The Charlie Kirk Show - A House Divided with Mike Davis
Aired: 2023-01-04
Duration: 32:20


=== Rules Changes and Speaker Nomination (13:13) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey, everybody.
[00:00:00]  Today, the Charlie Kirk Show.
[00:00:01]  Mike Davis joins the program.
[00:00:03]  I have a lot of respect for him.
[00:00:04]  He floats Steve Scalise for speaker.
[00:00:06]  I think that's a bad idea.
[00:00:07]  And we have other people joining our program.
[00:00:09]  Email me your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:11]  Get involved with Turning Point USA today.
[00:00:14]  Start a high school or college chapter, tpusa.com.
[00:00:17]  That is tpusa.com.
[00:00:20]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:00:22]  Here we go.
[00:00:23]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:00:24]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
[00:00:26]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:00:30]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:00:33]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:00:34]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:00:35]  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.
[00:00:44]  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.
[00:00:52]  That's why we are here.
[00:00:55]  Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.
[00:01:04]  The future of Kevin McCarthy and the speaker's race is unfolding.
[00:01:09]  It's happening right now as the votes are going to be tallied for another round of, let's just say, roll call.
[00:01:19]  So basically, here's what's happening right now on the House floor.
[00:01:22]  The 118th Congress is now official, but technically, these are all congressmen-elects.
[00:01:28]  They're not even allowed to swear people in.
[00:01:30]  So one of the funniest things I saw yesterday is that George Santos, the pathological court-jesting liar from New York, basically sent out an email last night saying, I'm so honored to have been sworn in as a congressperson.
[00:01:45]  You were not sworn in yesterday.
[00:01:47]  He's just basically sitting in the back of the room exactly where he deserves.
[00:01:51]  No, it's true.
[00:01:52]  Santos sent out an email last night saying that I was sworn in.
[00:01:55]  It was probably an automatically generated email that he assumed he was going to be sworn in, but a little bit deceitful there.
[00:02:03]  So here, look, there's a lot of drama happening right now on the House floor.
[00:02:05]  So here's what's happening.
[00:02:06]  There's no Speaker of the House.
[00:02:08]  You've got to get to 218 votes to be able to get to become Speaker of the House.
[00:02:15]  Now, the McCarthy camp has anywhere between 150 to 170 votes.
[00:02:22]  So anywhere between that.
[00:02:24]  And so when the Speaker of the House race begins to unfold and there are holdouts, which Republicans are withholding from the vote, the essence of what is happening on the floor right now is the Speaker of the House race is in complete and total turmoil.
[00:02:48]  So let's play some tape here as I'm trying to figure out what's happening on the screen.
[00:02:53]  This was Kevin McCarthy yesterday, play cut one.
[00:02:55]  We're going to be doing the votes for Speaker Locked in tomorrow.
[00:02:58]  I think we're going to have a good day tomorrow.
[00:03:04]  What are your conversations like in that mirror?
[00:03:06]  Good to see you.
[00:03:07]  Are you from here to make more concessions in exchange for us for?
[00:03:12]  Hope you all have a very nice New Year's.
[00:03:15]  And so that was Kevin McCarthy yesterday.
[00:03:18]  So look, here is the big bet that Kevin McCarthy placed.
[00:03:20]  Kevin McCarthy said, look, I believe that if this goes to the floor and these holdouts surface themselves, they are going to look unreasonable and eventually they're going to break in our direction.
[00:03:35]  That was a bad bet by Kevin McCarthy.
[00:03:38]  Kevin McCarthy's calculus was incorrect.
[00:03:40]  Kevin McCarthy's calculus was that they were going to be about five to ten rebels and they were going to voice their opposition.
[00:03:49]  And eventually, after a couple rounds of votes, they were going to consolidate in my direction.
[00:03:54]  So I talked to several House Freedom Caucus members for over an hour yesterday.
[00:03:59]  And I listened and I heard their arguments, some of which I agreed with, some of which I found to be preposterous.
[00:04:05]  For example, one House Freedom Caucus member said, look, it really doesn't matter who ends up becoming speaker.
[00:04:10]  What matters is the process and eventually, you know, exposing the cartel for what it is.
[00:04:17]  That sounds good, but I, for one, would love to have investigations and subpoenas over Anthony Fauci, over the FDA, over Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Afghanistan withdrawal, southern borders.
[00:04:29]  That sounds good.
[00:04:30]  I find that to be rather preposterous.
[00:04:32]  I understand the spirit of what was being said, but I don't find that to be strong.
[00:04:35]  What I did find to be a good argument, though, after talking to several House Freedom Caucus members last evening, who will remain nameless, is the rules changes that they wanted to make.
[00:04:44]  And one of the most persuasive arguments that I heard from the House Freedom Caucus was that, Charlie, this $1.7 trillion omnibus bill that happened in December was an outrage.
[00:04:56]  It was a raging, throbbing middle finger into decent, normal Americans who wanted to live their life, have a functioning government, and this $1.7 trillion omnibus bill that sent money to Ukraine, that sent money for border security abroad, that did all these different sorts of things while not securing our own border.
[00:05:19]  We have to go about fixing the rules so that something like this never happens again.
[00:05:24]  So there's a component of Congress, and it's very wonky and it's not always fun to talk about that, but it's important, called the Rules Committee.
[00:05:31]  The Rules Committee effectively runs Congress.
[00:05:34]  The Rules Committee meets on Sunday evenings before a whole week of Congress, and they go through the rules of the procedure, the votes, of what it is going to take to get bills to the floor, effectively controlling the machinery of Congress.
[00:05:49]  Now, that's something that is rather uninteresting for a lot of us that are not in the weeds of parliamentary tactics in Congress, but it's critically important.
[00:06:01]  So the House Freedom Caucus, and I told them this, I said, if you guys are going to win the messaging war, make it less about Kevin McCarthy and talk about how you want to get specific rules changes so that we do not have another $1.7 trillion omnibus bill.
[00:06:20]  I find that to be more reasonable than just saying we're going to oppose Kevin McCarthy out of personal politics.
[00:06:28]  And so after speaking to them, here's basically what unfolded.
[00:06:31]  And this is mostly public and some of it's private, is that there was, there were a series of negotiations that were happening at the very last moment on the evening of January 2nd.
[00:06:41]  A delegation, a group of House Freedom Caucus members came and met with McCarthy, and they said, we want changes on the rules committees.
[00:06:48]  We want steering committee changes.
[00:06:50]  I don't quite understand the difference between steering and rules.
[00:06:53]  Again, this is very minutiae.
[00:06:54]  It's very weeds, but it's highly important.
[00:06:56]  It's critical.
[00:06:57]  I'm not discounting it.
[00:06:58]  It's just when you're not in kind of in-depth in Congress, it's not as consequential from the outside.
[00:07:05]  So, but they said, Kevin, here are our demands.
[00:07:07]  Now, to be fair, some of those demands were probably overly aggressive for a last-minute negotiation ask.
[00:07:14]  It just was.
[00:07:16]  In the last minute, you're not going to get everything you're asking for.
[00:07:18]  However, the spirit to say we do not want another $1.7 trillion omnibus bill to be passed, I find that to be a persuasive argument.
[00:07:28]  I think that omnibus bill was one of the most insulting pieces of legislation that we have seen, so damaging to our republic, to our ability to function and flourish as a civilized country.
[00:07:40]  And now trying to remedy the process and the machinery, I think is admirable.
[00:07:47]  Now, it seems as if everybody is applauding right now.
[00:07:49]  I'm guessing somebody just nominated Kevin McCarthy to become Speaker.
[00:07:55]  That is my guess of what is happening right now, just looking at the standing applause around him.
[00:08:03]  So, someone just stood up and nominated Kevin.
[00:08:05]  Now, what's going to happen next, I'm told, is historic based on my sources.
[00:08:09]  I'm told that the Freedom Caucus is about to nominate somebody that is going to be new and unique.
[00:08:18]  So, we'll see who that is.
[00:08:19]  Now, negotiations are ongoing.
[00:08:21]  These negotiations fell apart on the evening of January 2nd.
[00:08:26]  Basically, Kevin McCarthy said, these are outrageous demands.
[00:08:30]  I'm not going to take it.
[00:08:33]  I'm not going to proceed with this.
[00:08:35]  And the House Freedom Caucus said, fine, let's see who blinks.
[00:08:41]  And they went to the House floor and we saw what happened yesterday: three failed votes.
[00:08:44]  So now this is the kind of extension of that.
[00:08:47]  The McCarthy block remains largely unmoved.
[00:08:50]  Byron Donald's defected from McCarthy to Jim Jordan.
[00:08:53]  But what is going to happen next is I'm told the House Freedom Caucus is now going to nominate somebody in their own words as historic.
[00:09:01]  We'll see who it is as Mike Gallagher from the 8th Congressional District of Wisconsin wraps up his speech in favor of McCarthy.
[00:09:10]  Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
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[00:10:12]  So Hakeem Jeffries has officially been nominated by the Democrats for Speaker of the House.
[00:10:19]  No shock, no surprise there.
[00:10:21]  Nothing too extraordinary.
[00:10:24]  I am curious about who the next nomination is.
[00:10:25]  So I do want to take this live.
[00:10:27]  I'm guessing the Freedom Caucus is about to stand up and nominate somebody.
[00:10:30]  It could be Jim Jordan or it could be somebody else.
[00:10:33]  I don't know.
[00:10:33]  We'll find out.
[00:10:34]  I've been told that the T's here.
[00:10:36]  Let's listen to Chip Roy, please.
[00:10:40]  Yesterday, my first vote for Speaker of the House was for Byron Donalds.
[00:10:48]  Today, I'm rising to nominate Byron Donalds for Speaker of the House of Representatives.
[00:11:00]  Byron is a dear friend, a solid conservative, but most importantly, a family man who loves dearly his wife, Erica, his three children, has a proven track record as a businessman, public service in the Florida legislature, and now is a member of the United States Congress.
[00:11:27]  Now, here we are, and for the first time in history, there have been two black Americans placed into the nomination for Speaker of the House.
[00:11:47]  However, Enter Speaker, order Or, Madam Clerk, order.
[00:11:57]  We do not seek to judge people by the color of their skin, but rather the content of their character.
[00:12:05]  Byron Donalds.
[00:12:14]  Byron Donalds is a good man raised by a single mom who moved past adversity, became a Christian man at the age of 21, and has devoted his life to advancing the cause for his family and for this country.
[00:12:31]  And he has done it admirably.
[00:12:34]  But there's an important reason for nominating Byron, and that is this country needs a change.
[00:12:46]  This country needs leadership that does not reflect this city, this town that is badly broken.
[00:13:02]  The House of Representatives is the people's house.
[00:13:07]  It represents the entirety of our country, and we each represent some 750,000 people.

=== Millions Find Relief Factor Success (02:37) ===

[00:13:13]  And we come here, and here we sit in a room filled with those representatives.
[00:13:20]  And my friend, Mr. Gallagher, and he is my friend, and I agree with him on many things.
[00:13:25]  And I agree with almost everything that you were talking about.
[00:13:29]  But we should be in here having this kind of a conversation with this many people in the room about Ukraine.
[00:13:38]  And we should debate the merits.
[00:13:40]  And we should debate the ups and downs of being involved.
[00:13:42]  We should debate the $45 billion.
[00:13:45]  We should debate whether it should be more or less.
[00:13:47]  We should debate whether it should be paid for.
[00:13:49]  We should debate what the result we should demand.
[00:13:53]  The only way you're going to get that is if you change the rules and have the leadership to advance the rules to make sure that we can do that.
[00:14:06]  Now, we've had a conversation for two months to try to advance the ball, and we have had success in doing that.
[00:14:13]  But we're not there.
[00:14:15]  We're not at the place where we need to be to guarantee, to guarantee that we're going to be able to stand up in the face of the swamp that continues to step over the American people on a daily basis and spend money we don't have and to continue to leave our borders open and to continue to fund bureaucrats that are stepping over the freedoms of the American people.
[00:14:37]  Byron will stand up and do that.
[00:14:41]  Byron.
[00:14:48]  Charlie Kirk here.
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[00:15:40]  That's relieffactor.com or call 8004Relief.
[00:15:42]  Live your best life and feel the difference with Relief Factor.
[00:15:48]  We received an email here that I want to read.

=== Big Tech and Political Standoffs (15:37) ===

[00:15:51]  This is one of the most consequential moments in recent GOP history, a rare moment where power can be challenged and Trump found himself on the wrong side of it.
[00:16:01]  That is what one of our listeners said.
[00:16:02]  Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:16:05]  Mike Davis joins us.
[00:16:07]  So just before we go to Mike Davis, Byron Donalds, who has not self-selected a run for the speaker, has been nominated by one of his colleagues, Chip Roy.
[00:16:18]  I find the whole thing to be rather ingenious by the House Freedom Caucus.
[00:16:23]  Now, I don't like this affirmative action stuff.
[00:16:26]  I find it nauseating where we have two black people running.
[00:16:29]  Skin color means nothing.
[00:16:31]  And Chip Roy, who I consider to be a friend and really smart, sort of contradicted himself there.
[00:16:36]  He's like, we have two black people running for Speaker of the House, and we don't care about skin color, and we care about the content of one's character.
[00:16:44]  So, and then he did say that Byron's character is terrific, which by the way, I can attest to that.
[00:16:48]  I know Byron really well.
[00:16:50]  His wife runs a charter school.
[00:16:52]  They homeschool their kids.
[00:16:54]  They homeschooled their kids before their kids went to the charter school they helped start.
[00:16:58]  Byron Donalds is a true grassroots conservative from Collier County, Naples area in Florida.
[00:17:06]  So this is about to get very, very interesting.
[00:17:08]  Joining us now is Mike Davis from the Article 3 Project.
[00:17:11]  Mike, that's some breaking news there.
[00:17:13]  What are your thoughts?
[00:17:14]  It's interesting.
[00:17:14]  Are you talking about the thoughts on Byron getting nominated?
[00:17:18]  Yes.
[00:17:19]  I mean, I don't think people think he has a realistic shot of winning, but it's symbolic.
[00:17:26]  So whatever.
[00:17:27]  I just, look, we may disagree on this.
[00:17:31]  I don't think Kevin McCarthy is going to be elected speaker.
[00:17:33]  I don't think that he should be elected speaker.
[00:17:36]  I don't think he's earned the votes, and I don't think he will earn the votes.
[00:17:38]  And so I think that we're dragging this out unnecessarily.
[00:17:43]  Kevin McCarthy has known for two months he does not have the votes to become speaker.
[00:17:48]  And he did nothing to earn those votes during that time.
[00:17:51]  And he's actually lost votes.
[00:17:52]  They went into the first vote.
[00:17:54]  He thought he was going to lose five votes.
[00:17:56]  He ended up losing 19.
[00:17:58]  They did a second vote.
[00:17:59]  He lost 19 votes again.
[00:18:00]  They had Jim Jordan do his endorsement speech on the House floor, thinking that that would bring these dissenters or defectors over to Kevin McCarthy.
[00:18:10]  Not only did it not work, he actually lost another vote.
[00:18:13]  So Kevin McCarthy is down 20 votes.
[00:18:16]  President Trump did not endorse Kevin McCarthy during three of these failed votes.
[00:18:21]  President Trump specifically stayed on the sidelines.
[00:18:25]  Kevin McCarthy apparently called and begged for Trump's endorsement.
[00:18:30]  Trump put out a, I think, a pretty tepid endorsement today.
[00:18:34]  I just don't think Kevin McCarthy has the votes.
[00:18:37]  I don't think he should be speaker, but even if you do think he should be speaker, he doesn't have the votes.
[00:18:42]  It's time to move on.
[00:18:43]  Yeah, so I agree that he doesn't have the votes, but he does have enough votes to make turn this into a long negotiation and or standoff, right?
[00:18:52]  Because I mean, there are probably 100 people that are saying we're going to only vote for Kevin.
[00:18:57]  So then what?
[00:18:58]  That's nonsense.
[00:19:00]  I mean, this is what's going to happen.
[00:19:01]  Kevin McCarthy's not going to get the votes to be speaker.
[00:19:04]  He doesn't have 218 votes.
[00:19:06]  Jim Jordan does not have 218 votes to become speaker.
[00:19:09]  So it's going to go to Steve Scalise.
[00:19:11]  Well, hold on, but Mike, Steve Scalise is a flaming liberal compared to Kevin McCarthy.
[00:19:16]  Why should we support that?
[00:19:17]  I think that is, I think Kevin McCarthy's office is putting out some.
[00:19:22]  No, That's not true, Mike.
[00:19:24]  No, Steve Scalise supported, was neutral with Liz Cheney and Harriet Hageman.
[00:19:28]  Hakeem Jeffries says, I have a much better relationship with Steve Scalise than with McCarthy.
[00:19:33]  So is your argument in favor of Scalise?
[00:19:36]  I think you have to look at, you know, you can pick off those two examples as that he's a flaming liberal.
[00:19:42]  He's just not.
[00:19:43]  No, he is compared to Kevin McCarthy.
[00:19:45]  I mean, Mike, you just lost me, man.
[00:19:47]  Steve Scalise is worse than Paul Ryan.
[00:19:50]  I mean, Kevin McCarthy, for all his faults, was going to put Marjorie Taylor Greene on oversight.
[00:19:55]  Like, if your argument is Steve Scalise, like, that's not compelling to me at all.
[00:20:00]  Well, I'm not a champion for Steve Scalise.
[00:20:03]  I just think by default, he's going to become the speaker.
[00:20:06]  But then, then, then your argument needs to be confronted and defeated then, because Kevin's better than Scalese.
[00:20:14]  I actually don't think Kevin is better than Scalise in many different ways.
[00:20:19]  Well, I'll tell you on big tech is the biggest reason for me.
[00:20:22]  I run the Article 3 project and I run the Internet Accountability Project, as you know.
[00:20:26]  We have been fighting for three years now to take on big tech from the right, to hold big tech accountable, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
[00:20:36]  And the biggest impediment to our fight is Kevin McCarthy.
[00:20:40]  And our second biggest impediment to our fight is Jim Jordan.
[00:20:42]  And the reason is, is that they take big tech's money.
[00:20:46]  They pretend like they're warriors against big tech and they do big tech's bidding.
[00:20:49]  And Kevin McCarthy is the worst at this.
[00:20:52]  He has Jeff Miller as his top advisor.
[00:20:54]  Jeff Miller has been Kevin McCarthy's top advisor for decades.
[00:20:59]  And he is a lobbyist.
[00:21:01]  He is a lobbyist who has taken millions of dollars from Apple and Amazon.
[00:21:05]  And Jeff Miller is running Kevin McCarthy's race to become speaker.
[00:21:09]  There is no chance that if Kevin McCarthy becomes the Speaker of the House, that we will update and enforce our century-old antitrust laws and break up big tech.
[00:21:17]  Big tech will actually thrive under Kevin McCarthy because he does their bidding, and that will continue.
[00:21:23]  Steve Scalese, for whatever faults he may have on Liz Cheney and other issues, he is much more gettable on the big tech issue, which I think is one of the most important issues that House Republicans will face over the next two years.
[00:21:39]  If we don't break up big tech's gatekeeping power over information and commerce, they will continue to throw elections for Democrats.
[00:21:48]  They will continue to censor, silence, deplatform, and cancel conservatives and others with whom they disagree.
[00:21:55]  Look what happens with Elon Musk.
[00:21:57]  Elon Musk made this $44 billion investment to buy Twitter.
[00:22:01]  It's been great.
[00:22:02]  It's a horrific investment for Elon Musk, but it's been great for conservatives and free speech.
[00:22:06]  Okay, what happens when the advertisers crush Elon Musk with their advertiser boycotts?
[00:22:12]  What happens when the Google, Google, and Apple do what they did to Parlor and kick Twitter out of the app store duopoly because Twitter, they think, doesn't censor enough?
[00:22:21]  What happens when Amazon kicks Twitter off the internet?
[00:22:24]  Our free speech in this country is hanging by a thread, and we must break up the trillion-dollar big tech monopolist or we're going to get crushed again.
[00:22:34]  Remember.
[00:22:35]  I mean, I agree, but Steve Scalise took money from Netpack too, man.
[00:22:39]  And I'll tell you, I'll tell you this, Charlie, as someone who's worked on this issue every day for three years, I can assure you that Steve Scalise is a lot more gettable than Kevin McCarthy.
[00:22:50]  Okay, I mean, I won't fight you on that.
[00:22:52]  You do have more understanding of that.
[00:22:54]  But I mean, he did take money from Google's PAC, too, right?
[00:22:57]  So if that's the...
[00:22:58]  I hear you.
[00:22:58]  A lot of them did.
[00:22:59]  No, I agree.
[00:23:00]  So that part of the argument is a wash, right?
[00:23:04]  But it's not a wash.
[00:23:06]  It's not just taking the money.
[00:23:07]  It's what Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan are doing behind the scenes over the last year.
[00:23:12]  No, and I'm going to trust you on that.
[00:23:13]  I hear you.
[00:23:14]  I hear that from a lot of people.
[00:23:15]  And I think that's a good argument.
[00:23:16]  I do.
[00:23:17]  So, but just this idea that it's going to go to Scalise, Hageman, I don't know.
[00:23:23]  Do we have that clip?
[00:23:24]  Let's play Cut 36.
[00:23:25]  This is Hakeem Jeffries saying he's not close with Kevin, but Scalise is a buddy.
[00:23:30]  Play Cut 36.
[00:23:31]  What is your relationship like with your Republican counterpart, Kevin McCarthy, who wants to be the speaker?
[00:23:36]  When was the last time you spoke with him?
[00:23:39]  I haven't had a conversation with Leader McCarthy Carthy recently.
[00:23:43]  I do have, I think, a much warmer relationship with Steve Scalise.
[00:23:48]  Now, that could just be friendship, right?
[00:23:50]  Mike, I don't want to misrepresent that, but do you understand the skepticism of be careful what you wish for?
[00:23:56]  No, I understand that, but he wouldn't be.
[00:23:59]  If you're in the House leadership, you wouldn't be having conversations between the House Republicans' top leader and their number two or number three leader.
[00:24:06]  It's just not how it works.
[00:24:07]  You work with your counterpart across the aisle.
[00:24:10]  So Speaker Pelosi would work with House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and the Whips would work with the Whips.
[00:24:17]  And, you know, that's just how it works.
[00:24:19]  I don't think because Hakeem Jeffries has a working relationship with Scalise and he doesn't have a working relationship with McCarthy is unusual or says anything.
[00:24:29]  Okay.
[00:24:30]  How many rounds do you think this is going to go?
[00:24:32]  Well, we're in our fourth round right now.
[00:24:34]  We'll see how that goes after the Trump endorsement.
[00:24:38]  And, you know, it's going to go as long as Kevin McCarthy wants to drag this out.
[00:24:45]  He doesn't have the votes to become Speaker.
[00:24:48]  And we just need to come to that reality.
[00:24:49]  He doesn't have the votes and he's never going to have the votes.
[00:24:51]  And so what we have to figure out is what is the next option?
[00:24:55]  Look, I don't think Steve Scalise is the perfect option, but he's, I think, the only one who's going to get the 218 votes necessary in this narrow conference to become the speaker of the house.
[00:25:07]  And so would he be my first pick?
[00:25:09]  Probably not.
[00:25:10]  But I think he's going to be the speaker of the house.
[00:25:13]  So this current vote tally is over with.
[00:25:15]  Basically, it's not over, but there have been nine votes for Byron Donalds.
[00:25:19]  And so basically, it's going to be a matter of time in your estimation or in your calculus before Kevin backs out.
[00:25:27]  Or does Kevin try to then go back to the Freedom Caucus and resurrect the deal that died on the night of January 2nd?
[00:25:35]  It's pretty, they're pretty dug in.
[00:25:37]  Here's the problem.
[00:25:38]  This is the problem I have, Charlie, is Kevin McCarthy's team is floating the idea that they're, you know, you talk about Scalise having a working relationship with Hakeem Jeffries.
[00:25:47]  Kevin McCarthy's team is actually floating that they're going to go to Hakeem Jeffries and get Democrat votes to vote for president.
[00:25:54]  That is correct.
[00:25:54]  No, that's right.
[00:25:56]  So let's, I mean, who's making the deal with the devil with Hakeem Jeffries?
[00:26:00]  You know, Scalise has a civil relationship with him.
[00:26:03]  McCarthy, who only cares about becoming Speaker, I don't know if McCarthy has a conservative bone in his body or a guiding principle other than he wants to become the speaker.
[00:26:12]  And that's my problem with Kevin McCarthy.
[00:26:14]  And I will say, though, that is correct in some sense.
[00:26:17]  I don't know it as deep or not.
[00:26:20]  I believe he is a conservative.
[00:26:21]  I don't know to what depth or what detail.
[00:26:24]  I do believe he really wants to be speaker.
[00:26:26]  I think aspiration drives him.
[00:26:28]  But in some way, that can be used to one's advantage to try to get concessions.
[00:26:34]  And the fear is if you go to Steve Scalise, there's a chance that MTG on oversight, Jim Jordan as a chairman, there is a risk that we have to say that it could be a much more moderate Congress where it could have been more conservative because McCarthy really wanted to be Speaker.
[00:26:50]  Final thoughts, Mike?
[00:26:52]  I think if you look at Scalise's record, he has been a conservative throughout his entire career.
[00:26:58]  I don't know him personally, but I know people who have worked for him and worked with him.
[00:27:02]  He is a principal conservative.
[00:27:04]  He's a very good guy.
[00:27:05]  He's been effective.
[00:27:07]  You're seeing that he is, you know, he's playing second fiddle to McCarthy right now.
[00:27:11]  I think you would see a much different Scalise if he's the Speaker of the House.
[00:27:15]  Mike Davis, great commentary.
[00:27:17]  Really appreciate it.
[00:27:17]  Thank you, man.
[00:27:18]  Thank you.
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[00:28:56]  Someone says here, I believe Mr. Davis is wrong.
[00:28:58]  Scalise would be a disaster.
[00:29:00]  Why not Byron Donalds?
[00:29:01]  He's a solid conservative and no BS fighter.
[00:29:04]  I don't understand why we'd be pushing Scalise.
[00:29:07]  Okay.
[00:29:08]  Also, just the people supporting Steve Scalise, Alyssa Farah.
[00:29:12]  Remember Alyssa Farah, who used to be in the White House?
[00:29:14]  She's behind Scalise.
[00:29:16]  Let's get to some tape here as the voting continues on the House floor and history is unfolding here.
[00:29:22]  Let's get to this right here.
[00:29:25]  Let's go to Cut 33, Chip Roy, on the speaker race, play cut 33.
[00:29:31]  But, Congressman, is it better to not have a speaker at all and to not have a functioning house than do you think anybody in America right now is like, oh my God, there's not a speaker, right?
[00:29:43]  Because what is somebody who lives right now in like Des Moines, Iowa, and they're going to their job, they're going to school.
[00:29:49]  Oh, no, 24 hours without a speaker in the house.
[00:29:53]  We're a body.
[00:29:53]  We can go past motions.
[00:29:56]  We can do whatever.
[00:29:56]  If there's an emergency, we can do whatever we need to.
[00:29:59]  But we're having a debate.
[00:30:00]  It's healthy to have that debate.
[00:30:02]  The institution needs to change, and that's why we're having the debate.
[00:30:04]  So you don't think Americans care that there's not a speaker of the house right now?
[00:30:07]  I think Americans want us to change the way everything works or doesn't work.
[00:30:11]  And I think they're patient enough to wait out a day or two for us to do what needs to be done to make things actually function.
[00:30:20]  I have to agree with Chip Roy here.
[00:30:22]  The average welder in Whitefish, Montana is not like, boy, I'm going to have a tough day at work today because I don't have a speaker of the House.
[00:30:29]  I think that's a good argument.
[00:30:30]  I do.
[00:30:31]  In fact, I think some people are probably thrilled that there's not a leader of Congress.
[00:30:37]  What did Thomas Jefferson say?
[00:30:39]  Our liberty is not safe while the legislature is in session.
[00:30:42]  Now, however, we do want to have oversight subpoena capacity.
[00:30:47]  That's a very real thing.
[00:30:48]  So, just so you know what you're looking at, that Donalds, which essentially the Donaldson is an anti-McCarthy vote.
[00:30:56]  And it'll be very interesting to see how Donalds responds to this in the kind of press fury that ensues, how he navigates this.
[00:31:05]  He could say, you know what?
[00:31:07]  I'm going to do it.
[00:31:08]  I'm going to challenge Kevin McCarthy.
[00:31:10]  That would be a legitimate challenge.
[00:31:13]  I don't think that the argument that Byron Donalds is dead on arrival, I'm not so sure about that.
[00:31:20]  Not so sure.
[00:31:22]  I think that Byron could be a competitive, a competitive race.

=== Byron Donalds as Competitive Choice (00:51) ===

[00:31:28]  Freedom at CharlieKirk.com.
[00:31:31]  We have an email here.
[00:31:35]  Charlie, I know Steve Scalise.
[00:31:36]  I'm a Louisiana resident.
[00:31:38]  I do not support him for being Speaker.
[00:31:41]  He works against our interests and he's far more liberal than I ever realized.
[00:31:46]  And someone said here, Charlie, why are you talking about Steve Scalise?
[00:31:49]  Well, because the question is, if not Kevin, then who?
[00:31:52]  Right?
[00:31:53]  That's where the conversation quickly goes.
[00:31:55]  And you might say, well, if not Kevin, then Byron Donalds.
[00:31:58]  I mean, Byron's a rock star conservative.
[00:32:01]  It'd be very interesting to see if he could end up getting the votes.
[00:32:06]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:32:08]  Email me your thoughts as always: freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:32:11]  Thank you so much for listening, and God bless.
[00:32:16]  For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.