OA671: Speaker McLOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:01:16 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 671. I'm Thomas. That's Andrew Torres. How are you doing, Andrew?

0:01:25 Andrew: Hi, I'm always fantastic, you know that, but like Democrat in America right now, I am popcorn.gif, so, yeah, of course, obviously, no, I†m not a monster, geez,

0:01:37 Thomas: I'm glad you said gif, right? And not jif. Okay, good. Just making sure. That’s another battle that I don't think’ Another can of worms you and I haven't opened up on the show. With those potential internet fights where it's like we have to stop recording because it's, like, sorry, you said jif, so I can't go. No, we're both team GIF and we're both team get your friggin potato peels out of my mashed potatoes. Now, people can do it. Look, consenting adults can eat whatever potatoes they want, but that's garbage.

0:01:56 Andrew: Best team gif, Yeah, we're not. We're not, you know. Yeah. But still, get the potato peels out. Yep. Are also due to severe weather warnings. We're recording this a little bit early. We're recording it on a Wednesday instead of a Thursday. But I know when I was prepping this segment, that

0:02:25 Thomas: Yeah, we can't really hide that because everyone is marking the time perfectly by knowing how many votes McCarthy has failed. So again, the cat will be out of the bag when we're like, it's the sixth vote he's failed And they're like, well, we know for sure that happened Wednesday morning.

0:02:34 Andrew: Is exactly right. Yeah. I will tell you this, I started prepping this segment last night, right after the first historic day, we're going to get into it, uh, which McCarthy failed three votes. Um I thought, well, you know, am I prepping something that, uh, gonna wind up being obsolete by the time we record? And, you know, and then I was like, let's just say that's happened to me before, uh, I'm going to go ahead and do it. And after watching this morning's developments, I feel reasonably good that this is going to be evergreen material. As of right now, McCarthy has failed five votes and counting. He does not even have at at this present date votes the necessary to adjourn the House of Representatives.

0:02:47 Thomas: Yeah. Three votes.

0:03:02 Thomas: Yeah.

0:03:22 Thomas: Are they stuck there forever? That'd be cool. Wait, can you explain that to me? This procedural stuff. I know you get off on this because you're a creep.

0:03:24 Andrew: They're stuck there forever. Um Yeah.

0:03:32 Thomas: But I don't know. Why do you need votes? So people can't just leave. You can need votes to.

0:03:32 Andrew: You You, yeah, that's right, you need votes in order to exit the building and if not, right, if you just wander off,

0:03:44 Thomas: They have a bouncer at the building. Like, hey, can I see your votes, please? Can I? You can't get out.

0:03:48 Andrew: I You know, I did, uh, student congress, uh, in, when I was in high school, and yeah, no, that, like, you, if you needed to get up to go to the bathroom, like, you had to make a, because we followed the, you know, Robert's Rules of Order and all that, and you had to, you know, uh, motion for, uh, the privilege of the chair to be excused on a question of personal privilege, and everyone yeah and everyone knew what personal privilege meant, it, yeah, we're in this incredibly weird place and I'm dying to get there. Let me quickly kind of go over the facts. I cannot imagine we have any listener that doesn't know this, but whatever, it's, it's worth recording.

0:04:10 Thomas: Yeah, I move for a bowel movement.

0:04:28 Thomas: Hey, there are people with lives. You never know.

0:04:30 Andrew: True. Right. People who are traveling, spending time with family. Great. We'll catch up. Yeah.

0:04:35 Thomas: Reading a good book, you know,

0:04:37 Andrew: Yeah. What's happened, right? Tuesday and Wednesday you a vote from all 434 members of the House of Representatives. That vote ballot number one resulted in Kevin McCarthy the Republican the Republican candidate for Speaker of the House getting 203 votes. 212 Democrats voting for Hakeem Jeffries. And then there have been various hilarious Kevin McCarthy opponents. They have now seemed to settle in on Byron Donalds of Florida, African -American congressman. It was Jim Jordan for, I mean, you know, it doesn't matter.

0:04:37 Thomas: Doing

0:05:13 Andrew: It's, it's, yeah, of ethics and leadership.

0:05:13 Thomas: That paragon of. Yeah, And First question out of the way that we already know the answer to is I'm sad that it doesn't just work like whoever had the most votes gets it, because then it's Hakeem Jeffries already. You do have to have how many, a set number to write to Oh.

0:05:30 Andrew: Let's talk about that because there are two potential exceptions. Okay. So that first vote was McCarthy 203, Jeffries 212, not McCarthy 19. that repeated in the second ballot. By the third ballot, McCarthy lost yet another vote to Jim Jordan. So it was McCarthy 202, Jeffries 212, not McCarthy. In that case, Jim Jordan 20. noon on Wednesday, McCarthy has lost another half a vote. He's down to 201. That's 20 votes for Donald's. And then one former McCarthy supporter that was Victoria Sparks of Indiana switched her vote to present. Now, she said she did that to send a message that we've got to break up this

0:05:32 Thomas: Okay. Oh. Yeah. I

0:06:16 Andrew: Log jam or whatever.

0:06:18 Thomas: Didn't know you could do that. I heard coverage that said you had to specifically vote for a person. That's weird. Oh.

0:06:23 Andrew: Can vote. You have to vote if you're on the floor, but you can votepresent. Right. I believe if you sneak out, right, if you know you're you're smoking in the boys room or whatever, and they can't find you, that your vote becomes a vote for present. Right?

0:06:39 Thomas: Though you're specifically not present. That seems weird.

0:06:41 Andrew: You're specifically not. Because here's what happened. When you vote present. That is saying you are not voting for a specific speaker candidate. And so your vote no longer counts in the denominator. OK, so having sparks vote present means that only 433 members were voting for a named candidate. And that meant you could have won with 217 votes instead of 216. And so if you're doing the math, that means you need 10 more Republicans to switch to present to make Hakeem Jeffries the speaker. OK, it

0:06:42 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah.

0:07:22 Thomas: This is real. This, this whole thing is real weird. Trick One weird trick territory, like the whole this is awesome. Okay.

0:07:27 Andrew: This is all one weird trick territory. That is exactly right. And in fact, that's not weird at all. Nancy Pelosi won in 2021 with 216 votes. And what happen there was that members of the House Progressive Caucus that wished to register their protest against Nancy Pelosi for various reasons, some some good, some less than good, agreed to vote. Vote present, right? And so you only needed 216 votes. Same thing happened to John Boehner, the Republicans, in 2015. He won with 216 votes. So winning with a combination of yes votes and present votes is 100 percent in line with recent history. It's normal.

0:08:09 Thomas: So normal, not weird at all.

0:08:11 Andrew: It's not weird. What is weird is going beyond a first ballot. Right. Weird is where we are right now. And people are underselling just how weird it is. Right? Like I have seen news reports that are like, this is the first time there's been multiple ballots since 1923.

0:08:21 Thomas: Like 1920, yeah.

0:08:28 Andrew: Yep. That's true, but not true enough. Okay. This has only happened 14 other times in history. The previous time was indeed 1923 and took nine ballots. The time before Before that, or I should say the times before that, the previous 13 were all before the Civil War. They were all about slavery. Right. And they were all at a time in which, like, nobody knew what the government did. Right. Like, to say, you know, it's been 15 times in history, the last time was a century ago, it conveys that this is rare. To say this is a thing that was done in the, the first, first half of the 19th century when the country was 50 years old, and now.

0:08:31 Thomas: Oh. Yeah.

0:09:11 Thomas: That's more. Like, you should say it's happened effectively once in the modern era, maybe kind okay

0:09:15 Andrew: Yeah, yeah. That's if you consider, you know, the Model T, the modern era. So, yeah, so love about this is from a rules a and documents geek perspective. Perspective, this is happening because the House is a memento disease. OK, the Senate has standing rules that continue from session to session. Now, part of that is practical because the Senate meets every two years, but only a third of the Senate stands for reelection. Right. So it would be very, very, very weird if you had to vote on a new set of rules every two years, even though you're not turning over the body. Right. House of Representatives is elected every two years. The way, this was Adam Kinzinger posted a question that was he was like, since nobody has been sworn in for my district, am I still a congressman?

0:10:09 Andrew: And the answer is no, no, No, you're not. And the reason is the

0:09:41 Thomas: Yeah uh well that's too bad okay

0:10:12 Andrew: 20th Amendment. Well, there's a good part, too, right? The 20th Amendment to the Constitution says the terms of the president and vice president shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, comma, and the terms of senators and representatives at noon on the third day of January of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified, and the terms of their successors shall then begin. So, same, very clear: no, you, you're fired. It's done. It is over. For avoidance of doubt, your term in office is done. That saved us from Donald Trump just sitting in the Oval Office for the last three years and having to be forcibly removed with a forklift or something. Makes it clear that all of the members of the last Congress, their terms ended. Those who were reelected are eligible to have their new terms begin, but they haven't begun yet.

0:11:01 Thomas: Interesting. Oh.

0:11:04 Andrew: And here's why, right? I was sort of digressing a little bit from the, from the fact that, uh, House of Representatives has not passed its rules yet. Okay.

0:11:13 Thomas: Yeah, you were saying memento, so it has to, like, it starts fresh, it's got to pass rules every time. Hmm.

0:11:19 Andrew: And the House, Article One, the House sets its own rules to govern its own own membership and govern how things are to be adjudicated. And it does so fresh every two years. Only constraints are constraints that are in the Constitution. So let me give you an example of something that's in the Constitution. And in fact, that this is a logical extension of what I just said. Article One, Section Five says, says, each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members.

0:11:49 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:49 Andrew: Historically, here's what that has meant, that that, that means if two candidates come out of a disputed election, the House gets to vote to determine which one to seat, okay, can judge the elections of their membership. And then it goes on to say a majority shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, that means using the House marshal, yes, at gunpoint, in such manner and under such penalties as each house may provide. Each house may determine the rules of its own proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member. So this is an example of kind of the bare bones. When I say the House has no rules, they have the rules that are set in the Constitution, and that's it.

0:12:38 Thomas: So we haven't installed Windows yet, we're in the BIOS here and there's just like a little bit that's in, in the motherboard, programmed in, when

0:12:41 Andrew: Yeah, that's really an excellent analogy. Um, now you have to figure out how do we operationalize the few requirements that are in the Constitution at a time in which, are right, yeah, that this is exactly

0:12:59 Thomas: You don't even have a mouse.

0:12:59 Andrew: Right You don't have, you don't have a mouse, and you've got two kids tugging. I mean, this works if it's a physical CD-ROM but, you know, you have two kids. It's like arguing over, should you install Windows or should you install Linux, right? Like, that's where we are right now.

0:13:14 Thomas: Yeah. Let's be real. It's should we install a trash operating system or should we install outright computer viruses? Like I said, there's no, there'S no actual, should we use this AOL CD And see if that just turns into an operating system? Them but,

0:13:24 Andrew: What kind of malware? I, exactly right. None of the members of Congress have taken the oath of office yet because their tradition is that the oath of office is administered by the Speaker of the House.

0:13:41 Thomas: How are they voting on who the Speaker is? Oh,

0:13:44 Andrew: Are voting on who the Speaker is, because that requirement is set out in the Constitution. Right. The requires a couple of things. Right. First, it says that the House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other officers. And that's why it is the clerk of the House. That's a That's appointee. That's not an elected person who's sitting as the presiding officer. Right. That's not somebody who's elected to the House of Representatives. And that is because of the Robert's Rules of Order that were in place in the 16th century at the time that this language was adopted into the Constitution, um, was also there's no requirement that the Speaker of the House be the person who administers the oath of office to any member of Congress, and you think about that for a second, right, this is a, you know, who shaves the barber situation, right? Well,

0:14:36 Thomas: That's what I was gonna, I didn't want to bog you down, but like, yeah, who is the House that gets to vote? Why, isn't it the old members? Is, I guess, what I'm asking. You're

0:14:36 Andrew: Yeah, Yeah, it, Well, idiot, we know it's not the old members because of the 20th Amendment. The 20th Amendment says you're done, your terms are over, and you're out. So the question is, and this is, you know, nail in the coffin number eight billion seven hundred and thirty four million and nine against any kind of originalism or strict textualism, right, question, is does the language in the Constitution, which says, for example, let's sentence here, this is Article 1, Section 5, I just previously read it, but it's it's illustrative, it says each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members. Literally, that's insane, because you can't have a House until

0:14:52 Thomas: Done, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,

0:15:31 Andrew: The members are sworn in. So it must be the case, and, and here's a case even where you the ordinary method of jurisprudence doesn't help you much because, uh, House gets to judge the rules of its own conduct. So there are very few, case you know, cases adjudicating these provisions, either like the Supreme Court just kind of throws up its hand and is like, I don't know, separation of powers.

0:15:43 Thomas: Figure

0:15:53 Andrew: You figure it out. That's exactly right. So left with a obvious application of the principle at stake here, which is when it says each House, that no, it means both the House and the Senate.

0:15:51 Thomas: It out Yeah, What? What the hell does that mean? There's one House, right? What's with the... Oh,

0:16:08 Andrew: Yeah.

0:16:08 Thomas: It does. Okay, okay.

0:16:09 Andrew: Beyond that, for the Senate, it's clear, right, because the Senate does have a continuity of operations.

0:16:12 Thomas: Pox on both these houses.

0:16:14 Andrew: Right, exactly. But in the House, that must mean the body constituted of people who are elected to the House of Representatives.

0:16:14 Thomas: No, sorry.

0:16:23 Thomas: Hmm.

0:16:23 Andrew: And the reason I draw that distinction is because the this is Article 6, okay? And, you know, you're thinking like, okay, I know Article 1 is Congress, Article 2 is the president, Article 3 is the judiciary.

0:16:35 Thomas: I, yeah, definitely knew all that. Totally,

0:16:37 Andrew: Yeah, well, most lawyers know that, I would say, at least, right? Right.

0:16:38 Thomas: Yep. Knew that. Fair. Fair.

0:16:42 Andrew: Then. There's a bunch of extra articles at the end of the Constitution. Article six is the legal verbiage from the end of the 18th century as to why the Constitution is valid under the norms then existing at the time. Right. So it's very, very archaic. But This is like the language at the beginning of a lease. Right. Like the witness of the party of the first part doth hereby convey to the party of the second part. And You're like, what? Right. So here's what it says in Article 6. "The senators and representatives before mentioned" right.

That means in Article 1 "and the members of the several state legislatures and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states" right, there means the original 13 states, right "be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution, but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." So, so unpack that. That is saying we know that the Constitution is valid because the people who are going to be, one of the ways in which we know that it's valid, is because the people who are going to execute on this Constitution

0:16:55 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:17:55 Andrew: Will be bound, shall be bound, by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution.

0:18:01 Thomas: It is a snake eating its own tail kind of thing, one way or the other, right,

0:18:01 Andrew: Okay. Of it. It means, though, that moment, right, where you are sworn in is not just a photographic moment. It is a moment of legal significance, right? Are not legally a senator or a representative until, by oath or affirmation, you swear to support the Constitution.

0:18:26 Thomas: Asking for a friend, are you allowed to try to overturn the government after having sworn that oath.

0:18:29 Andrew: You know, that you really shouldn't

0:18:31 Thomas: Shouldn't do that.

0:18:31 Andrew: Be allowed to do that. But that's but that's why the 14th Amendment and that's Why, you know, for example, that the effort to discharge Marjorie Taylor Greene, and, you know, and others who supported the insurrection. That's why those were we're couched in violation of the oath of office because it's not just a symbolic thing. It has legal significance. So the who administers the oath -of -office to the Speaker of the House is called the Dean of the house. It happens to be the longest standing member of the house. Where do you find this in the Constitution? Nowhere. Where Where do you find this in case law? Nowhere. You find this in the Thomas Jefferson version of Robert's Rules of Order, then in effect in 1789, right? So current dean of the House is Hal Rogers from Kentucky, been the longest serving in office.

0:18:32 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Oh, wow. I've

0:19:32 Andrew: He actually, yeah, no, me neither.

0:19:32 Thomas: Never heard of him. Longest serving.

0:19:35 Andrew: Exactly as much service time as Chris Smith from New Jersey. But another, yeah. Right.

0:19:39 Thomas: Oh, sure. Yeah, another household name.

0:19:41 Andrew: Another well Well, well known. R comes before S in the alphabet. So a hundred percent R comes before S and the alphabet, so

0:19:46 Thomas: No way, really? Oh, that's funny. Love so hard. If it was just like height or something, really, like old-timey, who has more horses, I think, gets to be arm

0:19:56 Andrew: I, I wish I have mentioned this on the air before, but one of the things I put into to multiple member LLCs when you are drafting the governing document is particularly consider arguments, right? Like you and I are 50 -50 partners. So what happens when we disagree, right? That's come up with a manly way to settle our disputes. Um, business, I will often put in, uh, if, if there is an irrevocable tie, it will be settled by best two out of three rock paper scissors. Okay, I've never ever had a business go to rock paper so, that I know of, I could have, but like that's such a a powerful incentive to fix things.

0:20:16 Thomas: Wrestle Right, right.

0:20:39 Andrew: Right, yeah. So and So you know I wish there was more uh rock paper scissors or whoever has the biggest horse, although you, we've seen with this Congress so far, like, right, Kevin McCarthy would be out buying a horse right, like if that were the case, so could could be the case. Now,

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0:22:36 Andrew: Very, very last thing is I've, is one of these that like I love, love that the, that O.A. answer kind of doubles back to the uninformed answer. So the, is, there's no rules. Nobody's going to adopt any rules. Could the House adopt a resolution that says we're going to have the Speaker be elected by a plurality, right, a majority and uninformed, right? No, you can't do that, it's it's got to be an absolute majority. Then, uh, Politico and a couple of other sources, like, dug through some the previous congressional records and said, no, actually, there are two instances, I'm going to read this out to you, that the House subsequently adopted a rule.

0:23:27 Andrew: But, true to Opening Arguments fame, I went back and read that, not only that summary from the House Practice, A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and Procedures of the House, chapter 34, Office of the Speaker of the House, I'll a link up in the show notes, and says as follows: in two instances the House agreed to choose, and subsequently did choose, a Speaker by a plurality of votes, but confirmed the choice subsequently by majority vote.

In 1849, the House had been in session 19 days without being able to elect a speaker, no candidate having received a majority of the votes cast, the voting was viva voce, by voice, each member responding to the call of the world by naming the candidate for whom he voted, um, that's what you see now and you, it's now not just he, fortunately, after the 59th ballot the House adopted a resolution declaring that a speaker could be elected by a plurality, and then there's, so citation to the record of that. 1856, the House again struggled over the election of a speaker, put a pin in that, one ballot numbering one hundred and twenty nine had been taken without any candidate

0:23:56 Thomas: Oh god

0:24:37 Andrew: Receiving a majority of the votes.

0:24:37 Thomas: I hope it goes that far come on Just,

0:24:39 Andrew: To get to that because this is truly worth unpacking. And and so I have a little bit on the history. House then adopted a resolution permitting the election to be decided by plurality against citation. And then it says on both of these occasions, the House ratified the plurality election by a majority vote.

0:24:58 Thomas: That's weird. So where the heck does that come from? I don't know anything about needing to ratify or confirm or whatever. Was it in the special rules they adopted saying that they could do it with a plurality in the first place?

0:25:08 Andrew: Answer is no one knows.

0:25:10 Thomas: They just did it.

0:25:11 Andrew: That's why that's why they did that sort of belts and suspenders thing. Right. Because because what they did was they They passed a resolution, but it's not clear that you can pass a resolution without having a speaker of the House. But the people who would have standing to contest that would themselves be other members of the house of representatives.

0:25:15 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Just to make sure.

0:25:30 Thomas: Right. Right.

0:25:31 Andrew: And I think the court would be like, uh, seems like a non -justiciable political question to me. You don't like it. Find a new house.

0:25:34 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of like, I'm, they redo Obama's oath because the justice kind of corrected the grammar of it, instead of, "to boldly go," it was "to go boldly" or whatever the heck, it was that same construction, yeah, to faithfully execute, to execute faithfully, maybe it was that one, something like that, and so I think they redid it because he messed up the words, but they redit it, like, you know, in, in private, just to make sure. Yeah.

0:25:44 Andrew: Yep. That is exactly right. Yep. Exactly right.

0:25:57 Andrew: In private. It Yep. That's exactly, and so with a bunch of these, that answer is we don't have a good answer, so I want to tell you about that, 1855, 1856, uh, up, taking 133 ballots and two months, okay? So, what do you think? I mean, just, just spin the wheel of political issues.

0:26:14 Thomas: Oh, yes, please. Hmm.

0:26:24 Andrew: Who ultimately, this is a good story, so I will tell you, the candidate who won was a Republican from Massachusetts, Nathaniel Bobbin Boy Banks. Uh, love old timey nicknames. This is actually a great nickname to have, uh, who was anti-slavery. Um, so, uh. Let's kind of set the historical setting. This comes from a Washington Post article, uh that I will link in the show notes. So it's a article predating this this whole mess. So, yeah, longest speaker vote began on December 3rd, 1855. controlled the Senate, but no party controlled the House because this was after the collapse of the Whig Party.

0:26:38 Thomas: Yeah. Oh.

0:26:57 Andrew: Right. So a third of the House were Democrats and then the rest was some Republicans, members of the America Party, members, you know, the know nothing party. Right. So maybe maybe some parallels to today on first day. And remember, this goes to one hundred and thirty three votes. Twenty one candidates put know, toss their hat into the ring and they took four votes. And the leading candidate, the Kevin McCarthy, if you will, was William Richardson of Illinois, who the Washington Post says favored permitting future states to allow slavery, which I will then describe as pro -slavery.

0:27:38 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:38 Andrew: I understand that there were nuance. Well, I'm not for the expansion, but not. There were people, you know, who belong to the like, well, not now I'm going to expand slavery, but you know I'm, not going to upset the apple cart. Right. Very comfortable passing judgment on history and saying we're not going to delve into the nuance of owning human beings as property. So he had 74 votes. And at the time, you needed 113. So the anti-slavery folks lined up behind Banks, Bobbin Boy Banks. And the reason he was named Bobbin Boy Banks is because as child, he worked in a textile factory, carrying bobbins of thread to the women who operated the looms. So he was the Bobbin Boy. How great is that? Uh, the the post quotes the New York Herald describing him as quote, a good-looking man with a stiff puritanical manner who is who is even said never to have

0:27:43 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah.

0:28:26 Thomas: He lives in a bobbin. Boy.

0:28:38 Thomas: They really gave no Fs back then in the papers. He had a limp, and he looked kind of short and dumb. You're just like, what? That was the newspaper back then? Well,

0:28:41 Andrew: Yeah he is even said to have never drank a glass of liquor in his life, end of quote. So um, I guess, so disqualify you and I from for being House of Speaker of the House of Representatives. OK, so now we're thirty three votes in. And this is before the 20th Amendment. So instead of meeting in January of 1856, first met December of 1855. We're now mid-December. Thirty three votes into weeks and Banks is at 100 votes, and Richardson is at 73, and everybody else is kind of all over the place, and again there are 100 more votes or 99 more votes until the Democrats decide that they have a beautiful way of breaking the logjam, and and I really really hope that this uh proves proves prescient.

0:28:54 Thomas: I hate them. No, I'm just kidding.

0:29:43 Andrew: February 1st, 1856, they back a new speaker candidate, Aiken, Jr., the 50 -year -old son of railroad magnate William Aken, Sr. I don't know why the Washington Post wanted to tell us that, but I decided to tell you. Pro -slavery, right? Replaces Richardson. And then the Democrats said, Oh, and By the way you know, the Bob and boy folks, the banks people have been saying, let's pass a plurality resolution. Right. And just kind of get it over with. We agree. Plurality vote after the, after the next one. Okay. Starting, starting next Next week.

0:30:15 Thomas: Wait, starting now or starting? Best we do one, two, three

0:30:19 Andrew: Yeah, right. It's it's very, very weird.

0:30:19 Thomas: Go or one, two? Do

0:30:21 Andrew: So you're notes that Aiken was sure to win over enough Southern House members to gain a plurality in the speakership newspapers reported. We think we can count one hundred and nine votes for Mr. Aiken if jealousy or something else does not defeat him. A Washington Star correspondent wrote, and Democratic President Franklin Pierce called up, I guess not called up.

0:30:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:30:41 Andrew: But what it says that night, Democratic President Brooklyn Pierce congratulated Aiken in advance on his victory. So that's Friday, Friday night. They're like, OK, OK. We got it. Southern states are holding out on our guy Richardson because he's not pro slavery enough. So we're going to find somebody who's more pro slavery. Right. Guy, Aiken. Democrats, again, are willing to to vote for him because we'd rather have him than, you know, this bobbin boy dude. And that's going to get us from 73 votes up over well past the threshold to one hundred and nine. And going to be our long national nightmare will be over. Um, is the vote uh plurality resolution passes um

0:31:26 Thomas: It with pass a plurality or? Do you need to pass the plurality one?

0:31:28 Andrew: Passes Okay So here's the thing, they they take three votes, right, passing the plurality resolution. And on that, they don't know, Banks leads Aiken, right, that bobbin boy leads leads Aiken 103 to 95, right. So you had lots more votes come in for Aiken, right. That's that's 22 more votes for Aken, but three more votes from Banks. And not enough to close the gap and uh pass the plurality resolution. Bunch of people drop out, uh, the idea is these kind of minor candidates that have been running, and the idea's, okay, they're all going to switch over uh Aiken and he's gonna get, you know, at least nine of them and become Speaker of the House. And so uh 7 p.m. the final total comes in, 103 for Banks, 100 for Aiken.

0:32:26 Andrew: And Banks becomes Speaker of the House, uh, a larger coalition existing in the House of of Representatives that were too many varying threads of pro -slavery to coalesce on a single candidate. And that strikes me as kind of exactly where we are.

0:32:41 Thomas: Wow. Boy, that's exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Too many strands of insurrection election denying crap to agree. Is that what you're saying?

0:32:53 Andrew: That's right. And I don't want to saying that Hakeem Jeffries is going to be Speaker of the the House. I I do not think that is, I don't, I don't think that that is likely. Okay, um, want to add one, one more, uh, most people know this, um, there's no requirement that the speaker of the House be a present member of the house, so like, I again I don't want to give aid and comfort to the enemy here, but if I were the Republicans and this goes on for a couple of days, I would go over to to the Democrats and say, like, "OK, how many of you could vote for Liz Cheney?" Right.

0:33:03 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah.

0:33:27 Thomas: Surprised. So has have none of the nut jobs nominated Trump yet?

0:33:30 Andrew: Yet. And here's the bigger thing, you may have not seen this. The folks called Trump last night and he issued a statement encouraging his supporters to vote for McCarthy. It changed zero votes. And so that it

0:33:31 Thomas: Oh, right. Yeah. It's almost like he doesn't have the magic touch anymore, more, yeah.

0:33:48 Andrew: It's almost as though, you know, having broken down the gate for crazies to come in, that they're like, "I never thought the leopards" would eat my face. Right, like, it, it, let, let's put this in stark terms. If the House is permanently deadlocked for two years, that's not going to happen, but suppose that this, like, every day they just show up and, uh, you know, fail to vote for Kevin McCarthy and then wait until they're bored and then get together enough votes to adjourn and go home

0:33:59 Thomas: Oh, it'd be so great and apologies just real quick Refresh me, can they vote for nothing else until this is done, like, are they allowed to they they seem to be, the reason I ask is they seem to able to do resolutions about, you whether or not they can vote for a House speaker with plurality, but that's all they can do, they can't do, like, you know, if a bill comes from the Senate to them, they just can't deal with it.

0:34:24 Andrew: Yeah. They they yeah Because that, we actually have pretty good evidence on, and it has to do with what things can take priority on a floor Vote, vote. Right. So we've talked about how, for example, the reason you can't filibuster in the House is really there are two things. Number one, debate is limited, right, by the House rules that they have not yet adopted. And number two, as a backstop motion with, for the previous question is always germane in the House. Right? So in other words, you can kind of slip that to the top of the votes that you're taking because that's the way Robert's Rules of Order puts it, right, and that was done to resolve with finality, like, okay, what if we're confused, right, and seriously, like, the question was, what if we're confused? We've got a bill, you got a motion to amend, you got emotion to lay on the table, uh, that's a real motion that

0:34:53 Thomas: Put all

0:35:39 Andrew: Doesn't mean you actually lied out, no, you table it, you're like, okay, make this go away, uh, we can can pick it up again later if we want. But, you know, practically speaking, remove this from the queue. Right. If you have all the, and what if you had motion to dilatory and a motion to suspend the rules and all that? And nobody knows where the hell everything is. And Robert's was like, OK, then, then what you do is you move the previous question. Right? And that means I want us to vote on the bill up or down as it stands right now. With that notion of like, there's... there's a priority. The motion to nominate a speaker always has priority on the floor of the House of Representatives. And the Constitution says you shall choose a speaker of the House of Representatives, so they're stuck again.

0:36:26 Andrew: You know, could you convince a of the House of Representatives to ignore those rules and move forward? You could. But right now they can't convince a majority of the House of Representatives to adjourn, so I'm not too worried about that right now. Um, truly, truly fascinating. So, um, have no idea what's going to come. I

0:36:41 Thomas: So what was the flow, I interrupted, uh, right

0:36:49 Andrew: Was saying that you could, uh, forward a candidate who is not a sitting member of the House of Representatives. And at point, right. It was hilarious to be watching the fifth vote unfold, because it opened with a conservative member of the House of Representatives pleading out to the 20 members of the anti McCarthy caucus. "Hey, look, like, Kevin McCarthy is really bent over backwards to you lunatic idiots. And he's going to propose all these changes in the rules that you wanted, and this and that." And, and just sitting there going like, "well, you don't understand, like, the members of this caucus at all." And the person who rose to nominate the anti McCarthy candidate was Lauren Boebert, and, like, you get, there's just no better middle finger to the Kevin McCarthy wing of, "oh, I'm sorry, you've, you thought we were listening on the basis of politics?

Well, here, let us make this abundantly clear to you. We're not listening, we" "don't understand this isn't about policies. Let us put the dumbest, most confrontational, most idiotic member of our, of our coalition out to tell you, uh, going to vote against Kevin McCarthy until the end of time. And there are no amount of concessions that will make us happy." And that's because Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, these morons are not elected to govern. They are elected to do the thing that they're doing right now. Their constituents love them. Lauren Boebert almost lost her House race. I promise you that her donations would triple if this goes on for three months. Right. This is what the people who vote for her want her to do, to go in and break stuff and

0:36:55 Thomas: Right yeah

0:38:37 Andrew: And say they're mad. I, you know, are maybe some operative lessons here about, you fact that the Democrats have managed to keep all 212 votes together for Hakeem Jeffries the entire time. I should I should put an asterisk and say Marcy Kaptur, who's a dipshit, you know, octogenarian congresswoman from Ohio, said that she would vote for Kevin McCarthy If there was a unity caucus. And I think she was

0:38:37 Thomas: Yeah, because the system doesn't work, so if you just break it, then everything becomes better. At that point, it works, great, solves a lot of problems, I What?

0:39:09 Andrew: Very. Yeah, she she made these remarks this morning and then has not been heard heard from since. And II think, you know, she was just sort of like wish cast. There is no chance absent major reconfiguring that that you're going to be able to get Democratic support. Right.

0:39:29 Thomas: Okay, let me ask that. Is there anything strategically that would make sense for Democrats to do there? Is there something that like some deal that could be struck that would be beneficial for us to say, all right, we'll help you have a speaker and we'll get the following things for it.

0:39:45 Andrew: What the speaker could promise is is broadly speaking, two things. Number one, changes to the rules that make it easier as the Democrats to stop stuff from happening. Right. Number two would be chairmanships of committees. Right. Was no rule that says you must when when you control a House of Congress, that all of the committees must be chaired by members of the party that controls the House. It just you know, the rules allow you to do that.

0:40:16 Thomas: Right. But most importantly, is this stuff that, like, is on our system, or is there a way to do it such that he's bound to any of these agreements? Arguments.

0:40:27 Andrew: That that you hit on exactly what I think the problem would be. And that is in an era of Mitch McConnell, you would need some kind of ironclad guarantee that, you couldn't just have a procedural motion and reshuffle all of this tomorrow because not only would that be terrible strategically, but then Democrats would look like idiots. I mean, it would be, I mean truly, you know, you got played. And I promise you that the one thing elected officials are pretty good at is, okay, but I'm not going to look like an idiot at the end of this, am I? So I think that that is on their radar.

0:40:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:41:07 Thomas: So no deals. Okay.

0:41:08 Andrew: No how do you compromise with the face eating leopards wing of the party? Right. Like Kevin McCarthy is already, you know, moderately pro treason. Right. Right. Like, yeah.

0:41:12 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. He sucks. I'm just saying if there was something we could get out of it, like if we could have engineered an ironclad deal where we could stop some bullshit Hunter Biden investigations, you know, then it'd be like, yeah, he's, you know, one way or the other, they're going to have a trash speaker, but if we Could get something out of it would be worth it. But it sounds like we can't really do that. So why bother?

0:41:21 Andrew: Oh, yeah, well, that's why. And again, you know, please, I hope no Republicans are listening. But if were desperate among the Republicans, that's that why I would propose a package that includes Liz Cheney being speaker of the House. And, you that would presumably include continuity of the January 6th committee. Right. Seems like that would be really, really enticing to enough Democrats you you could lose a lot. I mean, it would lose a bunch of Republicans. Don't get me wrong. You might bring over more Democrats than you lose that. That would be the kind of thing that I think could could shake things up. But. You Know, we're going to have to look And again, who knows? Maybe they hit some sort of crazy bargain as we're recording this and everybody gets a good laugh. But, you know, at least you've learned something here today. But I don't I don'T see that happening. Right.

0:41:51 Thomas: That would would be interesting yeah Yeah.

0:42:28 Andrew: Because, you KNOW, like I was saying, is right, not against McCarthy's politics right there. He's, you you, Know, to the right of everybody else. It's not about Trump. Right? Right. Like, OK, McCarthy mumbled some stuff on one six. But

0:42:44 Thomas: Well, I do think it's about politics insofar as a number of Republicans know that McCarthy is just a bullshit artist, like he is just the most in it for himself, flip floppy, wish washy, gonna go where the wind is blowing kind of Republican. And I think I, I agree that like ostensibly he has, he shares the politics with these idiots, but not really, really, because it's clear that he's just going to do what's best for McCarthy. So I think they kind of know that about him. And that's why they don't, they're not really interested in these deals.

0:43:15 Andrew: I think that's right. And so then the question is, who occupies a compromise space between Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene? I mean that sincerely. Like So, uh, the risk of, uh, being you wrong before this episode comes out, um, it feels like a log jam in a way that it didn't necessarily feel that way Tuesday night, and some point we are, the party of government has to do a thing.

0:43:28 Thomas: That's an impossible SAT question.

0:43:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:50 Andrew: And so, you know, there will be some pressure, uh, the grown-up party to to be grown-ups. Um, uh, we need to hold out as long as we can on that and let, let, let the American public see, like, look, this is what happens. And you of political moment, a lot of people were disappointed that we came up just shy of holding mouths, including you and I, right? I wanted to. A lot of People were disappointed That, you Know, We Came Up Just Shy of Sending Lauren Boebert Home. This is a profound illustration of the power of hanging in those fights, even when you come up a little bit short.

Because if there were five, I firmly believe this, I know there are 20 votes in the anti McCarthy camp right now. If they had five more members of Congress, if that margin was 226, right, then 207, right? Would not that we would not be in this logjam, right. Right. That would be because the McCarthy vote would exceed the Jeffries vote, even with the holdouts. And so there would just be there would be no reason for the Democrats to hold on. There would be No kind of, you know, standoff

0:44:16 Thomas: Yeah, of course.

0:44:26 Thomas: Yeah? Yeah.

0:45:03 Andrew: Probabilities here.

0:45:03 Thomas: I would still hope we would never, ever vote for the Republican speaker.

0:45:07 Andrew: I agree.

0:45:07 Thomas: Like, honestly.

0:45:07 Andrew: I agree with that. But Right. What creates this unique dynamic is the fact that McCarthy can only lose four votes throughout The entire process. Process.

0:45:14 Thomas: Yeah sure. The point Point is, every vote counted, even in House races that, you win enough to win the House, but every race matters, every boat matters, and we should continue to do everything we can. Every election, contest everywhere. Is that what you're saying? Love it.

0:45:28 Andrew: Wow, that's I could not have put it better myself, so I won't.

0:45:33 Thomas: I am routing for McCarthy to break records, you now. 200 votes. I however many votes it takes for him to be the the sole record owner, you know, the outright leader of most failed votes for a speaker. I will. I'm rooting for him.

0:45:48 Andrew: You, you, and me both. Again, there, there's business the House has to transact, we've got to extend the debt ceiling, but you admit to growing weary of Republicans break stuff, Democrats do their best to fix it, and then Republicans run on, "Well, you didn't fix enough, why don't you give us another shot at it," and for some reason, you know, I've described the House as having Memento disease, like the middle of the electorate has this Mementos disease where you don't understand that by voting for Republicans we're going to be back in this place again. I could convey that more clearly, but I'm preaching to the choir here on our show, so I'll stop. Yeah.

0:46:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:46:25 Thomas: All right. Well, impossibly, we're going to squeeze some more show into this show.

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0:47:18 Thomas: Go to ziprecruiter dot com slash OA. Recruiter uses its powerful matching technology to find the right candidates for your job. You see a candidate who'd be perfect for your Job, Ziprecruitor makes it easy to send them a personal invite so they're more likely to apply. ZipRecruiter also offers attention -grabbing labels that speak to job flexibility like remote, training provided, and more. So employers who post on ZipRecruiter, get a quality candidate within the first day. See for yourself. Go to this exclusive web address to try Zip Recruiter for free. Ziprecruiter .com slash OA. Once again, that's ZipRecruiter dot com slash OA Zip recruiter, the smartest way to hire. Got some updates on Elon Musk. Is it just we're even more right? Boy, we'RE more right about that guy every passing day.

0:48:08 Andrew: Uh, We even more right? Um, uh, stock rebounded somewhat today to $113 a share as of, uh, this recording. It closed at $108 a share yesterday. So, again, if you're keeping and track, right, is losing 70% of its value over the course of the year, and probably haven't done all the math, $200 billion in net worth just kind of frittered away by Elon Musk because he decided to be a trump supporting goon in public, um,

0:48:46 Thomas: Yeah, I want to make some people have pointed out, and I think this is pretty valid, that like Tesla's stock was massively overrated and overvalued before, so it's like there is an argument to be made that like it would be tanking regardless of what Musk is doing, but I don't know, him having to dump just massive amounts of it wouldn't help, you know, it's good it's at least somewhat his fault. Interesting.

0:49:10 Andrew: Yeah, that, that, that's right. Think I the takes of Tesla should be valued as an automotive company are wrong, though. Right. Like, it, it, as in, so far as the seems to be a premium built into Tesla for the A.I. that they own with respect to self -driving cars. And the you know, I get all of that, but they're way ahead of everybody else.

0:49:20 Thomas: Which

0:49:37 Andrew: Right. And so what that reflects is a percentage risk in the stock, that because whoever is first into that market on a broad based level, right, self -driving cars with no problems that are affordable to the mass, right, like, that is a that's a that's a potentially world changing market. And Toyota is not going to be first into that market. Like, we know that they do not have the in -house resources to develop a superior program to the Tesla program. We know this because there's been a lot of corporate espionage between other automotive companies and Tesla. So I would push back, right? Like, I think there are plenty of things about which we would want to value Tesla in a way that is different than your standard automotive company.

0:49:32 Thomas: Doesn't work, yeah right sure yeah

0:50:26 Andrew: That's not to say it was not overpriced coming in. But I am firmly on team: what is tanking Tesla's price is Elon Musk acting like an idiot in public. Look, um, and one of the things I had promised to continue to check were the, uh, SEC filings, and we had a couple over the past couple of weeks, uh, including senior vice president Andrew Baglino exercising 10,500 options, which he buys at $21, which, I mean, look, I could buy Tesla at $21, right now, I would buy some, right?

0:50:57 Andrew: And then he immediately sold at $117.50 a share. Now, that is Baglino's portfolio, but before and after, right, was 64,000 shares. So that was basically 15% of his total holdings. Exercised the options, cashed out immediately. And again, to the extent that you You were asking, hey, how low is this going to go? Tell you Andrew Baglino thinks it's going to go below $117.50.

0:50:55 Thomas: Yeah that's gladly probably lower than that, yeah, yeah what's

0:51:27 Andrew: Zachary Kirkhorn converted $13,000. That's the CFO, the chief financial officer, the next day. So that was December 27th was when Bagleno sold. CFO Zachary Kirkhorn, the next day, December 28th, converted $11,500 options at $18,500. A half. He now has 204,000 shares, but he hasn't done anything with that. So I'm going to continue to look to see what he does. Tesla issued a Form 8K, which that is a current report. Whenever there is a material condition about which you need to advise your investors, you file an 8K. So you file quarterly and yearly reports, but you also have to update. You have to file with the SEC for a publicly traded company when you do stuff, or you know stuff, that you have to disclose to your shareholders, and this was, um, amount of cars sold in the fourth quarter and 2022 total, which are sort of variously reported as, you know, missing target but up 40%, uh, over year. So, you know, not what I would call, uh, news, but but apparently they were projecting even higher than that. So, you know, who knows.

To me the big thing was that buried in that, uh, in the footnotes of the 8K, uh, that, uh, on January 25th the company will issue its final yearly report and hold a live q and a and webcast that will be at ir.tesla.com. So, uh, free to join in, that's a it's a Zoom. So So they're going to take questions from investors, that IR's for investor relations. And then March 1 is their investor day.

0:52:58 Andrew: About this because every public statement that every previous quarterly and year end statement that Tesla has issued has mentioned that they derive significant value from Elon Musk as CEO. And yeah, that's right. Right. So I'm real curious what it has to say about Elon Musk post the Twitter acquisition. And again, you scrutinize those lines. The lawyers will be scrutinizing every line because because could form the basis of a shareholder derivative lawsuit.

0:53:31 Thomas: Right.

0:53:31 Andrew: Right. So that's why we're watching. Last One bit of Elon Musk. Twitter isn't paying its rent.

0:53:40 Thomas: We heard about that before, right? Is this more rent not being paid?

0:53:43 Andrew: Now they've now the landlord has filed the lawsuit. So here's What this is, over this is over the 30th floor of 650 California Street, downtown San Francisco. Um, and it's not actually space that Twitter is still occupying, uh, is a bad deal, and this is the kind of bad deal that ordinarily you would discover if you do your due diligence on a acquiring a company, and Musk never disclosed it. So here's what happened.

0:53:46 Thomas: Oh, okay. Wow, he didn't do due diligence before buying Twitter? I'm just, I'm shocked.

0:54:12 Andrew: It's So weird. So, uh, signed this lease on September 12th, 2017 for seven years plus a five-year renewable option that obviously they're not going to exercise, um, the option. By the way, is, as somebody who writes and evaluates these kinds of leases for a living, it's the craziest thing I've ever seen. Like, usually when you lock in an option for a commercial lease, you just lock in a percentage increase on the rent.

0:54:39 Andrew: Right. You're like, yeah, it'll go up three and a half percent year over year for the next five years. Right. Sides share some risk here that get together and compare the market value. You. And there's an arbitration provision to determine what the rent is going to, it's just bonkers.

0:54:32 Thomas: Really? Mm -hmm. Huh. It sounds like nothing. Like, that would be what any, any who wanted to rent it would probably, you know, like, it doesn't sound like much of an advantage. Okay. But this is old Twitter that booked this. You're just saying Musk didn't look into it because he's an idiot and didn't research the company he was buying.

0:54:57 Andrew: Yeah. Is exactly how I view it. That's exactly right. Yeah that's right. And so Halfway through this lease, Twitter owes, because again it increases a couple of percent every year, Twitter owes, these leases are for about a million four a year, or right? $120,000 a month, that's 15,546 square feet of prime office space at just under a hundred dollars a square foot in downtown San Francisco, includes three valet parking passes.

0:55:11 Thomas: Okay, wow.

0:55:35 Thomas: Be honest, that sounds cheaper than I would have thought for anything in San Francisco. I think I'm pretty sure like a one bedroom apartment is $100 ,000 a month. So yeah, yeah,

0:55:39 Andrew: I Yeah, San Francisco's pretty expensive. Yeah, this is 120 and On October 5th, 2022, so just before, before Musk took over, Twitter subleased out these premises to a company called Dentsu International Americas LLC. This is a huge international media company that is headquartered in London. And here's what you need to know, is only getting about ninety-two thousand dollars a month from their subtenant. There's basically a thirty-thousand-dollar-a-month gap, uh, in, all right, we're moving locations, uh, uh, know we got to get out from under this lease, and this is, this is the best that we can do.

0:56:24 Thomas: They're taking taking a loss.

0:56:24 Andrew: Yeah, We're taking a thirty thousand dollar a month loss. Um, mind you, you know, that Twitter is not at that present location because you're sending your correspondence for buying Twitter to a different address, right? You're not sending it to that 650 California Street address. So you on at least some notice, um, think Elon Musk thinks, okay, well, I'm gonna try and get out of this sinkhole that's costing me thirty thousand dollars a month.

And mind you, the lease expires in 21 months, so the maximum you could save would be about six hundred and fifty thousand dollars, right? Is the genius of Elon Musk. So, so he's like, all right, well, I'm just gonna, uh, on this and and fight it. Uh, the problem is, is that this is a pretty onerous lease, right? Like, again, I draft these things and in here that range from the far end of what I would permit a client to assign, to things that I would never allow a client to decide, I would say no, move on, find somewhere else, right? Um, let me give an example of something that pushes the edges. Article six is about holding over, and if you're thinking about, like, if you've ever had a a residential lease, right, holding over is when you go month to month, right, to end in January, you call the landlord and you're like, hey, man, can we move out in March? Sure.

0:57:45 Andrew: Continue.

0:57:45 Thomas: New place isn't ready.

0:57:46 Andrew: Yeah. Continue for a couple of months and we'll pay you. And typically in a residential situation, particularly if you've negotiated with your landlord, it's we'll keep paying you what we're paying you, or maybe we'll pay some premium on top of that. In a commercial lease situation, you typically build in what is called a holdover fee. And I would say a fair fee, what I look for, what I counter propose in all of my clients, is 125 percent, okay, typically the landlord will ask for 150%.

0:57:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:58:15 Thomas: Wow. That's a lot. Jeez.

0:58:21 Andrew: 150, yeah, right, so a half premium

0:58:23 Thomas: It's just because they know they have you over the barrel, basically.

0:58:25 Andrew: Yeah, because you've got your offices there, that's exactly right.

0:58:27 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. You got a lot of, yeah, okay.

0:58:28 Andrew: Um, and you know, I've moved out of an apartment in 12 hours before, and you know, you can, you can do it, it's, right really hard to move your offices out, you, your corporate office is out, uh, overnight. So that's exactly right, I have, I would let you sign, and when I'm, and when I represent the landlords, I ask for 150, right?

0:58:46 Thomas: Sure.

0:58:46 Andrew: So somewhere between 125 and 150 is what I would consider, you know, the number line of tenant friendly to landlord friendly. This is 150 percent holdover for the first two months, 200% after that. Okay, 19, this, to me, is a no-go, is that the landlord can enter the premises if you're in default, lock you out, take your stuff. In a big commercial lease like this, the equivalent of the safety deposit, security deposit, is a letter of credit in favor of the landlord. And here, and this is kind of an important number, Twitter has a $770,000 letter of credit in favor of the landlord that exceeds, by $120 ,000, the maximum you could possibly save, right, in this.

0:59:00 Thomas: Wow, huh?

0:59:30 Thomas: No way. No Oh my God. No way, yeah

0:59:37 Andrew: And the letter of crédit that they got, the security deposit that they get from their subtenant, is only $184 ,000. So they can't discharge back. Now, you might be doing the math and going, OK, but maybe they could still come Up 60 grand ahead, except, except that there is Article 29 -21 which says, in the event that either landlord or tenant should bring suit for the possession of the premises, for the recovery of any sum due under the lease, or because of the breach of any provision of this lease, or for any other relief against the other, then all all costs and expenses, including reasonable attorney's fees incurred by the prevailing party, shall be paid by the other party. And that's why the landlord again, the landlord here is a commercial entity. It's a Columbia REIT. That's a real estate investment trust. And the holding company is something called 650 California LLC. That's standard. Whenever you buy a building, you create a new LLC as the holding company for the building.

0:59:51 Thomas: Maybe a little profit there.

1:00:38 Andrew: Um, that's why they've brought the lawsuit, because, you know, you're you're so, in Twitter, you're pretty sure you can get a judgment against them and then attach their bank account, uh, and they're suing because they are one month behind in the rent, right? Suing for $134,000 plus the balance of the contract, minus their efforts to relet it, plus plus the Delta, if they have to relet it at a lower price, plus the brokerage commissions, advertising expenses, special concessions they will need to lease out the space. And, by the way, you, I think, neutral term in here that the thing that would, you know, maybe convince me, if my client said, "Look, I got to have the space," and I'm like, "Look, at they can come after you. And if you don't pay the rent, they can threaten to sue you and get their attorney's fees from you."

1:01:29 Andrew: Right. Like that's a huge leverage problem. Right. I would say, OK, you got a five day cure process. Right. So they have to send you a notice and then you have to pay that rent in five days. And they did that here. And Twitter was like, yeah, we're like we're paying rent. And Twitter does not have the same ability to recover their attorney's fees in a dispute with the landlord from their subtenant. So, yeah, I think that sixty thousand dollar maximum theoretical profit is going to be more than eaten up by the attorney's fee.

1:01:59 Thomas: And imagine if they all This did result in $60,000, which in California is a, you know, like poverty wage, like imagine if all his brilliant maneuverings for this company he bought for what was it, 44 billion, hey, you saved 60 grand, but that's not even true, so it's like, to put it in normal person terms, you've got, you've rented an apartment, you have two months left on the lease or something, and the amount of rent you could save is actually less than the deposit that they, are the landlord, already holds from you, and you throw a rager and trash the place and then skip town, is that what we're basically at?

1:02:03 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

1:02:15 Andrew: 44 billion dollars, yes, I that That overstates the potential savings that are here, I mean, like, literally, this is a $44 billion dollar acquisition, and you were talking about tens of thousands of dollars in savings as, at the best case scenario, um, right

1:02:57 Thomas: The cost of being an absolute scumbag, like, you are a business. People do make decisions about whether or not to, I don't know, rent you another building, lend you more money based on your past conduct, right? What a brilliant businessman. Saw a tweet and might explain honestly how big of an asshole Elon Musk is. I saw somebody say, this is an unverified thing, but it's just a fun theory to think about. And by fun, I mean horrifying. I saw tweet that said someone interviewing him or overheard him say or something that that he thinks he's in a video game and everybody else is an NPC. Like, I think he's bought into the like, oh, what if it's actually a simulation, you know, like a whatever. Honestly, that's a better explanation than anything I have yet heard for why he's doing what he's doing. Like, if he thinks she's the only real person and everyone else is like a computer, that is the only thing that slightly explains what he is doing. Which is a truly psychopathic way of going

1:03:00 Andrew: Right. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, unbelievable. So no.

1:03:53 Thomas: Through life, by the way. Like, that's truly evil. But like, that fits.

1:03:54 Andrew: I was that fits and it reminds me of, you the behavior by Ron DeSantis in busing out migrants and putting them on a plane and sending them to Martha's Vineyard and other places. That is using human beings as props in not occur to somebody who is not a sociopath not to do that.

1:04:14 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Even we are back to our four show a week format impossibly, but I can't wait. It's so fun. It allows us to do even more. We didn't have to squeeze in the patrons and the T3B. That'll be on the next episode. So tune in for that back to Our Four Show a Week schedule. I'm excited. Great breakdown, Andrew, and wishing Kevin McCarthy many unhappy returns of votes.

1:04:37 Andrew: Too. Absolutely.

1:04:46 Clip: I move for a bad court thingy. You mean a mistrial? Yeah, that's why you're the judge and I'm the law talking guy.

1:05:19 Clip: Www .openargs .com. Be sure to join the Facebook group at facebook .com slash groups slash Yodel Mountain and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media LLC, all rights reserved. It is produced with the assistance of transcriptionist Heather Leverage, production assistant Ashley Smith, and additional contributions from Morgan Stringer and Debra Smith. Special thanks to Teresa Gomez, who runs our live shows and heads up the OA Wiki, follow at OA Wiki on Twitter. Additional thanks to the moderators of the Opening Arguments Facebook community, Emily Waters, Alicia Cook, Eric Brewer, Natalie Newell, Brian Ziegenhagen, and Teresa. And finally, thanks to Thomas Smith, who edits the show and created the fabulous theme music, which was used with permission.