Speaker Johnson will remain speaker through the rest of this congress: Pence's Fmr. Chief of Staff

For more on what’s at stake, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, Mark Short. Mark, it’s good to of you to join us here on Last CALL. I’m curious when it comes to aid to our allies overseas. You know what’s at stake here when you have these this conservative faction fighting so hard against it. Well, Contessa, thanks. Having me on. I think that traditionally the conservatives have wanted to support our allies that are defending themselves against Russian aggression or defend Israel against Iranian attacks or, or actually defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression. And so this would, I think, traditionally been a conservative piece of legislation. But you’re right, it seems that there are many the Republican Party today that I think prefer the notion of marveling about the cleanliness of Moscow grocery stores as opposed to actually standing firm with our allies. And that has been a big shift in the Republican Party that I think has created a a, a growing caucus that that certainly wants to express their displeasure with Speaker Johnson, despite the fact that this is traditionally what you would have seen Republicans doing on Capitol Hill. Do you think that there is any sense among Republicans in the House that the, the chaos that gets called when a speaker will get ousted or when you have to have repeated votes to get a speaker elected, like we saw with Kevin McCarthy, that the, the, the patience is just wearing thin? I think that for a lot of responsible members that the patience has worn thin. I think that’s why you’re actually see, in many cases, Democrats are willing to express that they’d be willing to save Mike Johnson over this. But I think that, sadly, much of our politics today is more performance artists as opposed to those who are looking to actually accomplish things on behalf of the American people. And they know that if they file a motion to vacate that they’re going to get more cable TV hits or most more social media hits. And so I think the incentives are not aligned anymore the way they used to once be. Why would they be willing to save the Democrats, Mike Johnson when they didn’t step in and save Kevin McCarthy? I it’s a good question. I do think that there was a more partisan dislike for Kevin. They viewed Kevin as somebody who had targeted their members to try to defeat them. I don’t think there’s that same sense with Mike Johnson. I think there’s more collegiality and a personal affection for me. If they disagree on policy, there is more of a personal respect and and I think that they also were obviously those who supported this bill. So they don’t want to see this bill be the reason for his being vacated from the speakership. Let’s talk a minute here about TikTok and and this proposal to ban TikTok unless BITE dance divests. What’s at stake? And, and when you have these members trying to grapple with the national security threat that they consider TikTok to be, do they also have to consider the calculus that this is the social media app for young people everywhere? Yes, contested. But I, I think the reality is, let’s step back and recall this is the recommendation from the intelligence community. The the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States made this recommendation to the Trump administration four years ago and they passed an executive order pushing this. Ironically, the Biden administration canceled it in their first year in office. However, the President Biden has now said that he would support this if it reaches his desk. And I think that the change has been very dramatic here in the last few months because beginning this year, there’s the expectation that all the money Jeffrey Yass was putting behind Republicans and and owning 1/4 of bite dance that there is no way this this legislation actually advance. And then you saw a 50 to 0 vote on Energy and Commerce Committee get out of committee and then a 350 vote in the floor of the House. And I think the momentum has continued. And as Ryan was expressing earlier, seeing Maria Cantwell now express her support for the bill too, I think it’s pretty certain that this is getting to the president’s desk to sign into law. OK, three questions. What’s your prediction on the aid to foreign allies? What’s your prediction on TikTok? What’s your prediction on Mike Johnson? I think that both legislation gets to the president’s desk. I think that it’ll pass the House tomorrow. I think that the Senate will take it up early to midweek, Tuesday or Wednesday. And I think Joe Biden will be signing those into law. I would anticipate that with three members now expressing the willingness to to file a motion to vacate, that they will do so. But I think that Speaker Johnson prevails because I think that there’s more support for continuing and stopping the chaos. And so I think he’ll remain speaker to the rest of this Congress.