,
so they can't they cannot in any way take meaningful steps to secure the
border. And so it's an impossible conundrum for Mitch McConnell Over the next few
months and so yes, there is a cunning aspect to this. I think
Mitch McConnell's sort of strategic genius is wildly overstated, but the strategy here is
smart. He would have faced a really rough year ahead of him, There's
no question about it. Physically frail, his conference is starting to totally lose
a fat him. He'd just betrayed nominee No, and he just betrayed other
senators by putting them in this positions with this bill, which Democrats immediately started
running ads on saying Republicans turned down an immigration bill, which is exactly the
trap that Chuck Schumer intentionally set. Chuck Schumer knew that bill was not going
to pass. We talked about this at the time, and Mitch McConnell allowed
his party to be used as the useful idiots by the Democrats who were wildly
unserious on immigration. All to fund Ukraine, all to fund Ukraine. It's
disgusting. He's the Republican I choose, but that it is now, and
the goodwill is more than squandered. History, economics, the great works of
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edu slash Federalist. So, speaking of Marcar Rubio, this is a segue
into the kind of arc of McConnell's career. Now, Mitch McConnell has been
in politics longer than just the Tea Party. He long predates the Tea Party.
But the Tea Party was sort of the apex of McConnell's power in Washington,
or McConnell's influence over the Republican Party, because he hadn't really lost any
goodwill with Conservatives at that point to my knowledge, Chris, you may have
a different understanding of this time period. I'm sure there were some cracks in
the foundation, but Marco Rubio yesterday just tweeted sort of like a squeamish face
emoji after the news broke, which immediately conjures the fact that Mitch McConnell this
genius at reading political tea leaves. He's still to this day self aggrandizing as
a master of reading the political tea leaves of understanding where the political winds are
going. He endorsed Charlie Christ over Marco Rubio in Rubio's initial Senate run down
in Florida. Charlie Christ. This was two thousand and nine, Rubio one
in twenty ten. In twenty twelve, Charlie Crist just openly came out as
a Democrat and has been a raging Democrat. However, has openly come out.
He's openly come out as a man who loves as a Democrat. He
came out of the closet as a much tannerman. But he loves to endorse
people who are anti sort of populist wing or and Tea Party was absolutely a
populist movement. But so he also endorsed this is another great one, Arlen
Spector, Arlin Spector, and this is all in the same like two year
time period and moved to twenty fourteen. He endorsed at the time the state
treasurer over Rand Paul, so he really lost a lot of go well,
him and Rand just go way back. I mean they didn't like each other
at all at first. And that was a little while when Mitch McConnell was
getting primaried by Bevin Yes, where Mitch McConnell worked really hard to try and
pretend to be friends with Ram Paul. I remember that. That was one
of my first like really hostile calls with a comm staffer was I had to
cancel going to a cookout that weekend because he was going to be there in
the host said please don't come. An old enough friend. He was an
old enough friend who was hosting, so he could call me and be like,
this is a work relationship that's coming. I can't tell him not to
come. You and I were in the same fraternity together, Like I can
tell you, like, don't come, that's fine, to stay away.
But a senior age to Rand Paul had told me that that Mitch quote Effine
hates him. Oh I know who that was, And I ran it and
the McConnell. People called me saying it's not true, it's not true.
How dare you? I was like, what do you mean, how dare
you? It's like, you have to retract it. I it's a quote.
You have to take that back. It's not true. It's a quote.
Why don't you send me something to add to this? And they were
flipping out, what have I said? Chris Badford Beach's wife, And I
was like, I don't. I don't have a wife, doesn't. He
kept talking so mad that he would hang up and then call me back when
you calm down. And that's when Alex Pappus, now in book publishing,
taught me the trick of just telling people I hear you, man, I
hear you man, which is not a commitment to do anything. It just
makes them feel like they've been heard, validates them. Men need that,
they need to be heard. What actually kind of works? It didn't really
work in this this this case, but it was true. They hated each
other. They really just like and it's kind of come out since you see
they don't pretend to love any to have that love loss anymore. Butvin ended
up I guess going on to the governor of Kentucky one term. None of
the worry is now, but they're all if you go back, there are
all of these stories in Politico at the time, like c q rowe call
about how Mitch McConnell was leading this like brave campaign to quash the Tea Party.
That's like brave and ruthless, cunning campaign to quash the Tea Party.
And a lot of people were doing that. I mean, if you went
to the yeah you mentioned the wacko birds comment, if you went to the
galas around time, remember I was sitting there at a I think back when
I used to go to gala's. I thought it was cool and I couldn't
afford my own drinking. Go there and you'd hear speeches from some of these
old timers at like Seapac galas saying the Tea Party is a really dangerous movement.
I mean, we've made a lot of progress in the Republican Party,
done this and that, and these guys they're real rabble rousers. And then
there was some point like a lot of power was lost. The party mechanisms
lost a lot of power, Outsiders gained more influence, the conservative gad flies
became kind of a consolidated thing. And at the end of the day it
was misread. I mean, the mandate was misread. They were like,
the Tea Party just wants us to be more fiscally conservative. He's like,
no, it turns out it was like a revolt the elites, revolt,
revolt of the masses, the late Great uh from Clermont. I'm just gonna
say, Angela condavilla ri torum. There were people maybe New Gingrich has got
the cover of the American Spectator piece. Yes, the revolts of the revolt
of the masses. He called it exactly as it was. He sure did.
I'm probably more prescient than anybody. And at the time, again,
yes, there were some even there really were some people, even in the
kind of political establishment, that were eagerly latching onto the Tea Party because they
saw young as a way to regulate. Yes, yeah, that's a great
example Tarren McCarthy. But at the time, yeah, and Paul Ryan is
a good example of a guy who saw in the Tea Party this sort of
fiscal conservatism, which I think still exists in the populist wing. And I
think you see that a lot with there. I mean absolutely, when you
hear people talk like the Freedom Caucus right now is talking consistently, couching consistently,
or framing consistently their opposition to all of this in terms of the national
debt, Like the voters don't care anymore, they never really did. No,
I think there are some voters who care about the and I actually I
think politicians need to putting this into words, but about how we're bankrupting ourselves
for foreign causes, and bankrupting ourselves for the sake of and going into further
debt, borrowing money from places like China, which has like a fifth of
our national debt. Yeah, well, you better come up with better messaging
because that hasn't exactly my entire life, so I don't see it working.
No, that's exactly right. And there is some better messaging coming up of
people like JD. Vance and actually Tom Cotton is a good example of that
too. But all this is to say, if you were openly trying to
quash the Tea Party, and you're somebody who, on the eve of your
retirement says, you know, I have a lot of problems, but one
of my problems is not understanding American politics. And you're the guy who staked
out even like you didn't even take the Paul Ryan route on the tea party.
And it wasn't it wasn't merely a moral stance, because Mitch McConnell's moral
stance is about power. And this is one of the things you wanted to
talk about, I know, and it's probably the chief criticism of Mitch McConnell.
It's you know, the real problem with Mitch McConnell is not reading American
politics wrong, having immoral sentiments against the American people and the voters of Kentucky
that he represents one of the poorest states in the country, one of the
most conservative states in the country. That's not the real problem with Mitch McConnell.
The problem with Mitch McConnell is that he amassed all of this power and
did virtually nothing with it, except for a point some really great judges not
so great judge at all. That was an important battle. The fight Dobbs
is overturned because of Mitch McConnell. Yeah, absolutely, And that's a long
legacy. I mean, Roe was overturned. And that's one thing that he
did really well that I think he gets enough credit for. I have to
say, but what do you think about impeachment? Democrats don't. Republicans often
don't want to do the hard grinding work of creating institutions that that van guard
your revolution, and they don't want like the Republicans do not often like I'm
going to I'm going to fill the professors of these different universities with conservatives.
It takes a lot of work, a lot of people. Mitch McConnell decided
he wanted to do that with the judiciary, and that's been that's been something
that's really helpful. What about impeachment, Well, Mitch McConnell, her colleague
Eddie Scary is being highly disruptive right now and opening some sort of what is
that Eddie? He's opening trail mix, So just with Eminem's okay, so
excuse Eddie. He hasn't had his natty light yet today. But Chris looks
like he's going to strangle Eddie. No, which would be it's just my
resting face. You know, Eddie go big time. But anyway, so
that's a hate crime, you know, on a couple of different levels.
If you strangle Eddie a bar from being wrong, leave him alone. Chris,
I didn't do anything just sitting here. I saw it in your eyes.
I'm off, you know. I was laughing at Sarah last night about
like the difference between female intrusive thoughts and male intrusive thoughts. Women are like,
yeah, I gave it a my astress of thoughts and got bangs,
and men are like, thank god, I didn't grab that cops gun.
I hear you, man, they didn't just like swing the car over the
other side of the highway and saw what happened. So but so, Mitch
mcconnell' staving off the impeachment and actually the way that he dealt with Trump in
general, is a great glimpse into the world view of Mitch McConnell being first
and foremost about power right, because Mitch McConnell is not something to be envied,
by the way, by these the right wing gad flies that, by
the way, are not gad flies that the people I agree with completely and
totally. But there has to be some acknowledgment from the ten the fifth growing
number of conservative Republicans that as far as conservatives, we are a minority faction
within a party. There's a reason why. There's a couple of reasons and
it's not. It's mostly their fault. But why no conservative of is like
really a serious contender to be the next leader of the GOP. Yeah,
and you need to like this, there's got to be at some point.
I never forget that conservatism in the GP is a carjacking situation in active motion,
that the gun is kept on the driver and they don't want you there,
and they'll pull into a police station and have you arrested the first chance
they get, Like Mitchmconalds showed at the teap party and showed with Trump.
When they want you out of there, they're not your friends. But you
have to at the same time make friends. You have to. You have
to go out there and raise money for people. You have to get along,
and there's no need for just the gratuitous this attacks when they're unnecessary.
I mean it's fun, especially for us in the press. Yeah, but
if you're trying to be part of a winning coalition, I mean, yeah,
you have to be able to win in places like Maine. You have
to be able to win in places like Massachusetts. I just mean like playing
nice in DC with your colleagues. I thought you meant more like, if
you want to be the McConnell heir. Well, power, I mean the
populist right more than anything, but better understanding than I think a lot of
the Tea Party and libertarian aspects is. There's none of this is important without
power. Yeah, but so like one of McConnell's, he controls the per
strings, basically campaign per strings. And I went and what's going to happen
all his little minions? Well, I was just going to say, I
went and found a Josh Holmes quote from like twenty fourteen where he was basically
openly saying like this was a really cool, smart position that d C Republican.
The DC basically just needed to pick the primary candidates from the voters.
They needed to just like tell voters who to pick, which, you know,
I guess we used to have different elections for senators. But I don't
think that's reading the Tea leaves very well because DC has really never been further
apart from me. And this was after that was probably after from remembering correctly
in my years, was I get confused. A couple of really embarrassing losses.
Sharon Angle, shar An Angle, who was the woman in Delaware,
Christine O'Donnell but that was a house race. I think, yeah, but
there was just a couple of high profile bad there's everyone, you know.
I think they're generally wrong, the established Republicans completely and totally, but sometimes
there's a lot there's just a very unforced error. But so there's something happening
right now actually in the Republican presidential primary, where the dynamic is very similar
in that Oh, I love it. So Republican voters are the sort of
electability of a candidate that Republican voters pick. I'm not saying it's impossible,
but it is threatening the needle because Republican voters are upset with the Republican Party
for reasons that don't reflect why the rest of the country is upset with the
Republican Party. Republican voters are upset with the Republican Party because I'm strong enough,
because Miss McConnell spent all of these years in power not actually representing the
republic Can Party, not actually being a suber voters certainly took care of the
party and it's backers, the voters. Yeah, exactly, not doing what
was in the interests of his country. We also, by the way,
have not touched on the huge and legitimate issue of his wife's family shipping company
that made them extremely wealthy and has connections to the Chinese Communist Party and has
for years. But will just set that aside because it's treated as though it's
wholly illegitimate and racist to say anything about it. Peter Schweitzer has written about
it. It's extreme retirement. We should have to We'll have Peter on absolutely.
But anyway, all that is to say, Republican voters want to give
them the sort of Republican establishment the middle finger. There are some candidates that
can do both, There's no question about it. We're talking on a presidential
level or on a Senate level. I think JD Vance is a good example
of that. But yeah, at the same time, was Mitch McConnell was
on the other side of the JD Vance primary, wasn't he? Yeah,
there you go. So he has constantly staked out a position that is wildly
out of touch with the voters and is not been going to a mass more
power for the Republican established. That's the thing about Republican voter. Republican candidates.
Power is good. Terror is not necessarily bad, and it has lessons
to be learned from that. But what did Mitch mccony's his power for.
I was talking about campaign finance and judges. So Nikki Haley's out there in
Utah getting ready for Super Tuesday, and her constant pitch to the voter is
I'm the one who can win the general election. And it's like I'm looking
at that saying, all right, so you win, you get to be
the president. What does the Republican voter win? So they get another couple
free uh free trade bills, They've got American industry, the Romanian aspects of
it. Is there like a corporate tax cut? Do we get another another
war that America loses? So what is these politicians who talk about how it's
only about electability, which is obviously an extremely important part of politics in a
democratic republic to have to actually give something with that. You can't just have
these people who protect the status quo. When we live in a country where
eight years ago Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were like key contenders to be the
nominees for their party, that pressure that was building the twenty sixteen has not
let off at all on either side of the electorate. Everyone's desperate for some
kind of serious change, and Nikki Hadley promises like when with nothing, it's
just controlled opposition, there's no reason, there's no reason to care that she's
electable. And the same thing goes for a lot of the folks that McConnell
pushed over the years, is like, yeah, that's a safe Republican and
hey, that can be important. Like Larry Hogan is running for Maryland Senate.
If you're conservative, he's not going to represent you. If you're a
conservative, it's probably good for you though, Yeah, because he's going to
be an annoying gad fly. It's kind of like a romneyesque guy who's going
to ping this and ping that against the potential president Donald Trump. But he's
going to be a Republican vote from Maryland. Yeah, and he'll probably win,
and that's important to have a Republican vote from Maryland. He's not going
to be your leader. So I don't like Niekapham, there's no but there's
no one else who's going to win in Maryland. She's to kind of make
those from the Republican point of view, you're gonna have to make those calculations.
But also just Nicki Haley's argument in Utah demonstrates to me like the limits
to the electability argument. Well, yeah, I'm eluctable, so what I
mean? Yeah, why would why would that? Why would I want you
to be the president? Right? At least at least at least I can
shake my fist and yell against Joe Biden and Republican Party can raise money.
Well, back in the Tea Party, you're going to raise money against Nikki
Haley. I don't know who's running in a primary with Larry Hogan. Leary
Hogan is like, very very popular in Maryland on a bipartisan basis by Larry
Hogan lowered the bridge tollsarder the rain tax back in the two party years.
The point was that you might have people like a Larry Hogan, but the
primary opponent might be equally electable, even if they're more conservative. They might
like Marco Ruby and Charlie Cris Like Marco Ruby was very electable in Florida in
twenty ten. There was no reason for Mitch McConnell to enter those races and
to talk basically trash about some of these candidates through his deputy. A lot
of that stuff had to do with who was making money because mconnell has a
large network of consultants and they're powerful, and I'm curious to see. I
know some consultants whove crossed Mitch McConnell. They have a long memory, the
Mitch McConnell team. When they cut you off over you ran a primary opponent
to this Republican you took the wrong side of this race. You're cut off
from all Republican Senate business. Yeah, it's a massive hit against you,
and you can make money elsewhere. I'm kind of curious what's going to happen
to all those all those bad I mean, is the machine going to remember
whenever one of the Johns takes over like this person's person of that run?
Probably? Yeah, are the money making people still going to say the same
should Like I'm like one of the only people on DC that Josh Holmes has
never been anything but pleasant to. But is he going to still going to
should he start saving his money right now? Or is he actually going to
be able to guys like that gonna be able to maintain influence into the next
Senate Majority leader operation because a lot of those guys really did maintain their influence
through intimidation and sharp elbows and threats it's not love. Well, so this
is exactly what I was just going to say, is that, like,
you cannot underestimate how influential and how much the army of McConnell consultants and Lackey's
and McConnell himself as the sort of leader of that movement, how much they
shaped Republican or not even republican, how much they shaped the political establishments antipathy,
uh, and not even antipathy. Let me like the cartoonish perspective that
so many people in the political establishment, including the Washington media, who were
constantly lapping up leaks from this McConnell sort of movement and consultants, all of
that, how much that influenced the way that Tea Party voters or just conservative
voters, real genuine, honest to god mainstream conservative voters were cartoonized and caricatured
and treated as quote wacko birds. When you go back and look at how
Ted Cruise has obviously like changed his disposition a bit because he realized he had
to govern many times yes well not being you you know what I'm saying,
Like, he realized he had to in order to have influence in Washington.
He was going to catch more flies with honey, and he's you know,
to some extent, to some extent he has actually tried to do that,
but he's also still was like Winn of the booth saw pot of honey,
trying to catch live But he's also still one of the guys who comes out
against McConnell and all of that in recent days. But o this is to
say like they were part of this very immoral effort to make average Republican voters
look like freaks, like absolute freaks. And that's another part of his legacy.
It's not just being wrong about the politics of that, it's not just
not using his power wisely. It's also just treating voters with such contempt.
And again, there are tens of thousands of babies alive because Mitch McConnell fought,
fought for Brett Kavanaugh, fought for Neil Gorsich, fought for Amy Coney
Barrett. So but also even mind that that was that was great. May
have been an instrument there, but it certainly wasn't his goal. And if
he could have had them focus on corporate and election law, and if he
could, I bet you I would. I'm not positive this is a mean
thing to say it. I think think Mitch McConnell would prefer that the decision
did not happen. Yes, I agree with that, one hundred percent.
Yes, because if not for the dob's decision, he might have a majority
in the Senate right now. And he Yeah, absolutely, I agree with
that completely, one hundred percent and fell and landed in one hundred thousand years
of purgatory. Honestly, not the worst. Well, I was just gonna
round all of this out by saying the thing that drives me insane, And
I'm curious what your perspective is on this with Nikki Heey is not a good
example, but Mitch McConnell, in particular, Mitch mcconne exactly, that's exactly
exactly so Mitch McConnell. If you look at Mitch McConnell, he's sort of
the best. He almost embodies one of the biggest problems in the Republican Party,
which is that they keep making Trump himself. Most people aren't going to
see this as a problem. This is my sort of like Beltway journalist perspective,
as somebody who is not the biggest fan of Donald Trump, like Rhonda
Santis, I like jd Vance. I like all of the rabble rousers and
fire throwers, So but what I was gonna say is that if by Mitch
mcconnald's own standard, that he is trying to just defeat Trumpism and stamp the
wacko birds out of the Republican Party to quash the Tea Party, that's quoting
a Peter Hanby headline from like twenty fourteen. If that's Mitch mcconnald's goal,
he has done a horrible job at it, because all he has done is
made the country more divided and made Republican voters who again like had to swallow
Donald Trump like a pill back in twenty fifteen, most twenty fifteen to twenty
sixteen, most Republican voters cast votes against Donald Trump. In twenty fifteen and
twenty sixteen in the primaries, Donald Trump was wildly popular with thirty to forty
percent of the Republican Party for good reason, but still most voters picked someone
else. So all Mitch mcconald did was drive the voters who then picked someone
else into the arms of Donald Trump. And again, like, even I
have to support Donald Trump over people like Mitch mcconnald. And I'm not a
huge fan of Donald Trump. Is Mitch McConnell is so freaking awful. And
it's the same thing with Nicky Haley. She's like thinks that she's more electable
and whatever whatever. Like the binary choice between Nicky Haley and Donald Trump for
your average Republican voter sucks. They're not super happy to have to choose either
this crony capitalist proxy for the Republican establishment or the sort of flawed but effective
sort of what's the like flamethrower that is Donald Trump, firebrand that is Donald
Trump. Like a lot of people aren't super stoked about that decision. And
yet you know, they go with Trump time and time and again. And
they'll go with Trump over Biden time and time and again no matter what Heath
Mayo says. You know what I mean, though, Like this is Mitch
McConnell, by his own stated goal. Once again, if your goal is
to get more power, if you think you're great at reading the political wins,
he falls short of what he thinks he's good at, time and time
and again. And he has made the division in the Republican Party worse worse
by going against people like JD. Vance, who are reasonable, intelligent representatives
of their constituents. Yeah, I think he's made it worse. It's a
pretty impossible battle to fight. He may have been successful had it been fifty
years earlier. But yeah, I mean we've seen across the entire board of
the Western society. That's the end of authority, the decentralization. Then that's
going to come with a crumbling of these facades that you try to protect.
I mean, when the class four comes, the best way to survive it
is to lead it. Well, Chris, this is why we and all
of those beautiful babies, as Donald Trump would say, we will toast Mitch
McConnell. But it won't be a champagne toast. It'll be a skunked natty
light toast. It was a little skunk. I told you finished it.
I told you I didn't do all right. Everyone, eve Ben listening to
another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. By the way, Chris, this
is one of those shows. We were one of the first, I think
platforms and conservative media to openly start to question McConnell, and that Ben was
huge at sort of looking into some of the questions of grading McConnell on his
own, by his own standards, a couple of years ago. Yeah,
you heard it here first, You heard it here first. All right,
Well, you've been listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour, and
memagicidn't get called to editor. Here the Federalist joined today with Christopher Bedford of
the Common Sense Society. We will be back soon with more. Until then,
be the lovers of freedom and anxious for the friend