VMM NEWS ROUNTABLE: POLITICS FOR ALL OF US. May 31, 500pm
HIRO MIZUTO (HM): Welcome to our early evening roundtable here on VMM news, with Brittany Bowers, Rob Runtman, and Tommy Tobias. Welcome, panel, and boy oh boy, do we have a lot to talk about!
TOMMY TOBIAS (TT): Why wasn’t Pelosi there?
BRITTANY BOWERS (BB): Her resignation from the post was due to health. I have unconfirmed reports that she suffered a series of small strokes and is unable to speak.
ROB RUNTMAN (RR): That’s awful! But why wouldn’t the democrats rally and choose a successor from her own party right away?
HM: Because they’re fractured and in much disagreement, especially the middle-of-the-road faction, who truly despises the lurch to the left.
TT: The republicans saw an opportunity and brought Torres in, who has a small cabal of friends with the democrats "in the middle," as you say.
BB: I wouldn’t call it a cabal, but the deed is done. If the democrat majority can rally and vote again, Torres’ leadership might be short-lived, indeed.
RR: I don’t think there will be a switch, at least not too soon. The 30 democrats who went for Torres with the republicans have been savaged in just the last few hours… it might be tough to forget that. I think the gauntlet has been thrown; there will be no backpedaling, Torres’ speakership is now intertwined with the republican senate and the Trump administration.
TT: Why didn’t the press get a copy of her remarks early?
BB: Honoria Torres has very few legitimate allies outside of congress and her district in New Jersey. She feeds nothing, I am told, nothing at all, of partisan cheap shots to the press. Torres has a personal difference of opinion with former speaker Pelosi, largely due to her pro-life stand.
HM: Pelosi is on record as not encouraging deliberate antagonizing of pro-life people in general.
BB: But actions speak louder than words. The straw that broke the camel’s back, again and again, was not being sympathetic to a born-alive bill.
TT: That would restrict a woman’s right to choose!
RR: And there’s the stake in the ground. Torres says that viability is achieved once “born alive,” and then it becomes murder not to resuscitate. Torres cannot and will not reconcile with Pelosi in this matter.
HM: She will need more allies in the press…
BB: And she'll get them on her terms, not by grandstanding. Torres said that congress will work, and now she will discover how truly difficult it is to get a consensus.
TT: In her speech the new speaker said that this is “not a republican majority.” Oh, c’mon, who is she kidding? Torres can even lie like Trump!
RR: I know, it’s almost laughable, but, and this may be symbolic, if it was a republican majority exclusively, then all committee chairs would be republican. It’s almost parliamentary how she executed this…
BB: I don’t think she would appreciate the analogy to President Trump.
RR: Well, she will need his favor on making legislation, especially in respect to immigration, the first order of business. Remember, back in January of this year she is on record as saying “give him his wall, and the rest of the reform is on our, the democrats, terms." I think there’s a lot of truth to that… everyone wins.
TT: And potentially everyone loses. What is crucial is that she has less than a 10 seat cushion of a majority, and that can blow away like dust under the right, or wrong, circumstances. Torres said directly in her speech that no one will profit from illegal activity. That means if you are here illegally, you may be able to stay, but you will not be granted citizenship. A new sub-class is created, some say a slave class, unrepresented and remaining in the dark corners of society.
HM: You know, Tommy, that rhetoric is best suited elsewhere. The jury is still out on Torres and that kind of unnecessary incendiary talk is unproductive and, well, generally fake in a newsroom.
(Silence... dead air)
HM: We are commenting on news, not stoking hatred for the sake of it. We will now take a commercial break and return in just a minute…