The New Speaker and the Shutdown

HUGH HEWITT: Morning glory, America. Bonjour, hi, Canada. Greetings to the rest of the world that is listening to The Hugh Hewitt Show from the ReliefFactor.com studio inside of the Beltway. That music means it's the last radio hour of the week for our new affiliate in Erie, Pennsylvania, Talkerie.com on 1530 WZTE in Union City, and 103.3 and 105.9 FM in Erie, Pennsylvania—that you joined 12 affiliates from the week before.  

The Hillsdale Dialogue is something we do here once a week. The last radio hour of the week is brought to you by our friends at Hillsdale College—all things Hillsdale available at Hillsdale.edu, including an amazing new online course with Dr. Larry Arnn and Victor Davis Hanson about World War II. But we cover the waterfront here from Homer and the early playwrights like Aeschylus right up to what happened yesterday.  

And today is one of those days we're at the end of the spectrum, because I'm joined by Dr. Matthew Spalding. He is the director of the Kirby Center at Hillsdale. It is the lantern of reason that Hillsdale College maintains in the shadow of the Capitol, doing everything that is necessary to bring sweet reason to the members of the new Congress. Matthew Spalding, Happy New Year! It's great to have you back.  

MATTHEW SPALDING: Great to be back, Hugh. Happy New Year! And, as far as I'm concerned, it's still Christmas. So Merry Christmas!  

HEWITT: Merry Christmas. Now, I got to ask you, though, as a New Year's resolution, can we get Matt Spalding onto Twitter?   

SPALDING: That's a pretty big ask.  

HEWITT: You've got all those—  

SPALDING: We believe—we have world technology here. I'm on the internet. I have a Facebook page.  

HEWITT: I know that, but you've got all those brilliant young Hillsdale College students running around there. If they could set up a Dr. Matt Spalding Twitter feed or a Dr. Larry Arnn Twitter feed, they can even run it for you. It's a great way to publicize all the great work of the Kirby Center.  

SPALDING: We have ways of communicating with our Hillsdale people. We have sleepers all over the country ready to engage in saving the republic.  

HEWITT: For my new audiences, and there are literally 15 new signals in the last two weeks, would you explain to them what the Kirby Center does?  

SPALDING: Well, so Hillsdale is in Michigan. That's the mothership, the main campus that teaches the great liberal arts. The Kirby Center is a campus in Washington, DC for our students who come here during the semesters for congressional staff. We do courses. We do retreats for members. We have one coming up here in January.  

We do lectures and seminars. And we're getting ready, if all things go well, to start a graduate school here in Washington, DC. So, the Kirby Center is an extension of the original mission of the College, but it's got the specific purpose of trying to teach the great principles of the Constitution to those that shape public policy here in the nation's capital.  

HEWITT: Now, you've been in the nation's capital for how long, Dr. Spalding?  

SPALDING: About 25 years.  

HEWITT: And so, you've seen speakers come and go.  

SPALDING: I've seen the comings and goings for some time. Yes. No, this is—well, on the one hand somewhat historic, but it reminds me of a lot of things in the past.  

HEWITT: When Paul Ryan took the gavel to become speaker, his first show was from the Kirby Center in your studio there, which I hosted. And, at that time, it's like an NFL coach—as soon as you get hired as speaker, you know you're going to get fired someday. But Nancy Pelosi coming back to get the gavel is the first time that's happened since 1955. Why do you think that is significant? Or isn't it?  

SPALDING: Well, it's both. It's somewhat significant, but it also tells us a lot about the current state of the Democratic Party. I think the most interesting thing yesterday in watching this—and you saw it in the rules debate in the House—you saw it in some of the other issues that have come up—is what's going on within the Democratic Party? I mean, what's going on in both parties? Because on the other hand, you have the new senator from Utah, who has written a column in The Washington Post—Romney —about the president.  

The divisiveness and the divides within the parties, there's a grand realignment—restructuring—going on caused by President Trump, but we're seeing it play out now. And I think there's a fight in the Democratic Party, and, right now, Pelosi has got the gavel—she only got it by saying that she would stay for a bit and then go away. And she's got a little time here to keep—to tamp down her members, who are going to get very restless. And you're going to go into a presidential election.  

I think we're going to see a lot of that play out, a lot of that fight for the primary—Democratic primary, we're going to see it play out in the House. Well, I think there's a lot of interesting things to go here.  

HEWITT: I just had on Congressman Eric Swalwell, who was a Democrat running for the president from California's 13th congressional district. And he ended up, after a few questions, saying he would support a compromise on border security funding. Isn't that where this shutdown has to end, Matt Spalding, with a compromise?  

SPALDING: Well, I think it does, and it would, normally. And, as a matter of fact, the ingredients for a compromise are there, given a few details here and there. I think, however, this debate has now become part of the 2020 battle, and so, whether that happens or not, it's hard to see. I think the president has actually left room in his own rhetoric and his positions for a compromise as long as certain things are met—namely, a wall or some sort of border security structure—whatever we're going to call it—enhanced fencing. And the question is whether the Democrats will allow that to happen. Normally, that would be the case. And we would've had this deal a while ago. But I think now it's been brought up into the elections.  

And it's going to be harder and harder to get there. And the question is, can Pelosi actually bring that to the table? I mean, now that the government is shut down and the president, I think, took upon himself, because he wants to highlight that issue—but now the question is whether the Democrats will come back to the table. Trump, I think, is ready to compromise and find some sort of deal. I don't know that they are or whether they can right now.  

HEWITT: Now, let me, in fact—the President of the United States just tweeted on this. Let's play that:   

“As I have stated many times,” writes the president six minutes ago, “if the Democrats take over the House or the Senate, there will be disruption to the Financial Markets. We won the Senate; they won the House. Things will settle down. They only want to impeach me because they know they can't win in 2020, too much success!” Matt Spalding, that's prototypical Trump.  

SPALDING: That's classic Trump. But there's a very large grain of truth in it. The speaker spoke yesterday when she took the gavel as if she controlled Congress, but she doesn't. One of the most important differences here from the last time she had the gavel is she can't actually pass legislation because she doesn't have a Democrat in the Senate, so they can't put things on his desk. So there's a massive firewall preventing her from getting things done.  

And he's in a large—he's in a strong position going into presidential elections. It's hard to see how she positions that, which is why I think she's in a tough spot. She actually reminds me of—this is kind of like John Boehner being speaker right after the Tea Party elections. The party's divided, she's got to figure out how to absorb that into her party, but she's got another dilemma, which is she's now going directly into a presidential election, and you've got a figure like Trump, and you don't control the Senate.  

So I think they're actually in a somewhat weak position. And this is all going to be fought out. If Trump plays his cards right—I think that, if things do settle down—the economy settles down and starts humming, at least in terms of the markets—the rest of the economy is actually quite strong—he's going to be in a pretty good spot, because they're likely not going to agree and have all sorts of battles within the Democratic Party.  

HEWITT: Let's start with last night. There's a new Congresswoman, Representative Rashida Tlaib—Tlaib, I guess. She is from Detroit. So she's from Hillsdale's home state. Last night in front of a crowd of supporters, she said “people love you and you win. And when your son looks at you and says, ‘Mama, look. You won. Bullies don't win.’ And I said, ‘Baby, they don't,’ because we're going to go in there and we're going to impeach the mother——”. That's what she said. It's on tape. It's everywhere on the internet. Does that help the Democrats?  

SPALDING: I know that. It doesn't. And I think that will likely continue to happen and happen more often. And it's going to be very, very difficult for her to prevent that. But the—I think, the harder ones for her—there are going to be outbursts here and there. They've introduced articles of impeachment. They want to get rid of the Electoral College.  

There are all sorts of things out there that will be brought up. But if you look at that rules debate—the rules package they brought in—she's clearly trying to figure out ways to control that from getting the agenda of the House. They passed PAYGO, which several of the Progressive members aggressively opposed because that will prevent them from advancing their New Green Deal and other large Medicare-for-all pieces of legislation, which bust the budget. So, she's trying to figure out how to get them under control, but there are going to still be these outside outbursts that are going to occur in a similar way that the Tea Party was kind of biting at Boehner's ankles all the time.  

And this is going to be difficult for her, which is why I think the 2020 presidential election is going to play out in the House.  

HEWITT: I'll be right back. This is Matt—this is Matt Spalding. He is the director of the Kirby Center. Hillsdale College's Lighthouse of Reason. All things Hillsdale are available at Hillsdale.edu. You can follow the Kirby Center on Twitter. You can follow Hillsdale at Hillsdale on Twitter. And you can follow me to the next segment of the Hillsdale Dialogue. Stay tuned, America.  

Welcome back, America. It's Hugh Hewitt in the ReliefFactor.com studio inside the Beltway, joined by Dr. Matthew Spalding. He is the vice president of Hillsdale College, the director of the Kirby Center, Hillsdale College's lantern of sweet reason inside the shadow of the Capitol. You can find everything about Hillsdale at Hillsdale.edu. You can find all previous Hillsdale Dialogues collected at HughforHillsdale.com.  

We have another tweet from the president.  

“How do you impeach a president,” writes the president, “who has won perhaps the greatest election of all time, done nothing wrong (no Collusion with Russia, it was the Dems that colluded) had the most successful first two years of any president, and is the most popular Republican in party history at 93%?” Matt Spalding, what do you think?  

SPALDING: On that I think he's largely right. I think that impeachment would be a complete political move on the part of the Democrats. Can't even get to the Senate. Can't get brought, you know—nothing will happen there. But if you think of where things are right now—Trump is a divisive president. He's de-aligning our politics. He's abrasive. All this is true.  

But if you look at the statistics of what's happened last year—the economy is strong—we're now oil-independent for the first time in our history. It's quite amazing. He's got approvals within his Republican party. There are divisions, which we've seen popping up here lately. There will continue to be divisions and some unhappiness.  

But, in terms of where he's on the policies, he's, I think, in a strong position. If they go down that path, I think that will be very destructive for the Democratic Party. It might actually even help Trump in his re-election bid, which is why he's probably trying to encourage it.  

HEWITT: Yeah, he really would like impeachment. Eric Swalwell, who was the Democrat who was on last hour—and I'm going to play for you a little bit of his tape in the next hour about why he's different—but he did not want to endorse impeachment, Matt. He wanted to say, only if the evidence is overwhelming—I think he ought to be impeached at the ballot box—I think we ought to beat him at the ballot box.  

I think Democrats on the center-left want nothing of this frenzy that is consuming the Progressive hard left.  

SPALDING: Well, what they'll try to do is they'll try to drag it out as long as possible: Well, we need investigations; we need to look into this. I mean, they don't have time to actually pursue impeachment before you actually get into the election. So, I think that the more moderate types who want to make the 2020 election into an impeachment election are probably in a stronger position. Having said that, it's going to be delicate to see how they do it.  

I mean, the natives are restless, as you saw from that clip you played—the clip you brought up in the last segment. That's going to be tough for them to control. But I think they will. She's passed rules that allow her to control the House. The House is very majoritarian. But I think all this is, is this is all pointing towards evidence that everything that's going to happen between now and 2020 is all about the presidential election.  

Nothing will get to the—in terms of legislation. There might be a deal on—some sort of immigration deal on a border wall to get it reopened again, but nothing significant. There will be, hopefully, some very significant things that will continue in the Senate, which I know you've written about, which is very important. But other than that, everything is positioning about the 2020 election in terms of who's saying what about whom, people—legislation we proposed as positioning.  

And I think that changes all of the dynamics. And very soon, I think, Pelosi and the speaker—at least right now—the House will become more insignificant as she will be overshadowed by presidential candidates, people vying for primaries, and the real Trump critics who are going to fight the 2020 election.  

HEWITT: That's like a hurricane moving over warm water. The House is creating the conditions for the presidential campaign to be extremely turbulent, Matt Spalding.  

SPALDING: No. I think that's right. And I think that she'll be able to control it in terms of their immediate—what actually happens in the House as a formality, but I think she'll have no control over the breadth of that debate. And you'll see it coming up. Everything that comes up, every rule debate, every fight will be about the 2020 election between the Bernie left and the moderate left.  

HEWITT: I will be right back with Dr. Matthew Spalding, director of the Kirby Center at Hillsdale College. Stay tuned, America. All things Hillsdale, including your chance to sign up for Imprimis at Hillsdale.edu.  

Welcome back, America. It’s Hugh Hewitt inside the ReliefFactor.com studio inside the Beltway. Later today, I jump on a plane with John Bolton and a half dozen other members of the media to fly off to Jerusalem and then Ankara to find out what is going on in with their Syria policy. Looking forward to that. On Monday, Bob Frantz will be in; on Tuesday, Kurt Schlichter; on Wednesday, Mark Davis. I'll be back on Thursday.  

And I'll be here for the Hillsdale Dialogue, which we're in the middle of right now—the last radio hour of every week. All things Hillsdale are found at Hillsdale.edu. Go there right now and sign up for the free speech digest, Imprimis. You'll get it once a month in your mailbox. It's absolutely free.  

And watch the brand new online course on World War II. It's an amazing course. VDH—Victor Davis Hanson has a great new book out called The Second World Wars. First lecture by Dr. Arnn. All the rest of the lectures by VDH. It's an amazing course at Hillsdale.edu. And if you like these conversations, you can binge-listen. They are all available at HughforHillsdale.com.  

My guest is Dr. Matt Spalding. He is the director of Hillsdale College's Kirby Center, their think tank inside the Beltway. We're talking about democratic presidential politics and what impact they will have on the house. Dr. Spalding, I want to play for you four minutes out of a 20-minute conversation I had with Eric Swalwell, so you can hear what's going on inside the Democratic Party. And then let's talk about it.  

This occurred about 45 minutes ago: 

Do you think you'll be voting in favor of articles of impeachment in the coming Congress, Eric Swalwell?  

ERIC SWALWELL: I hope not. I really hope not, because I think that's bad for democracy. I'd rather see Donald Trump impeached at the ballot box by the voters. I don't want to make him a martyr. And I also just think that impeachment is almost like going through a bankruptcy. It's just a very hard thing to come out of. But no one's above the law, and we have to take our jobs seriously.  

And, if there is evidence, I think we should have an airtight case, seek bipartisan buy-in, and be able to explain to the American people why this extraordinary measure is necessary.  

HEWITT: Now, let's switch to the shutdown. I know the president took the mantle on when he shut it down. But I believe it's being kept shut by Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Schumer because they won't compromise. Do you think we need border security, Eric Swalwell?  

SWALWELL: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.  

HEWITT: Does that include border barriers of some sort?  

SWALWELL: Yes. It does. But I think the barriers between the Republicans and the Democrats—or the Republicans and Democrats and President Trump right now—is, I don't think he's going to get his 1,000-mile structural wall. And he hasn't been able to articulate just exactly where he thinks a wall is needed. And he's currently shown no way that Mexico would pay for it.  

So, what he promised the voters in 2016, he's not going to get. But more border patrol agents, yes. Security measures where there are gaps and vulnerability, making sure people aren't overstaying their visas, using drone technology to identify people getting close—I'm all for that.  

HEWITT: What about fencing though? I've been a proponent of double layered fencing ever since it worked so dramatically around Yuma. And it seems to me that, if the speaker and the minority leader came back with $3 billion for border barriers wherever appropriate, we'd be done and these 800,000 feds could go back to work, don't you think?  

SWALWELL: Yes. If he could articulate that, yes. I'm open to that. But a wall, which he does not want to come off of, is not going to be supported by Democrats. And I think it's just because of the symbolism of a wall between two allied nations—I don't think is a good thing.  

HEWITT: Well, we've got fences and walls in different places. I go through the Tijuana border a lot because we support an orphanage down there. But I'm just curious, will you go to the leadership and say, make an offer that's reasonable?  

SWALWELL: Yeah. And I think, by putting forward a bill that 100 Democratic and Republican senators voted for already—I think that's pretty reasonable. What we put forward yesterday was exactly what Mitch McConnell passed with 100 votes, Republicans and Democrats. And the president seems to be the one, I think, isolated out here.  

HEWITT: But he turned it down. He is the president. We need a compromise. Every one of the 17 previous shutdowns have concluded with a compromise. Should the speaker and the minority leader compromise?  

SWALWELL: I think, if it's a matter of dollars spent, yes, you could see movement. But I don't believe a structural wall, as the president has described, is going to really earn any Democratic votes.  

HEWITT: And now, we're running low on time. I hope you'll come back early and often.  

SWALWELL: I will.  

HEWITT: It's great to talk to you. What makes you different from the 30 other Democrats who want your party’s nomin—? You're 38 years, you're a prosecutor, you've got a little heads-up because you're born in Iowa, raised in Iowa—that's kind of a little advantage people don't know about. But what makes you different from this parade of candidates?  

SWALWELL: Well, first, I believe in the promise of America, which is if you work hard, that means you should do better for yourself and dream bigger for your kids, because I lived it—the son of a cop and a mom who still works today and worked a number of odd jobs, but I don't think that's being fulfilled everywhere. And I grew up in a town called Dublin, right next to your family in Pleasanton. And they will recall that, 20 years ago, when I was growing up, it was called “Scrublin” because the schools weren't that great, and we didn't have any high-end employers.  

And, because we invested in schools, and we invested in attracting high-end employers, we turned the fortunes of that city around. And I think, if you made those investments across America, you could connect the disconnected. So just by growing up and knowing want and knowing grit, I saw that if you invested and believed in people you could change their lives. But I also, just by being a prosecutor and being on the Intelligence Committee, I have, I think stood up for our democracy when it's been on the ropes.  

I also believe that the future of our country is forward and that it's really going to take new energy and ideas to get us there. So that's why I'm considering it. And, if I make that announcement, I do promise to come back and take the full Hugh Hewitt.  

HEWITT: Enough of that. Now, Matthew Spalding, what did you make of his—he's a presidential candidate. He's serious. He's going to be on the debate stage. What did you make of the dance that he just did?  

SPALDING: I thought it was a very, very good dance. And he's got—he's got good instincts. I mean, look, let's back up for a second and talk about the essence of a compromise. The great model here, of course, is—historically, is Henry Clay. And Henry Clay in the nineteenth-century Grand Compromise has always said, to get a compromise, you have to leave room for the other side to compromise.  

He's trying to find that room from a language point of view. The problem is that they're trying to get across this very clear thing, which is a structural wall. Now, is it semantics what we call it? Or is it how it's written in the legislation? That's where the deal is going to be wrought. If it's just dollars, he says, we can make the compromise.  

He's trying to get around an ideological divide, a larger political divide—how it's perceived in the public in terms of “the wall,” to find that compromise. And I think that's where he should be if he wants to get there. Now, whether that works from an electoral point of view in the Democratic Party, I don't know. I have my doubts. But I'm glad someone's out there making that kind of an argument, because that's where they should be thinking in order to get past this problem. I don't see how they can go into a presidential election having left immigration and border security off the table.  

HEWITT: Now, there are 800,000 people, many of whom are listening, because we got a huge audience inside the Beltway, who are not getting paid. I believe this is wholly on Schumer and Pelosi because they won't do what Henry Clay did, which is leave room for a compromise. They've said, our way or the highway. That's on them now.  

The president shut the government down. He took the mantle. There's no denying that. But that means ball is on your side.  

SPALDING: No. And he's ready to open it up. And he's left—I think he's left room for that compromise. He's already put a compromise out there. He's already made one bid back to them. But I think he's drawn a line, which I think is to his credit, and politically, to his good, which is that he won't negotiate over the general principle of securing the border, whether we do it through something called a wall, or through enhanced fencing, or whatever you want to call it, he says, that's fine.  

But that's the thing that has to be accomplished. I think he's putting the Democrats in a position where, OK, they can compromise, but they're going to have to be able to say they've done that thing. Whether they can swallow that is the question here. But Trump clearly wants to compromise, and he's willing to do so. And the ingredients of a compromise are out there.  

We could go big the way Lindsey Graham and some others want to do. We could go small. The pieces are there. I don't know if she can get her constituency, meaning that Speaker Pelosi in the House—whether she could get that through and survive—politically right now, because they don't want to give him a rhetorical victory going into 2020.  

HEWITT: And this is where Matt Spalding is getting at the key thing. The reason this is going to go a long time is not because of the Republicans, it's because Nancy Pelosi has a problem on her left. It used to be the Democratic Party had a lot of Blue Dogs in it, they had a lot of Conservatives from the—that's all done. The country has sorted itself out, Matt Spalding. There aren't any Blue Dog Democrats, there aren't any Liberal Republicans left, am I right?  

SPALDING: No. That's right. Well, look, even more so. Not only is that true, but I think something like a quarter of the Democrats are freshmen. It's a huge freshman class coming into the House. A lot of them are very young. Some of them are avowed Socialists.  

That caucus—if we think about a divided caucus in terms of pulling it together, it's going to be impossible to find a consensus on these things. But not only there are no Blue Dogs, but it's moved to the left significantly. And then they have to deal with the Senate. And so, you have a House, which has moved considerably leftward, who will not be in a mood to pass legislation that will make it through a Senate, which is still—it's controlled by the Republicans with enough votes to really control it from a majority point of view.  

But the Democratic Party in the Senate is still pretty moderate by House standards. So I think they're in a very big problem.  

HEWITT: What I see happening over two years is that the public at large, including the people in the middle—not Republican, not Democrat—independents—are going to see that the Democratic Party has gone over the left cliff. That's my prediction. Is that they're just going to say, that's crazy, what happened to those people? Do you think I'm being overly optimistic, Matt Spalding?  

SPALDING: Well, I think that's a source of optimism because—for two reasons: One is, that seems to be where the Democratic Party wants to go in its heart of hearts. I mean, we're talking here about Nancy Pelosi, who herself is a pretty Liberal Democrat. She now represents the moderate wing of the party, trying to hold back the movement of her own party. And the other thing is, they're vehemently opposed to the president and everything about him.  

And so, they—it will be extremely difficult for them not to play presidential politics and everything. So I think that will be the natural inclination. And then, on top that, you're going to have the fact that the House won't be able to get any legislation. They're going to have budget deals to keep the government going, but there'll be no major legislation. And, meanwhile, the Senate is going to be passing nominations, and getting judges through, and all the other nominations that are being set aside.  

And the president will continue with a lot of his agenda, given the authority and ability of the president through administrative actions to do things.  

HEWITT: Amen! When we come back from break, we're going to talk about that Judiciary Committee in the Senate. It is up to Lindsey Graham to set the pace, the timing, the momentum, the resolve, and to stop the nonsense on 60 hours of delay. We'll talk about that with Matt Spalding, director of the Kirby Center. Go follow Hillsdale College at Hillsdale.  

Welcome back, America. It's Hugh Hewitt from the ReliefFactor.com studio. I'm joined by Matt Spalding. Matt is the director of the Kirby Center, Hillsdale College's lighthouse of sweet reason in the shadow of the Capitol. All things Hillsdale are available at Hillsdale.edu, including your application so that you can go, or you can suggest to your son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter—go to the great, great university up in that state up north that really turns out educated young men and women who are changing the country.  

Matt Spalding, some breaking news: The United States economy added 312,000 jobs in December. That meant, believe it or not, that the unemployment rate went up to 3.9%, because people who have long been out of the workforce are getting back in, because the economy is booming. What do you make of that number?  

SPALDING: I find that amazing but understandable. I mean, look, the recent news has been focused on the instability of the markets, and there's a lot of things going on there, especially having to do with what's going on in China and its economy. But the underlying aspects of the economy are strong and had—would this be in any other circumstance, going into any other presidential election, I think we would see an extremely strong economy in terms of that unemployment rate, unemployment rate in different sectors of the economy, the various aspects of how other parts of the economy are doing.  

The effects of this, I think, are going to be strong. Now, in part, this will be as the tax cuts start playing into people's thinking in terms of their taxes as well. So, I think the economic side, if we can get the markets settled down and all of that, is very strong for him going forward.  

HEWITT: I agree. That's just an incredible job number, 319,000. Now, to the Judiciary Committee. Lindsey Graham gets a gavel. There are 12 appeals court judges in line. There are 60 federal judges for the district court in line. They didn't get a hearing.  

Jeff Flake shut it down—hurt his own state when he did so, by the way—hurt Arizona because the Ninth Circuit needs these judges badly. Do you think that the Republicans ought to change the rules? Use the Reid rule that allows them to change the rules by a simple majority to narrow the amount of time per nominee? Because right now they're just slow-walking everyone 60 hours.  

SPALDING: No. Look, I have long been an advocate that each house can set its rules. And they should use those rules to do their job, both their constitutional responsibilities, but also in terms of moving legislation through as an institution. The Senate has a unique power, separate from the House, which has to do with the advice—consent, having to do with nominations from the president. That's an obligation they have.  

That is currently being obstructed in a way that it's never been obstructed before in terms of—not opposition—most of the people that get through ultimately are voted through on a bipartisan vote with lots of support. It's merely being slow-walked to slow down the process. And not only do you have those judges who didn't get through who are now going to be re-nominated—that could go through very quickly if they wanted them through too—but you've got a lot of other people who were nominated that have been sitting around for a year or so.  

And you've got major positions in the administration that are unfilled because they're slow-walking all these things. So they should think about changing those rules.  

HEWITT: One of those is Cully Stimson. He's the senior legal fellow and manager of the National Security Law Program over at Heritage. You probably know him from years at Heritage. Cully is supposed to be the general counsel in the Navy. They have held him for a year. I think it's Senator Gillibrand that has a hold on him, because she hates the Navy. I honestly do not think that the hold should be allowed.  

That's not in the Constitution. “Advise [sic: advice] and consent” means the majority rules on nominees. That's what it ought to mean, at least.  

SPALDING: That's right. First of all, Cully is a great guy. I mean, talk about an upstanding, excellent lawyer with a great military record that should be doing what he's doing. The fact is the United States Navy does not have a counsel, and has not had one for a year, is verging on being criminal, I think. This is a terrible situation.  

But you're right. The problem is that—particularly more broadly in the context of the modern administrative state, which we like to complain about. The senators are using various mechanism—tricks of the Senate—to prevent it from doing its basic duties, which is to give the president what they need to run the country. And so, things like holds, or blue slips, or all these little things around the edges that they can use, they're now using to fight political battles, which have nothing to do with the particular nomination or the particular question before them.  

In the case of Cully Stimson, I think that's definitely the case, but in the case a lot of these judges as well. So here—this is now going to be a test for Mitch McConnell, who's done a stellar job thus far getting those judges through. He's now got a situation where he's got a two-year window. And, if they allow this slow walk to continue, this is going to go through, and they will not get these nominees through. So now you've a combination of, as you've written about, a new Judiciary chairman and Mitch McConnell, they can each do something to get those things moving at a more rapid pace without violating the Senate's obligation to actually have hearings and votes.  

HUGH HEWITT: And that is, by the way, constitutional. We are being very pro-Constitution here. It's just what is laid out. Matt, always a pleasure. Dr. Matt Spalding of the Kirby Center here in Washington, DC. Hillsdale Dialogues are all available at HughforHillsdale.com.