Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to discuss the Republican Party’s weakness and lack of cohesion and the attack needed on Democrat institutions.

Leahy: In studio, the original all-star panelist, Crom Carmichael. And, folks, we have a different point of view on what’s going on in Washington. The three ballots have left Kevin McCarthy short of becoming speaker.

He’s on the third ballot. 20 votes for Jim Jordan, 202 votes for Kevin McCarthy, and 213 for your good friend Hakeem Jeffries, the Marxist from Brooklyn. Two hundred twelve. The Democrats are going to be totally in lockstep, as they always are.

Carmichael: In lockstep, as they always are. And why is the key question.

Leahy: Why don’t you elucidate why?

Carmichael: Because the Democrat Party is made up of a group of people who benefit from the government, and there are immense amounts of money in those groups that are extorted.

It’s taken from the paychecks before it even gets to the people, and it goes to the union coffers, where only a few people, maybe less than 500 people out of our entire country control how billions and billions and billions of dollars will be spent, and it’s not their money. In other words, they’re in a position of power.

Leahy: Exactly.

Carmichael: And they’re only in the position of power because they agree to be part of that power structure.

Leahy: This is A, true, and B, no surprise because it’s been that way for decades.

Carmichael: It’s worse now, and it has been getting worse for decades.

Leahy: Agreed. Having said all that, the Republicans who won a narrow victory in the pink fizzle that was supposed to be a red wave do have a majority of members in the House of Representatives but are unable to pursue anything until they elect a speaker. Kevin McCarthy, who is generally considered effective politically as a tactician but not ideologically a conservative, has been the minority leader.

He has had two months to talk to the conservatives who oppose him, and they’ve not been able to succeed in coming to any agreement. And now, for the first time in 100 years…

Carmichael: Because he won’t agree with anything.

Leahy: I don’t know those details. If you talk to the McCarthy people, they say, we’ve made a bunch of concessions.

Carmichael: No, they haven’t. That’s the whole point.

Leahy: Actually, they have.

Carmichael: What concessions have they actually agreed to put in writing? Not agreeing to say, I hear you and I’ll take care of that once I’m speaker.

Leahy: I’ll give you an example.

Carmichael: Please.

Leahy: Five members of the House can call for a new vote on the speaker. That’s something new. That’s a concession that he’s made. The point on all this is, and I’m not going to defend Kevin McCarthy because let’s come back and say, I think he’s not exhibited leadership in this sense.

Do you remember the big set of issues they were going to promote upon which the red wave would be held and succeed? I saw those issues, and they were boring. They were focus-grouped. They were not really clear statements of the mission. I don’t think he did a particularly good job on that.

Carmichael: You’re criticizing him for that?

Leahy: Yes, I thought he was weak.

Carmichael: I agree.

Leahy: And by the way, our friend Andy Ogles, who is one of the 19, now 20, who opposed him in September, said he supported McCarthy for speaker. So that’s a point. He’s changed his mind after having publicly, as far as I can tell, said that he supported McCarthy. He has his reasons.

We haven’t heard what those reasons are yet. But my point in all of this is, this is not good for the Republican Party to go through this public humiliation of not selecting a speaker on the first ballot for the first time in over 100 years.

Because it demonstrates weakness and lack of unity against an opponent, the Democrats who are absolutely unified in their effort and desire to destroy the United States of America, in my view. Your thoughts.

Carmichael: The reason that I don’t agree with your characterization of it showing a lack of cohesion in that a party is not necessarily supposed to be cohesive. When you run for office, do you run to represent your constituents, or do you run to represent the power brokers in Washington?

That’s the question. Now, in the case of the Democrats, they run to support the power brokers in Washington, the ones who support them. And so it’s a purely for Democrats. You are a pawn.

Leahy: That may all be true.

Carmichael: But now wait a second, Michael. This is very important.

Leahy: I’m listening.

Carmichael: Because what we have now is, as you point out, the red wave didn’t happen.

Leahy: Pink fizzle.

Carmichael: What we should include in that is that Republicans across the board were outspent three to one. Three to one. And so you have to ask yourself….

Leahy: That noise you hear in the background is the tiniest violin in the world crying tears.

Carmichael: And if you think that money doesn’t matter in politics, then you and I will just simply disagree. So what Republicans need to be united about is attacking the institutions that support the Democrat Party. And this is what I’ve been saying for two years.

Leahy: We’re in agreement on that.

Carmichael: I have not heard Kevin McCarthy utter a single thing that would cause me to believe that he would attack those institutions. Not one word. At the beginning of all this, I just assumed that Kevin McCarthy would win on the first ballot.

So now what we’re doing is we’re talking about a new paradigm in Washington, and that is that it looks like there’s going to be a minority of Republicans who are going to force the rest of the Republicans to pick somebody who will stand up for something that is good for the country in Washington.

Leahy: There are a number of assumptions there. The question is, okay, who is that person that will be superior to Kevin McCarthy?

Carmichael: Do I have to tell you before the commercial?

Leahy: No. You can tell me after the break. (Laughter)

Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Kevin McCarthy” by Kevin McCarthy.