Can Republicans Find a Way to Break the Stalemate?

WSJ Opinion: Free Expression

Gerard Baker, Editor at Large, The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 591 Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As Congress ends another day without electing a Speaker of the House, outgoing Senator Ben Sasse talks to Wall Street Journal Editor at Large Gerry Baker about why the nation’s politics is overrun by zealots, how to heal the divisions in the GOP and restore the virtues of persuasion and pluralism to government, and why he is leaving Washington to become president of the University of Florida. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.
0:08.9	Hello and welcome to Free Expression with me, Jerry Baker from the Wall Street Journal editorial page.
0:13.3	A very happy new year to you all, and thank you very much for listening.
0:16.1	I'm delighted you're joining us this week. If you're not already a subscriber, please do subscribe to Free expression wherever you get your podcasts. This week, New Year, New Uncertainty for the Republican Party.
0:26.7	As we're recording this, the House of Representatives continues to try to elect a new speaker
0:30.9	for the 118th Congress. Tries, and at least so far, fails. It's Thursday afternoon, and the House has just for the eighth time
0:39.3	rejected the attempts by Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the GOP caucus, to be elected speaker
0:45.6	and break the deadlock, as 20 or so of his House colleagues continue to block his election.
0:51.1	We don't know how this will end, of course. Perhaps McCarthy will grant enough
0:54.7	concessions to the rebels to get him over the line. Perhaps another member of Republican leadership
0:59.1	will be able to unite the party. Perhaps they'll wind up electing Donald Trump by acclamation.
1:04.0	Okay, that was a joke. But what does this latest episode of dysfunction in the party tell us
1:09.0	about the condition of Republicans, and more importantly,
1:12.1	about the state of the conservative cause in America. After the disappointment of the midterm
1:16.6	elections, the prospect of a contentious battle for the 2024 presidential nomination between
1:20.9	Donald Trump and perhaps several others, and the wider struggle between the new populist forces
1:25.2	and the more traditional republicans, is there a set of
1:27.8	ideas and policies that the party can actually unite around? Is there a conservative synthesis in
1:33.3	the making? Or is the right now just hopelessly fractured? Well, to talk about all this, I'm glad to
1:38.6	say I'm joined this week by Ben Sass, who is now in his final few days as the Republican senator
1:43.5	from Nebraska, having first been
1:45.0	elected in 2014. He's about to take up a new role as president at the University of Florida.
	...

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