Minnesota Ex-Rep. Vin Weber: Government shutdown will be 'loser for the Republicans‘

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: The country is less than five days away from a government shutdown if members of Congress can't reach a spending agreement. But political infighting, next year's presidential election, impeachment inquiries into the sitting president, and many more factors are complicating talks. Former Republican Congressman Vin Weber from Minnesota has dealt with similar circumstances in Washington. Weber joined me earlier today on Morning Edition.

VIN WEBER: Good to be with you.

CATHY WURZER: Some, as you know, far-right members of the GOP House caucus are threatening to oust Speaker McCarthy if he works with Democrats to pass this short-term bill to keep the government operating. Given the narrow majority, how does Speaker McCarthy navigate this situation?

VIN WEBER: Well, I don't think that he knows exactly how to navigate it at this point. So he's basically tried to cobble together a solution that a majority of Republicans would agree to. But there's about five members, as you pointed out, on the far right of the caucus that simply will not agree. Some of them are ideologically driven. And to be candid, some of them are driven by a personal animus toward the speaker.

But when you have a four-seat majority, you can't lose hardly anybody. So he's struggling to find a way forward in all this. If he decides to do a deal with the Democrats and some of these Republicans decide that they're going to call him and threaten his speakership, that throws the House into some chaos because the House has to have a speaker. And they have to have a speaker that can get elected by a majority of the full House, not just a majority of either the Republican or the Democrat conference.

And it's hard to say where it would go. McCarthy is probably still in the best position to get the majority. But we could go-- he went through 15 ballots to get elected speaker for the first time. We could go through a situation like that again.

CATHY WURZER: Say, as you know, there are some GOP House members who think a shutdown might help the party. You saw former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich take the government into a partial shutdown and a showdown with President Clinton. And that took three weeks to settle that impasse. What were the political lessons learned from that?

VIN WEBER: Well, it could always, quote, "be different this time." But all of our experience says that a shutdown benefits the president for a very simple reason. The president speaks with one voice. He has the bully pulpit. He can explain it to the country from his point of view, whereas the Congress has the House and the Senate and the Republican leaders and the Democrat leaders and factions on the left and right, and they cannot explain their position in simple terms.

So the president will simply say Republicans in Congress want to shut down the government, and that's a bad thing. And the Republican response will sound like babble because they have a dozen different things that they want. So it's like I said. Everybody can say, well, it's going to be different this time. But everything tells us this will be a loser for the Republicans.

CATHY WURZER: So you would agree with Senator Mitch McConnell that this is going to hurt the Republicans?

VIN WEBER: No question. In my mind, no question.

CATHY WURZER: How hard is McCarthy's job at this point? And about Tom Emmer's job? We should note we tried to reach Congressman Emmer. And no response. But how secure are both of those individuals' jobs at this point?

VIN WEBER: Well, first of all, I know both of them quite well. And I think that they are both quite capable. They've got a very difficult job with only a four-seat majority and a far-right faction that wants to burn down the House in order to save it, if you know what I mean.

McCarthy? I don't know. It's possible that-- his best defense is you can't beat somebody with nobody. And the people that want to-- as they say, the technical term is vacate the chair. You can have a motion to vacate the chair. And one member can call on it now. And then you got to go through this balloting again to elect a new speaker.

Well, there is not an alternative candidate clearly available to Kevin McCarthy. So his position is tenuous. But he does have some assets in that there's nobody really clearly available to challenge him.

Tom Emmer-- no offense, but I'm not surprised he didn't return your calls. He's the guy that's in charge of counting votes. And I'm sure he's up to his ears in alligators right now. He's been the one trying to deal directly with the dissident members on the far right to find some position that'll bring them over.

He is the most unifying figure in the House Republican leadership right now, in my judgment. Everybody likes him. Everybody's got confidence in him. But again, some jobs are just tough. And when you got a four-seat majority and a far-right faction, counting the votes to get to 218 is a hard job, even for the best vote counter. And Tom Emmer is one of those.

CATHY WURZER: Do you think McCarthy survives this?

VIN WEBER: A long pause. Yes. But I would note the long pause. Yes, I think he does survive it because I think that there is no alternative. But it isn't sure at all.

CATHY WURZER: Say, what do you make about-- all of this is happening as the House goes down the impeachment investigation path. Does that complicate matters?

VIN WEBER: Well, to the extent that it inflames partisan passions, yes. And to the extent that it diverts members from doing the hard work necessary to come up with spending bills that can fund the government, yes. I also think that the impeachment inquiry is not helpful to Republicans.

I think the country doesn't love Joe Biden. Let's be clear about that. His polling is terrible. He's clearly a vulnerable incumbent. But the country doesn't like impeachment. And it doesn't look good in the eyes of the world for us to now regularly try to impeach every president since Clinton, practically. So I think it complicates it in a lot of different ways.

By the way, when we get back to the budget shutdown issues, this is only the first battle, Cathy. The Republicans, correctly, in my view, want to vote on 12 different spending bills as opposed to one big omnibus bill covering the federal government. But putting together those 12 bills in a form that can pass the House, pass the Senate, and get signed by the president is going to be a chore in and of itself. So we are probably going to be in this mode of arguing about government shutdowns and spending and things like that for a long time.

CATHY WURZER: All right. I wish I had more time. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

VIN WEBER: Well, I enjoy talking to you. Invite me back anytime, and we can continue the discussion.

CATHY WURZER: That's former Minnesota Congressman Vin Weber. We reached out to Minnesota's US representatives, Republican Representatives Brad Finstad, Tom Emmer, and Pete Stauber today. Didn't receive a response from them ahead of our broadcast. Republican US Representative Michelle Fischbach declined to speak with us.