TRANSCRIPT
Catalina Florez:
Jared Mondshine, thank you for joining me. So why does Matt Gaetz wield so much power?
Jared Mondshine:
When Speaker McCarthy was elected speaker, it was after 15 votes and his Republican caucus in the house just could not really get to any final decision until that 15th vote that he would be the speaker. Now, for him to win that speakership, he had to agree to a number of demands by members of the right side of the Republican Party, including Matt Gaetz. And one of those agreements was that only one of the members could trigger a vote to basically have a house wide vote to get rid of McCarthy. And that's exactly what Gaetz did after speaking, McCarthy basically got more democratic votes than Republican votes in the budget agreement earlier this week.
Catalina Florez:
And then, so how will this affect the running of the government?
Jared Mondshine:
It really is going to be one more episode in this soap opera of congressional politics in America right now. So the rest of congressional work largely grinds to a halt until they do decide on their next speaker. Right now they have an interim speaker, but that speaker is not able to do anything that a fully elected speaker can do. So essentially they're just trying, the Republicans in Congress in particular are just trying to finally decide who they want to represent themselves. And hopefully in their case, that will then be the end of this saga and they can get onto congressional business, including voting on the next budget cliff, which is in just a few weeks away mid-November.
Catalina Florez:
It's such an important role. What happens next?
Jared Mondshine:
So in mid-November is when that's the end of the continuing resolution, which then Speaker McCarthy got over the line using those democratic votes I mentioned earlier. That is just a continuing resolution where they just continue spending as it is largely for 45 days, but then there's yet another cliff in mid-November. At the same time that the US will be hosting APEC, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering in the us, the congressional spending will again have the budget will run out. That's the deadline, and they need to come to an agreement. Again. Now given we're 40 something days away from that cliff. But given the state of where the Republican party is and the fact that they still don't know who the next speaker will be, it's looking like that budget cliff is going to be even harder to navigate than this one they just dealt with.
Catalina Florez:
So really this was a bit of a shock move from Kevin McCarthy, wasn't it Jared?
Jared Mondshine:
It really was. When you look at his predecessors for Speaker of the House, he did not come to the position with a large legislative history. If you look at the prior speakers, whether it be Nancy Pelosi and her efforts on human rights in China or healthcare or Boehner on education, or Paul Ryan on taxes, the prior speakers in the last 10 years or so have all come with an agenda of some sort of legislative agenda. He did not. Kevin McCarthy came as someone who just was palatable to the MAGA Republicans and the mainstream Republicans. So him deciding to put aside his political ambitions and to face the wrath of people like Matt Gaetz and prioritise keeping government running was a surprise to many, including many Democrats who did not see this stock coming. But in the end, that's 45 more days of the government running instead of a shutdown with no end in sight.
Catalina Florez:
Quite selfless then you would say,
Jared Mondshine:
You could say so definitely.
Catalina Florez:
It sounds like his fate was almost sealed when he agreed to that condition from Matt Gaetz. Is that fair to say?
Jared Mondshine:
It's unclear. Some of his agreement for coming to the speaker position were public, some of 'em were not, and the ones that was public was yes, that one vote trigger for a house-wide vote on his being removed from his position. But there were other agreements that Matt Gaetz and others have spoken about that we don’t know in terms of spending and whatnot. They spoke about him breaking promises. We're not really sure the full extent of all the promises that McCarthy made, but it is very clear that Matt Gaetz and other MA republicans were not happy with him.
Catalina Florez:
Okay. Alright. Writing was on the walls perhaps. Thank you. Jared Mondshine. Thank you for your time.
Jared Mondshine:
My pleasure.
