Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: WVUA FM Tuscaloosa any opinions expressed in this program are those of the host and do not represent the thoughts or opinions of 90.7 WVUA or the University of Alabama.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Before we start off the episode, I just want to say this the scenes that are coming out of Israel, out of Gaza, and out of the West Bank are absolutely horrifying. War crimes are being committed no matter where you look, whether it's, you know, the Hamas terrorists invasion of southern Israel, the mass atrocities that were committed against civilians in areas like Rame and in other areas of southern Israel, as well as indiscriminate IDF bombings in Gaza, which has been described as an open air prison for the past decade and a half, plus, the settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank that is continuing to increase is just absolutely horrifying. And for my hope and for everybody's part, I hope that peace reigns over the area as soon as possible, and I hope that a ceasefire can be brokered as soon as it can be.
I want to make it very clear I just want to make a few things very clear about the situation, is that, one, Hamas is mean. I don't think you can justify the crimes that Hamas has committed in southern Israel mass murder, mass extermination.
I've even seen reports of beheadings of children. I've seen reports of violent sexual assaults and rapes that Hamas has committed on their rampage. And I also want to make it very clear that this was not provoked. This is just a long line of incidences, obviously the most serious since 1973, the Yom Kippur war. But this was not unprovoked.
The area has a history of mass violence on both sides, what with the illegal occupation that has occurred in the West Bank and also everything that has occurred within Gaza, the cutting off of electricity and water supplies to Gaza by Israeli forces, and other things that have unfortunately happened.
And I also want to make it very clear that part of the reason why this happened to the extent it did, was because of incompetence in the Israeli government. Egypt had told Israel ten days before the attack had happened that Hamas was planning something like this. And I don't know what went on in the Israeli government. I don't know what happened with thinking of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or National Security Minister Tamar Benghavir, who is described as a you know, as let me just be quite frank here a fascist.
And I don't know what was going on in their minds. I don't know what was going on with the security services, whether it be the Shin Bet or the Mossad. Shin Bet is closer to the FBI, mossad's closer to the CIA, for those who are not sure of what the Israeli intelligence services are. And when you have the conflict that has been ongoing between the intelligence services and the Israeli government itself under Prime Minister Netanyahu, when it became very clear that somewhere along those lines, these plans, these warnings by Egypt, were ignored by the Israeli government in one way or another. So much so that even Hamas was stunned at how far they were able to get inside Israel, how many crimes they were able to commit because the IDF didn't get there for hours at a time. The forces that were fighting in the beginning were local Israeli police forces, and in the town of Esther Alta, they were overrun. And the IDF eventually had to come in and destroy that police station because it was overrun by Hamas militants and terrorists. So it's just a horrific situation all around. And again, I hope that peace is able to reign over the area. A lasting peace. And I hope for all that is holy I hope for all that is sacred in this world and especially in this area, that we condemn in all forms anti Semitic hate and antimilsome hate Islamophobia, and hate crimes against Jews are absolutely unacceptable.
And I hope every other sane person on this planet is able to condemn them in the strongest forms. I know this definitely has an impact here on UA, since I think it was last semester that you had those anti Semitic chalkings essentially Hashtag Gay was right, essentially mocking the suffering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust as well. So I know this hits close to home for the Jewish community here at Uway, at Shabbat, and the Hillel groups here as well. And I want to send my support to them, and I want to send my support to everybody who has been personally affected by this tragedy one way or another. And I hope that the senseless violence stops as soon as possible.
With that being said, welcome to season two, episode 13 of Pulse of the Nation. Obviously, the tragic situation in Israel and Gaza West Bank between Israel, Palestine and potentially Hezbollah in southern Lebanon could also get involved. That has been dominating the news stories over the past couple of days ever since the first invasion by Hamas into southern Israel. But I want to get a couple of administrative things out of the way. So first off, the episode about the case for Republicans to do very well in 2024 has to be delayed once again. I know. I am so sorry it's been delayed so much, but this one has a very good reason for it, and that is because I want to be transparent with you all. I want to be upfront and real with you all. That Pulse of the Nation is going to be going through a sort of a transformation, especially in regards to how it's produced. So right now, you're expecting a three a week know? I do three episodes a week. One is a news flash, and two are special topics that I end up choosing that is going to sort of change over the next few weeks. And I want to get this transformation done by the end of the month. So temporarily we're going to be cutting back on the three week format. We're going to go to a two a week format in order to get sort of used to how the new format that is going to be implemented, how it's going to go. So it may be a little bit less content heavy, but we wanted to make this change in order to get more consistency because I understand like last week you had the news flash which was not even ten minutes and at the end was interrupted by two fire alarms, which I'm so sorry for that. And then you had another 45 minutes episode on Kevin McCarthy getting booted from the speakership and like a 24, 25 minutes episode or somewhere in that ballpark on who could be the next Gob nominee for speaker. We want to get a little bit more consistency in regards to the length of the episodes and so that is where this transformation is going to come in. So I just want to make you all aware of what's happening at Pulse of the Nation in the next few weeks, in the next month or so. And so you all will be prepared for that. So just for now, it'll be a two week format.
You'll have essentially your news flash. I'm still going to call it a news flash for now. That could change over time. And plus, I will have a special topic tomorrow, and tomorrow that special topic will be Alabama's new Congressional map. So get ready for that. I have a lot of thoughts on the map itself, what the special Master could have done better, and also what this is going to mean for black voters in Alabama, what this is going to mean for control of the US. House in general. I have a lot of thoughts on that and I cannot wait to tell y'all all about it tomorrow. But we have to get through some other news of the week first. Yes, other news has happened. First off, remember when I talked about an Indiana House representative by the name of Jim Baird who planned to retire from his seat and hand the seat off to his son Beau in 2024? Remember when I reported on that like a couple of weeks ago? Yeah.
Those plans obviously got exposed and Jim Baird has said now he's going to run again in 2024. So those plans had to be Scuppered and scuttled and now he is going to be running for at least one more term in 2024. So just a bit of an update to close off that story which I talked about a couple of weeks ago. Probably the biggest news on the presidential level is that RFK Jr. The famed, like, anti vaxx Democratic alternative to Joe Biden, he's not running in the Democratic primary anymore. He has officially announced in Philadelphia a couple of days ago that he is going to be running as an independent. So the state of the race right now is you have expected Joe Biden on the Democratic side, donald Trump on the Republican side. You'll have a Libertarian candidate, whoever they're going to nominate, and then you have Cornell West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As independence. Yes, Cornell West has announced he's transitioning from the Green Party to being an independent candidate. I'm not sure how that's going to change if the Green Party endorses west, if they're not going to run a candidate, or if they're going to run another candidate of their own. So you see how this presidential race is shaking up. And with RFK run as an independent, this might actually end up hurting Donald Trump more than Joe Biden. Because if you see the polls and I know I rag on the polls all the time, especially national polls, but if you do look at those presidential polls, see who likes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. By party, most of the people who like RFK Jr. Are Republicans. That's why the yarn C put out. I think it was like a 23 point or 23 page oppo dump on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Urging Republican leading voters not to vote for him. So we'll see how that ends up going. We'll see what effect RFK Jr. Has on the race, especially as you are dealing with two unpopular presumptive nominees in Biden and Trump. And so we'll see if RFK Jr. Can get a substantial amount of the vote. And I say substantial, I mean one and a half to 2% of the vote. Because remember, in very close presidential elections, even 1% or even less than that could be a determining factor in who wins and who loses. So everything counts. Even these minor third party or independent candidates. Yes, they do count. They do affect the presidential race in some way or so. But I want to focus this news flash, because again, there wasn't really much political news outside of the US. House that broke over this week, or if there was, I didn't catch it. And I apologize for that. But a lot of the news that went around was on the aftermath of Kevin McCarthy's removal. Why was he removed? And I talked about this in depth last week. If you want to hear that episode again, I urge you all to do it.
It is a very interesting episode, I will say, very in depth episode. One of the more in depth episodes that I've done at Pulse of the Nation. I think it's season two, episode eleven. And so essentially what had happened, a bit of more of an update on the McCarthy removal itself, is that Democrats were willing to save Kevin McCarthy. Like, even going so far if you go so far back as May 2023, in the middle of McCarthy's tenure as speaker, you had people like Stephen Denis, a Bloomborough congressional reporter, and others reporting on a few Democrats like stenny Hoyer of Maryland, rick Larson of Connecticut, dean Phillips of Minnesota, who was willing to back McCarthy if he faced a motion to vacate over the debt limit.
Like you still have that goodwill. Remember, Kevin McCarthy claimed that Nancy Pelosi had even told him she would vote to bail him out for the motion to vacate. Happened. But in the last four months, that goodwill had obviously I said, you know what with the Face of Nation interview, the Sunday before the motion to vacate vote were really I think, kind of doomed Kevin McCarthy's chances in getting any of the Democratic vote. And given the fact that McCarthy did not have enough Republican votes, if you lose all the Democrats you're kind of yeah but know story is not going to end there. And I'll come back to it. So as I'm recording this, the GOP nominating process is done. We do have a GOP nominee for speaker, and I'll tell you all about it as the updates I have as of now. So essentially you had two candidates. There was only two candidates that emerged from the pile. It was Steve Scalise, the House Majority leader, who's from Louisiana. And you have Jim Jordan, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, who is from Ohio. And it was a very close speakership election. You had, you know, who could count on a bit more of like they're both right wing candidates. They're both pretty much to the right. I mean, Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan both have skeletons in their closet. I've already gone a bit in depth about Jim Jordan's troubles at Ohio State, so I'll focus on a bit more of Scalise for this one. In 2002, he did describe himself to Louisiana reporter as, quote, David Duke without the baggage. Now, I'm not sure how his beliefs have changed over the past 20 years and changed, but that is of course something to consider and the fact that he did attend a conference that David Duke was speaking at at the time. So that is something to think about as well. So you have these two candidates. They're getting a lot of endorsements. And early on it looks like close it looked like Jim Jordan had the advantage, especially when Donald Trump endorsed Jim Jordan for the speakership. And given the hold that Donald Trump has over the Republican Party, given there were some rumors and reports that McCarthy's team was trying to back shorten in the race over Scalise, raising questions about the relationship between McCarthy and Scalise, people like myself were starting to think maybe Jim Jordan could be in the lead in this speakership race. But ultimately that did not end up happening. It was a very narrow vote. I think it was 113 to 99 for Steve Scalise. Three of the people for Scalise were non voting delegates from Puerto Rico and two others, I think maybe like American Samoa and Guam. Correct. Me if I'm wrong there, but you have those non voting delegates who ended up voting for Scalise at the conference. So in terms of voting members, 110 to 99, a very close race, and you had about nine to ten or some number of Republicans voting present or some voting other, and that could be a problem for Steve Scalise as he attempts to become the speaker of the House. Now, will he face 15 ballots like Kevin McCarthy did? I don't think so. But will he win this election on one ballot?
No. I'm going to just tell you right now, he does not have the votes to win on the first ballot like McCarthy didn't have the votes to win on the first ballot. Now, some of Scalise's opposition is ideological because some conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus are apparently concerned that Scalise would just be a rubber stamp for McCarthy. The fact that he was House Majority Leader is in House Republican leadership does concern some of them, enough of them to potentially know Scalise's plans to win on the first ballot. But now you have not know the conservatives who don't want House Republican leadership to be in leadership. You also have at least one representative, probably quite a few others, who are so mad at the fact that McCarthy was vacated that they'll vote for McCarthy unless he specifically tells them not to. One of those, and it's the only one that's confirmed is Representative Carlos Jimenez, a Republican from Florida, from south Florida, from southwestern Miami, dade county, also represents Monroe County and the Keys as well in Congress. And he said he'll be voting for McCarthy on the ballot and on the floor as well. And so far with all this in mind, here's where we stand right now with the Republicans. So I can count there are at least ten House Republicans who as of right now are not going to be voting for Steve Scalise on the first ballot for a variety of reasons, and I'll count them from east to west right now. So you have Representative Max Miller of Ohio, who I guess for I guess state reasons is all in on Jim Jordan for some reason. You have Representative Bob Good of Virginia, house Freedom Caucus member representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky. You have Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia. Interestingly, the reason she says she's not voting for Scalise is because she doesn't think he's healthy enough. Like of course, remember Steve Scalise was shot by the left wing extremists in 2017 at a Congressional baseball game practice and plus this year he's been suffering from and recovering from blood cancer. And it's the recovery from blood cancer that Representative Green says she's concerned about, like maybe he wouldn't be able to fulfill his duties and she's voting for Jordan instead. Obviously. You have representative Jimenez, Florida, who's voting for McCarthy. Representative Anna Plana Luna as well, voting for Jordan. Barrymore of Alabama was a Scalise he was going to back Scalise in the floor, but now he's backing Jordan. You have Representatives Michael Cloud and Chipboy of Texas, who are going to be voting against Scalise. And you have Representative Lauren Bobert of Colorado, also voting against Scalise. And plus there are at least nine Republicans who I don't know how they're going to vote. If they're going to vote president, they're going to vote for Scalise, if they're going to vote for Jordan, if they're going to vote for somebody else. And a lot of those are people who were sort of always McCarthy all the time. Some of those aren't really too pleased with either Scalise or Jordan, and some have other varieties of reasons for not backing either candidate. So what we know right now is know as of the time of this recording, the House was supposed to vote, was supposed to have an actual speaker election about an hour ago. And those plans got Scuttled, the House convened and immediately went into recess because it is clear Steve Scalise does not have the votes to be elected on the first ballot.
And that has to be extremely alarming for House Republican leadership and the fact that you vacated Speaker McCarthy. You have this cr that you have to pass in a month or so before the government shuts down, well, 40 days or so, but you get what I mean. And you have this massive security situation in the Middle East, in Southwest Asia, in Israel, and in Palestine that you have to respond to. There's the border, there's Ukraine, there's potentially Taiwan aid that has to be focused on as well. And you can't advance anything without an elected speaker of the House. So you get into the situation again where there is chaos potentially in the House of Representatives, because enough House Republicans are willing to hold, know the conference hold know Speakership election for their own demands. There's changes to the rules package some Republicans really want, like raising the threshold in the motion to vacate, for example. We don't know what backroom negotiations are happening and will happen, but we know that they will happen. We just don't know what the results of that are going to be.
So right now, the House is continuing to be at a standstill. They do have a nominee for speaker. But Steve Scalise is right. If the vote were held today, he would not get elected on the first ballot. And they've had to delay the election potentially until know tomorrow, which would be the day before this episode gets released. So by the time this episode gets released, steve Scalise could very well be speaker like. Let me make that very clear. By the time this gets released, everything I've said about Scalise, everything I've said about House Republican disunity, that could be all for not he could get elected tomorrow. It is possible that the House does not have a speaker by the time the episode is released. That is the nature of how this podcast works, how the US. House has worked during this latest Congress. And so this is something that Felice is going to have to deal with. Like McCarthy had to deal with essentially the right flank who didn't like him to begin with. They were looking for any excuse to vacate his share. But now Steve Scalise not only has to deal with that, I mean, he's better at dealing with that. But now you have to deal with people more towards the center of your caucus, more toward potentially the left of your caucus who really don't like the fact that McCarthy was removed and which want to see a rules package and who also want to see those Republicans that sided against McCarthy punished. So you have a lot know, conflicting egos, conflicting interest in House GOP that may prevent a speaker from getting elected for some time. And if you're a Democrat, all you're doing is you're sitting back and you're making your popcorn. You're making tons and tons of popcorn at this rate, considering what has happened in the House Representatives in 2023. And you're just munching on that popcorn. You're eating that popcorn, and you are just watching as the chaos continues to go down in the House GOP, because if we're talking real politic here, that Democrats, it is in Democrats interest for the House GOP to be in chaos because it helps our 2024 election campaign, especially in the US. House, and they're going to use the opportunities that they are given. And one of those opportunities just happens to be in redistricting. It happens to be in Alabama, and it happens to be the very thing we're talking about in the next episode of Bolts of the Nation. Thank y'all for listening to everything that has been said today. Thank y'all for listening to Bolts of the Nation. Thank y'all for supporting us as we embark on this new transition, embark on this new era of Pulse of the Nation. Thank you all for listening, and I will see you all tomorrow.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: Any opinions expressed in this program are those of the host and do not represent the thoughts or opinions of 90.7 WVUA or the University of Alabama.
