Power Politics Episode 3 - A Mishpacha Podcast

my Fearless forecast I call it a return to sanity I believe George Santos resigns [Music] welcome to power Politics the mishpacha podcast exploring the flashpoints of American and global current affairs and how they impact the Jewish Community I'm Benjamin rose with editor at large and I'm Maury litwack a two-decade veteran of political campaigns at Capitol Hill join US Weekly as we delve into these critical topics and more on power politics in today's program America's border crisis Can America have both secure borders and remain true to its Heritage as a safe haven we'll also do a post-mortem on Kevin McCarthy's Victorious battle to become house Speaker we'll speak with shimmy Stein a former top aide to the Republican Congressional leadership does he have any Great Expectations from the 118th Congress and of course our weekly person of influence and our fearless forecast starting with immigration Can America have both secure borders and remain true to its Heritage as a safe haven why do I raise that question I know that for us as Jews most of us are immigrants we came to America I know Maria grandparents came in the late 1890s the early 1900s and they were welcomed of course uh they had it tough but they not only survived some of them prospered and I think that America got an excellent reputation for being a hospitable type of state now we're seeing the opposite we're seeing people swimming over rivers to get across the border we're seeing people climbing fences and now I understand that a lot of them are illegal immigrants and we can't just have open borders and anyone coming in at any time and doing whatever they want there have been criminal elements who've gotten in criminal gangs who've helped people come in so there has to be a balance somewhere where is it Maury what's going on in Washington what are people saying there this is a topic which I've had some first-hand experience on which is when I was working in Congress and I worked for Republican leadership in congress they were tackling the immigration issue two decades ago and prior to that in the 90s obviously with the Cuban migration uh policies and prior to that in the Reagan Administration we can keep going so this is a very old issue in Washington what's different about it now is instead of just dividing between right and left it's not now dividing multiple parts of the democratic party multiple parts of the Republican party this is a complicated issue that when I was dealing with it we had half of the congressional district that I was working for which was in Utah half of the congressional district was very upset at us for trying to figure out how to find legal ways for these immigrants to be in the country because the reality is that you had at the time it was 15 million so you had to figure out some way you can't just evict 15 million people and the second half of the district felt that this is about being compassionate it's about being uh exactly what you said Benjamin which is in that example a lot of Mormons a lot of religious individuals like members of our community who said how do you compassionately help these people how do you bring them in how do you continue this environment that America has been as a welcoming Nation this is an old issue but what's different is it's just a lot hotter as you know and I think that really flared up these past couple weeks uh with mayor Adams and mayor Lightfoot and what happened with Governor polis the numbers are a lot bigger the U.S migrant population as quadrupled since 1970 in 1970 there were less than 12 million migrants now there's more than 50 million last year alone 900 000 immigrants became citizens in the first nine months of the fiscal year now if they're already in the country and they qualify for citizenship that's great but somehow don't we have to seal the borders better or is that a dream that President Trump had that President Biden is abandoned completely I think this is just such a game a political Hot Potato I mean again you see right now the thing that encapsulates this whole discussion is DeSantis is suing Biden again DeSantis is suing Biden and Governor San Francisco and President Biden because the DeSantis Camp is claiming that that Department of Homeland Security has reduced resources and ignore policy to detain these migrants they're saying they're not detaining them they're saying they're not releasing them and President Biden's Camp is claiming no this is a decades-old problem there are issues during the Trump Administration they haven't changed any policies it's just flaring up right now now and like I mentioned previously when you have an environment not just that right and left that's happening but you have an environment also where two Democratic Mayors one in New York City and one Chicago are complaining because a Democratic governor in Colorado is now sending migrants their way as well this issue is bubbling over like we've never seen before my sense is that there's no real solution if you look at the UN World migration report there's a total in the world of 281 million people living in a country other than where they were born now the UN says okay that's not so bad it's only one out of every 30 people in the world but this has doubled since 1990 and triple since 1970. so this is a problem that's only going to get bigger and bigger and as you pointed out Maury with the politicking around my senses there's really no solution to this at least not in the short term I also think that the way these arguments are framed is very important you know we've got some great listener feedback on our podcast so far and and one of the things The Listener says is just explain to us a little bit more um how these things are framed and I think in Immigration a perfect example of this is when you hear 50 million 15 million 20 million you hear words like illegal immigrants and you say hey well that's not fair and that's not right and we have to figure this out and you hear about crime and you hear about other things okay but when the American public is polled and for example there's a Ukrainian crisis and Ukrainian refugees want to come to America they're fine with it and syrians want to come to America they're fine with it just like they were fine with it when Cubans under Castro wanted to come to America and I remember that well because I lived in Florida for many years and you know that there was no Florida elected official right or left who would oppose that migration policy they understood why that made so much sense and after the Potato Famine in Ireland after so many millions died famously Irish immigrants fled to America so it just depends on how the argument is discussed and worked on and really there has to be a middle ground and that's just not something that Washington likes to do this is something that the Congress is going to have to tackle in this term and now we have a republican house we have a democratic Senate and speaking of the Republican house Maury I want to Pat you on the back for not only saying that Kevin McCarthy would Prevail but for doubling down last week and your Fearless forecast now I also have to Pat myself on the back at least with one hand because I also said that in the absence of any serious opposition that McCarthy was pretty much of a shoe-in to get in but the big question that's circulating in Washington is McCarthy hobbled by this or is he just going to move on and say okay it was a struggle it was a battle and now I'm going to uh just do my job what do you think when you look at the history of the speaker elections there's two components number one is the combativeness which there has historically been maybe backroom deals or it took a little while to get a speaker set up that's sort of the component one and this took him a long time I think 14 15 to have that on how many times it took yeah 15 votes 15 votes and the second thing that happened is more important which is there's discussions about changing the rules committee and the rules committee really is something that's governed by the speaker or and there's an idea that he could be called back for election to speaker again a lot of unprecedented things Benjamin which I believe will create an environment where it's harder for him to get stuff done now that being said again like in another one of my Fearless forecasts I talked about the fact that McCarthy has an ability as the Republican voice in DC to Galvanize his crowd and demonstrate to them why he's the man for the job and Power in his hands makes the most sense so I don't think it's over yet but uh just because he won election does not mean that the Battle Is Over uh by any stretch I happen to like a lot of the changes that they made even though it was a very difficult battle now I don't like the idea of giving one member power to challenge the speaker if he wants to try to unseat him but I do like the idea of giving members more input and more time to consider legislation and I just hope that they'll be able to restore some kind of fiscal sanity especially when it comes to the budget there is one number I wanted to mention you know America's national debt is now up to 30 31 trillion dollars I'm not going to talk about how many dollar bills piled high into the sky that represents but basically almost seven trillion dollars of that debt has to be refinanced in 2023 interest rates have risen a lot in the past year by at least two to three percent and every percentage Point increase adds 70 billion dollars per year to debt financing so I figured out based on the Congressional budget office projection and now with a higher interest rate the us is going to spend next year close to 500 billion dollars just to pay interest on the national debt now until 1978 1979 the entire federal budget wasn't even 500 billion dollars so America really has to get their financial house in order and I do hope if something good comes out of this whole battle that will restore some sort of fiscal sanity to uh at least the House of Representatives when listeners hear that number message discipline is so important in politics so if the house decides to talk about something like that or debt or the interest on the data or other things like that that's going to resonate innate with a lot of people because I think most Americans for example are very familiar with the idea that they pay a mortgage and then there's two parts of it there's the principal and Zia interest when those things are talked about which they were talked about in the 1990s Republicans did a great job of having that message discipline it really resonated with folks so I do think obviously getting the financial house in order is extremely important I think every American could agree on that but it's just a question of who sort of takes that mantle and leads with it especially in the post-coveted Years uh where there was such an influx of spending I'd also like to see former President Clinton weigh in because he is the last Democrat who uh actually had a not only a balanced budget but one of the years when he was president the federal government around a surplus so I'd like to see him maybe put his two cents in and uh try to get the Democrats on board with that as well DC is full of economists and and others who love talking numbers like this Benjamin so we're gonna have to get somebody on here who's going to be informing and not putting our listeners to sleep so we're going to find the right person for this right the right economy is because I I know that giving numbers on the air sometimes is difficult to absorb but I just had to throw in a few today our guest today is going to give us an idea of what we can expect from the upcoming Congress and how successful they're going to be especially on the Republican side in getting legislation across and getting it passed we're thrilled to have on the podcast a long time friend and a leading expert really someone who knows the inside baseball of Washington and something we were just talking about which is uh these Republican elections this new Republican majority we have on the podcast today shimmy Stein who is a founding partner for West Front strategies prior to that and everything he does for West Front advising clients on tax Financial Services pension International Trade prior to that shimmy served as senior policy advisor to then House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that is part of the Republican leadership and was a primary policy liaison between the majority leaders office the hospital the leadership Ways and Means Foreign Affairs all these other things that we care about and before he was in house Republican leadership as a senior advisor he worked for Senator John Ashcroft he worked for representative Jim talent and he also worked at doj as a Special Assistant to director of office of state and local domestic preparedness and support so we're thrilled to have you on the podcast Jimmy thanks for having me I really appreciate the opportunity to be here and it's great to see you again yeah we always like to ask our guests for the 30 second 45 second elevator pitch for those who are really watching you're going to see that shimmy has that ridiculously impressive resume but he's also wearing a yamaka so he's clearly a member of the community as well so people want to know how do you get into politics shimmy what happened uh it's a great story thank you for having me again you know I grew up in St Louis uh very proud of that as you can see in the background on all my St Louis Cardinals stuff love that you know product of Epstein Hebrew Academy and black Yeshiva high school you know it's a big part of who I am uh after growing up in St Louis I spent a couple years in Yeshiva hard to own and and gush which is a fantastic fantastic Place gave me a lot of what I carry with me uh into the job in terms of learning and in terms of thinking went to IU for about a year and then hopped down to George Washington University where I got my start in politics we'll finish my University training there obviously but started working on Capitol Hill back then and uh fell in love with it and never wanted to leave and so here I find myself a number of years later still in the mix and loving every minute of it that's fantastic so we wanted to get right into it with you because you are someone who you worked for the majority leader correct correct for those who don't know there's a speaker and then there's the House Majority Leader so you're familiar with these leadership elections that you we just went through yeah absolutely and you know the leadership elections are always you know these fascinating inner party discussions about what policy and what the vision and the future of the party is and the direction the parties want to take the country and parties have General ideas you know there are differences between Democrats and Publications and within the parties there are different ideas they're probably a more slight variation about where the ideas want to be but they're definitely differences of ideas and so you see that play out and the speaker is the most unique because to win a majority leader position or a majority whip position that is something that is within the party and so you need a majority of the 218 um so it's you know roughly half of 218 to win that position but to win speaker you need a majority of the house which is in this case almost the entire conference almost the entire Republican party and that's what made the selection the speaker so interesting you know majorities tend to be a little bit bigger than they have been in the past few years both of the Democrats and Republicans you know 220s 230 sometimes 240s uh in recent history but here we see the last congress with the Democrats in the low 220s and this time with Republicans in the low 220s that it really takes almost the entire conference or the caucus for the Democrats in this case to elect the speaker and and that's why the drama has played out considering the bitter fight and considering how the Republicans only have of a four or five seat majority right now are they going to be an effective leadership yeah it's an excellent question I think the answer is yes the slim majorities aren't something that's new to uh Republicans hearken back to the early days or my early days on the hill I should say in the late 90s uh the majorities were fairly slim as well it was also in the 221-22 223 ranges um and they were able to function fairly well as a core um and I think they will find a similar functionality in this majority as well it's always a good thing to have a group of people willing to pull the conference in one direction for a policy purpose if the end goal is to produce a product the problem becomes when the end goal is not to produce a product but like we saw ultimately with the speaker race when a group wants to pull a product in the direction But ultimately a deal can be done and there's a move towards the end goal then there's an opportunity to create a product and I think that this conference will work together it will be a more conservative product I think that's what we've warned from the speaker race that you will have the opportunity to create conservative legislation I think this conference ultimately will be a fairly productive Congress some people think that the radicals took control of the Republican party at least in the house with this whole fight even though they only have 20 seats what do you think about that um I would question that theory I'm not sure what was agreed to ultimately the end of the day at least that we've seen to this point that is so radical the idea that you can remove the speaker with one member objecting is something that was historically true in the past um that was changed in recent history so to revert back to that it lent itself to be problematic but it's not necessarily problematic given the overall history that it has been possible in the past um we'll see we'll see the opportunity we'll see how they decide to govern the idea of restoring regular order to Congress I think is a good thing the idea of not creating these massive bills that that are four or five thousand Pages where we try to do everything for the last three weeks of the year is not a terribly radical proposal especially when it comes to government spending there is a lot of having hearings restoring regular order not using the government as a weapon all these agreements that have come out recently in terms of what these 20 were asking for seem to be things that the Republicans were heading in that direction anyway we'll see what it plays out but that seems to be what they've asked for and and so far I think it's generally the conference is okay with where this is going and the rules vote that followed the speaker vote where people had suggested there might be pushback because the agreements went fairly smoothly with only one Republican objection so I think the step forward seemed to be in the right direction Donald Trump seems to be a constructive power and influencer behind the scenes especially in this case do you think that He restored or reasserted himself as either the leader of the party or certainly uh overcome some of his issues and some of his problems or do you just think that the efforts that he made to uh sway the radicals if you want to call them that is something that was a one-time one-off situation and it won't have a further impact I think everybody views uh the former president for both the positive things that he has done policy wise during his presidency and recognizes some of the detractions that he has I certainly played a role in terms of trying to heal the party and I think everybody appreciates that he did that in the way that he did that he was able to certainly talk to some people other people seem to not want to hear from him based on the at least the press report that we were able to read whether that solidifies him as some sort of leader of the party again I don't know that that's the case maybe it's too early to play that out it certainly was productive in terms of trying to unify the party and that's great but I think we're going to have a very open and healthy primary going into 2024 and I'd be hesitant to say that there's any true leader of the party at this point I think it'll be a fascinating competition to see where Republicans take this in 2024. before we pivot in in terms of the um going forward which I know benjam is going to ask you about do you see on the Democratic side of things this precedent setting because it's funny because I saw a lot of democratic strategists crowing about how United their base was and how divided the Republican base was but how do you see that happening if the roles were reversed do we really Envision the squad quote unquote not doing the exact same thing why would they not you know I wonder the same thing it's a great question I don't know that they would to me this speaks well at the Republican party at the end of the day one what were we in a hurry to do this may not have been the right format for the discussion but at the end of the day it shows that there's a diverse opinion amongst the Republican party and there should be the fact that the Republican party has a big tent of opinion of what policy should be maybe it's far more diverse than the Democratic party in terms of public policy and those discussions need to be had they need to be fought out and the fact that it's maybe a little harder to piece together um means that there's a lot of differential opinion I would argue that this may not have been the best venue to have that discussion there may have been better venues to have that discussion but it's good to know that there's enough of a differential out there and that the party is inclusive enough that we can have people with big differences of opinion in the Republican Party the fact that the Democrats are proud that they don't have that diversity of opinion in their party is you know it is them I think the squad was carefully watching it'll be interesting to see what they do with it the next time they have an opportunity to do the same thing at the end of the day the speaker Pelosi got 216 votes the same as Speaker McCarthy got 216 votes you know in 2020 versus 2022 so I guess the end result was the same my final question shimmy we introduced the segment by saying that we're going to ask if you have great expectations from the 118th Congress do you and if so what would they be I really do I think they're the There's an opportunity to show a new Direction going forward I've been here for I don't want to say how many years but it's been a lot of years since I've been in Washington and the process has really evolved in how we legislate my hope is that one of the things that we do is really restore or go back to the way we used to do business in a much more regular order fashion to take things in a much more in-depth policy thoughtful way a one bill at a time use the process the way Congress had created it instead of doing these huge massive bills at the end of the year waiting until the last three weeks in December to try and legislate for a year not do much the rest of the year to really maybe do smaller legislation more thoughtful legislation and that allows an opportunity for the bipartisan process to work better as well because when you're doing more rifle shot bills when the legislation is more focused then you don't have to worry about other issues coming in and derailing a bipartisan process but to really use the committee process to use the chairman to use the hearing process to focus on bits of legislation that can really help the American people where there is far more agreement at the end of the day between the parties and there is disagreement and that's the to me the biggest tragedy that gets ignored outside of Washington is that and that people don't see it that there's far more bipartisan cooperation than most people know it's not attractive to read about in the press and you don't really see in the media and to really start to get the town working the way it used to and work working for the American people again and so my hope is that by changing these rules and by forcing them to focus maybe on smaller issues that we see that town start to work back the way used to and really get going back for the American people I mean I have one final question for you yep what's more likely uh shimmy the Republicans winning back the White House in 24 or uh the Cardinals winning the World Series well I am ever The Optimist every year that the Cardinals will win the World Series so uh I'm not even gonna wait for 24. I still think they can win in 23 but yeah got it got it a optimistic forecast from uh shimmy Stein so we want to thank shimmy for being on shimmy Yan founding partner for uh West Front strategies someone who's been in the community a long time and uh good shout outs to St Louis where I was born also so good shout outs to St Louis and also um to our guests for all of his expertise thank you very much to me thank you for having me it's been real have fun Maury thanks for bringing shimmy Stein to board today that was an excellent interview very informative my biggest takeaway from it was when he talked about restoring process I think process really is very important to politics my feeling is that someone who's uh I'm going to use a Israeli term but someone who's a parliamentarian someone who really knows how the process works and knows how to push the right buttons and knows how to get things done can accomplish a lot more than someone who maybe has the greatest ideas and who ends up posturing a lot so I liked what he said about restoring the process and I think that if you can restore order and process to deliberations so the goals might be more modest the accomplishments might be more modest but at least you'll get things done it'll be uh and it'll look a lot more positive my biggest takeaway is the rear view mirror it appears from someone who's on the inside who understands the Republican conference has worked with it and these elections are uh for speaker and what McCarthy had to deal with are all in the past and you know the feeling that that's a United Conference and then they're going to get to work is a big deal well it's a long session we just got into session and in fact I think the week that this is going to air Congress is already out of session we have Martin Luther King day and Congress won't be in session the third week in January but then they'll come back the fourth week in January and that's when they'll really start getting things going in the meantime there's one gentleman who has flown from Israel to America and he's going to use this little bit of downtime as far as Congress is concerned to make an impact and be a person of influence and his name is Ron dermer he was a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S and now he has a new role in the Netanyahu government he's the minister of strategic Affairs as I said he went to America this past week to prepare for an upcoming visit probably at the end of January for America's national security adviser Jake Sullivan and dermer is very well liked and very well trusted in American circles he was of course uh prime minister netanyahua's Ambassador for many years he's also American himself we've done a couple of big features on Ron dermer in the magazine over the years he's from Miami Beach originally and I lived there for quite a few many years dermer's been called netanyahu's brains not that Netanyahu doesn't have his own set of brains but dermer is probably one of his most loyal uh workers to me this this is a good opportunity you know there's always opportunities and there's always threats when the U.S and Israel get together because there's so many areas that we agree on and cooperate and so many areas that we disagree on and I think what dermer did this past week is to go to the U.S and work on those areas of agreement and I think he's going to smooth out a lot so that the Biden Administration can work much better with the new Netanyahu government again despite all the differences especially uh when it comes to a political philosophy so that's why I named Ron dermer is my influencer of the week a name we haven't heard for some time but just again an excellent excellent pick again it also demonstrates how uh people in politics resurface all the time they're still there the relationships are still there yes Ron has kept up very closely with the Netanyahu even in the few years that he didn't have an official position and he was one of the first persons that netanyo called back in there was some talk about naming dermer the Minister of Foreign Affairs that fell by the wayside as there's too many rivals uh who are looking for that same position a lot of people in the liquid resented the idea that like you said dermer was on the outside for a while and they resented the idea of bringing someone a fairly new and fairly from the outside in but other than that I think that Antonio found the exact right spot for him yeah absolutely very interesting I always I always love when um binyaman gives us his inside ball on Israel politics my person of the week is someone who had the opposite of drama the opposite of a uh 15 round slugfest to become speaker which was uh Hakeem Jeffries who is from Brooklyn who is the new minority leader in the uh house I think that the reason why he's the person of the week is the absence that drama is a big deal he gave a heck of a speech he's governing in a way which is I think going to be very different than already you saw from when Pelosi was doing it his messaging is about work his messaging is about results I went on his Twitter handle literally says Brooklyn Congressman results first and if you've met him or you've heard him speak you could see that this is someone who wants to get wins on the board and reclaim power for the Democratic party so I think he he's the person the weak a because he avoided that drama that McCarthy had and B because he is a new major face for the Democratic party nationally and I think people have to pay attention to that and I think we've discussed this before on our previous podcast but the fact that he has many Jewish constituents and he's also been to Israel before so uh I think that's not only a fresh face but someone that the Jewish Community can get behind and also someone that Israel will be able to work with when it comes to the Democrats the Democrats are not always as friendly to Israel and Israel's positions as the Republicans are but I think with Jeffries there so there's at least a go-to person that the Israeli government can talk to I also think it's always great when the local communities take a Victory lap so local Brooklyn communities know him and knew him when he was in city in local politics and it's now they know the House minority leader it's a big deal for our community it's a big accomplishment to develop and store those types of relationships Maury last but not least our fearless for forecast again you're one for one I'm still waiting to see if Biden announces uh for the presidency by the time this year as we'll know if my last Fearless forecast worked out or not because I mentioned a specific date that I thought that he would announce that he's running again but this week I'm going to keep a little bit simpler and uh I'm going to tie this into what I said about Ron dermer's visit to the U.S Jake Sullivan's probably coming a week or so later Jake Sullivan again is uh President Biden's National Security advisor and when Sullivan is here I think he's going to formally announce in one way or another that the U.S is not going back to the Iran nuclear deal now what the last for Israel as a concession in return that I'm not quite so Fearless about but uh maybe we'll save that for next week and see if this forecast comes true so my Fearless forecast is about I call it a return to sanity and my Fearless forecast is about George Santos who we spoke about last week on the podcast which is I believe George Santos resigned I'm not sure when he resigns but I do believe George Santos resigns and the reason why I call return to sanity is because my Fearless forecast is it's the beginning of a return to sanity for what elected officials can get away with in terms of busha in terms of embarrassment in terms of what is allowed and tolerated it used to be that if you had a scandal of any sort if you lied publicly and got caught doing it if you had a personal Scandal or I don't think you had to resign you had to consider resignation you had to do something and it just the bar has is so low now and I think every day that George Santos stays in office the bar gets lower and lower and I believe it's reaching a point uh where he's going to have to resign he is being hounded by the Press every day there's more that's coming out multiple people referred him to uh both ethics investigations and a variety of other things I don't think this goes away but I do believe that he has to resign and there's a return to sanity and I think also in the uh city and state in New York public application which you're probably familiar with the very influential uh multimedia Outlet I saw an article just today where they're already talking about the people jockeying for position in case Santos resigns so uh Governor hokhal is going to have to uh call for a special election and city and state had a whole list of candidates on both sides of the aisle Democrats and Republicans who they expect to step up to the plate and run to try to fill that position if Santos does indeed vacate and I would go a step further and say I think the Democrats are going to win that seat back after this I certainly agree with you this is a mess you are listening to power politics unpacking the Power Players shaping our world a mishbacha podcast enjoyed this episode leave us a rating and share with your friends have a topic you'd like us to discuss or a guest to suggest we'd love to hear from you drop us a line on Twitter at the mishbacha OR at nishbahad.com forward slash powerpolitics this episode was produced by Jag and Detroit podcasts with sound design by Cedar media Studios see you next week