The unauthorized history of the House Freedom Caucus

The Conversation with Dasha Burns

POLITICO

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4.0 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

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Summary

In late 2014, Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) was traveling back to Louisiana with his wife when he had an idea: a plan to empower arch-conservatives to push back against their Leadership, led by then-Speaker of the House John Boehner. Soon after, he and eight Republican colleagues founded the House Freedom Caucus – the same group that is determined to deny Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.) the speaker’s gavel. If you want to understand the roots of this week’s far-right rebellion, then you have to understand the roots of the House Freedom Caucus. And while not every member of the HFC opposes McCarthy – and not every opponent is a member of the HFC – most of them are. On this episode of Playbook Deep Dive, former Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), a Freedom Caucus Founder, unspools something that we could all use right now to understand the current crisis and what it portends for the future of Republican politics: an unauthorized history of the House Freedom Caucus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Back in 2004, Congressman John Fleming was traveling back to Louisiana with his wife when
0:17.0	he had an idea.
0:19.8	My wife and I were traveling back home for the Thanksgiving vacation.
0:25.2	I made two calls, one to Mark Meadows and the other to Jim Jordan and I said it's time
0:30.9	that we start a new organization of people who really will hold the speaker accountable.
0:37.1	Soon after Fleming and eight of his Republican colleagues founded the House Freedom Caucus
0:43.1	as a way to push Republicans in Congress to the right.
0:47.8	The list of the groups founding members reads like a who's who of the most controversial
0:53.6	and some of the most consequential right-wing politicians of the late teens and early
0:58.8	20s.
0:59.8	Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Justin Amash, Ron DeSantis.
1:05.6	They toppled Speaker John Boehner and made life miserable for Speaker Paul Ryan.
1:12.0	They threatened government shutdowns and debt defaults to win policy fights.
1:17.3	They served as the vanguard for Donald Trump in Congress and helped staff his White House.
1:23.8	And now, the group's members are at the center of the current crisis gripping Washington,
1:29.5	the effort to deny Kevin McCarthy the speakership.
1:34.1	I'm Ryan Liza, this is Playbook Deep Dive.
1:39.5	Fleming who left Congress in 2017 to join the Trump administration thinks that the anti-McCarthy
1:45.4	holdouts may be on the cusp of a cinematic moment when McCarthy is forced to concede defeat.
1:59.5	It might look something like this.
2:02.4	When the door opens and you see your friends walk in, you know, five or six of your closest
2:06.0	friends, then you know it's over.
	...

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