Transcription
So, there's been another whole crazy situation unfolding with regard to Trump and the Republicans. Actually, with regards to this Iran war powers resolution that actually passed the House, passed the Senate. There were two Republicans, Mitch McConnell and uh McCormack, who were both absent for it. McCormack was actually traveling with Trump at the time, so he was unavailable to go to the vote. And then Ran Paul and Bill Cassidy um voted in favor of the war powers resolution. For the first time, this thing passed.
Trump was very, very, very, very unhappy about this. Reportedly, you can put D1 up on the screen. He and Cassidy apparently had an all-out shouting match. The way CBS News describes it is a "sit down, no you sit down" shouting spat during the closed-door meeting with the Senate Republicans. Um, Trump was absolutely furious, um, you know, lighting into Cassidy and Ran Paul and Lisa Murkowski as well, um, for their votes on this resolution.
And, you know, at this point, you've got uh Ryan, the Iran war is kind of on hold here as we do these negotiations. So, classic Congress move here to actually pass the resolution once the war may be settled and over. But it's also very dis uh comforting to me that Trump was so angry about this going through. Uh, it does is not a great sign of confidence that he feels he's done with war, I guess, at this point.
>> Yeah. And I don't have an explanation for why it is, but, and I've mentioned this a bunch before, Trump has always really cared about these war powers resolution votes. Like, he he credits them with with real power. Even like during Trump won, when there would be war powers pushes in the House or Senate, particularly at at the time on the Yemen war and the US support for the Saudi-led uh Yemen war, like he would fight hard against them. And he would change what he was doing. Like, after one of them passed, he stopped kind of refueling Saudi fighter jets, which brought it brought to a significant end the Saudi Arabia's ability to carry out that war and help and helped U kind of end Saudi Arabia's involvement in he.
So, even though he has no respect for Congress, um, no respect for anything other than kind of his day-to-day whims, for some reason, he does respect war powers votes. And so, to to and so that I think explains why he had this kind of blow up shouting match a c you know somebody like Cassidy who Trump threw out of office doesn't have a whole lot of motivation to give him what he want. But uh it's interesting that after getting a briefing, I guess. Um, you know, they was able to they're able to kind of u move move him on this. He was one of the ones that flipped, right?
>> Yeah. So, um, just an update to my previous comments. There was four Republicans that voted against it: Cassidy, Collins, Murkowski, Ran Paul. Then Mitch McConnell and Dave McCormack that missed the vote. That it passes by 50 to 48. John Fetterman voted with the Republicans because, of course, he did. It doesn't even say which Democrat. It was the one Democrat, but I'm just going to assume it was John Fetterman because he's been voting against all of these things.
Um, and it is significant because, so, you know, so people know how this works. It doesn't require a presidential signature. Once it passes the House and it passes the Senate, then that's it. Um, you you know, you are supposed to not go to war. You're supposed to stop the war. And so, it gives you some power to go to the courts. Then if Trump was to restart hostilities, direct hostilities with Iran, and say he can't do this, right? It gives them some legal power. Now, we know that Trump has blown through previous legal limits. I have no doubt they would come up with some theory of the case why it doesn't count and we can do whatever we want.
Yeah. And so, Ryan, I kind of, you know, I I don't know that he's that concerned about the legal implications here. I think it's more of an ego thing that you had this many Republicans vote against him, which is why so he freaks out, yells at everybody who voted the wrong way.
Um, Cassidy, one of the things that he had apparently said is, "You haven't even briefed us on this war and you expect us to go along with it?" So, some of the members of the Trump administration then later in the day reached out to Cassidy, said, "All right, well, fine. Come in for a briefing." Brought him to the situation room, gave him a whole briefing. He tweets out, "Oh, thank you for the briefing." And then he changes his vote and they do the same war powers resolution vote again. And this time he and Ran Paul flip their votes so that the and the two that weren't there are there. And so it's then able to pass. Now it's kind of meaningless because you already have the one that you know you already have the one that passed. Yeah. Sorry. Failed. You already have the one that passed.
>> So the fact that it failed this time doesn't like supersede that or override it. It's just purely an ego play for Trump to come in and be like, "No, I'm going to bend you to my will. I'm going to force you to see the world the way that I see the world and you are going to publicly demonstrate your fealty to me and the fact that I was right and you were wrong on this vote."
>> Yeah, it's it it show Yes. And I think you're right that like if he relaunched the war, he would say, "Well, it's a new war." And Hexath even hinted at that, like, "Okay, we're only allowed to do 60 days of war. Well, we stopped, um, and so now now we're doing new new one." But just materially, he doesn't have the capacity to do that, it seems like.
>> Yeah, last thing on this, Ryan. I'm curious for your view and uh what your reporting suggests. So, Cassidy lost this primary, so he's a lame duck. So, he has no reason to like continue to be slavishly pro-Trump, um, sort of embarrassing to me that he went and did this briefing and flipped his vote. Like, how weak are you?
I mean, and just to pause on him for a second, this guy, I think I think his sin was he he voted in favor of the like January 6th impeachment. Since then, he's done everything they've wanted him to do. He is a doctor, and so he did not really want to vote for RFK Jr. to be the head of HHS, but he did it. And RFK Junior, "Oh, I'm totally pro vaccine and don't worry about it, sir." And they had these private meetings. There was all sorts of su Susan Collins-esque angst about how concerned he is. But at the end of the day, he voted for him. He voted for all the Trump picks. He's done everything Trump wanted to do, but it didn't matter. Trump came after him in this primary and he gets, you know, kicked out of office. And so then for him to just still be bending the knee whenever he's asked to is frankly humiliating.
Um, but you have others as well who have lost their seats. John Cornyn uh is now actually he tweeted out a Wall Street Journal article. I don't know if you saw this that was like um the the top goal scorer for the men's soccer team is uh is a citizen by birthright citizenship. Yeah. And so he tweeted out a Wall Street Journal article that was like, "This is what makes our soccer team in America great." Um, he's been giving some interviews that are more critical. You've got a few of these and Thomas Massie obviously in the House. So, you do have a few more of these characters who don't necessarily have to go along to get along the way that they used to. And you have Trump obviously with an absolutely dismal approval rating and his political popularity falling. So, I don't know. It could make the next few months slightly more interesting with slightly more dissent than we've seen in the past.
>> Yeah. And and Trump still controls donor networks. He controls the IRS. He controls the Justice Department. Like, he's the most corrupt president we've ever had, uh, and is willing to kind of weaponize the the institutional power that he has in the government. So, you know, I if you're Cassidy, you're like, "Okay, yeah, I I lost my race and I'm leaving office." Guy still runs the DOJ. Guy still runs the IRS.
>> Yeah.
>> So, maybe, you know, if it's going to pass anyway or it's going to fail anyway, um, this next time around and he doesn't care that much,
>> then you know what? Just going to go along and get along. Actually,
>> who knows what they said in the situation room.
>> True. And the uh the consequences of crossing Trump, um, and the grave the grave consequences that can result from dissenting with this administration are a good segue actually to our next block.
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