Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] 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.
[00:00:19] Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Pulse of the nation, the only place here in WVU, AFM, where you can get your politics news for the week. This is season three, episode seven. I have Brayden Vick. And just a quick note, if you got a little emotional by the ending of last week's episode, I apologize, but it's something I really did need to get off my chest. But do you know who's emotional for a completely different reason? Probably is Donald Trump. Because this week his jury got selected for the hush money case.
[00:00:52] I'm not exactly sure what it's supposed to be called. You know, there's hush money involved in 2016 presidential elections involved. Michael Cohen is supposed to be one of the star witnesses. But the twelve jurors and the six alternates got selected this week. And Donald Trump is not exactly too happy. For whatever reason, he said on Friday that he would testify. I'm not sure why he thinks that would be a good idea. I'm not sure if his lawyers are ever going to let him agree to that. But if they do, I'm not a legal expert. I don't ever claim to be, especially on issues as, you know, big as this, considering you have a, not only a former president, but also the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee who is right now facing trial, a criminal trial for felony charges in the state of New York related to hush money payments and potential interference in the 2016 presidential election.
[00:01:55] This is obviously massive. Now, granted, it's often been discussed as one of the four least important cases, or least important of the four that Trump is facing right now. But I still think it's worth mentioning that in June, we could know, we could have Donald Trump convicted felon. Do you know how long MSNBC is going to run with that one? They're going to run with a headline until August, and not only until August, until November.
[00:02:31] All right? And if Trump wins, they're going to be running that all the way up until 2028.
[00:02:37] If they're able to, you know, if they're able to broadcast that late like this would be gold for the media, and almost rightfully so. This is a cash cow that they are sitting on. MSNBC is going to, all their coverage for the next six weeks is going to be the Donald Trump trial. That's all their afternoon coverage, all their evening coverage. That's all it's going to be so, like, if you want extensive coverage of the Trump trials, go to MSNBC. Or if you don't want it to be so oppressive, go to CNN.
[00:03:13] Like, those would be my two recommendations. Even if you are conservative, like, if you want to be engrossed in it, and if you want to get the other side's perspective, MSNBC is the perfect place to do it. But I do have to ask the mainstream media one thing.
[00:03:28] Why are you publicizing the lives of these unnamed jurors? You're not naming the jurors names. Fine. Why are you giving us literally every other aspect of their lives? Do you know how far people are going to go to Doxdem? You have, you had already like an alternate before the jury was decided, you had an alternate or so, you know, decide they wanted to drop out because they feared for their safety. There was, I think, another prospective juror that dropped out because their family thought, probably correctly, that they were going to be sitting on the jury. And pressure gets to you in that situation. You don't know if your family's gonna try. Some of your family members might want a case to go a certain way. You don't know how far they're going to take it in order to make sure that the result they want happens, which would probably in this case be a hung jury, if you're talking the MAGA side of it. So why in the mainstream media, particularly the New York Times, you know, whose jurisdiction this trial is going to be set in in Manhattan? For the love of God, like, why are you do realize that you are giving people free reign to go in and try and doxy juris? Because this is a jury of transpierce. This is in Manhattan, either twelve or 18, if you consider the six alternates, Manhattanites, like, the amount of pressure they're going to be in is going to be, I just don't think is a good idea because it might be used by not Trump's legal team, but Trump supporters as a delaying tactic, dox a few of the jurors and try to get this thing pushed back, pushed back until after the election.
[00:05:26] So mainstream media, I don't exactly think this is smart if you actually care about the lives of these jurors. And I'm not just talking about the lives, I'm talking about the livelihoods.
[00:05:39] Anyways, that will be covered more in detail next week when, you know, your opening statements are made, witnesses are caught up in all that jazz. But yeah, that's going to happen starting on Monday.
[00:05:53] We'll transfer our focus over to Michigan now, where Democrats retook these datewide trifecta that they had after the 2022 midterms through two special elections in the state House. A little bit of a background. The previous two democratic representatives had resigned to run for and I believe win the mayorships of Warren and Westland in Michigan, around the Detroit metro, in Maycomb and Wayne counties particularly. So the House districts that there, those two former representatives had represented, they're now vacant. That means that the state House is now a tie, temporarily. No statewide trifecta. Keep in mind, these are pretty deep blue districts, so it's not like Republicans were expecting to flip these anytime soon, especially the one in Weston, which is pretty decently leftward shifting. So, yeah, special elections that come up this week and on Tuesday, and Democrats win them pretty easily outrunning, they outrun Joe Biden by two to three percentage points, respectively. It's a 56 54 state House. Again, Democrats have a statewide trifecta in. The one thing that I am very interested to watch for is whether Michigan joins the national popular vote compact.
[00:07:14] That could be huge if that's going to take off later this decade, because you have the statewide trifecta to do it now. I mean, you have your window of opportunity. This is it. Plus some of the other democratic, you know, priorities that may not have gotten, they may not have gotten to before the two, before the two resignations.
[00:07:35] Now they might be able to get to them. So if you're very interested in Michigan state politics and policy, now is the time to go. Take a look back. Because one thing I know about Gretchen Whitmer, she wants those accomplishments stacked up. She, everybody knows she's thinking about a 2028 presidential run, and she would be one of the top contenders to do so. So you want to stack those accomplishments up not only to help Michiganders, obviously, that is one of the goals of politics, to help people through what you believe is the best policy, but you're also able to run on those accomplishments, too.
[00:08:20] But 2028 is such a laughable thing to talk about when we're not even, the conventions for 2024 haven't even happened yet. More on convention news later, by the way.
[00:08:36] But I mean, such a laughable, I don't know, it's just kind of a hilarious thing to talk about. But as for Michigan politics right now, one name I would keep an eye on is Mai Zhong, the new representative for basically most of Warren City and some parts of Detroit.
[00:09:02] She represents. It's a deeply democratic district, but the white working class population there, especially a Warren, has been shifting a bit to the right in the Trump era. It was static from 2016 to 2020, even as Michigan moved three and a half points leftward.
[00:09:18] So for her to over perform Joe Biden by a few percentage points, that's pretty impressive, especially for the district that she now represents.
[00:09:27] So watch this space. She's, she could potentially be a future statewide office holder. That's a name you've got to watch out for in the future, whether that's 2026 or beyond. So just go ahead. Watch out for that.
[00:09:45] Moving on to the main story, though, of this week, and it's funny that I don't consider, you know, the jury getting picked in the current GOP presumptive nominees. First of all, felony criminal trials as the main story of the week. That just shows you how absolutely warped politics has gotten in the past decade where events like that are considered a secondary story because the primary story is, well, it's the US House again.
[00:10:22] Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:26] But first, let's talk about the thing that's actually moving through the US House right now. You know, on the day this podcast is supposed to be released, they're supposed to do a lot of votes on a foreign aid package. Now let me try to explain it to you what happened on, you know, on Friday. So on Friday, there are about three or there are four separate bills. There is one for a security supplemental to Ukraine, about $61 billion in total. There's one for Israel and humanitarian aid in Palestine. That totals combined $25 billion. There's something for the Indo Pacific region, including type one. That's about $9 billion. Those are three separate bills. The other bill is essentially a forced divestiture of bytedance from their US assets or face a tick tock ban in the United States within a year. One thing to change about it, they're not giving Bytedance six months. They're giving them a year. That might be pretty important down the line. But what the House Freedom Caucus is so mad about is the fact that there is nothing regarding the border.
[00:11:48] And they, and to say that they are mad is a gross understatement. It's like saying the Chicago White Sox suck. Like that does not even come within the remote universe of the reality of which they're in.
[00:12:07] Like it is bad in the House of Freedom Caucus right now. The moon is bad. Just like the Chicago White Sox couldn't hit the broadside of a bar right now. Three in 16 at the time of recording three and 16, and you're moving the Oakland A's instead.
[00:12:31] Oh, good lord.
[00:12:33] Speaking of total incompetence, House Speaker Mike Johnson, what he tried to do to modify these House Freedom Caucus types was put up a border bill under a separate rule.
[00:12:47] And that rule vote obviously died in committee.
[00:12:52] I mean, I shouldn't say obviously guiding in McKinney, but what happened was you had.
[00:13:00] I'm not really sure what happened, but there's three House Freedom Caucus members on the Rolls committee. Chip, Roy Thomas Massey isn't even Freedom Caucus, but he's hardline libertarian conservative, whatever. There's Ralph Norman as well, who is Freedom Caucus.
[00:13:14] And they were put in there under Kevin McCarthy's speakership. That was one of the things that he promised. The House Freedom Caucus. Essentially, you have veto power over what goes through the rules committee, one of the most important, most powerful committees that the House of Representatives has.
[00:13:35] So what I'm pretty sure has happened is that those three Republicans joined in with Democrats because they're mad that there's no bill related to the border. A lot of House Republicans, especially more conservative tights, Barry Moore and even non House Freedom Caucus types like Jerry Carl, have said there should be no Ukraine money until there's money for our southern border.
[00:13:57] And problem is, Chuck Schumer is leader of the United States Senate. Joe Biden is the president of the United States. You're not gonna get most everything that you want. And again, for whatever reason, these House Freedom caucus types, they just don't.
[00:14:16] I'm not going to say they don't get it, but it just.
[00:14:20] They don't know, in my opinion, how to cope with that fact that you don't have a federal trifecta where you can ram things through. You have to compromise. And House Freedom Caucus members think the situation on the southern border is so bad that they can't, like, they have to get all or nothing on what they want. Border wall, you know, deport everybody, yada, yada, yada.
[00:14:48] And so what's gonna happen? Well, the four bills I talked about, Ukraine, Israel, Indo Pacific and forest divestiture of bytedance, us assets, those are all under one rule.
[00:15:00] And that pass through committee, the rules committee, with unanimous democratic support. There's nine Republicans and four Democrats.
[00:15:09] I want to get something through, because in the, what usually happens with House rules, which is essentially the rules of debate for bringing a bill, it's basically the pre vote to bring up the bill before the full House, essentially. And what usually happens is the majority party all votes for it, the minority party all vote against the rule.
[00:15:37] And what has had to happen with this is something that hasn't happened before, not even under Kevin McCarthy in the House Rules committee. The Democratic Party had to save that vote on the rule.
[00:15:53] All four Democrats joined up with the rest of the non hardliner hardline Republicans to advance this rule out of the rules committee and bring up to consideration before the full House.
[00:16:08] And then that was on, I believe, Thursday, Friday it went before the full House and it passed.
[00:16:16] But thing is, there are 55 Republicans opposed to the rule. Jericho is not one of them. So that's a sign there might be more conservative dissent on these bills because there's no funding for the border. And what they believe that whole other border bill that was brought under a different rule, they think that was just, oh, that's just something that will never get past the US House. That's just going to die in the Senate. That's just, that means nothing according to the House Freedom Caucus.
[00:16:49] So you let that die to bring up, to make a point, essentially.
[00:16:55] And the rule passed because you had 39 Democrats who were opposed to the rule because it had money for offensive weapons transfers to Israel. Given what's been happening in Israel and Palestine, in fact, a lot of, a lot of left wing Democrats absolutely do not like the actions that the israeli government has taken in Gaza and the West bank and Palestine more broadly.
[00:17:26] Yeah. They're not going to approve anything that sends offensive weapons transfers to Israel. So all four of these rule votes are going to pass?
[00:17:36] Well, it shouldn't say rule. There's all four of these bills they're going to pass. No problem.
[00:17:41] What I'm really interested to see is a democratic no count on the Israel stuff.
[00:17:46] The Republican no account too, just to see how many hardliners there are that want border bust.
[00:17:55] I want to see the Republican no votes on Ukraine.
[00:18:01] Like I think the whole Indo Pacific thing I think will be the least disagreeable of all the bills.
[00:18:10] There will be a lot of Democrats going against the forced divestiture of Biden's assets. They say, oh, they're just going to ban tick tock. This isn't going to do democrats well if they youth vote, which you know, you're already not doing well with because of Gaza.
[00:18:26] But all four of those bills are going to pass the House, they're going to pass the Senate and it's going to be signed by the president.
[00:18:33] That is, that's only the half of it. Now, granted, this is absolutely critical, especially for Ukraine. They haven't had aid for months because of what's been going on in the US House. House conservatives have kind of blocked this aid from getting to Ukraine. Now it's going to be going to them. It's critical because Russia has been trying to put the pressure on Ukraine in the battlefield, trying to make gains when the US aid to Ukraine has stopped up because of conservative House Republicans. Granted, now you're seeing Democrats start to attack these conservative Republicans as being pro dictator, pro Putin, all that sort of stuff.
[00:19:14] But Mike Johnson actually used to be one of those.
[00:19:18] But story is, once you have access to those classified briefings that members don't get, the gang of eight do, which is like the top congressional leaders, president, vice president, whatever, sort of. Sort of. Kind of forces your hands. Like, oh, this is the situation. Wow. Like, they really need. They really need the aid. So, yeah, Mike Johnson has kind of done a full 180 on the crane thing, and it's not exactly gotten the House Republican caucus in the best of light. Like, I'll just say that, like, granted, the House Republican caucus has been dysfunctional ever since January. You know, I think 3rd, 2023 was the day that this Congress was sworn into session. And like, yeah, it took you like, what, two, three days to actually pick a speaker. Yeah. Brilliant sign. Absolutely brilliant sign. And then Kevin McCarthy doesn't even last a year.
[00:20:21] But I've already covered the McCarthy situation and death. He's now a private citizen. His seat's still vacant, will be vacant for another month.
[00:20:28] But if I told you that the US House was on fire again, would you even be surprised at this rate? Because this goes further. You know, I was talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene and that. Oh, she's bringing up a motion to vacate against Mike Johnson. She sees Mike Johnson as a Democrat speak. Yeah, Mike Johnson, the christian fundamentalist who is a lawyer for alliance defending Freedom, who defended the creationist Noah's Ark museum. He is a Democrat speaker. Yeah, maybe in the 1940s, but not in 2024.
[00:21:06] Not for a white guy from Shreveport, a white guy from northwest Louisiana who was a Democrat. There's not a lot of those left. Like, I'm sorry, Marjorie. There's not a lot of those people left. Like, Louisiana is one of, like, outside of New Orleans and maybe Baton Rouge. It is one of the most racially polarized states in the union, rivaled by only Mississippi.
[00:21:36] Like, you telling me he's a Democrat speaker. You.
[00:21:43] If I said what I really think about that, about that claim, then I wouldn't be allowed to do another podcast episode again.
[00:21:53] But the news. But the newsy part of what's been going on this week with motion vacate is that two more republicans have signed on, Thomas Massey of Kentucky and Paul go star of Arizona. Like, go star is obviously not surprising. Like, come on. He's one of the most conservative members of the House. Northwest Arizona, Mojave County, Bullhead City. Come on.
[00:22:14] No surprises there.
[00:22:16] Thomas Massey is very interesting, though, because he and Marjorie jelly Reed both never voted against Kevin. They didn't vote against Kevin McCarthy. They didn't vote to vacate. Him especially.
[00:22:32] And Thomas Massey told Mike Johnson to his face to resign or we'll throw you out.
[00:22:39] And now what Massey has said, I believe it was Massey that said that there are two other Republicans right now who do support the motion of vacate, but haven't signaled their support for it yet. They're not. Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boba. I'm pretty sure this is only speculation, mind you. I'm pretty sure one of them is Mike Collins of Georgia, because he posted a meme on Twitter, x whatever it's called. You know, you know, Elon's app, let's just say he posted a meme about finding Nemo. And like, like, y'all know what I'm talking about. The one where they're like, oh, don't touch the ship, except the ship is Ukraine funding and Mike Johnson or Nemo touches the ship and the motion to vacate rises up in the background. I'm pretty like. I'm pretty sure Mike college is going to support the motion to vacate at this rate. I don't know who the other one is.
[00:23:36] I don't think it'll be Tim Burchette, because Burchette made a very interesting claim.
[00:23:43] I believe it was on CNN. He said that should this go through, should you have the five there?
[00:23:53] He believes that New York Republicans, moderate New York Republicans think Mike, Lauren, he thinks they would step in and install Hakeem Jeffries.
[00:24:05] Now, let me tell you what I think of that.
[00:24:10] No, that's not going to happen. Tip. Like, get your head out of your butt. Do you think New York Republicans are going to elevate a Democrat from New York, from Brooklyn, from Brooklyn, to be the speaker of the House, to, in essence, give a democratic trifecta with their backing?
[00:24:39] You must be out of your mind if you think that's what's gonna happen. You must be out your mind from, as Terry Sewell calls it, representative from the district that I'm recording here right now, 7th from the People's Republic of Brooklyn. You think that New York Republicans, Anthony Despacito, you know, Mike Lawler, Nick Lalota, Brandon Williams, Mark Mullen. You think they're gonna elevate a New York Democrat to be speaker of the man?
[00:25:15] That's not gonna happen. But what did catch my eye was something that far right. Representative Anna Polina Luna from Pinellas County, Florida, said is that she was told that should this motion of vacate come through was that you'd have a couple of moderate representatives who would resign effective immediately. Like, they do what? Jake would turn to the representative from Kansas, Kansas Second District, which is pretty much all the areas outside the KC metro, and, like, pretty much in southeastern Kansas, too. He went, he resigned. He's not running for reelection this year. He didn't resign. He's retiring. But she believes that a couple would just up and resign in order to essentially stick it to the Republican Party. And it's like, if y'all don't want to govern, fine, we'll let Democrats govern. That would be, in Luna's opinion, the sort of what the two moderate Republicans, which we don't know, that's what they'd be saying. Like, oh, you don't want to govern? We're gone.
[00:26:26] I'm not sure if that's true. I don't think that's true. But it's very interesting to bring this up just because of the tension in the House Republican caucus right now. And if you're. If you're a random House democratic backbencher like Kevin Mullen from California, you have to be wondering, like, oh, my God. Like, seriously, I'm a freshman in Congress, and I have to deal with not one but potentially two motions to vacate.
[00:26:56] And then after Republicans, you know, they.
[00:27:00] Eight Republicans vacated the speaker, and Kevin McCarthy was, you know, kind of broke his promise to Democrats, didn't give the Democrats anything. So Democrats, like, we're not going to save you. You ain't give us anything. You ain't give us Ukraine. Like, you stabbed us in the back. You blamed us for the dysfunction in the eyes of a Democrat. Like, all right, we don't care about saving you, McCarthy, especially after you, like, in the eyes of a Democrat. Kevin McCarthy normalized Donald Trump after the January 6 insurrection. He took that photo at Mar a Lago.
[00:27:35] It's like, okay, that's the single House Republican leadership. Trump is fine.
[00:27:42] House Democratic Party. Still never forgive McCarthy for that, and they never will, especially the House Democrats, because most of them were in the Capitol building on January 6.
[00:27:53] Like, some of them thought they were going to die that day.
[00:27:58] They still haven't forgiven McCarthy for. Yeah, Mike Johnson helped lead the efforts to overturn the election in the US House.
[00:28:06] But it was one representative, you know, that said all those things. McCarthy was incompetent, all this yada yada. But Mike Johnson is just incompetent.
[00:28:21] And it's like, okay, like, it's one thing being incompetent. Like, especially if Mike Johnson's giving you ukrainian aid and especially aid to Gaza and the West bank, that's going to be enough for a lot. For a lot of Democrats to say, hey, like, maybe we'll be fine with saving Mike Johnson from his own party.
[00:28:44] And I want to. I want to investigate that just a little bit. Like, we got time to investigate this. Like, consider, like, if five Republicans, and I think there will be more, by the way, that would support a motion to vacate right now because they are mad about the border.
[00:29:07] But let's say x amount of Republicans vote to vacate Johnson's speakership to the extent that you would need democratic support.
[00:29:18] Now, Democrats are going to take the direction from Hakim Jeffries on this issue, especially something as massive as a motion of AK, like Grant. We are not in normal territory, y'all. Two potential motions to vacate in two years.
[00:29:34] This is not normal, all right? This is not what happens in a normal congress, y'all. This is not what happens in a normal congress.
[00:29:50] So if Hakeem Jeffery says, okay, you gave us the Ukraine aid, like, okay, I'll direct my people to save your speakership. Mike Johnson, for his part, said he doesn't want to be saved by Democrats. He's not looking to be saved by Democrats.
[00:30:06] But let's say Democrats take it upon themselves to say, hey, well, what's left? Like the new Democrats, the moderate Democrats, however many need to, will vote to table a motion of vacate because that's how it goes. Because you'll have a motion of a k, you know, because Marjorie Taylor Greene has that thing, you know, in the holster, like in the back burner right now. She brings it up. The House has to consider it within two legislative days.
[00:30:35] And what can then happen is that first you have to say someone's going to obviously file a motion to table it from House leadership. Of course, it's that tabling vote, which was very significant back then during the McCarthy thing, because it's like, wow, Democrats aren't tabling this thing. You're letting it go to a full vote.
[00:31:02] And you got to think, you know, MacArthur was panicking at that time. Well, maybe Johnson doesn't really have to at the moment because if enough Democrats vote to table that motion to vacate. That motion to vacate is dead. It's killed. It's done effectively. That's a vehicle advantageous for Democrats to say that we didn't have to vote on actually keeping a republican speaker of the House in charge. We voted like, this is how you would frame it in an advertisement state. We voted against, you know, against gridlock or something like that.
[00:31:43] But to those of us, you know, who, to those of us who follow politics for almost a living at this stage, it's like, okay, yeah, you vote to table the motion to vacate against the republican speaker. You save the republican speaker of the House. Look, one way or another.
[00:32:01] But let's take. Let's think about it from both points of view. Now, granted, you're not going to mollify left like, you know, left wingers, you know, especially young left wings, like, oh, wow, look at the. Look at the uniparty voting to save Republicans because the Democrats are in the vol fascist thing, yada, yada, yada. But those are probably just, you know, those are probably just, you know, revolutionary communists from, you know, Boston and New York or whatever.
[00:32:30] They always say that about the Democrats. You don't really like Democrats. Don't really worry about them, in my opinion.
[00:32:40] On the other hand, you have sort of, if you look at it at a politics and elections or whatever, you have an appeal to moderates, appeal to good governance. People say, hey, we voted to make sure that the House is still able to take up legislation, that Congress could be moving in proper order, in normal order.
[00:33:01] You could frame it like that.
[00:33:04] And as far as just a sort of game theory goes, mind games and all that, you prove to the whole world the republican party is so fractured that you have Mike Johnson.
[00:33:21] You know, you have them like, you got them squeezed up tight, like you have them in your pocket. And that would essentially be the proof that you hold the keys to the castle.
[00:33:39] You know, like, Democrats didn't save McCarthy, but if you save Johnson, as I think some of them will do, it essentially becomes at this point, okay, when do the talks of a coalition government start to come in place?
[00:33:55] Because you already have sort of with that motion and table to vacate, that could be considered an informal coalition government, you know, with the Republicans and the Democrats who voted to table the motion of vacate in this instance.
[00:34:14] Or you could raise the drama to make media companies a little more money. Maybe you could vote not to table the motion to vacate to try and get one last thing out of Mike Johnson before saving him in the end anyways, to just sort of further try to break the republican party.
[00:34:34] Because what happens when Mike Johnson is saved by democratic votes in this case? Because if the motion of AK ends up getting brought forth, like, that's what will happen.
[00:34:48] So when that happens, because aren't you, Taylor Greens, mad enough to where it's probably going to happen after this whole thing gets past the house and after the one week recess? So this motion to vacate vote might not be talked about unless you go to our instagram account, Pulse podcast, UA.
[00:35:11] But what happens then as far as the Republicans go? Because now you have a situation in which you have failed to unite your caucus to such an extent that you needed to beg the other party, the minority party, to give you votes to save your job.
[00:35:36] What does that do to the unity of the House republican conference? What does that do to the House Freedom caucus types, especially those who voted for McCarthy, you know, in the speakership routes, who voted not to vacate him, who voted for the republican nominees for speakers? Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan. I think tom era was at one point. Before they settle on Mike Johnson, what do they do now? Like, if Mike Johnson is propped up by democratic votes, what does the House Freedom caucus do?
[00:36:16] Like, do they just go the whole hog and resign or like resign with immediate effect? It's like, oh, wow, like, there's already a democratic speaker of the House, so let's just take it the full hog and take our ball and go home. Like, does that happen? Like, do they. And what would be more, like, a lot more likely to happen in that? Do they just constantly keep bringing up motions to vacate because they wouldn't consider Mike Johnson a truly republican speaker of the House? Negative partisanship. It is a fake.
[00:36:49] So what are they continually bringing up that motion to vacate? Because remember, after this foreign aid package gets through, there's, I'm not sure there's a lot that the House of Representatives would need to do as far as big legislative pieces come up. So do they just keep occupied this motion to vacate, privileged motions to vacate? And in that case, do you essentially try to force the Democrats to table those motions again and again and again until you might make the Democrats break? And it's like, we're tired of saving Mike Johnson. You go fight amongst yourself for another speaker because clearly y'all still can't get one to save your lives.
[00:37:33] And in that case, if Democrats keep shooting down these motions to vacate, tabling these motions to vacate with, you know, the majority of the republican conference.
[00:37:43] At what point do moderate Republicans come up to Hakeem Jeffries and like, okay, we're sick of this, we need a coalition government. And then you bring up someone, maybe a Brian Fitzpatrick, maybe someone who's not in the US House, which would probably be preferable for US House members, democratic and republican alike, to be a temporary speaker of the House up until the next Congress gets sworn in.
[00:38:09] Because speaker of the House does. It never has to be a US House member. Doesn't have to be like, it could be speaker of the House, could be the station manager at WVU, AFL.
[00:38:24] It could be literally anybody. Literally anybody.
[00:38:31] So in that case, would that have to happen?
[00:38:38] Or again, do Democrats get tired of saving Mike Johnson's choice job every week? And do they take their ball and go home, say, where no one, again, we don't want to save this guy anymore. This guy's a christian fundamentalist. This guy's part of this guy's a christian nationalist.
[00:38:59] Like doing that case, the ideological difference has become so great that Democrats like, we can't save this guy anymore. He's unsavable. Especially when these motions vacate, get filed over and over and over again as House conservatives try to find the way to a truly conservative speaker who will stand up for conservative values despite the fact you have to get bills to a Chuck Schumer controlled Senate and a Joe Biden controlled presidency.
[00:39:31] I'm not exactly sure what the strategy is here for conservatives. If you can't tell, like, you're not going to get a more conservative speaker of the House than Mike Johnson, who's the next likely person? Tom Emmer, probably the Republican from Minnesota. A lot more establishment friendly than Mike Johnson.
[00:39:51] Like you try Jim Jordan. And the more moderate, like, the more, you know, moderate tempered members of the House Republican Caucus balked at that. It's like, oh, we elevated Jim Jordan at the be speaker of the House. Democrats are going to run ads on that till November. They're going to bring up Jim Jordan sort of past of which I have talked about before on this month on this podcast.
[00:40:18] So you're kind of in a pickle here.
[00:40:21] And it's not because of the bills being in danger of not passing. These bills will pass these four bills for Ukraine, Israel, Indo Pacific and forced divestiture of byte dance. These are going to pass. These are going to be signing the law by the president. That's not the problem. The problem is, as it has been in this Congress, that the republican party in the US House is in complete disarray.
[00:40:48] Kevin McCarthy I believe was a far more skilled politician than Mike Johnson is.
[00:40:54] Kevin McCarthy wasn't able to keep that caucus together, and he did not make the overtures to Democrats necessary to save his job.
[00:41:03] Mike Johnson is absolutely hopeless in keeping his caucus united because a lot of the war hardline arch conservatives see any compromise as caving to democratic policies.
[00:41:26] And eventually the dam is going to break, as it has already started to do with this motion to vacate.
[00:41:35] And so you, it's not that he really made an overture to Democrats, it's that he gave Democrats what he wanted. The overture is in the policy. It's in the foreign aid package itself. That's Mike Johnson's overture to Democrats. Hey, here's a lot of what you wanted.
[00:41:57] And Democrats are expected to reward him. This motion is filed by saving a job.
[00:42:03] But what happens then is the interesting thing, especially when in the background of all of this, the presumptive republican nominee of the United States is facing trial for felony criminal charges.
[00:42:23] This could set up to be a late spring, like a spring of horrific news for the Republican Party because you could have, in one month, you could have House Republican disarray in May and then June, you could have Donald Trump be convicted of a felony.
[00:42:47] I don't care what the crime is. A felony is a felony.
[00:42:52] Of course, Donald Trump will probably be sentenced to probation or house arrest or whatever, like, probably not talking jail time. This is Donald, this is Teflon Donald we're talking about.
[00:43:04] But if Democrats not only have abortion and health care and all the other typical democratic issues to run on, if they can also run on, this other party is quite literally incapable of governing. But not only that, they can also put on their ads throughout the summer, that they can put in a political ad. Donald Trump is a convicted felony. Like, the polls have not been kind to Biden. They've been kinder to Biden in the past month than previous months, especially swing state polls, which have still favored Trump, except Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, for whatever reason.
[00:43:48] Like, if you have that, put that in people's ears, because, look, a majority of people do not want to vote for Donald Trump if he's convicted of a crime, especially if he's convicted of a felony.
[00:44:04] You put that in ads, you put that in the media headlines, that could be a political boon to democrats. Any political nightmare for Donald Trump, not only political nightmare, talk about the legal ones, talk about the legal fees.
[00:44:18] And also, you know, how is he going to campaign? He's not going to be able to campaign, is the other thing, because he's holed up in Manhattan in that trial. The judge isn't going to let him leave Manhattan.
[00:44:33] So add that to this House Republican debacle.
[00:44:39] Like you're going to check our instagram account. I'll have the vote map for you of which representatives voted against the rule, republican and democratic now. And you can see, you know, just how big this conservative dissent is.
[00:45:01] And, you know, when, you know, the graphic is released, I'll potentially also have a separate post, separate maps of the Ukraine, Israel in the Pacific and TikTok votes. And you could see there this conservative dissent against Mike Johnson.
[00:45:19] And it's like, yeah, maybe we don't know what the strategy is from conservatives, but as far as a lot of Marjorie Taylor Greene goes, strategy is not important. It's, how do I say this? It's punishing people for giving democrats a lot of what they want, even in a situation where that is necessary.
[00:45:46] That is the US House roundup for this week. Congratulations. You're going to hear a lot more about this in the news and on this podcast, probably.
[00:45:55] But on to Alabama because we had a, you know, the second congressional district had democratic and republican runoffs on Tuesday where on the democratic side, former DOJ official, Department of justice official Shamari figures defeated the Alabama state House minority leader Anthony Daniels by pretty comfortable margin, by over 20 points. The reason why that happened was look at Mobile County. Shamari figures as from mobile. Anthony Daniels lives in Huntsville, but is from midway out in Bullock county in the east of the district. You know what the margin Shamari figures got in mobile was? He got 92% of 92%, 2% of the vote.
[00:46:41] Those are near, quite literally near Assad margins. I'm not even joking.
[00:46:48] Like, Mobile county gave Shamori figures his margin of victory. Like, if Mobile county wasn't in the district, Anthony Daniels could have won. But Mobile county is in the district. It backs a bunch, especially when Shimori figures is narrowly winning Montgomery county. It's kind of curtains for Anthony Daniels there because he kind of needed to win it convincingly and he lost it narrowly. Not great.
[00:47:13] And facing Shimari figures on the republican side is Caroline Dobson. She is a real estate lawyer and a farmer from Beatrice, Alabama, in Monroe county. And she defeated state Senator Dick Brubaker. Now this had a lot more of an ideological bent to it than figures in Daniels did. Dick Brubaker, who's a state senator for, you know, from Pike Road in east Montgomery county, he also represents Elmore county, too. He styled himself as a Reagan Republican, you know, sort of the good governance style and that's great and all, but you were running as a Republican in Alabama.
[00:47:54] State Senator Brubaker. I don't know what the strategy was, because you're going up against someone who's aligned herself with the MAGA movement, especially amongst white, rural voters in the middle of that district. You're done, buddy. Like, especially, like, yeah, you won Montgomery county, but two to one, congratulations. You only won one other county. It was, like, by 15 votes. Good job. You lost everything else, and you lost convincingly to Caroline Dobson.
[00:48:22] Great news for Democrats, because she's seen as the weaker of the two republican candidates.
[00:48:27] And great news for shamaria figures he can run up the margins and mobile in Montgomery as much as he wants.
[00:48:34] And let's be completely honest, I know Republicans think they can invest in Alabama second, considering it got very close in 2022, and I think Kiv won the current version of the district. But, yeah, this ain't a midterm turnout environment. Republicans like, I'm gonna just make this claim straight up. You're not winning the second district. You're not. It's not happening.
[00:49:00] If you spend money in Alabama, the second district, that's just the way. That's the waste of your money. That's money that could probably be spent to help Bernie Moreno. He kind of needs the help, considering he's getting hopelessly outraged by Sherrod BrOWN right now.
[00:49:17] You know, try to save your money for, you know, to get Bernie Moreno over the line like he did for JD Vance against Tim Ryan two years ago. That's just my advice.
[00:49:28] And nothing rams home this point more than in the Biden. By 14 or so district, Democrats outperformed that in the combined primary vote in Alabama's second congressional district. Democrats usually never do this, you know, except for in presidential primaries, where the democratic primary, presidential primary is the only competitive primary on the ballot that is 2020.
[00:49:59] Like, you don't see Democrats not only outvote Republicans, but outperform the presidential margin. That's the important thing, because Democrats outvoted Republicans by over 18 percentage points in that district.
[00:50:14] Like, you want to talk to me about low black voter turnout? You want to talk to me about, oh, black voters are going to swing 10, 15, 20 points to the right, like some of the polls have been saying. That's utter nonsense. Utter, complete nonsense. It didn't happen for Republicans in that state house district in Michigan, you know, with make with Warren City and parts of Detroit, the Detroit margins for Democrats are just like they've always been. Like, 96 to 497 to three. Like, it didn't happen there. It most definitely did not happen in the second congressional district either.
[00:50:55] Like, what are y'all playing at?
[00:50:58] Like, especially, like, I know mobile Montgomery are in it. Montgomery is swinging, healthy left. The barzim, mobile are in it are, you know, black populations and a lot of, like, downtown Mobil and in Pritchard and a lot of left swinging suburbs as well. Granted, that's great. What about the rest of that district? Washington county all the way to Russell county, from Chatham to Phoenix City?
[00:51:23] Do you have an explanation for that? Republicans, what makes you think you're going to win Alabama's second congressional district in 2024? The only way you're doing that is if West Allen is successful in kicking Joe Biden off the ballot.
[00:51:37] Remember I talked about that last week?
[00:51:41] Like, that is the only way. And even then, it still might not work.
[00:51:49] Like, I really, I understand the hubris.
[00:51:57] It's like, oh, we think we can hold this. Oh, we think we can beat in House district ten again, even though state House District ten again, even though it's going to vote for Joe Biden by convincing margin in November, and we already lost it by 25 points. And nationally, you know, a nationalized state House special election in a district that's like 50% bachelor's degrees or something, like, oh, we think we compete there in 2026. Yeah, and I can build a bridge in Tuscaloosa all by myself. And no, it's not happening. So I understand it's a little weird for the Alabama Republicans that they are mostly playing defense now and they're starting to lose their grip a little bit. Still got supermajorities, don't get me wrong. Still a good. Still is a good generation to be an Alabama Republican, but it ain't as good as it was back in 2020.
[00:52:48] Democrats are starting to play offense and Democrats are starting to win.
[00:52:52] I don't know how the Republicans are going to respond to that.
[00:52:57] Like, if they continue to have that hubris, then, I mean, good on them, but you're just going to waste more money, you know, defending the districts that you recently had, but you lost trying to get those back. You're going to lose them convincingly. And, oh, all of a sudden, Democrats are going to flip Cynthia Albans district here in Tuscaloosa for whatever reason. Oh, Democrats flipped another state house district in Huntsville. Oh, they flipped two state senate districts and not its fault. Oh, they flipped a sales district in Hoover.
[00:53:28] Like Alabama. Republicans, be warned if you don't understand where the Democrats have a potentiality to play offense, you're gonna get burned.
[00:53:43] That's the lesson you got to learn with Alabama. Second, learn when to cut your losses.
[00:53:49] I know it's the only semi competitive race you have there, but, like, maybe spend money to flip Moringo county red and keep Madison county red. Just. Just a thought for me. Just a thought for me.
[00:54:04] Just saying.
[00:54:07] I will end this episode not by making a 420 joke. None of those today. I understand. National 420 day.
[00:54:17] Great.
[00:54:18] If you're listening to this while, well, you know, let's just say a little bit. I don't know if I. I don't know if I can say it, but if you're watching this while a little bit high, then, look, we ain't at gonna judge you, but none of. None of those jokes, all right, we're gonna end it off on a union election. Usually it wouldn't cover these, but this one's important because on Friday, the UAWD United Auto workers, they've been in the news a lot recently. We've covered them before. What? Their big strike up in Michigan, in the Midwest.
[00:55:01] But they've come down south in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is, ironically, it's pretty close to where our station manager is from.
[00:55:14] Workers of that Volkswagen plant voted on whether to join the UAW, and the UAW won convincingly. Like, probably. I think it was like, what? Well over 70% of the vote, you know, voted to join the union. It was 73% yes, 27% no. It was a ginormous landslide for the UAW.
[00:55:38] And what's so significant about this is that the south is notoriously one of the most anti union places. You have all the bunch of these right to work laws. You know, you had all these southern governors write a joint letter warning against unity organizing. Volkswagen itself responded, responded to the wins. The UAW got up in Michigan by instituting smaller pay rises for their workers, ostensibly to prevent them from unionizing and trying to fight for better than what Volkswagen was giving them.
[00:56:10] Workers still overwhelmingly wanted to join that union.
[00:56:14] And it's the first, I believe, UAW win in the south in decades.
[00:56:20] Like, absolutely massive win for UAW. The big implications here I could talk about, oh, Sean Fain is buddy buddy with Joe Biden and, you know, all this sort of union stuff. Joe Biden wants to be a pro union president. Koody actually get a swing left in union households. I could talk about that. But there's something going on back home, back here in Tuscaloosa county. Right up advance. So that Mercedes Benz plant, because UAW is targeting that plant, too.
[00:56:51] Workers have been assigned union cards and all that stuff. They've got enough support there. Believe the majority of workers there sign union cards, whatever. There's going to be union elections after we leave UA in the middle of May, like, think 13th to 17th or something, there's going to be a union election, and it's going to be one of the more closely watched union elections of the 2020s.
[00:57:15] Because UAW has been doing some organizing here in Tuscaloosa, too, up at the ZF plant recently, if you remember, like, they went on strike for a while. The UAW can get a win in Alabama, one of the most notoriously anti union states in America.
[00:57:41] Do you know how massive a win that would be?
[00:57:45] Like, oh, my lord.
[00:57:48] Like, especially after the momentum of that Chattanooga landslide, UAW could be inspired to go full bore with this.
[00:58:01] And, you know, it could be the biggest moment for labor unions in the south in decades, in, like, over a century even.
[00:58:17] That's how big a moment this could be for not just UAW, but what about other unions? Workers maybe unionized with other unions? Maybe stores might want to get unionized.
[00:58:35] Would be probably the biggest Alabama story of the month, provided there is not another, you know, abortion, a horror story regarding an abortion ban or IVF or whatever, those things could still very well happen. It is Alabama, or some other thing just happened. Remember, there was a story, you know, about, oh, the Alabama Department of Corrections, UAB is harvesting prisoners, organs. Like, that story has flown under the radar as well. And I wanted to mention that because just some example of how crazy Alabama stories can get, because this is Alabama.
[00:59:13] And, like, as soon as, like, as soon as, like, the. Yeah, as soon as that Saturday that, you know, I leave here to go back home. Like, there's just gonna be some absolutely wild story that we're gonna. That comes up about Alabama, that we're invariably going to have to post on the pulse of the nation's instagram.
[00:59:32] But until then, we are still in April. Dead week is coming up.
[00:59:38] It's time to prepare for finals. It's time to prepare another episode of Pulse of the Nation. Thank y'all for listening to us. We will be back next week because this is the pulse of the nation.
[00:59:58] 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, WVUaFM, Tuscaloosa.
