Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. What happens now after the fall of Kevin McCarthy? If the leading candidate for speaker now, endorsed as of this morning, if you haven't heard this yet, by Donald Trump, is Jim Jordan, the Freedom Caucus member from Ohio, who also chairs the House Judiciary Committee, how does Congress avoid a government shutdown under him when the current short-term measure that McCarthy fell on a sword to pass expires next month?

What about funding for Ukraine? That was left out of the stop-gap measure to get enough Republican votes. Supporters of Ukraine thought it would be easy enough to pass Ukraine aid separately, but now that's more in doubt. The vote for speaker is now scheduled for next Wednesday. A New York Times article this morning has the headline, Opposition to Ukraine Aid Becomes a Litmus Test for the Right. One of the contributors to that article is New York Times congressional reporter, Luke Broadwater. He joins us now. Thanks for coming on, Luke. Welcome back to WNYC.

Luke Broadwater: Hey, good morning. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with the Trump endorsement posted early this morning. Why did Trump endorse Jim Jordan for speaker and how much clout does that endorsement carry within the Republican caucus?

Luke Broadwater: Well, Trump and Jim Jordan have had an alliance for years. Jim Jordan has been Trump's chief defender on Capitol Hill from his seat as the judiciary chairman. You might recall whenever there's a criminal investigation into Donald Trump, Jim Jordan is quick to use his powers on the Judiciary Committee to try to defend him. He'll send letters to the prosecutor. He'll demand documents about what kind of funding streams they have and just try to really intervene and push back on the prosecutor that's pursuing Trump.

Trump is actually very appreciative of that. He let it to be known last night, actually past midnight, when he endorsed Jim Jordan to be the next speaker. In terms of the impact, it will have an impact on certain members of the House, maybe who are on the fence about who to endorse for speaker. Frankly, the guys who love Trump already love Jim Jordan. I don't think it necessarily changes the calculus in the House right now or makes Jordan the favorite. I think Steve Scalise still has a lot of support and this will be a close race.

Brian Lehrer: We'll get to Scalise in a minute, but any indication that Jordan had to promise Trump anything in particular for that endorsement?

Luke Broadwater: No, I know they spoke on the phone, but this is a longstanding alliance. Trump gave Jim Jordan the Medal of Freedom after the January 6th attack on the Capitol in a private ceremony at the White House. That's the highest civilian honor you can give a person. I don't think there was any special promises. This is a longstanding friendship and alliance between two men who see the world very similarly.

Brian Lehrer: The other leading candidate is Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Also very conservative. I imagine no threat to Trump in any way. Correct me if I'm wrong, but why did Trump have a preference between those two?

Luke Broadwater: It's about relationship-building. Now, of course, Jim Jordan is seen as more to the right than Scalise. I think both candidates are more to the right than Speaker Kevin McCarthy was. Scalise has been a member of leadership for a long time. He's seen as more of an establishment figure. Donald Trump and Jim Jordan both subscribed more to the isolationist wing of the party. I think both have a lot more reservations about funding for Ukraine than Steve Scalise does.

Obviously, Jim Jordan was one of the co-founders of the House Freedom Caucus and, for a long time, was the biggest disruptor and bomb thrower in Congress. I think that's the kind of guy Trump loves. He loves disruption. He loves chaos. He loves thumbing his nose at establishment Washington. They're very much the same type of politician and they see the world the same way.

Brian Lehrer: The Times article that you contributed to on this says, "For Mr. Jordan, an Ohioan and co-founder of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, the task will be to convince more mainstream Republicans that he can govern and not simply tear things down. He met on Thursday with members of the Main Street Caucus, a group of business-minded Republicans for Mr. Scalise." The article says, "A Louisianan who has won conference elections before as majority leader, the challenge will be to stay one step ahead of Mr. Jordan and make better inroads with the right wing of the party." Can you talk about the Jordan side of that first? What might he be doing to cultivate less radical Republicans?

Luke Broadwater: Right. Well, Jim Jordan, over the past couple of years, has shed a little of his reputation as just a bomb thrower who tears things down. When he was the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, he and his allies really antagonized speaker after speaker and ran a couple of them out. Boehner and Paul Ryan were both run out by the Freedom Caucus.

Under McCarthy, Jordan started to become interested in being more of a leader in the party. He formed an alliance with McCarthy and became the judiciary chairman. Although still seemed very much as someone on the far right of the party, he pushed the party more to his way of thinking, to the right wing, and started acting more like a traditional leadership candidate. He's trying to make the case to these moderate groups.

Yesterday, he met with the Main Street Caucus. These are more centrist, business-minded Republicans. He's trying to make the case that although you may think of him as this bomb thrower on the right, he can work in leadership. He can come up with a plan. He can unite the party. He's not just somebody who wants to tear things down. That's the case he's trying to make right now.

I think when this race first started, people saw him as an underdog against Scalise. I think the Trump endorsement probably helps him. He's doing a lot of outreach to try to not be the underdog and to say that these moderate groups can trust him. He's not going to screw them over, but he's the person who can bring the right along with him. They trust him and there can be unity in the Republican Conference.

Brian Lehrer: The challenge for Scalise is the opposite, to cultivate those on the right who might be natural allies of Jordan?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, slightly. Now, both of these guys are on the right. I don't want to believe that Scalise is some sort of centrist or moderate. Because he's been in leadership before, he's won conference-wide elections, I think he's shown that he can vote for things that are centrist-like, keeping government open, passing the budget, the normal operations of government. I think there's more trust towards Scalise from the centrists about just the very basics of government, keeping it running, keeping things functioning normally.

His challenge will be because Jordan has such a sway over the hard right and the Freedom Caucus types that can he pick off any of them. He's making a lot of calls right now. He's picking up tons of support in the South and the Midwest on these calls. Now, remember, you can't really have a split Republican Conference here. You pretty much need everybody to vote for one person or to be elected speaker. I think you can only lose four votes. Somebody has got to emerge as the consensus candidate here. Scalise is hoping that will be him.

Brian Lehrer: Here's an exchange yesterday between Jordan and MSNBC reporter Ali Vitali about how the government shutdown that Kevin McCarthy avoided would not come to pass even if he, who's more of a tear-things-down guy, become speaker.

Ali Vitali: How would you have done differently than McCarthy in this latest shutdown this weekend? He did have to look to Democrats.

Jim Jordan: Well, the key is I think and I hope I can get our team to rally around the process I just described, which is that longer-term CR with the 1% cut, that leverage there--

Ali Vitali: Put yourself in his reality, which is that Republicans continued to stonewall him. The government was about to shut down. You're in that position. What do you do?

Jim Jordan: You're assuming that I can't bring the Republicans together. I think that's why I'm running.

Brian Lehrer: There's Jim Jordan with Ali Vitali of MSNBC yesterday. Can you explain what Jordan was saying there about the 1%? What did that mean?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, he's pitching an idea that-- A lot of these guys hate these short-term funding bills, a lot of the hard right. They don't want to see short-term funding bills. What he's pitching is another short-term funding bill to keep the government open that will go to the end of the year, but it would have a 1% cut in it, 1% across government. He thinks that's a way everyone can agree. At least other Republicans could agree that they would pass one of these short-term funding bills that the far right hates, but the far right would get at least a 1% cut across all of government.

That would make them happy and make them swallow that pill of the short-term funding bill. I'm not sure how that will go over with the entire Republican Conference. I'm not sure what the Democrats would think about that, whether that could pass the Senate, but that's his proposal for a compromise among Republicans is, yes, we'll pass the short-term funding bill, keep the government open, but there'll be a 1% cut to all of government.

Brian Lehrer: You wouldn't say that Jordan wants a government shutdown and play political chicken with the Senate in the White House trying to convince enough Americans that the spending cuts he wants are in their interest?

Luke Broadwater: Yes. His primary goal here, the thing that ruined Kevin McCarthy was he couldn't unite Republicans, right? If you want to stay speaker, if that's your goal, you've got to unite the Republicans. That's your first, or you can be somebody who Democrats like. I don't think any of these guys are somebody who Democrats like, so their only way to power and to stay in power is to unite the Republicans and not have the detractors like Matt Gaetz, et cetera, who are willing to cut your head off if you defy them. That's his proposal.

I don't know how that would work. I honestly don't. I'm hearing some skepticism from other Republicans about that. They want to see individual spending bills passed immediately, all 12 of them. They don't want more short-term stop-gap funding measures. The difference is that Jordan has more credibility on the right. A lot of those guys look at him as their mentor. He taught them how to act in Congress. They modeled their political styles after him. It's possible that he could have more credibility with them than McCarthy and prevent the kind of mutiny that we saw earlier this week.

Brian Lehrer: Does Matt Gaetz, who, of course, really brought down McCarthy with his spending-cut demands, want something more than what Jordan referred to there, that 1% across-the-board spending cut? 1% doesn't sound like very much, but I didn't know if that would really affect certain Americans very drastically. I know there were dramatic cuts to food stamps that the Democrats were talking about and other programs that poor Americans depend on that would have been in the Matt Gaetz cuts. Is the 1% across-the-board idea much milder than that?

Luke Broadwater: It's less than what Matt Gaetz wanted. He wanted something like 30% cuts. Matt Gaetz will not like this idea. He wants these 12 appropriation bills passed on their own with these deep cuts in them. This would be something that's more of a compromise, a 1% cut. Obviously, 1% cut to a huge budget is a lot of money that would affect a lot of programs. The thing that Jordan would have going for him is Matt Gaetz looks up to Jim Jordan. Matt Gaetz calls him his mentor. Maybe Matt Gaetz would be less likely to try to depose him for cutting a deal or doing something less drastic than he would have been for McCarthy, who Matt Gaetz personally loathed. The two men hated each other dating back years.

Brian Lehrer: We can take some calls, listeners, for New York Times congressional reporter Luke Broadwater on the battle for speaker or other things going on in Congress. Luke has also been reporting on the House Republicans' impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. I'm going to ask him a few questions about that as we go, or anything else relevant. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or you can text a question to that same number, 212-433-9692. Here's a question that's come in via text message, Luke. Listener writes, "House Speaker contender Steve Scalise reportedly called himself David Duke without the baggage." That cites an article in The Guardian, but I know I've heard that before. I guess he said that once upon a time, right?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, that comes from an article some years back where Scalise was pitching himself as a kinder, softer version of David Duke, who your listeners will know is a former Klansman and racist and white nationalist. He made this comment to somebody who then told the reporter about it that this was his pitch. Scalise denies that he is racist. He once spoke to a group of white nationalists. He said he regretted that and didn't realize who the people were. He explains that comment as trying to say, "I agree with David Duke's policies about budget cuts and keeping government small but not with his views on race." He defends himself, but that's accurate reporting. That is what was published in the paper at the time.

Brian Lehrer: Scandalously for the other candidate for speaker, listener texts, "I can't believe that a man who's credibly accused of abetting a convicted abuser of dozens of high school wrestlers is being discussed as someone two heartbeats away from the presidency." That's about Jim Jordan. What's that wrestler abuse issue?

Luke Broadwater: Years ago, when Jim Jordan was in his mid-20s, he was the assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University. Jim Jordan was a champion wrestler at Wisconsin. It came out years later that a doctor at the school had been abusing lots of students, hundreds of students all across different sports.

There were allegations made that a couple of the wrestlers had told Jim Jordan when he was assistant coach and the head coach that this doctor had been creeping them out, acting weird, touching them inappropriately, and that the coaches didn't do anything about it, didn't take it seriously, and ignored it. Jim Jordan denies that those conversations took place. The wrestlers who make them are adamant that they did. There's a dispute between those parties about how much Jim Jordan knew or didn't know about this doctor and the student-athletes that he was abusing.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Phillip in Westchester, you're on WNYC with Luke Broadwater, congressional reporter for The New York Times. Hi, Phillip.

Phillip: Hi, Brian. Hi to your guest. Thank you for taking my call. These options are so unpalatable. You've got Scalise, who's positioning himself as the second incarnation of David Duke. You've got Jim Jordan, who's--

Brian Lehrer: I think that's overstating how he's positioning himself based on what we just heard, but go ahead.

Phillip: Okay, all right. Fair enough. You catch my drift, obviously, Jordan being so closely aligned with Trump. The problem is that either of these options, really at the end of the day, they are committed to tearing down the institutions to a large extent. I just wonder if there's any scenario in which you would have someone like Liz Cheney, who is not in Congress anymore, aligned herself, I think, broadly speaking, with the majority of Republicans.

You have Democrats maybe realizing that, yes, Republicans are in the majority. Is there any scenario in which they could get together with enough moderate Republicans or Republicans, I should say, for moderate districts and acknowledge this reality to elect someone that would effectively neutralize the hard-right extreme fringes of the Republican Party like Matt Gaetz and so on?

Brian Lehrer: It would take the coalition with Democrats. For people who don't know, we've talked about this before. Other media have talked about it. You don't actually have to be in the House of Representatives to be elected Speaker of the House. Some Trump supporters were floating his name in recent days. He took himself out of it. I have one listener, Luke, who keeps texting, "What about somebody above the fray who could get the support of a lot of people from both parties like Warren Buffett?"

I don't know if that just comes from one listener's mind or if there's a draft Buffett movement. The caller here is suggesting Liz Cheney as somebody who supports Republicans on most policy issues, but obviously not on January 6th, then Trump in general. Maybe there's a coalition that could rise up and elect her as speaker if somebody were to nominate her. How does that even work to get somebody not in the House to be up for speaker and is this just a pipe dream, a media, a topic of media chitchat that's almost not worth talking about because it's impossible?

Luke Broadwater: I think it's actually more of the latter. It's a very fun parlor game to come with names of people who aren't in Congress who could potentially win. Even during the last speaker's fight, we had certain former members who showed up. Justin Amash from Michigan tried this to come in at the last minute and rally people around. A former member. It seems extremely unlikely that could ever happen. Just the way the place functions.

In a different Congress, less partisan and less dug in, you could see a scenario where one of the moderates could win like a Don Bacon or a Brian Fitzpatrick, somebody who is a moderate Republican, respected by Democrats who could put their name forward. Get, I don't know, 50 Republican votes and the Democrats would vote for them too, right? That's not the current state of Congress. Nobody in Congress would vote for a member of the other party for speaker. It's just not realistic.

You saw that happen with Kevin McCarthy. The Democrats wouldn't save him despite pleas from some other Republicans, the more moderate Republicans to have them step in and save them. It's just not the way the body functions. Whoever wins this speaker race will need to do it through Republican votes. That means in the current Republican Conference, it's got to be someone more to the right. There's just many more people in the right than there are in the centrist wing or the moderate wing.

Brian Lehrer: Another listener texts about Jim Jordan. Sorry, there are a number of texts coming in and this one just flipped off my screen. There it is about Jim Jordan, "Forget politics. He can't run the Judiciary Committee. How can we expect him to be an effective speaker?" Is there an issue there with how he's running the Judiciary Committee and whether he's got the normal control of that that a chairman would have?

Luke Broadwater: Well, the Judiciary Committee hearings are well-known for the fisticuffs, right? They fought in the beginning of the year over how many times they would say the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of a meeting. That took up quite a bit of time where they fought over that. I do think the Republicans view him as their best investigator, their toughest questioner, their pit bull.

That does not make for well-run meetings, right? it makes for fights and chaos and food fights at these hearings. We haven't seen the type of investigations in this Congress that we saw in the last one where the January 6th committee was a well-run machine. Their hearings were smooth presentations without fighting. Everyone was on the same page. We have not seen those type of hearings and investigations of this Congress. It's been much more chaotic.

Brian Lehrer: The current chaos at Congress and the fight for speaker might well have global ramifications as we will talk about when we come back from a break. The other Times article that Luke contributed to in the last day is headlined Opposition to Ukraine Aid Becomes a Litmus Test for the Right. Stay with us and keep calling us. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

[MUSIC - Marden Hill: Hijack]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue to talk about the fight for Speaker of the House and the implications with New York Times congressional reporter Luke Broadwater. As I mentioned before the break, Luke, an article you contributed to in the last day is headlined Opposition to Ukraine Aid Becomes a Litmus Test for the Right. Does litmus test mean there's a certain faction that will condition their support for speaker on opposition to money for Ukraine?

Luke Broadwater: I'm not sure that it will be the deciding factor for the speaker vote, but I think it will be a factor. Jim Jordan has voted several times now against supplying more aid for Ukraine. He just went on Fox News yesterday and said he doesn't even know what the point of the Ukraine war is, what they're doing over there. Scalise, by contrast, has voted repeatedly to supply more aid for the soldiers in Ukraine to defend themselves against the Russian invasion.

It used to be only a few months ago that a majority of Republicans in Congress were on Scalise's side. As time has gone on, a majority of Republicans are now voting on Jordan's side, which is against funding or providing any more funding for the war in Ukraine. I think that's one issue on their minds. I don't think it's the only one. I think they have a lot of other concerns, but there may be some members of the Republican Conference who vote on the Ukraine issue. As of right now, a majority of them are for cutting off aid to Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: Is Vladimir Putin lobbying through anyone for this? It's in his interest more than anyone's arguably to block US aid, which supporters of aid say would lead to the defeat of Ukraine, the success of the invasion.

Luke Broadwater: Yes, I don't have reporting that Putin himself has lobbied anyone. You're right. It's certainly in his interest for the US to cut off aid to Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: What's the reason that more Republicans have become anti-Ukraine aid if they don't in their hearts or in their statements support the invasion?

Luke Broadwater: I think there's an isolationist impulse among a lot of the House Republicans, but the bigger deal is it's their voters. The Republican voters have turned against the war in Ukraine in large numbers. If you look at re-polls of Republicans, it's like a sizable majority of the actual voters in these members' districts that do not want more money sent to Ukraine. They want money funding the border wall and funding cops in American cities.

They do not want money going overseas. Those numbers keep going up. I think there's a natural thing with any war and funding it. People get tired of that after a while. I do think there's probably a big push among a lot of these right-wing radio hosts and online YouTube channels that are pushing this belief deeper and deeper into the Republican base. Then you see that reflected in Congress after some time goes by and they hear from their constituents.

Brian Lehrer: How much of that do you think is because Vladimir Putin is considered a global leader in the culture war in the way we usually define that in this country?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, that could be it. There's a lot of right-wing guys that think Putin is cool and think that he is masculine and standing up against the left and all sort of things.

Brian Lehrer: LGBTQ.

Luke Broadwater: Yes, that probably is part of it.

Brian Lehrer: Assuming that almost all the Democrats and a decent number of Republicans do support aid to Ukraine, it would have a majority of the House, I think, if it came up for a vote. The new speaker would have the option again, I think-- You tell me as a congressional reporter if this is what we're really talking about here. Even though there's a majority of support probably for Ukraine, the new speaker would have the option to not even bring it to the floor for a vote at all. That's how these speaker hopefuls could promise to kill it, correct?

Luke Broadwater: You understand it exactly right, yes. The real power is what can be put on the floor and what can't be put on the floor. You're right. Let's say every single Democrat supports increased funding and then 35%, 40% of Republicans do. Well, that's going to pass. If it never gets a vote, it can't pass. There are some ways around that.

You can do something called a discharge petition where the Democrats could use a legislative maneuver if they get a bunch of Republicans to vote with them. It takes seven to nine days and it's complex and rarely done. If, let's say, Jordan becomes speaker and he won't put Ukraine aid on the floor, there are some ways around that that could be difficult to pull off that Democrats could try to do. It's just much easier to have the speaker to put it on the floor and have an up-and-down vote.

Brian Lehrer: Carol in Newburgh, you're on WNYC with Luke Broadwater, New York Times congressional reporter. Hi, Carol.

Carol: Hi. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Carol: There was an article buried in The New York Times about the fact that Jim Jordan and a number of these leaders regularly meet with Steve Bannon. I don't understand why he doesn't get a lot more attention. He and General Flynn. They have a very populist, isolationist propaganda machine going. I think they're behind a lot of this information that is turning the rank-and-file Republicans against the Ukraine war. I think they're very much in cahoots with Putin or the oligarchs or somebody in Russia. I just don't understand why he doesn't get more attention and why he's still allowed to do this even. Isn't he under some kind of gag order as a result of his punishment last year for being involved in some nefarious goings-on?

Brian Lehrer: Contempt of Congress, I think. Luke, what would you say to Carol's question?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, my colleague, Annie Karni, wrote that story. It is on the front page, so I don't know how buried it is.

Brian Lehrer: Not buried.

Luke Broadwater: Steve Bannon is wielding wide influence on Capitol Hill. He has an apartment right by the Capitol. He broadcasts his War Room podcast in the basement of this apartment. A lot of the hard-right members go visit him. They get advice from him. He helps write their speeches. They appear on his podcast, which has lots of listeners on the right. He builds them up, builds up their brand, helps raise money for them, and then they form an alliance. They carry out some of the policy positions that he wants. He has not had as much of an influence over Jordan recently. It's much more Gaetz. I think he's had a bit of a falling out with Jordan actually.

Brian Lehrer: Over what? Do you know?

Luke Broadwater: He doesn't think Jordan is being as far-right enough as he needs to be, that Jordan has made a bit of a pivot more towards the establishment. As we talked about earlier, he formed alliance with Kevin McCarthy, who Steve Bannon loathes and wanted out of there. He's not towing the Bannon line in the way that Gaetz is. The caller's right. Steve Bannon was convicted of defrauding donors.

He was saying he was going to build the wall in Mexico, which didn't make any sense, but people gave him millions of dollars to build a wall in Mexico. He was convicted of that, then Trump pardoned him, and then he was convicted again of defying a congressional subpoena from the January 6th committee. He was sentenced to some months in jail, but he's on appeal right now on that conviction. He's free and is living on Capitol Hill influencing the proceedings there while that appeal goes on.

Brian Lehrer: To the specific question relevant to that from the caller, you don't lose your freedom of speech, your freedom to have a radio show or a podcast, and state your opinion even if you are convicted of a crime, correct?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, that's right. We have freedom of speech in America whether you're a convict or not. He can host a podcast. If people want to listen to it, they'll go listen to it. My understanding is a lot of people on the right listen to that show and I think it's pretty popular among the right.

Brian Lehrer: Listener texts, "Select some candidates for speaker from the Problem Solvers Caucus. This subgroup of Democrats and Republicans has already proven they can talk to the other side among themselves and come up with solutions." Where's the Problem Solvers Caucus in all this? I know we had some Democrats and Republicans from the Problem Solvers Caucus who were eager to come on the show before the government shutdown vote, before the McCarthy vote that kept the government running. Where are the Problem Solvers from either side of the aisle on electing a new speaker?

Luke Broadwater: The Problem Solvers have 64 members, 32 from each party, and they could play a tremendous influence on the Hill if they chose to. As I mentioned before, there are some of those moderate Republicans that are in that group that could be a consensus candidate. The problem is that the party politics of the Hill are much stronger than the power of the Problem Solvers.

In fact, the Problem Solvers are now in a bit of dysfunction and chaos themselves over the vote to oust Kevin McCarthy. The Republicans in the group are very mad at the Democrats because the Democrats all stood together and voted to kick McCarthy out. They wanted the Problem Solvers to save McCarthy. Some of the Republicans and the Problem Solvers are now talking about quitting the group and disbanding the group because they didn't stand together to support McCarthy.

The Democrats' point of view on that is Kevin McCarthy was no moderate. He wasn't someone who was a centrist or something. He was, in their view, Donald Trump's lap dog every bit as much as the others on the far right. Why should we save somebody who we didn't trust, did Donald Trump's bidding at every turn, defied a subpoena from the January 6th committee, et cetera, et cetera? He wasn't the type of Republican that they wanted to save.

Brian Lehrer: Beyond that, and I don't know if the Democrats are making this case, you tell me. From the reporting, as I understand it, if you're in the Problem Solvers Caucus dedicated to solving problems, then you're dedicated to compromise and give and take. My understanding is that Kevin McCarthy said from the outset after he was deposed or after the threat to depose him became real that he would not make a deal with the Democrats for any kind of power-sharing. If that's the case, then it's not even a position that's consistent with the Problem Solvers Caucus as I would understand it. There would have to be some kind of deal in order to get Democrats' votes, is that right?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, the night before the vote to oust Kevin McCarthy, McCarthy calls Hakeem Jeffries, who's the head of the Democrats in Congress, and he tells him, "Essentially, I'm not going to make any offer to Democrats. I'm not going to give you anything. You guys should just vote for me because it's the right thing to do for the institution."

Brian Lehrer: Right, so he didn't even try.

Luke Broadwater: That isn't much of an offer, right? Once Hakeem Jeffries comes back to the Democrats and tells them he's not even offering us anything, what are they supposed to do? In their view, they were saying, "McCarthy didn't even offer us a deal." He could have made any sort of promise, I don't know, co-chairs of some committees, more earmarks for your districts like the typical stuff that people would offer to save their job. He made no such offer. As such, the Democrats had no reason to want to save him.

Brian Lehrer: Before you go, another thing you've been covering, I know, is the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden. As I've seen Jim Jordan emerge as a leading candidate for speaker and Trump endorse him, it occurred to me that Jordan was such a big player in defending Trump during his impeachment hearings. Jordan is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which is where I think an actual impeachment hearing would take place into Biden, but it's the Oversight Committee as of now in this more preliminary inquiry phase.

It occurred to me that maybe one of the things that Jordan promised Trump, I don't know if you have reporting on this, is, "Yes, I'm going to push this Biden impeachment thing to the limits," even if there's not really any evidence because a lot of people in the 2024 election, if it's Trump versus Biden, will be energized by it anyway and it'll help Trump. I presume you don't have any reporting on that, but what about Jim Jordan and the impeachment inquiry?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, I don't know about their specific conversation. I know they talked. We do know publicly that Donald Trump has called publicly for impeaching Joe Biden already. That's something that he's made no secret about that he wants. Jim Jordan is one of three committee chairs right now leading the impeachment inquiry. They had their first hearing. Was it just last week? Wow, it was just last week. It was kind of a dud. It was widely panned that there was no new information at this hearing.

That said, they say they're going to bring in more witnesses, including a former business partner of Hunter Biden. They're going to keep going, keep pressing. They issued subpoenas for Hunter Biden's bank records and for President Biden's brother, James' bank records. They're still going with the impeachment. As of right now, all the attention in the House is on electing a new speaker. There are not hearings going next week or big investigative steps next week. I would fully expect that whoever wins, they will probably keep this inquiry going because they think it's good politics for Republicans and because Donald Trump wants it.

Brian Lehrer: You said the impeachment inquiry hearing was just last week. Doesn't seem like longer ago. A week ago today, Kevin McCarthy was still the Speaker of the House. Can you believe it?

Luke Broadwater: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Doesn't it seem like a long time ago.

Luke Broadwater: It's all blur. It's all a blur, yes.

Brian Lehrer: There was no budget agreement yet one week ago today. You have an article. We're almost out of time, but you have an article called First Impeachment Hearing Yields No New Information on Biden. What's even the potential charge that they're looking to establish as even an alleged high crime or misdemeanor as the standard for an impeachment is?

Luke Broadwater: They are trying to prove that Joe Biden accepted a bribe. They don't have much evidence of that. There is one FBI informant who claimed he had overheard Ukrainian businessmen talking about bribing Joe Biden. That has been a lot of the basis for their suspicions.

Brian Lehrer: Bribing Biden as vice president to do something?

Luke Broadwater: Yes. The problem is even that informant said, the people he heard it from, he might not fully have understood and they might have just been bragging at the time. There's a lot of other evidence that seems to undercut that informant's statements. That's why you've never seen any charge. The FBI has had this information for years. That's why you've never seen any charge about bribery so far. It hasn't been confirmed. It hasn't been verified. In fact, it's been undercut by a lot of other evidence, but the Republicans are hoping it's true and so they are pushing forward with that.

The other thing that they're looking at is abuse of power, which is not necessarily a crime. You can make an argument based on several different allegations that Joe Biden abused his power in some way. Those are the two charges they're looking at right now. I think they all admit they don't have enough evidence to have real facts or a real good case to prove either of those charges right now. They're going to keep investigating, hoping to keep it in the news, and maybe get lucky and prove these allegations.

Brian Lehrer: Is the bribery that they're hoping to find related to Biden's support as vice president for removing a prosecutor from the government of Ukraine who was looking into Hunter Biden's company that he was on the board of Burisma?

Luke Broadwater: That is one of the allegations, yes, that Joe Biden--

Brian Lehrer: It's not an allegation. It's what they're fishing for, hoping to find, right?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, that's the allegation they're making. They hope to prove that he was bribed to put pressure on Ukraine to fire this prosecutor. Again, there's a lot of information that undercuts that. It's far from proven.

Brian Lehrer: Just because people have short memories, if that's what they're hanging this on and they're talking about it in right-wing media over and over again, didn't this already get debated and put to rest years ago during the Trump-Ukraine impeachment? When Trump was trying to get Ukraine to launch a fake investigation of Joe Biden, that was the point of the Trump impeachment. The whole Western alliance wanted that prosecutor out for policy reasons, having nothing to do with Burisma that Hunter Biden was on the board of, right?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, that's exactly right. Lots of countries, lots of career diplomats wanted Viktor Shokin fired because he was not prosecuting corruption, not because he had this robust investigation into Burisma. It was exactly the opposite of what the Republicans have claimed. You're right. Time is a flat circle. Donald Trump very much wanted an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma.

That's what he was trying to leverage and pressure Zelensky for back in the day. That was the reason for the first impeachment. Now, he has such an investigation. He has the Republicans on the Hill who are carrying out that very investigation he wanted, trying to grab headlines, trying to get it back in the news, the same allegations, so he's getting his way with that.

Brian Lehrer: "Time is a flat circle." Put that in a New York Times headline. Luke Broadwater, congressional correspondent for The New York Times. The speaker vote is supposed to take place now next Wednesday. Obviously, we'll follow it between now and then. Luke, thanks a lot for today.

Luke Broadwater: Sure, yes. Thanks so much.

 

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