Burning Down the House with Molly Reynolds
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Friday evening, we had no idea if Kevin McCarthy was going to be elected speaker or not, so Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Brookings senior fellow and Lawfare senior editor Molly Reynolds to talk through the options. They talked about why it actually matters if you have a Speaker of the House, how long the House of Representatives can go without one before the government falls apart, and the consequences of the compromises Kevin McCarthy made.
On Sunday afternoon, Ben and Molly sat down again to record an update to their earlier conversation based on the results of Friday night’s vote.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | Getting the rules package actually done will be a challenge. |
| 0:37.0 | And I think we should sort of take this entire episode right up through the late night drama on Friday, |
| 0:45.0 | as a reminder that like this was supposed to be the easy part. |
| 0:47.0 | Like this was supposed to be the part where Republicans picked a speaker, |
| 0:51.0 | and then they were going to have to try and figure out how to do things with a narrow majority. |
| 0:57.0 | I'm in this proves to be very difficult. |
| 0:59.0 | I'm Benjamin Widis, and this is the LawFair podcast January 9th, 2022. |
| 1:07.0 | It's our first ever choose your own adventure podcast. |
| 1:11.0 | I say that because it is Friday evening, |
| 1:15.0 | and we still have no idea if Kevin McCarthy is going to be elected speaker tonight or not. |
| 1:21.0 | So we figured you get to decide. |
| 1:23.0 | We're going to record different options, and you know, |
| 1:27.0 | we'll just piece it together, joining me in the virtual jungle studio to do this game. |
| 1:33.0 | Is Molly Reynolds, well known to LawFair listeners. |
| 1:37.0 | She is a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, |
| 1:43.0 | a senior editor at LawFair, where she is of course, |
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