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This is Words Matter with Norm Hornstein. We've got the votes and screwed the rest of you.

And Dr. Cavita Patel. These might be some of the smaller moments, you know, with all of Bob Shulls. Didn't catch people's eyes.

Hello and welcome to Words Matter from the DSRnetwork. Each week, Norm Hornstein and I will talk about the issues facing our country as we head into another election cycle.

And what are leaders are actually saying and doing about them? Today, well, Norm, it seems like we had yet again too many things to talk about.

In medicine, we actually say we actually have a term like when you see something on the slide, and there's just like an overwhelming number of like cancer cells or too many red blood cells.

And we say two numerous to count TNTC. I would say that applies to this week as well. It feels like that every week. We have an overwhelming number of topics, but I think in sounds sounds like it's worth hitting on some of the coverage around the debt ceiling.

I don't even want to call it GOP victory because that is what media is calling it, but Norm, you've studied this written about it. I know you tweeted about it.

Welcome back. Welcome to numerous to count week and tell tell tell tell our listeners a little bit about your take and I'll discuss what I've heard from some Senate very senior kind of tutus staff and other Senate leaders.

That would be great. So of course, they eaked through their ridiculous debt ceiling fix, which includes onerous work requirements, things that have nothing to do with budgets and deficits by one vote.

And it tells us everything about the House Republicans that the vote that was cast that put this plan over the top was from George Santos. So the illegitimate member cast the vote for the ridiculous plan.

You know, as you alluded to, Kavita, the press coverage is about how against all odds, Kevin McCarthy pulls out a victory.

And in political playbook, political really reflects journalistic conventional wisdom in a very real way.

It was all of those naysayers that kept McCarthy from getting the speakership until the 15th ballot, the right wingers like Bob Good of Virginia, now are saying, oh, he came through.

And it was about how McCarthy was underestimated and but you know, however you want to frame this and it's certainly legitimate to look at the dynamics of the House and how an abattled speaker somehow pulled this off and he pulled it off, of course, by throwing in red meat to the crazy right wing.

Now, this is not about the tactics of Kevin McCarthy and it's not about a typical negotiation between one party running the House and the other running the presidency.

This is about the catastrophic consequences. If we go to default for the first time deliberately in American history.

And it's about a Republican plan, which is aimed at bringing just that consequence for tactical reasons as much as anything else. And we've seen now explicitly Donald Trump and others saying,

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