#WTH is the "knucklehead caucus"?

Hugh Hewitt on the House GOP, Ukraine, defense, 2024 & more

Jan 27, 2023

Three things from this week’s pod with Hugh Hewitt:

McCarthy > Matt Gaetz in the House. HH divides the Knucklehead Caucus into bad guys vs others who are serious members of Congress, but wrong on the issues. And those serious guys aren’t going to let the next two years be a circus.
All is not lost for the GOP — the presidential in 2024 will reorient the party on national security, and the governors running will be more Reagan, less Trump.
The people the press call “the base” aren’t the base. They are the fringe, and they don’t represent the views of Republicans in America.
Share What the Hell is Going On?

Hugh Hewitt is one of America’s most popular broadcasters, and he doesn’t mince words. He also spends a lot more time asking questions than answering them, and this week’s podcast is more like a lunch among friends than an interview. We can easily imagine House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreeing with Hugh that Matt Gaetz — one of the chief knuckleheads of what HH calls the knucklehead caucus — made a lot of enemies in the circus that was the speaker’s race. Gaetz is going to need to keep his powder dry if his aim is to influence governing. Of course, if his only aim is to raise money….

Then there’s the loudmouthed “cut defense/get out of Ukraine” caucus — more serious than the fringy knuckleheads. Polls suggest their views are now more mainstream than Ronald Reagan’s clarion call for peace through strength. But is that really so? HH insists not, and notes that when the first 2024 presidential debates begin this July (NOOOOOOO!), few on the stage are going to risk being labeled weak on national security.

There is something to the argument that the White House has since 2008 failed to lead on national security… Obama cut defense even as he dabbled in foreign “adventurism;” Trump talked a good game, mostly, but set the stage for the Biden administration; and Biden was, until Ukraine, a fiasco for national security, scuttling from Afghanistan like a frightened chicken. Profiles in courage it ain’t, and the question is whether Hugh is being overly optimistic when he suggests that the likes of Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence and John Bolton are going to bring the party back in line. We shall see all too soon. Way too soon.

HIGHLIGHTS

So tell us more about what you call “the knucklehead caucus”?

HH: I divide the knucklehead caucus into two parts, the Chip Roy led faction, which was looking for substantive change. Got it, was never personal about McCarthy, and then the six. And the six, Kevin's not the punisher type. He is not a Nancy Pelosi when it comes to bringing the hammer, but I don't think there'll be a lot of carrots being given to those six. But whereas the other 14, I expect they'll be fully integrated in a functioning conference.

But hasn’t McCarthy sold his soul to the chief knuckleheads?

HH: I did hear, through a number of back channel sources, a number of congressmen, that the blowback experience by Matt Gaetz was intense. Now, he raised money off of this in small dollar donors by repeated appeals to whoever it is that donates money to Matt Gaetz. I don't know who that is. That's an interesting show I should do someday. So, it was profitable for him. I don't think it's profitable to go back to the well absent an extraordinary of series events, which would rally the same six people.

What about Chip Roy?

HH: I don't know if many people listening know his background. He's a very serious, competent, smart guy, and he is a debt hawk. And he's one of the legitimate debt hawks who wants to cut the military rather than have the debt increase. There's a lot of waste spending and abuse there. He'd prefer that it stay at fiscal year 21 levels, et cetera. But he's a serious man, and I don't think he's going to go after Kevin McCarthy absent a huge ideological divide, which isn't there

So, isolationism, hostility to helping Ukraine, cutting defense… is that the future of the GOP?

HH: That would be the nightmare scenario. [Defense] is the worst department to run on a month by month basis — it's very small stuff and it's very big stuff. You don't get promotions done. You don't get change of commands done. You can't forward deploy that which is scheduled to deploy. You keep ships out too long. It's a terrible way to run the government. And I think it's 1940 vis-a-vis China.

And so I don't think it's responsible for the Republican Party to act that way. And I think that could split the Republican party. And I'm going to start beating that drum. That is the big, big issue for me. I don't mind if they go after the Jordan committee. They want to look into the Joe Biden documents, they want to repeat the Mueller thing. I think it's all kind of nonsense because they're going to win on national security and inflation if they win in two years. But they could split the party on national defense. I really do believe that. That's the real threat.

The polls show dramatic declines in Republican support for Ukraine?

HH: I think it's incumbent on every Republican to speak to why a Russian tank blown up by a Ukraine tank is a beautiful thing. And I think it's a wonderful thing that we speak up about Taiwan and how this is a mess. We just have to sell it because somehow there is an isolationist streak, and it's old. I mean, it goes back to Robert Taft in Ohio. And Richard Nixon used to battle it. A bit of it was in the Goldwater wing, but I thought it had been eradicated. I thought it was gone, but it's obviously not gone, and Ukraine is the testing ground for that.

[T]here are so many different groups feeding into this river of anti Ukraine that I wanted to make sure I distinguish the two big ones. There are some... It's a very small number, I'm open to being told I'm wrong about that, a very small number who admire Putin, very small number. I don't think that number is more than 1% of the Republican party.

The bigger problem is that we have monetized eccentricity. That means if you can get attention, get clicks, you can get viewers on any network, most importantly for political people, you can raise money from the 1% in America, which is 3 million people, who love Putin or who hate America spending money abroad, who think we ought to be spending money on the border and that we're diverting money from the border.

We have monetized eccentricity, and sometimes we've monetized extremism in the Congress. And that's enough for cynical people trying to make a buck name, build an audience.

Are the 2024 candidates going to be soft?

HH: If you put up on that stage the former president, if he's still ranks at that point, Ron DeSantis, Glenn Youngkin, Larry Hogan and half a dozen other people, Greg Abbott, you name them... There are like 17 people. ... and you ask, "Should we be aiding Ukraine," I believe the number of people who will take a J.D. Vance view will be zero. Zero. But you'll get a lot of, "We ought to be demanding our allies pitch in."

Is Reaganite internationalism dead?

HH: I think the Gallagher Committee is the most important move of this Congress, because if he does what he has told me he is going to do, take the show on the road, make the argument, call Bob Iger and Adam Silver from Disney and the NBA, respectively, to talk about the choke hold. Talk about that they have done the greatest shipbuilding effort in the history of the planet, bigger than the British Empire when it came to hulls in the water during their Napoleonic wars. The Chinese have in five years built a navy at a rate that no one has ever seen absent wartime in World War II.

How did we end up needing to make an argument for a strong defense?

HH: Well, for 14 years we have had a commander in chief, beginning with President Obama through President Trump through now President Biden who are suspicious of the use of hard power in any way, shape or form. Hard power is Ukraine. That doesn't mean American military personnel in my world. You two have to define it for me for your world. But in my world, it's arming the Mujahideen and it's arming Zelensky. That's hard power. For 14 years, the number one center attraction in America has been a president of both parties, three of them, who are hostile to hard power. That is the deficit we have in public opinion. [I]f you don't have a president leading, the voices for withdrawal have all the space in the world. And they make money on it.

We complain about leadership from the White House, but what about Congress?

HH: I believe that it all depends upon the nominating process. The debates get underway in July in Milwaukee. There is probably going to be 12 to 15 of them. And then, we're in the presidential campaign in Iowa. A year from now, we're voting in Iowa. And the presidential campaign will drive politics in the way that 1980 drove politics. So everything depends, in terms of national security, on how the framing goes.

I'm stunned that President Biden is running for reelection. He is infirm, in my view. Not demented, not incapable of being president, just, he's an old man. No Country for Old Men is a movie and no job for old men is the White House. I think the Republican case will not come from Congress. The only thing they can do is highlight the debt and supply what is needed in the short term.

Now, the parties exercise central control and now they will be very regimented. And that's good. And I think it has the capability of elevating and amplifying the best messages of the Gallagher Committee and the best messages of... We've got some great hawks like Dan Sullivan, a very articulate hawk, Tom Cotton, very articulate hawk. We've got some great hawks and we need them to be front and center and arguing Pompeo's campaign. He's running for president. It's going to be all about peace through strength.

So I'm an optimist until we lose in 2024. And then, I'm glad that it's your job and not mine after that. I'm signed through 2028

No no no!

HH: This is just the same fight. It's the same fight again and again and again, only this time social media gives the megaphone to people with no credentials.

Is there another Reagan out there that’s going to inspire on national security?

HH: I think Ron DeSantis is a naval intelligence officer who deployed with the SEALs and is very serious on national security. He doesn't talk about it much, because he's a governor. So he's not one. Chris Sununu doesn't talk about it at all, though he has watched it from afar. Greg Abbott is concerned with the border, not really a national security.

The national security argument will come, I believe, from Mike Pompeo and Vice President Pence. They'll both be on the stage and they will not get off of the stage. There's no way the RNC can block either of those gentlemen from the stage.

And Donald Trump will just figure out what he's feeling that day. If he wants to make the argument that Afghanistan would never have happened, he will make that argument.

It will be stunning for the audience to hear them all say that we ought to stay engaged in Ukraine. And that will begin. But mostly, they'll warn about China. And if I'm asking the question... I don't know if you two are asking the question. I hope you ask, "If China sails its navy towards Taiwan, should we sink the ships?" It's the number one question in the world today. And I think every Republican except the former president will give an unambiguous "yes".

Are you an optimist about the GOP’s future?

HH: I am because when people say the base, I always said, "Give me a definition." And my working definition of "the base" is that you have had to have voted Republican at least five elections in a row, which means you have to be at least 26. And you've had to have been involved for at least 10 years, and you've had to do some indicia of involvement beyond mere voting. You had to have had a contribution, written a letter, walked a precinct, organized a meeting. And I believe the base of the Republican Party remains a very internationalist, very serious, very well-read, professional class that is poorly represented by the Knucklehead Caucus. And the Knucklehead Caucus presents difficulties to people like Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell saved the United States Constitution by holding up the vacancy created by the untimely death of Antonin Scalia, and he is routinely savaged by the extreme edge of the Republican Party.

So, we have to stop, I believe, strongly substituting the fringe for the base. The base is solid and will endure, and I think the base in the Democratic Party is more of a problem than the base in the Republican Party, I think. But people like Ro Khanna, he's a progressive, he's wrong about pretty much everything, but he's pretty serious about China. I wish he'd run for Senate in California. But then you get their wackos, and each party has a problem that we've monetized the extreme. So I'm an optimist, but it's going to be a close run thing, as Wellington said of Waterloo. And we're going to find out by the end of '24.

Full transcript here.

SHOWNOTES

Kevin McCarthy’s long climb, and the ingrates he left behind (Washington Post, January 9, 2023)

Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) on What House Republicans Should Demand for Raising the Debt Limit (Hugh Hewitt Show, January 12, 2023)

Hugh Hewitt tweet afterwards: “It is the job of Defense hawks to explain to debt hawks why CRs of reduced spending or even constant spending are so ruinous to the Pentagon and the nation’s security. Win the argument then win the vote. Rep. Chip Roy is a smart, reasonable guy. We need to persuade him.”

Biden’s New Debt Deadline (WSJ, January 11, 2023)

Biden says inflation report shows families getting ‘some real breathing room’ (Washington Post, January 12, 2023)

Congress, stop the debt limit madness (Bipartisan Policy Center, January 11, 2023)

Congress Should Prepare for a Historic Showdown (National Review, January 12, 2023)

Governor Glenn Youngkin on Yet Another Scandal Rocking Virginia Schools (Hugh Hewitt Show, January 12, 2023)

With plunging enrollment, a ‘seismic hit’ to public schools (NY Times, May 17, 2022)

Chairman Gallagher to Disney’s Bob Iger and the NBA’s Adam Silver: You Will Be Testifying Before the Gallagher Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (Hugh Hewitt Show, January 11, 2023)

House GOP obsesses over mirage of a backroom-deal doc (Politico, January 12, 2023)

Handful of McCarthy detractors get new top committee assignments (The Hill, January 11, 2023)

With Hakeem Jeffries’ rise, his members see ‘Democrats in total array’ (CNN, December 2, 2022)

George Santos under pressure as more GOP lawmakers say he can’t serve effectively (CNN, January 12, 2023)

What the House GOP can do to Rep George Santos – if they wanted to (Fox, January 13, 2023)