New Congress “A Feud Between Two Very Extreme GOP Groups”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, as we said, the parallels with the United States are glaring and obvious. Two years since its own pro-Trump insurrection that shook American democracy to its core, Congress is now finally getting down to business after a chaotic scramble to elect a speaker. Susan Glasser, co-author of “The Divider, Trump in the White House”, discusses the abiding political discord with Michel Martin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you, Christiane. Susan Glasser, thank you so much for joining us once again.

SUSAN GLASSER, CO-AUTHOR, “THE DIVIDER: TRUMP IN THE WHITE HOUSE” AND STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: It’s great to be with you.

MARTIN: As I think most people would know, Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who has wanted to be speaker for years, finally secured the gavel on the 15th attempt in the early hours of Saturday morning. It was the longest series of inconclusive ballots since the civil war era. This has been described as, you know, chaos, shambolic, embarrassing, you know, all of this. But a couple of days later, and Republicans passed a series of rules changes, only one dissenting Republican, and only one person not voting. So, when you put all that together, what does it tell you?

GLASSER: Well, first of all it tells you that, you know, we are about to see what was the real price that Kevin McCarthy had to pay in order to win the speakership and shut down 20 dissidents over the course of a week. What is remarkable, right, is that this is a Republican Party divided. This is the story about a Republican Party that did not win the victory it thought it was going to win in November. It ended up with this very narrow majority. And even in the weeks and weeks since then, McCarthy was not able to pin down the victory. But, you know, you see situation here, and house rules allow it, where you have 10 percent of the Republican conference that basically was able to bring the body to a halt. As you put it, a shambolic, embarrassing, exhausting halt for days and days and days.

MARTIN: From what we actually know, what do you think are some of the most significant concessions that were made to secure the speakership for Mr. McCarthy? And the rules changes that were adopted by the full body by — well, the Republicans, anyway, the majority — the overwhelming majority of Republicans in the wake of that?

GLASSER: Yes, I think one of the concerns in the aftermath of this fight is that the likelihood, the possibility of government shutdown, of refusal by Republicans on the hill to extend the debt ceiling. That the possibility of both of those things went way up. Now, there is a big debate again about what exactly McCarthy agreed to, but he did appear to agree to hold spending at previous 2022 levels. That has caused defense stocks to plunge in the last few days. There is a concern that even in the middle of the U.S. funding of Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion, a moment of, you know, great geopolitical peril, and broadly speaking, that has been supported by bipartisan majorities. But there is this loud and growing faction of the House Republicans, the sort of very pro-Trump Republicans, who don’t support continued aid to Ukraine at those levels. And so, there is a big question about whether defense spending is going to take a hit. Whether the support for Ukraine is going to take a hit. Whether the ongoing build-up in U.S. efforts to support Taiwan at a moment when China appears to be threatening the status of Taiwan, far more so than it has in the past. So, there are some potential geopolitical consequences to this as well as, I think, the big short-term fear, which is what happens the next time the U.S. hits its debt ceiling and Congress needs to raise it. And I would point out that, you know, regular order, the appropriations process that you noted, as being like job number one for Congress, right? That is what the constitution spells out. That has broken down over the last couple of decades already in ways that are just astonishing. When I was a young reporter on Capitol Hill, those Appropriations Bills, that was the meat and potatoes work of Congress. Here’s a mind-blowing statistic for you. This is in “The New York Times”, Carl Hulse of the — the other day. There are 12 annual Appropriations Bills. Six of them went through the house last year. Do you know how many actually made it to the Senate floor and were passed into law? Zero. Zero. The senate considered zero Appropriations Bills. And so, in this gridlock they are already ramming them altogether into these gigantic omnibus spending bills. That already signified a Congress that is basically unable to function on some of its core responsibilities.

MARTIN: Is there any way that the demands that they made could improve the functioning of the institution? I mean, obviously, a lot of attention has been focused on one member can call to vacate the chair, in essence, to call for there to be the — call for the speaker to have to step down. So, is there any way in which you think that the things that demand, and even if in the way they demanded it seems kind of crazy and out the box could actually improve the function within the institution?

GLASSER: Yes, I think that’s a good question. I’m glad you brought up that motion to vacate the chair though. That is – you know, in many respects, the most self-crippling of the concessions that Kevin McCarthy made because it what — what it means is that just one individual, a very small group, could bring down his speakership and wield that threat over him at any time. And I think that that’s an example of why this has developed in the way that it has. The same thing would apply in some respects to the amendment process. Actually, House Democrats, when they took back control of Congress way back in 2007, and Nancy Pelosi first became speaker, they had a similar house rules package actually, in terms of amendments and decided that they were going to allow more amendments on the floor. What happened is that Republicans tied up the floor with a series of showy amendments and made it impossible to actually proceed and get the basic work of the House done. So, they changed that rule back. And that, I think, is a good example. Right now, the basic issue is that Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans don’t have a functional governing majority in the House. They have two narrow of a majority and two divided of a Republican conference. And so, any — very, very small rump group of individuals who are determined, you know, to bring it to a halt can do so. And I — you know, this is the balance that they’re seeking to strike between actually getting their work done and being able to govern the House to reflect the majority — well, at least the majority party, versus some of the more transparency, the arguments. It’s hard to argue on its phase that they shouldn’t have time to read the bill, right? Obviously, that is a pretty basic appealing thing but, you know, it’s basically lurching from one crisis to another, is how I would describe the house in modern times.

MARTIN: What do the various groups that actually make up the Republican majority want right now? People have used various names to describe them like bomb throwers, fringe, ultra MAGA, et cetera. But at their core, who are the — what are the different groups? And what does each of them want?

GLASSER: Well, first of all, I do think that primarily it’s not an ideological rift so much as a political and stylistic and tactical one. I do think that that’s an important observation. The House Republican Conference has transformed in recent years. Kevin McCarthy has transformed. So, people could come away, I think, with a mistaken impression that it’s sort of, you know, Republican establishments and moderates versus, you know, a kind of hard-core, far-right, conservative extreme. And I think that that overemphasizes the role of ideology considering that the vast majority of the House Republican Conference, even two years ago, supported Donald Trump’s tax and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, right. So, think of it that way. You know, it’s not — it’s really a split between two groups that all have supported Trump in his presidency and in his election denial and post presidency. So, that’s one thing. There are also all extremely conservative by modern standards. Again, it’s not your grandfather’s Republican Party. So, that’s one important observation. You know, I do think that it’s also reflecting of an interesting split in the House Freedom Caucus, which has become, you know, in many ways kind of the leading edge of far-right agitation. And that the confrontational style of performative, you know, budget cutting politics since the Tea Party Movement really in 2010. Then the creation of the Freedom Caucus in 2015. Then, as you know, they became sort of the hard-core cheering squad for Donald Trump throughout his presidency. Well, they ended up on both sides of this speaker fight. So, you had Matt Gaetz who came to fame as a, you know, kind of public defender of Donald Trump as a young Florida congressman. You had him and Lauren Boebert, and some of the other Freedom Caucus members as the dissenters. But you also had some of the founders like Jim Jordan supporting Kevin McCarthy. Even someone who as once dismissed as way out there on the Republican fringe, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former QAnon adherent. She was by McCarthy side on the floor through much of this. As now been promised a seat on committees that Democrats through her off of because of extreme statements. And so, it’s really a feud between two very extreme Republican groups, I would say, at least by historical standards and what the Republican Party was.

MARTIN: At the core of it though, what do they want? The overwhelming majority of the Republicans Caucus, the Republicans voted for this rules package that people consider sort of extreme and — that people have complained about in the proceeding days, but they almost entirely voted for it. So, what’s the conclusion we can draw from it that they are comfortable with the government doing very little, I guess?

GLASSER: The point is that — basically, that is a philosophy ascribed to across the board by these Republicans. There are some disagreements about how far to go. And you could make the argument that the dissenters to McCarthy want even more drastic cuts. But I would say that that basically is the point of view of the majority of the House Republican Conference at this point, and therefore the majority of the majority that subscribes to these views. That it’s not an ideological or philosophical argument. They have become the institutionalized party of anti-government in the government. The difference is largely about taxes. You say, what do they want? You know what they want? They want to be on TV. They want to talk. They want us to talk about them. They want, you know, to exist in this world of weaponizing, almost any issue that’s in the news. We haven’t talked about it, but of course they want to use the powers of Congress, the subpoena power and the committee power to have investigations. There was this really telling moment, I thought, in the middle of the speaker fight when one of the Republican members, Congress was on television talking about it, and he said, you know, I’m so angry about this, you know, delay in getting organized in the new Congress. You know, the anchor said, well, why? You know, what do you want to do? And he said, well, it’s time for us to get to work. Holding Hunter Biden accountable. And, you know, I think that’s just a revealing moment. That is what they hope to do with this House platform. Because as you pointed out, there is a Democratic Senate, there is a Democratic President. It’s not really going to be a period of great legislative accomplishments for the Republicans. It’s going to be a period to use the House, first of all to obstruct, you know, part of the Democratic agenda. And also, to serve as a showcase for attacking the White House, for attacking the Democrats, and for getting on TV.

MARTIN: So, what do the Democrats do through all of this? I mean, the Democrats have demonstrated, at least over the last couple of days, tremendous unity. They continued to, you know, vote consistently for their candidate for speaker, who’s now the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Just a couple of years ago, the story was, you know, whether the so-called progressive versus the moderates within the Democratic Party were at odds. And that doesn’t seem to be the story anymore. But what is the story with the Democrats? How do you see it?

GLASSER: Well, look, in the House, I think, they were clearly enjoying this moment of disarray and dysfunction among their rivals. I mean, you know, the word schadenfreude made a big appearance throughout the week. And if you have to go into the minority, I suppose, Democrats found this to be a relatively enjoyable spectacle. A reminder of the divisions of their opponents. In some ways, it’s easier to be in the opposition right? You know, the — being opposed to Donald Trump, being opposed to, “Extremists” is kind of an easier political play in many respects. And so, for Democrats, I think they expect to use the excesses that they will identify among Republicans in the next two years as a foil and as a political opportunity to showcase their political argument headed into 2024 about why Republicans are not and should not be trusted as a governing majority in the country.

MARTIN: And there’s another, sort of, element to this story. Just recently, it has been discovered that there were — it’s been described as a small number of classified documents that were found in Mr. Biden’s office when he was vice president, he’s the — the office of the former vice president. We are told that these were immediately turned over to the national archives after their presence was discovered. And now, the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, has appointed a U.S. attorney, who was previously appointed by President Trump, to kind of look into the whole matter. I don’t know what is in these documents. I don’t know if you do. But, of course, this is now has become a story. Tell us a little bit more about that. I mean, how significant do you think that is?

GLASSER: Well, look, we are just learning, obviously, about these new reports of Biden classified documents being turned over to the government. The Justice Department looking into them. But certainly, as a political matter, you instantly saw the new Republican majority in the House — — seizing upon this to discredit the ongoing criminal investigation involving a large number, something like 300 classified documents that have been found at Mar-a-Lago. Trump was reluctant to turn those over, a month’s long standoff is what ultimately led to that investigation. So, a very different fact set as far as what we know right now. But politically speaking, it seems like it was just handed to Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill as an opportunity to discredit any charges that might come out of the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

MARTIN: I keep going back to my original question here, which is, what’s the end goal here? Is there sort of any overarching philosophy here of what the goal is?

GLASSER: The goal is politics, politics, politics. The goal is winning. The goal is winning.

MARTIN: Susan Glasser, thank you so much for joining us and sharing these insights with us today.

GLASSER: Thank you so much for having me.