Margaret Brennan assesses fallout of Kevin McCarthy's "Face the Nation" interview

You need to 18 Unfortunately 4% of our conference can join all the Democrats. You all know that game, you know, it was personal It was all about his ethics Nancy Mace is a whole nother story Okay. Well, she was on the view saying I didn't keep my words judge me by my enemies Welcome back to America decides that was Kevin McCarthy with a few choice words for his Republican detractors You say the decision to oust him as House Speaker was strictly business Unprecedented business we should add and here's met congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida his response to McCarthy's comments about that ethics investigation That's totally false. I'm the most investigated man in the entire United States Congress I've been cleared by the FBI DOJ the Federal Election Commission, but you don't think that McCarthy did enough to stop this I mean, isn't that well, you're mad that he didn't do enough to stop that investigation I I'm not Margaret Brennan and Jonathan Martin joins us out of that chaotic little conversation Margaret is of course CBS News the chief foreign affairs correspondent and importantly the moderator of face the nation Jonathan we can factually refer to him as J. Marta senior political columnist for Politico So there are times when a Sunday show has the interview of the week Face the nation had the interview of the week last Sunday with Kevin McCarthy You conducted that interview Margaret you took stock of the speaker then your assessment of what's happened since I mean It's a stunning turn of events between Sunday. He was confident. He at least expressed confidence to you Maybe he was a poker face, but he was there No It was a victory lap having pulled many rabbits out of many hats as senator Cornyn had said And keeping the government funded keeping the lights on and what had seemed to be, you know All of us careening towards a government Shutdown and in that 11th hour pulled it off doing so with more Democrats than Republican votes something that ended up being Fairly central to the conversation we had the next morning But it was overshadowed that morning in some ways by this is nemesis Matt Gates going on to networks and saying he was going to Issue this motion to vacate which of course we know as part of that package to become speaker McCarthy had allowed for just one individual to Initiate that process But it was the course of that conversation that apparently changed some minds within the Democratic Party about whether they would help to keep him In power or not because you had to get to that 218 and some Democrats. I've heard we're a little put out to put it mildly when speaker McCarthy did not suggest to them that They were helpful. He scorned them and they took that personally said wait a minute We just helped you and now you're laying down some fire against us. That didn't seem to Ease the situation he was walking toward no and it was a choice and I I think you can see and of course anyway I was a little surprised at the choice he made and how he presented the argument because you could have come forward and said a majority of the Republican caucus voted for this that would have been factually correct and then said and Democrats voted with us and this is bipartisan and that at the end of our program when we talked to Brian Fitzpatrick of the state of Pennsylvania part of Problem-solvers. He was making the argument that this continuing resolution that was bipartisan proved Bipartisanship was still viable and a vote against McCarthy would have been a vote against that concept McCarthy himself though didn't embrace that concept in our conversation. He went straight at Democrats And it was a choice. I don't know why But rhetorically it is something that did trip him up Given that the Democratic caucus used that as a rallying point while making the decision to get to that vote to vote down McCarthy Jonathan, I want to bring you into the conversation one of the specialties you have at Politico is taking what seemed to be disparate events and putting together in a Seamless pattern what patterns if any do you see in the rise and then subsequent fall of speaker McCarthy? They kept McCarthy is caught in history's fast Rapids Major that he is a nice enough fellow who probably in an earlier time would not have risen to the speakership, but the party's in a place now where it wanted somebody that could try to you know, walk this line on Trump and Trump ism and Appeal to folks who like President Trump in the caucus and also appeal people who don't like President Trump But he was never willing to pick a side on that great fight and at every turn He effectively tried to placate the hard right elements of his conference And I think he he paid a price for that because he had no Democratic friends at the end of the day but to me It's hard to see how a Democratic Party today where the cardinal issue for them is Trump and Trump ism Whatever help a Republican speaker who they see as being a Trump Enabler and I think that ultimately was Kevin's challenge the Democratic Party structurally today is just not going to help somebody who was part of the Trump MAGA movement and They see Kevin as that person So I think Kevin's caught up major in the larger story of American politics in this moment And frankly, it's more of a vessel than anything else and I was texting with some summer Democrats today, Jonathan I imagine you've heard some similar sentiments who said well Kevin McCarthy raised hundreds of millions of dollars in the last cycle for House Republicans He knows districts around the country as well as any Republican. So from a strategic point of view for Democrats Why would they help him stay on the field? It's better for them if he's off the field Well, I heard that from some pro McCarthy sources myself today. I said look They said even if Kevin hadn't brought up the impeachment inquiry after Labor Day when Congress reconvened that Democrats still Would have collectively come for him because they don't want him to be on the field as you put it next year They'd rather have a chaos narrative in the house to have somebody that can raise a lot of money against them I tend to think that that's more of an open question. I think if Kevin McCarthy Had not going on face the nation said what he did on Sunday had not brought up the impeachment inquiry After Labor Day, I think it would have been possible for him to break a few Democrats away But again, if you're a Democrat in the house and you look at everything Kevin has done Starting with January 6th in the aftermath where he goes back to Mar-a-Lago That month and effectively offers Trump forgiveness at every turn Kevin has you know? Enabled Trump and if you're a Democrat that that really is a line that can't be crossed You know Margaret one of the driving forces of the Sunday show and face the nation is to try to go to the people who? Have the answers as far as I can tell it's a big question. What happens next? There's no one to book who has the answers, right? Having made a few calls myself this morning to people on the hill They are also having this conversation of how does this actually function right when you have an acting speaker? What does that mean in the line of succession? What does that mean in terms of what we can actually do? Before there's an elected speaker in terms of actually getting the people's work done Which by the way the politic the politics around this are fascinating, but there's actual policymaking that needs again We don't have a defense bill that is passed into law How no one knows right now how to bring a bill to the floor it no one knows it right exactly Even if there were willed action to do it, which there's not but you have you know, I mean we were on the We were on the brink of not having the FAA Reauthorized, you know just for the very basic functioning of our air traffic That's where we are basic governance not even talking about changing border policy or Ukraine aid A lot of the people's work is not getting done And now there's this question of what can get done in the 40 odd days. We have left before that November 17th continuing resolution Expires there is work being done behind the scenes Sources have been telling me to coordinate with the Senate to try to move something along so that when there's a speaker We aren't quite on the brink of shutdown try to get things ready get things ready exactly to hand off but then you get us back to as we're talking about what is the alternative to Kevin McCarthy and Is that in any way more acceptable to Democrats and Republicans to vote on whatever? It is that next speaker brings forward exactly Jonathan about the minute we have left How do you think the White House views this and do you think this is a net plus in the context of a Biden Harris? Re-election bid I think it is in the short term in a sense that it takes the attention off of Biden's troubles namely his unpopularity and paltry approval Ratings and it focuses on the Republican disarray But I think that's Margaret points out it creates a challenge for Biden in the medium term Namely, how is Biden gonna get the government funded next year? How is Biden gonna get the money Ukraine desperately needs here out the door in the next few weeks major? you tell me the Republican speaker who is Sworn in takes that gavel and the first thing he or she does as speaker is to try to Jam through an omnibus and a package for Ukraine That's not gonna go over that well and the GOP caucus in the house So it's gonna be a real challenge here for the next few weeks to get those basics done I think what you'll see is an effort to pair a border security bill with Ukraine funding to try to sweeten it For the house GOP. I'm still not sure that they can get Ukraine through even with a border security bill attached to it Challenges ahead Margaret Brennan and Jonathan Martin. Thank you so much