Hello and welcome to the board podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller, a couple of notes. It is little mama's birthday. She's seven today. Happy birthday, girl. I can't believe she's seven. We're going out for sushi tonight. Also, at the end of the pod, I'm going to share a little bit about the victims of the tragedy and no less a stick around for that. And we are taping this now as the speaker boat is taking place on the house floor. So we're going to save that discussion towards the back end of the show.
Hopefully we'll have as much up to date info as possible for you with that. Our guest today author of this will not pass. Those oppression book title columnist for Politico and fellow New Orleans lover and transplant. Jonathan Martin. How you doing man? Thanks. Good to see you man. I wanted to do a little Nola talk to start. We were together yesterday at the Sugar Bowl and you know the city is just not going to get beaten by this. The city's going to move forward but I'm wondering what your
what your feelings were on New Year's Night. I know you were down here and what your thoughts are about kind of the path forward.
Yeah, Betsy and I were in the quarter, I knew yours Eve, and we actually got dropped off in an Uber on Canal Street near the corner of Canal and Bourbon because they weren't letting cars down into the quarter earlier in the evening, or frankly, any time in the evening. So look, it literally, as Joe Biden would say, he gets close to home. This is our home. And it's not only our home, it is, I think, the most special city in America. And part of that,
Singularity is, it's constant heartbreak. When you sign up for New Orleans, you sign up for all the calories, all the good times, all the music, the bump, the football, the body grows, my native wife calls it. But you also sign up for the inevitable, which is this is going to break your heart.
And through no fault of its own this time, but that's that is the nature of the city and it always has been. And I think it always will be. But to your first point, Tim, it's also a resilient place. Yeah, it breaks your heart. But then you have a second line. It's the only city in the world where people have funerals that are celebrations, not just like, you know, actual literal celebrations out in the street. And so that that's part of the woman bus cycle that is New Orleans.
Yeah, that was a great video of Glenn David Andrews, who's a famous brass musician down here. I've got to know a little bit. I'll put it in the show now. It's pretty beautiful. Him kind of leading a second line through the quarter yesterday. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the political implications. There was a minute there where the Republicans wanted to make this about the border, which was, you know,
Not true, fabricated. The guy was born in Texas. There's a minute there where people thought maybe there was a coordinated thing with what was going on in Nevada. I guess we don't know for sure. That's not the case. They were both veterans and there's some overlap, but there's no additional evidence of that. The Republicans on the Hill are going to be talking about how this is some evidence that they need to move fast on getting the national security team confirmed, Cash Patel. Are there any meaningful political implications to this in your mind?
Yeah, but I think they're all local. I mean, I think that the national or global implications are pretty well known at this point. I mean, there are people who get radicalized, sadly, on a variety of levels and, you know, obviously, radical islamas, certainly one of them that folks get radicalized on in this country, other parts of the world. And clearly,
This person fell captive to that and decided to ruin lives because of his own selfishness and his own his own his own issues. But I think that the issues politically in terms of moving ahead are much more about the local marriage, which is security and safety in and around the French quarter. And that's the debate that I think is totally legit. And I think should be happening right now, which is this is basically like adult Disney, right? And
people come all over the world for a gold Disney in that that that little square square mile or so and um
How do you make it so it can keep the tax dollars flowing and keep businesses open and folks working? But also, Tim, so that there's a level of safety and reassurance and that people don't get scared off, whether it's Super Bowl. And by the way, your listeners should know Super Bowl is coming to New Orleans next month. It's going to be a marquee event, you know, Marty Graw, St. Patrick's Day, et cetera, et cetera. How do you keep it safe? And I think that is the breaking debate before it happens.
Yeah. Well, this isn't a NOLA local podcast, so we can get into the mayor's problems here. But the mayor was not well received at the Sugar Bowl yesterday. And this is part of the challenge we have. We have a lame duck mayor who's effectively been checked out of office for some time now and now her final year.
and clearly that that's part of the challenge. You have a, you know, Tim, like a lot of places, a very progressive blue city and a very red state. And so you've got inherent tensions between state and city government as well. But whatever, there's no excuse. New Orleans is the golden goose for Louisiana. For the entire Gulf Coast, it's got to be safe. It's got to be secure. People have to come there and feel safe doing so. They got to figure it out. No excuses.
One more local item before we get to move on to your bread and butter. One of our senators, John Kennedy, is kind of a clown. And I wanted to play for you a couple of clips from him. The first is him on Fox News after the tragedy. And the second is him at a press conference bullying into the podium. Let's listen to both. Just a final question here for not just people in Louisiana, they're watching, but people coast to coast that are watching tonight.
Are you getting the sense that there's any threat of any other potential attacks tonight on any other major cities? I can't answer that. I can, but I won't. Can I say something? Tell me who you're with. WSU. WSU. Okay, and CBS. NBC's over here on the right. Oh, that's an unusual position.
You wouldn't. Eric Swellwell said, this may shock you, but I was on an FBI briefing call this morning with Senator John Kennedy and he acted like a grown up and asked real questions when the cameras aren't on. Most of these MAGA pro wrestlers actually act normal. I mean, that's the rub here, right? And this guy was a Democrat not that long ago. And this is all just a clown show.
He has also a sort of gilded education background, the likes that would make Donald Trump's swoon. In fact, it did make Donald Trump's swoon. Just 10 second digression. One of my favorite Louisiana political memories was being at a Trump rally for the fellow who lost Governor John Bell Edwards in 2019, Tim. And Trump stands up outside of Shreveport in North Louisiana.
along with new Orleans and ticks off kennedy's resume and of course kennedy's so embarrassed he doesn't want to folks up there oxford where is your parish hearing about his oxford category exactly it was quite the moment. The listeners were like is that all miss i don't know i don't know kennedy was.
Yeah, right. Exactly. He's an LSU man. I know Oxford has in the UK across the pond. No, Kennedy's playing a part. He does this stick to get on cable and, you know, and I guess mission accomplished for him. But yeah, in like the literal hours after a terrorist event and the biggest city in your state, you would think that one of your two senators would express a level of sobriety and seriousness beyond just doing standard, you know, leg horn talking points stick.
but that's what Kennedy is, that's what he does. So I can't say I was surprised, but yeah, even for Kennedy, Tim, in the moment, it was jarring. We're talking seven, eight hours after the actual incident here, New Year's Day, people are stunned, and he's making a joke about, I think, local TV affiliates too, by the way, on the right, uh-huh, you wouldn't understand. It's just so inappropriate, and so listening- Well, I'm like, Lauren, so Don, I'll standing now that you have- Yeah, and so missing the moment.
when your local TV correspondents are trying to get reliable information and guidance for their viewers, for a firm, for their lives. And he's doing GOP Friars Club shtick. I thought we're really disappointed, but not surprised. Let's talk about the demos for a minute. In your column, I guess it was last week, you had center shots from the line we've had on. Smart guy and very incisive online in kind of a good way, right? That is sort of in touch with what is happening.
Like JD Vance level online. Yeah, maybe not in a good way, actually, if you put it like that. Maybe a hair to online, but you need to find a balance, right? You don't want to have the decrepit democratic leadership that has no idea what's actually going on in the world. But you also don't want to have somebody's brains broken by the internet.
So shots is maybe trying to find a balanced spot there. There are a lot of interesting things about the interview. The thing that jumped out in the discussion was kind of his criticism about Democrats rhetoric and the words that they use, words like centering. So talk about that. I mean, is that real? I guess there's some elements like, yeah, I agree with that. A lot of Dems use words that people don't use at the pub. On the other hand, like, did they really lose because people are talking about centering? What do you think was the point he was trying to make? Yeah, the only center that we want to hear about is the person snapping the ball, right?
one of the big man Nicole Yokech. Oh, there you go. Okay. Well, we can do all the basketball sort of loft at center, I guess, but it's a different pot for a different day. It's always easier when you lose to blame the message.
and the optics and the kind of like surround sound rather than like the main event, right? I think it's hard for politicians to say, our substance, our principles are actually misguided. We got to like change our policies instead of just like, well, if we just communicate it a little differently, it's
always easier to fine-tune messaging than it is to have a really hard conversation about substance and kind of what you stand for. And I think like that's part of the Democrats' challenge is that they'd rather talk about, you know, like the campus vocabulary, which I do think is a challenge, but to your point, Tim, of course, that's not the main event. There are more structural challenges.
they have. But when you're Brian shots and you one day want to be Senate Democratic leader, like you don't want to pick sides between left and center in the food fight internally because you want to get all those, you know, whatever it is with me.
are 51 or 52 or 49 whenever they're there, you know, a majority of them are already when he is running for leadership. So he's being careful about the substance. There's no question about it. I'm with you. I think there's much more fundamental issues here beyond just the word choices. But shots to his credit does have some interesting things to say to about Tim, the role of interest groups in DC and sort of national politics. You hear this privately from Democrats, so often.
The elected officials are so petrified of the so-called groups. It's the closest thing, I think, to the aversion of Trump and Trump's Twitter account, which is we don't want to get crosswise with the groups. The groups are going to get mad at us. And it's basically liberal interest groups, some on the environment, some on abortion, others on race.
and they have a kind of catechism, and a lot of Democrats don't want to anger them. But here's the rub. A lot of those groups are effectively run by people under the age of 40, who are not reflective of the electorate at large, not even reflective of the Democratic primary electorate at large, and look no further than the 2020 Democratic primary. If you were to have taken a poll of those folks in the groups, Joe Biden would have gotten like,
You know, anti Saddam Hussein level numbers. I do percent. It depends which groups you count. Does the third way count as a group? Because if so, who might have gotten a percentage? War would have been like the runaway winner with that demographic. And it's just not reflective of the country and even reflective of the modern Democratic Party.
Yeah, I want to have Quentin Folks on his deputy campaign manager of a broader, for Harris to have a broader combo about this. Yeah, you should. He said something. He's a sharp guy. He's actually pretty. Yeah, he is. He said something interesting in that interview with Pfeiffer on positive America, where he was like, I'd forgive if he was saying the groups in specific, but he was talking about kind of the democratic, you know, interests around the campaign and how they just don't let the candidates have any leash. You know, and he gave some example about how they put out an ad with a curse word in it.
And they spent all day dealing with BS from people calling into complaint or they put it in a different video. They had something that offended some interest group, you had to deal with the management. And as long as it's just like the Republicans don't have to deal with this.
You know, like they can put whatever the fuck they want in their TV ads. It doesn't have to be true. It doesn't have to be in line with the values of the ways. I mean, just look at how weak the pro-life groups got. You know, like they didn't they didn't show any muscle and trying to bully Trump as he tried to run away from the abortion issue because they all knew that like letting him run away from these toxic abortion positions was net good for getting to victory and that there's an imbalance there that
that maybe is not the fundamental reason why Democrats lost, but contributes a little bit to their weak campaigns. And we're talking about a campaign in which, boy, if ever there was a moment that the candidate had running room to say or do whatever he or she wanted,
and to sort of like run from those groups and run toward the center. This was it. I'm Democrats from the DSA to the, you know, the DLC war, like whatever man, just win, baby, the Al Davis credo. And I wrote this column, I mean, shameless plug, you're in October of like, Kamala Harris, you've got a maximum latitude, take advantage of it.
Maybe some of the groups would have like, you know, like muttered on background or even looking private phone calls with the campaign. But so what? They just wanted to beat Trump so bad. That was the only mission. And I still puzzled to this day why she didn't do it further to reassure the center about how she'd govern, given the latitude she had to.
I wondered how you kind of analyze the other, you know, the conversations you're having privately with Dems as far as they are, you know, trying to analyze where the problems are. And you've got Chris Murphy out there talking about, you know, how this should be more populist economics. Federman seems to be kind of sticking out a spot of, you know, maybe they're, they can moderate on some cultural issues, shots that we've mentioned talking about the rhetoric.
Like there are other, you know, theories. I would put JD Pritzker in this category of kind of the full resistance. Yeah. So, so, yeah. How do you kind of break it down and where are the, where are you since the winds are blowing? Well, the winds are definitely not blowing toward full resistance, which is so markedly different from this period, the interregnum after 2016, as you know, was dramatically different than non-democrats were like to the barricades and now Democrats are more like to the bar. Same.
you know, drown their sorrows or like, you know, watch the, watch the football or, you know, like not think about this at all. And those who are still in the game, you know, Tim, I think you raised an important point. There's differences. Like J.V. Pritzker, I think clearly wants to take the mantle of someone who's going to be a leader of the resistance in a way that other governors like Josh Shapiro, Westmore certainly are not doing that.
that, you know, that they are wanting to either, you know, obviously like work with Trump when they can. I was so struck by, she's not a national figure, but like Muriel Bowser, mayor of DC, Tim, like meets with Trump and afterwards, as like we found some, you know, common ground and it's like,
It's pretty remarkable this moment where you go from calling him a fascist and wouldn't be authoritarian. We want federal employees back in the office five days a week too, and we're going to fill up that empty space on Independence Avenue. I think Democrats are really struggling with how to deal with him now. Tim, in large part because of
It wasn't a fluke, right? The country knew what they were getting. They voted for him and he won not just the electoral college, cleanly. He won the popular vote too. I have Democrats are struggling with that and they haven't figured it out yet. And I think the split that we'll see in calendar year 25 is going to be along the lines of those who say, once he does start doing some of the things he talked about, those who say, boom, back to the barricades for resistance and those who say, well, some of this stuff is kind of popular. How do we like oppose them at times and
maybe like find some areas to compromise at times and hell.
If we got to like name a tunnel or a bridge after Trump to get the money for it, like we'll do that too. I mean, I have talked to like Democrats privately who are pretty candid about that. Like, all right, ma'am, this guy doesn't believe in anything, but he cares about his vanity and his legacy. If you want to name like this bridge that I desperately want from my district, Donald J. Trump, like, I'll be there. Ed McMahon, oversized check, ginormous scissors, like ribbon, let's go.
Oh my God. I know. If the Democrats that are telling you that that is their plan to deal with Trump and name bridges after him and work with him so that he can feel like he has a good legacy, if they want to come on this podcast and hash this out with me, I will gladly do it because that is fucking insane.
That is insane. There's a difference between full resistance in the context of 2017 and full resistance to me in the context of 2009, Mitch McConnell, saying that it is his job to make sure that Barack Obama has a failed president.
He failed at that job, but Obama gets reelected. But the instinct was right. I just politically. Not maybe morally or politically speaking. I'm listening to you. There's the Chris Murphy theory of the case, the Westmore, the Pritzker theory of the case. Is it the real way for Democrats to come back to make sure Donald Trump fails and that they could run against Trump? Isn't that the lesson of the last
12 years, 14 years that the opposition party, the party that has throw the bums out has won essentially every time? Yes, of course. Of course, collectively, the best case scenario for them is, you know, misrule and competence, corruption and Democrats reap the benefit from that. Betray Ellis Carville's word. Members of Congress would say, yeah, yeah, all that. But then like, if I can get my deal on the side here for this like bridge that I need, like,
We can do both of those things, right? I mean, there are members of Congress, right? They're trying to take care of their districts or their states. Tim, on the larger point though, this is important because, look, Democrats are going to have so many conferences and op-eds and like TV panels about this for the next two and a half, three years. You and I know the bottom line here. The best here for any out-of-power party is always the guys in power fucking up.
It just is. And like we've seen that so many times over the years and ask it to be the case this time around as well. The best comeback recipe for Democrats in 26 and 28 is simply hold out your finger and point at the other guys and say they didn't get it done. They're screwing up, give us a chance.
All right, one last thing in the Democrats, just because I'm monitoring what's happening on the speaker's vote. I'm seeing this Democratic strategist Chris Hale tweeting this right now. It's remarkable how my party has ditched the Trump is a threat to democracy argument. Aguilar didn't mention the word democracy once in his nomination of Hakeem Jeffries. It sucks, but it's true. Maybe the biggest kerfuffle ever created on this podcast was when Ezra Klein was on, and he said that his private combos with Democrats were that they didn't believe the democracy message.
that they were pushing forth. So they didn't believe that Trump was that great of a threat. This was last summer, he said that. That seems to be bearing out in a way that's a little alarming for me. Yeah, they thought he was a real threat. But democracy, with a mayor of DC, like taking meetings with him, they'll talk about getting employees back five days a week into their like all the cubes. I mean, they I think realize that there's no upside politically to the democracy message. And they got, they get reminded of that in a really cold way.
The election meant like a lot of American voters just like didn't give two shits about the democracy message because they cared about themselves, right? Like that's not cutting any ice for me. I'm out here, you know, living in Henderson, Nevada and I'm paying like 475 a gallon for gas. It's kind of miserable, right? One more campaign trail memory and we'll pivot to calendar 25. I remember being in Waukesha, Wisconsin in October,
for Kamala Harris, Liz Cheney, and former Bullwork host, Troy Sykes, with a moderator. And Tim, they were talking about our precious democracy, and Trump's not invested in democracy.
he sent him the wrong message to foreign countries. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, you're preaching to the converted. Everybody who believes that is already for you. There's nobody up for grabs that's moved by that. And Democrats figured it out the hard way. And so yeah, flash forward by January 3rd, 25. And they've forgotten democracy entirely because they know that voters didn't care.
That makes me sad. Yeah, I hear you. I did think in those events, they didn't lose because of those events. That was one day. I didn't think there was an opportunity to pivot to the center more and you wrote about this. Like, was it taken? I never understood this. Every never-trumper that I spoke to, politician-wise, I was like, endorse her and say that you disagree with the wrong things. Like, I was like, that's fine to do. I never understood what I did. This is hard for me. I know it's hard for you too. And look, here's X, Y, and Z. I think he's totally wrong.
But here's why I'm building it and why I think you should do it too and bring other folks along with you, right?
The roll call has started, but so we will have something on this in a second. But I want to talk first about, regardless of what happens with Johnson, the Trump administration, kind of early challenges. So we're coming up here on, we're about 10, 11 days away from the Hagg Seth confirmation hearings. We're gonna have some dates on the other hearings popping up soon. They're gonna have to do a tax bill at some point in the first three months to cover our reconciliation. We're gonna have a big nerd session on reconciliation for people next week.
for next week. So you don't have to do that. All the votes are super narrow. To me, Trump feels a little weaker than he did two months ago. That feels weird to say, but just like the fact that there have been these kerfuffles at all, the people that haven't just like gotten in line and said, yes, sir, whatever you want, sir, has been a little surprising to me. So anyway, how do you kind of assess it, especially in your sort of reporting with Republicans behind the states?
I think that the jury's still out on a lot of these nominees. I think additional information that is damaging on HEXF could torpedo him. I think right now he'd get through, but I think a lot of folks are still up for grabs. I have two major questions, which is,
Will Democrats save some of these folks? Will a Federman or a Bernie on the opposite end, you know, be a vote for some of these nominees that gets them through? The Labor Secretary is a great example of that, right? Should she may lose some votes on the right? Pick up some on the left. The one that I think could be the most precarious is Tulsi Gabbard. Here's why. She can't fix her challenges by saying, I'm off the bottle. I'm sober now. And by the way, here's my spouse. I'm not cheating anymore.
Hex have had character personality issues. Also resume, but the Republicans don't seem to care about that that much. Yeah, and her issues are more more fundamental. It's more her worldview and her perspective. She was like a Democrat who was for Bernie Sanders like a half an hour ago.
And so I think that actually could cause her more, but Chandler's because it's not fixable in a way that Hagg Seth can fix his issues. Tim, she also doesn't have the Fox News infrastructure necessarily behind her. She was a guest host for Tucker a couple of times. Yeah, but like our Charlie Kirk, et cetera, are gonna go to war for her, you know, in a way that Hagg Seth was such the beating heart of, I think that kind of war. And I just don't know the answer to that. And I think if you look at the Hawks in the Senate,
You know, they can say, look, we'll layer Hankseth with a deputy who's competent at the Pentagon and they'll actually run the building. How do you layer someone who's like running the nation's intelligence services? I mean, that's a bit more of a challenge, you know?
You mentioned Kirk. It's just something I picked up when I was at the Turning Point thing in Arizona that I don't think I've mentioned yet. I guess this is real life. He's been in the meetings with Trump as far as picking who these people are. He's been meeting with Trump about who they would support and put muscle behind. I was told that and I thought this must be BS from one of the Turning Point USA people.
spinning me, but then you get to see the pictures on Instagram from Mar-a-Lago of these parties. He's sitting right next to Trump at the table with the HEGSAT and with some of these nominees. So that feels real, right? Like these MAGA social media folks are around in a big way.
No, I mean, it's like, you know, having way in Paris, but like the movable feast is like the, the couches and chairs around like Mar-a-Lago and the lobby there. And they're like, I have one person described to me as like a sort of a, a couchboard that like, you know, Elon, Don Jr, Kirk, it's got Boris Epstein. But a lot of these folks have sort of created like physical spaces down there for themselves and they pop in and out of meetings and
Yeah, and it's not the Brookings Institution approved transition, Tim. Well, it wouldn't be broken, but AI. I don't think it's very, I approve. What more McConnell, you're pretty well sourced there. I've heard some people saying that McConnell is planning to do a lot of thumbs downing this time. I'm kind of in the I'll believe that when I see it camp. What are you hearing?
I don't think he wants to unduly, you know, bait Trump, but I think, like, on the national security stuff especially, he's gonna find some space to speak his mind. Speak his mind is different than saying no to Tulsi. Well, the next thing I was gonna say was, what does that translate to? Does that translate to like thumbs down on head, Seth, and Tulsi?
Or there's like trains like to like giving a tough speech on the Senate floor about or buying being a bad guy. Like I'm with you. Like, you know, it's not clear to me which of those two it's going to be. And I think it may not be totally clear from his perspective either. You know, it's interesting to him. Like Trump's always open for business. You know, there's no permanent like fringe or enemies with Trump as the old Kissinger line goes, only permanent interest with Trump.
But he also, like he wants folks to come to him to make up. And like, I don't think McConnell's gonna do that. So like they're, I guess like de facto sort of like peace right now, but not because either of them has like sort of sat down to like smoke a peace pipe, right? So let's see. I mean, these votes are gonna be interesting. And I think it'll be a tell us how McConnell spends the next few years of his time. Canity. Maybe and play for McConnell to be against.
Oh, sure. Because the polio issue, absolutely. I mean, that's one where he actually already put out a statement that was pretty, pretty heated about that lawyer who Kennedy had. It was against the vaccine for polio. Yeah. Look, I think, I think the McConnell on Hagg's set policy, Kennedy, and probably the labor nominee is certainly in play. Yeah. Yeah. What about Joni? I guess I was in Iowa and we talked about this. I am on the line of
Ah, look, she doesn't want to deal with the primary and she's going to come around on egg Seth. There are other people that have been indicating to me that maybe this is a she's buying time, you know, she put out the statement. It's like, let's kind of see what happens. Maybe there are more women to come forward. Maybe, you know, Hagg Seth blows himself up in the, you know, and so what do you, what do you think that? How do you assess that?
Well, that's what I mentioned earlier about HEXF. I think it's so critical is, you know, is there more reporting? Is there more information, right? What else comes out? How does he respond to it? If there's nothing more, I think he gets through. And I think people like, like, uh, Joanie fall in line. I do. But let's see if there's more that, that, that comes out. You know how these lawmakers work? Like so much of this like goes with the winds of the news cycle and the moment and like the perception of how this thing is going and that they like having safety and numbers and, um,
I think right now he would get thrilled.
Okay, so the votes are still going. We got Tim Burchit from Tennessee said that this will go multiple rounds, but then he voted for Johnson. So who the hell? He's kind of a weird cat. He is the barn jackets, what Steve Bannon is to barber goats. Is that true? Okay. Yeah, he did a weird, I'm friends with AOC tweet one time, but then he's also said some pretty offensive stuff. I don't know what's happened on Tim Burchit. Find himself. Yeah, he's still trying to find himself. Matt Gaetz really likes him. That's a red flag. Andy Biggs of Arizona.
Cloud of Texas, Clyde is Georgia, right? Yeah. I'm doing this live. And they have all withheld their votes. Okay. Well, in the chamber, they're chatting on the floor. It looks like we've got Thomas Massey has said he's going to vote no, and he's coming up. We're not the M's yet. Chip Roy has
been kind of on the fence-ish about what he's going to do. He's in the R's. So he can only lose two. So there is, I guess, a chance this could still go multiple rounds. What we'll do is I'll come back on the Joe Particone is our Hill Reporter over on YouTube for folks. You can watch that with YouTube. But this is all ending up with Johnson eventually, but what's your feeling and what's happened?
Oh, that there's a lot of unease with Mike Johnson among the ideologically conservative faction that still exists in today's US House, but that Republican voters who elect those ideologically conservative voters and primaries care more about what Donald Trump prefers than any set of issues. And so those guys are in a tough spot, Tim, because they want purity. Johnson can't give them purity, but they don't want to oppose Donald Trump. And if you oppose Johnson, you're kind of against Donald Trump.
I mean, it's not that complicated, right? Like, these are true believers, small government conservatives who don't want Mike Johnson, the speaker, but they're more scared of like Donald Trump. Most of them are, then they are committed to their small government principles. And so like, that's why I think eventually Johnson will get this. And that's why those names, you just rattle off. They didn't vote no the first time. They said, come back to me later. We'll see what this thing is, man. Real profile encouraged, you know?
We've added Gosar, Paul Gosar to the list of people who did not vote. So we have no votes against Johnson yet on the Republican side, but four people are waiting around. The catch me later vote, which of course is famous in the Daniel Webster Pampion of roll call votes of catch me on the flip route. Is that was that how Daniel Webster put it? I thought he was a little more highfalutin in his language. I think it was verbatim actually. Yeah.
The Johnson thing, how can he survive this? I guess this speaker vote, like I said, we'll see what happens. I think he could end up being speaker here. It's not like there's a big movement at this point. Am I taking another ballot or two? But he's got to fund the government. He's got to deal with tax reform and he can only lose two votes. What's the path out? How do they govern? Well, it's why
Trump also was so eager to get the debt ceiling done on Biden's watch last month, right? That's something else I got to deal with raising the debt ceiling. Speaking of small government conservatives, it's like that same faction doesn't want to increase the debt ceiling. They're never going to vote to increase the debt ceiling. So you got to give Democrats something to sweeten the deal to get Democratic votes. And once you do that, you alienate more Republicans who hate that you're given with a store to Democrats. But you have to.
So, no, you're totally right, it's already a nod, and it's very difficult, and it's hard to say how Johnson is going to survive this Congress. There's a lot to be said for what the Ways and Needs Chairman Jason Smith is saying, which is like, we can do at best one big bill. And this idea in the Senate that you can come out and do energy
border and defense spending in the first couple of months to give Trump a big early win. I get why they want to do that because they want to give Trump something that's like a big shiny, happy pony under the tree that's going to be occupied for a few months. I get it. But like if you do that, you then come back to a really tough tax bill in a midterm year. Can you imagine the salt, a debate during a midterm year? We're getting in the weeds here a bit. I know. That's really a smart list. That's a really tough debate to have in midterm.
The problem is, and this discussion was happening at TPUSA, you know, in the Bannon world, was that
they want to be able to do immigration stuff. And Gates was saying to me, like, we want to start the deportations day one. Yeah, again, we'll believe it when I see it. But like, if the immigration gets all lumped in with keeping the government open, the debt ceiling and taxes, I mean, not even your most naive Democrats who are looking for a bridge for their district are going to sign up for that thing. So they will need every single Republican to get on board with that.
And that's going to take a while with these cats. There's no question about it. And let's say that they go to the Senate approach. Yeah, what's the immigration language look like in that first bill if simultaneous of the administration's carrying out mass deportations? Or they're not, and they're catching hell for not doing it. I mean, it's a much more complicated endeavor, which is why I get the impulse to do one big bill. Because if you try to get something done first on the border and defense,
And then like before you know that it's summer Tim and then like you haven't gotten it done yet Trump's getting the NC and Trump's tweeting about with John Thune and Mike Johnson and like saying these guys aren't getting the job done then do you just drop that move to taxes? I mean it's just it's a real challenge.
Maybe just do nothing and just tweet about how the all-state presidents did an ad that was too nice to trans people or something, you know, and just like focus on just do that. Like why govern? Or like do like TR McKinley style and just like go and go and like poach various like territories around the world.
We will see Andy Harris from Maryland is also on the maybe I'll catch you on the flip caucus. So they're up to five. We'll see. We'll see how that all shakes out. We joke here, but like it's entirely possible like next spring is like, well, you know, the house is bogged down in some like, you know, in depth, the very nuanced of this agreement and like the Ways and Means Committee is feuding with, you know, the Senate. Meanwhile, Trump is out there like literally like, you know, we're not we're sending 101st Airborne to Greenland.
and we're going to like BC is a great one. I'm not laughing about the fact that it's ridiculous. I'm doing macabre laughter about the state of affairs. It might be serious. Let's close. Again, pop on YouTube folks afterwards and me and Sam and Joe Particone will do a full breakdown of this vote when it's done.
But you've got Jimmy Carter at past this week. This is your wheelhouse, Jonathan. You know, old Paul's spinning yarns. I'm wondering if you have any Jimmy Carter memories or observations that are relevant to our current politics.
Yeah. And we'll go for a full circle back to New Orleans and the South. I think Jimmy Carter is an incredibly important political figure because he breaks the back of George Wallace and the SEGs. And after Carter in 76, there is no Wallace anymore. There is no Dixie crap action. Democrats come into the 20th century along last. And it becomes a party that is wholly moderate or progressive on race.
And I think Carter's a big factor in that, the biggest factor in that, but also a whole generation of World War II and Korea, you were a Democrat, you came of age. Carter was careful about that too, different than his reputation now, which is, I just think telling him potentially a lesson for the month of days that I think he was righteous about race, but he also, you know, stepped gently at various times and was, was, would deal with segregationists and stuff.
Let's just say this, without getting too deep in the weeds here, if you look at a 10-year span of 66 to 76, where he runs for governor for the first time in 66 to 76, MLK's father is at the convention, nominating Jimmy Carter. That 10-year Carter moves quite a bit on race. And in that period, he definitely tries to play both ends of the keyboard on the issue in the South, like a lot of those guys did. But to your point, he gets to the right place.
eventually, and he does so in a way that finally ends Wallace's. Keep in mind, Wallace ran for president 64, 68, 72, 76. He was a permanent feature on the political landscape until Carter comes along, beats him in Florida in the primary, and that's really it for Wallace as a national figure. As far as Carter today, are there any Jimmy lessons for the Democrats now in the wilderness or no?
I mean, don't assume anything about what the voters can or cannot do. I mean, he was a one-term governor from the Deep South. He had never elected a Deep South president in the 20th century, sort of a post-Civil War era, because the South was tainted politically. It was the party of, well,
as one person said, sadly, Roman is a member of Bellian in the 19th century. They're the region of rebellion. And I think Carter helped in that. Yeah, I think the lesson for Democrats is don't make assumptions about what the electorate can or cannot stomach. They're much more open to candidates than the wise guys may think. That's not just a Carter lesson, by the way. That's a lesson that you could include Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, Pete Buttigieg,
None of these folks, the wise guys, gave a shot to who all became serious candidates along the way. So think big Democrats about who can or cannot be a viable candidate for president. Jonathan Martin, lover of New Orleans Institute political observer, Tiger fan, believer in 2025 is going to be our year in Baton Rouge. You're hearing here first. Tigers are going to be in the national title game this next year. And Nuss Meyer will be
at the New York Heisman ceremony as a finalist. It may be the winner. Your lips to God's ears. Thank you, Jonathan. I just wanted to briefly offer a coda for the victims of the terror attack and the tragedy on Bourbon Street. I think oftentimes we talk.
Too much about the perp and not enough about the victim. And so I've been spending some time on NOLA.com, support your local news outlet. Reading about these folks and I just wanted to share a few things. There's Reggie Hunter. He was a warehouse manager from Baton Rouge with two kids. One was just 18 months old.
Tiger Besh, his brother, Jack, was actually a popular wide receiver at LSU, transferred to TCU, and put out a nice statement about his brother. It was just unimaginable. Tiger had just graduated from Princeton. Nicole Perez was a manager at Adele in Metery, was a single mom to a four-year-old who is now in care of friends. Hubert Goethrell, yeah, that's spelled with an EA UX at the end. He had just turned 21.
And then there was Nakira Ditto, another EA UX surname. She was just 18. And her friend said she was a ball of sunshine.
Matthew Tenadorio, 25 years old. He's an employee at the Superdome. He's a beloved colleague of a friend of mine. And Kareem Badawi, he was killed and a friend, Parker Vadrin was injured. Both were 20, 24 graduates of Episcopal High in Baton Rouge, where many of my best friends went. Much love to the EHS family and to the family of all the victims of this tragedy. We will see you back here on Monday with Bill Crystal. Peace.
When the saints, when the saints were marching in
I wanna stand up Be counted in that growing number Oh yes I do When the saints go marching in
to Gabriel. Without the blue is on. When the angel Gabriel start to blow his
I'm gonna be there Longer states than angels Yeah, when the same Longer We're my engineers
When the wicked She's strong I'm gonna step up
In no place I'm proud to call home They're rollers Show ain't no place
The Bullard podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with Audio Engineering and Editing by Jason Brown.
