Transcript
The Revolution with Steve Kornacki
Episode 3: Spoiler And Victor
Newt Gingrich begins to climb the political ladder. He takes charge of GOPAC, a group that makes cassette tapes to train Republican candidates. He wants to nationalize elections, to teach Republicans nationwide to campaign with the same conservative message. And the GOP has a new ally to amplify their message, radio host Rush Limbaugh. When, in 1987, Gingrich starts to go after the Democrats’ leader in the House, Jim Wright, it’s with the blessing of the old guard of his party. They even reward him with the Number Two spot in GOP leadership. Gingrich doesn’t stop there. In 1990, his next target is the Republican president, George H.W. Bush.
Gil Gutknecht: When I started getting these tapes, it was real easy for me because one of the things I insisted on whenever I bought a car is that it had a cassette player in it.
Steve Kornacki: Picture this: a state lawmaker commutes an hour and a half to a state Capitol back in the age of cassette tapes. He drives a big yellow car.
Gil Gutknecht: We called it the banana mobile. And it was a -- an Oldsmobile Cutlass, and it had about 140,000 miles on it, I think at the time, and not only did it have a cassette player, but it had leather seats. So, when I would make a trip up to St. Paul, I would pop one of these cassettes, into my cassette player in the car, and it would run pretty much the whole trip to St. Paul.
Newt Gingrich: First thing you got to do is be confident. On any given day 60 to 65 percent of American people share your values.
It is vitally important that every young Republican in America become a catalyst for 10, 15, 20, 30 other people.
This is Congressman Newt Gingrich, as a candidate, you've probably been listening to tapes, you go back.
Each one of you personally crushes the teeth every morning of the human being who is morally responsible for whether this country is free, and prosperous and safe.
Gil Gutknecht: In some respects, it was kind of an intimate relationship, because it was just Newt and I in the car. And we had an hour and a half together. And he talked about issues that ranged from taxes to spending, welfare to workfare, foreign policy issues.
Steve Kornacki: This is Gil Gutknecht, a Republican from Minnesota. In the tapes had become the stuff of conservative legend. They were produced by a group called GOPAC. It's been around since the late 1970s. And its mission is to train Republicans on how to be candidates. And in 1986, GOPAC was taken over by Newt Gingrich.
Gil Gutknecht: Newt as you may know was a historian. He is a historian. In my opinion, he's a genius. But perhaps his greatest quality is, he is one of the most effective communicators that I have ever met.
Steve Kornacki: In the last episode, you heard how Newt Gingrich began winning over his fellow Republicans convincing them that they were being trampled by an arrogant Democratic majority and that the only answer was to fight back and to fight back hard. And you heard how he used C-SPAN to sell this message to grassroots Republicans across the country, who started wondering why their local Republican leaders weren't more like Newt.
But now, in order to take the next step, Gingrich needs an even bigger army. And the GOPAC tapes become one of the most powerful vehicles for building it.
Gil Gutknecht: As I understand they were they were sending them out to literally thousands of state legislators and other, I would call them younger leaders that were emerging in the Republican Party. And Newt transformed GOPAC from essentially raising money to help candidates into building a farm club for the grand old party.
Steve Kornacki: On the tapes, Gingrich plays coach, strategist and cheerleader.
Newt Gingrich: We begin to see how our vision of building a community is realized because people begin to realize, yes, over there as the loony left corrupt big city machine, big labor boss coalition, over here's us. Here are the values we want to help. Here's how we --
Gil Gutknecht: It was the tone, I think more than anything else that I remember about the GOPAC tapes. It was the optimistic conservative message that came through loud and clear. And it was helping us to believe in ourselves.
Steve Kornacki: Helping Republicans to believe that they could win. Sometimes the tapes have Gingrich speaking directly to potential candidates. Sometimes there are recordings of speeches or interviews he's given, but no matter what the format, they're supplying candidates with the same talking points so that all over the country, they can make the same conservative arguments.
Newt Gingrich: With 12-year-olds having babies, with 14-year-olds doing drugs --
Steve Kornacki: Gingrich wants to make a contrast feel sharp, and the stakes high. Notice too, that the language is accessible. It's clear and it's easy to understand. It's aimed straight at that populist vein that has long been Newt's target. This is how Newt is training Republicans to communicate.
Gil Gutknecht would ultimately decide to run for Congress in 1994. And as he recalls, the tapes were key to that decision. But he stresses they were only part of it.
Gil Gutknecht: I think it was a lot of things. There was to confluence, there was Rush Limbaugh on the radio. There were the GOPAC tapes. It was almost like the German word Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times.
Steve Kornacki: That's right, Rush Limbaugh on the radio.
Rush Limbaugh: I say on the radio, I'm not trying to persuade anybody. Don't worry about me. Hell no. I'm just this guy on the radio, having fun. I tried to get anybody elected. No. Already did.
Steve Kornacki: Already did is what he said, Gingrich and allies like Rush Limbaugh would eventually get a lot of people into office. But first, Gingrich would get some very powerful people out, he takes on a new House Speaker and then his own party's president.
This is "The Revolution," and I'm Steve Kornacki. Episode Three: Spoiler and Victor.
It's January 1987, and in the House of Representatives, the speaker's gavel is taken up by a new leader. Tip O'Neill has just retired. And the job goes to his long-time number two, Jim Wright of Texas.
Jim Wright: That young and tender looking guy who has a bushy eyebrow as I.
Steve Kornacki: This is Jim Wright in an oral history from something called The Sixth Floor Museum, which is in Dallas. He's talking about a picture taken on November 22, 1963.
Jim Wright: I suppose that was the happiest and the saddest day of my life.
Steve Kornacki: Wright represented Fort Worth. He helped to plan the visit from President Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy. And he was in the motorcade in Dallas. Decades on, he still sounded baffled by what happened that day.
Jim Wright: I heard the first shot. So, it sounded like a rifle shot. But I couldn't imagine. So incongruous to me --
Steve Kornacki: Wright was telling the story in 1996, when he was retired from politics, he said that he remembered Kennedy's assassination as a turning point.
Jim Wright: We did in our grief draw together. And we had a sense of compatibility and cooperation. And that's how things get done. I regret that that mood didn't endure. And maybe in the nature of human creatures that just isn't going to endure.
Steve Kornacki: Jim Wright might be talking about human nature generally. But it wouldn't be a surprise if he was also thinking of his own political demise. So again, it's 1987. And Wright at 64 years old, becomes the speaker for him. This is the realization of a long-held dream. Democrats still have that massive majority; Wright has all sorts of plans for what to do with it. But he's also got to contend with a Republican minority that seems to be changing.
Now, Bob Michel is still the GOP leader. But Newt Gingrich and his allies are getting louder and more aggressive and they're winning new converts. And in Wright's ascension, they see a new opening. Because well, Tip O'Neill was well liked even by many Republicans, right is much more reserved, some found him prickly, even cold.
And as it turns out, Jim Wright, is the best thing to ever happen to Newt Gingrich.
Tony Coelho: Jim was never really comfortable in that role.
Steve Kornacki: This is Tony Coelho, a former Democratic Congressman from California.
Tony Coelho: He was aggressive, always trying to push and so forth. Whereas Tip, it was sort of like I'm in charge. And that was it. And he could make deals.
Steve Kornacki: Wright died in 2015. But I actually heard something similar about him from Dick Gephardt, who was elected to the House in 1976, and would eventually become the Democrats leader.
Dick Gephardt: He was more willing to do things kind of over the line or out of the box from the past to get things done. He really wanted to achieve some big policy objectives while he was speaker. And then also, and I don't know if I'm completely right in this, but I don't think Tip would have done what Jim did with the selling of the books, which was the main charge that that Gingrich made against him.
Steve Kornacki: The selling of books. This is where Newt's biggest breakthrough yet begins.
In late September of 1987 — not quite nine months into Wright’s speakership — The Washington Post runs a story with the headline, “Speakers Royalty 55 Percent.” It reveals an unusual book deal Wright struck with a small-time publisher, a friend of his from back home in Fort Worth. And the book is really nothing more than a short collection of Wright's essays and speeches. Physically, it's more of a large pamphlet than a book. But Wright is getting a 55% royalty on each and every sale. In the world of publishing, this is an absolutely unheard-of amount.
Typically, royalties might run around 10%. And Wright, the Post reports, had made almost $55,000 so far from this deal. As it later comes out, what's helping to drive the sales is that some of Wright's political allies like the Teamsters, are buying it up often in bulk. It all smells funny, for sure. But when the Post first runs this story, nobody in the House remarks upon it publicly. After all, as Gingrich's Lieutenant Bob Walker told me:
Bob Walker: There were many of us, including me, that were a little squeamish about taking on the speaker over that, because it's not exactly an unknown process in the House to write a book and then have the unions on the other side, buy up large numbers of the books that provided the member was a little extra income.
Steve Kornacki: So, at first when the Post story comes out, it seems to fade away and D.C. moves on. But then, about six weeks later in November of 1987, Speaker Wright does something that absolutely enrages Republicans in the House, a power play that they believe Tip O'Neill would never have dared attempt. It starts with a tight vote on a tax bill. It's a bill that's very important to write, he wants to get this through.
Jim Wright: So as many favor, final passage of the bill, will vote aye.
Crowd: Aye!
Jim Wright: So many of of us are opposed, will vote, no. And, in the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it.
Steve Kornacki: That's Wright, presiding. He's trying to pass the bill. The voice vote is ceremonial. Now there will be a recorded vote to put each member on the record. If you've watched C-SPAN over the years, you know how this looks on TV, the sound of the House floor is muted, classical music plays and members cast their votes by electronic device and then mill about and watch the tally board.
Stick with me here because the procedural details matter. If you watch the C-SPAN footage from this particular vote in November 1987, what you'll see on the screen is the usual vote tally and countdown clock set for the usual 15 minutes. And when the time runs out, the vote tally stops at 205 ayes, and 206 nays. That means the Democrats and Speaker Wright have lost by one vote. Gingrich is in the camera shot here. He's smiling. He's standing behind Bob Michel. And it looks like he reaches over to shake somebody's hand. This is a big moment for the Republicans. They are the minority party. Wright is a powerful speaker. But they've won this vote — convinced just enough Democrats to join them in opposing Wright’s tax bill. They are ready to celebrate. But when the sound of the chamber comes back on, the Speaker doesn't confirm the numbers that were just on screen.
Jim Wright: Any other members in the chamber who desire to vote?
Steve Kornacki: What's happening here, is that Wright has an extra vote in his pocket. A fellow Texan, Jim Chapman, who has already voted no, but who has privately told Wright that he's willing to switch his vote if the speaker absolutely needs it. And clearly, in this moment, Wright does absolutely need it. So even though time has expired, Wright is holding the vote open, and basically telling Chapman to come forward and switch his vote to Yes. Which Chapman then does. And so now suddenly, there are 206 yeses and only 205 noes.
Jim Wright: If there are no other members on this vote.
Steve Kornacki: And then, Newt Gingrich gets on the mic.
Newt Gingrich: Once the Speaker has said the vote is closed. And all time has expired. And that is on this tape. We have it on the videotape. Once that has been done, how can it be reopened?
Jim Wright: The Chair had been advised that there were other members in root. And therefore, the Chair was holding open and still holds up and if members wish to change their votes or other members wish to vote.
Steve Kornacki: Now, Wright is ready to declare the vote closed.
Jim Wright: And if no other members desire to vote, or to change their votes. All time has expired.
Steve Kornacki: Gingrich is talking over him as he states the new totals.
Jim Wright: On this vote, the ayes are 206 --
Newt Gingrich: Mr. Chairman --
(Crosstalk)
Mickey Edwards: Mr. Speaker.
Steve Kornacki: There's a bit more haggling, but there's nothing anyone can do. Wright is the Speaker, and he has the power to do this.
Jim Wright: The ayes are 206, and nays are 205. Yes, the bill is passed. Without objection, the motion to reconsider laid upon the table.
Steve Kornacki: But what Wright has done is technically within the rules of the House, but it's also far from normal. The way Republicans see it right couldn't win fair and square, but instead of admitting defeat, he opted to play dirty and to win dishonorably. They are furious when this happens. They also want revenge. And soon enough, Newt Gingrich is offering them a chance to get it. How? By calling for an official ethics investigation of Jim Wright.
In his trademark fashion, Gingrich begins his push with dramatic, unsparing and highly personal attacks. To the Miami Herald, he says that Wright is like the Italian dictator, Mussolini and, “a genuinely bad man, a genuinely corrupt man.”
And on NBC Nightly News, he has this to say about Wright.
Newt Gingrich: He so far has been the least ethical and most destructive speaker in the 20th century.
Steve Kornacki: Immediately this becomes Newt's driving cause, a campaign to take down the Speaker of the House.
Newt Gingrich: It seems to me that what's happened is the weight of evidence over time, went from an occasional anecdote to what has now become almost a barrage over the last 11 months of stories that indicate he needs to be investigated.
Julian Zelizer: He would literally walk around with press clippings of different stories about Jim Wright and hand them out to the reform organization, to legislators.
Steven Kornacki: This is Julian Zelizer, a historian who wrote a book about Newt Gingrich and Jim Wright called “Burning Down the House.” Zelizer tells me that the backbone of Newt's case came through various news reports that scrutinize Wright. The story of the book deal, of course, but also questions about a business relationship with a real estate developer and ties to the savings and loan industry.
For months, Gingrich rails against Wright and vows to file a complaint with the House Ethics Committee. And in May of 1988, he follows through.
Newt Gingrich: I have delivered today, a letter to ethics committee chairman Julian Dixon, calling for an investigation of Speaker Wright. It is signed by 71 members of the House Representatives. Based on --
Steve Kornacki: The style of politics is hardly unheard of today, but it's brand new in the late 1980s. Going after a speaker like this is kind of like shooting a general in war. It just isn't the way things are done in the House. It puts Republican leaders like Bob Michel in a tough spot. On the one hand, this is pushing the House further in the direction of the kind of personalized combat, they are conditioned to reject.
On the other hand, though, they kind of think Wright deserves it. Ultimately, when Gingrich files his complaint, no Republican tries to stop him. Wright defends himself. He thinks he's got the rules on his side. Here's his story and Julian Zelizer, again.
Julian Zelizer: Wright believed that in the end — he hires all these high-profile Washington attorneys to help him when the investigation is taking place — that if he could prove that he didn't violate the laws, and that he didn't violate ethics rules, and you can get lawyers to show this to the ethics committee, that was sufficient.
Steve Kornacki: Still, even if they like seeing Wright through the wringer like this, most Republicans and just about everyone in the House assume that Wright will have no trouble surviving as speaker.
Julian Zelizer: No one thinks it's going to work. Even most Republicans think, of course, he's not going to like fall from power. He's the Speaker of the House.
Steve Kornacki: But Newt is relentless here. And really what he's doing with Jim Wright, it's straight out of the same playbook he used when he made his first splash in the House back in 1979 with Charles Diggs.
Julian Zelizer: His strategy is to focus on the story, as he did with Diggs to create a narrative that you have this fundamentally corrupt politician different than everyone else on the Hill, and that if he stayed in power, the entire system wouldn't work.
Newt Gingrich: This country is in real trouble if we have another 10 or 15 years of the sickness that you now see with Jim Wright. And all of the corruption and all the ethics problems in this House.
Steve Kornacki: The Gingrich war against Jim Wright catches on. And the media puts the speaker under the microscope, there's a drumbeat of stories that question his conduct. The Ethics Committee votes to take up the case. And then it decides to hire an outside investigator, an aggressive trial lawyer from Chicago named Richard Phelan. Very quickly, the Wright probe starts to look very serious.
It takes nearly a year. But finally, in April of 1989, the Ethics Committee releases its preliminary report and for Wright, it is damning. It accuses him of 69 violations of House rules.
Andrea Mitchell: Sources tell NBC News, the Speaker has been found to have violated House rules by a bipartisan consensus of the Ethics Committee.
Steve Kornacki: A feeding frenzy is unleashed. The ethics committee is moving forward — the next step is to render a formal judgment on each accusation of rules violations, and then ultimately, to make a recommendation to the House for a punishment. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, comes one big story in the Washington Post that seals Wright's fate. It's not directly about Wright. It's about his top aide, a man named John Mack and something Mack had done 16 years earlier. Here's Julian Zelizer, again.
Julian Zelizer: He had brutally and viciously attacked a woman when he was working as a store clerk, and he had admitted to having done it. He never really excused why he did it. He didn't even have a rationale. He just said he was stressed. But the article also goes on to say that Wright had helped him reduce the sentence and ultimately hired him.
Steve Kornacki: Wright has family connections to Mack. He’d left the woman he’d attacked for dead, it was a miracle she survived. But after serving around two years in jail for this, Mack had been released and found low-level work in Wright's office, then he'd worked his way up to the very top, becoming the most powerful aide to the most powerful man in the House. And now, his violent history is being aired and it ignites a whole new set of questions about Jim Wright's judgment. It's finally dawning on the Speaker that he's holding a losing hand.
Jim Wright: Let me give you back this job you gave to me.
Steve Kornacki: It's May 31, 1989. The House chamber is packed, television cameras are rolling.
Jim Wright: I will resign as Speaker of the House, effective upon the election of my successor.
Steve Kornacki: Jim Wright stands at a podium on the Democratic side of the House floor and he's facing his colleagues.
Jim Wright: If I made a mistake, oh boy, how many? I made a lot of mistakes.
Steve Kornacki: He doesn't mention Gingrich by name, but make no mistake, the speech is almost entirely about Newt.
Jim Wright: It is grievously hurtful to our society when vilification becomes an accepted form of political debate. Negative campaigning becomes a full-time occupation. When members of each party become self-appointed vigilantes, carrying out personal vendettas against members of the other party. In God's name, that's not what this institution is supposed to be all about. Both political parties must be solved to bring this period of mindless cannibalism to an end. There's been enough of it.
Steve Kornacki: Here's Julian Zelizer, again.
Julian Zelizer: When Wright resigns, and he does it without the Ethics Committee, without the House forcing him to do it. It's seen as a real victory for Gingrich. He just took the biggest target in Washington other than the President and brought him down from power.
Steve Kornacki: And at the same time, Newt's power is growing, because while he's leading the charge against Speaker Wright, he's also campaigning for a leadership role of his own. That's coming up.
Let's go back to early 1989. This is just a few months before Jim Wright's resignation, and the new Republican president is working to fill his cabinet. To be a secretary of defense, George Herbert Walker Bush has nominated a retired senator from Texas named John Tower, but it turns out that Tower has a reputation.
Connie Chung: The Washington Post, quoting official sources, says the FBI has received allegations that former Senator John Tower had a “protracted relationship” with a Russian ballerina in Texas.
Steve Kornacki: Tower faces allegations of womanizing. Also, ethical breaches and conflicts of interest. And when the Senate finally votes on Tower's nomination, he loses. And that leaves President Bush scrambling for a new nominee. All of this matters to our story, because the man that President Bush chooses is a congressman from Wyoming by the name of Dick Cheney. And Cheney, at that point, is the Minority Whip in the House, which means he's Number Two on the Republican side right behind Bob Michel. Cheney is confirmed quickly and easily. It’s a big reason why Bush nominated him. And suddenly, that means that the Republicans need a new Whip.
Gingrich jumps into the race. He's been in the House 10 years at this point, and he's won over plenty of Republicans in that time. But he's still seen as an insurgent. Are there enough Republicans in the House willing to elevate someone like him to the party leadership? This will be a test of how far he's come. His opponent will be the ultimate establishment man, Ed Madigan. He's from Illinois, and he's running with the blessing and the full backing of Bob Michel. This is historian Julian Zelizer, again.
Julian Zelizer: House Republicans as the frenzy over Jim Wright is accelerating before he resigns, they have a choice. And the choice is presented to them as, do you want Gingrich who is going to do anything necessary for Republicans to win power, even if it's things you find scary, or dangerous? Or do you want Madigan more of the same? He'll follow the rules. And those rules will leave you in the minority.
Steve Kornacki: So, this is a test for Bob Michel too. Does he still have enough sway with Republicans to keep someone like Gingrich out of leadership? For Newt, this is a battle he's been preparing for since his first day in the House. Here he is from one of his GOPAC tapes.
Newt Gingrich: And I'm going to give you the one specific model each of you to learn. It's four words, lesson, learn, help and lead. The way you get to be a successful politician is simple.
Steve Kornacki: Gingrich is giving a speech to young Republicans, and he says that listening helped him in the Whips race. For all his public bombast in his creation of the conservative opportunity society. He's been listening to moderates, and building relationships behind the scenes with some unlikely allies, such as --
Claudine Schneider: I am Claudine Schneider. I was and am a Republican from 1980 to 1990. I represented the state of Rhode Island in the U.S. Congress.
Steve Kornacki: Claudine Schneider had worked with Gingrich on an environmental bill, it was something she cared a lot about. And when Newt becomes a candidate for Whip, she's intrigued.
Claudine Schneider: At that moment in time, I trusted him. I saw the qualities of him being, you know, strategic, a good communicator, and I knew that I could work with him. He listened to me at the time.
Steve Kornacki: Schneider is part of an informal group of moderate Republicans called the Gypsy Moths.
Claudine Schneider: There were anywhere between 25 to 29 of us. And so, we were the swing vote, because we didn't care whether a bill was introduced by the Republicans or by the Democrats. We had one common agenda and that was, is this in the best interest of all the people.
Steve Kornacki: Schneider says she wasn't on board with all of Newt Gingrich's ideas.
Claudine Schneider: Newt Gingrich came up with what he called a sheet of music. And this is something that all of us Republicans were supposed to repeat, such as the Democrats only care about tax and spend. I thought, well, wait a minute, that's not true.
Steve Kornacki: But when it's time to decide who to back in the Whip election, she throws her support to Newt.
Claudine Schneider: I thought, yes, he would be a good Whip. And I have a good working relationship with him so I will be able to influence him as well as the rest of the Gypsy Moths.
Steve Kornacki: The Gingrich-Madigan race looks close and the day of the vote is drawing near. Hoping to put himself over the top, Gingrich leans on another moderate woman, Olympia Snowe and a congresswoman from Maine. Gingrich wants her to deliver a speech seconding his nomination. In her memoir, she writes of getting a call from him at nine o'clock the night before with the request. Snowe agrees to do it. The way she tells it in her memoir, in her speech to the Republican Conference, she calls Newt Gingrich and Bob Michel the Odd Couple. And she says that for Republicans to win the House majority, an odd couple is what they need.
She acknowledges that her Newt's voting records are, “something quite short of carbon copies.” But she goes on to argue that this would make him key to a coalition that could “shatter the yoke of the status quo.” We had hoped to talk with Snowe, who later served three terms in the Senate, about her role in this pivotal moment in House history. But she declined our request.
From the outside, the whole deal looked a little less congenial.
Andrea Mitchell: I mean, he was plotting the whole time. And it was just a matter of time before he was going to take over.
Steve Kornacki: That's Andrea Mitchell, who was then NBC News's Chief Congressional Correspondent. She covered the '89 GOP whip race and remembers it as an unofficial clash between Gingrich and Bob Michel.
Andrea Mitchell: Bob Michel was sort of the sweet, kind of shambled along. There was no way that he was going to crack a whip. And Gingrich, literally and figuratively, was the whip. And there was no way that they were going to be able to work together or that Michel would be able to survive this.
Steve Kornacki: It was part of the dynamic that Gingrich had been there 10 years, he had kind of built -- he kind of one converts in that time among Republicans. What was the appeal of him to Republicans?
Andrea Mitchell: The appeal was they thought he was a winner, a killer and a winner. I think they were sick of being in the minority. So even the moderates wanted to have a better vision of their future.
Steve Kornacki: The day of the Whip election arrives, March 22, 1989. And Newt's unlikely coalition prevails — barely. He defeated Ed Madigan by just two votes, 87 to 85. The irony is lost on no one. For all of his reputation as a right-wing firebrand, it's the votes of moderate Republicans that have put Gingrich over the top. And included in that total are the votes of most of the Republican women.
Bob Michel: It’s still morning, good morning, everyone.
Steve Kornacki: After the vote, Bob Michel and Newt Gingrich hold a press conference.
Newt Gingrich: Every element of this party is winning through this process. It's not a conservative activist victory. It is the entire Republican team. I thought it was --
Steve Kornacki: Newt makes a point of commending Bob Michel's leadership, but still, there seems to be some pretty obvious tension beneath the surface.
Reporter 1: Did you ever feel it might have been a test of your leadership?
Bob Michel: Well, there were those people who I, earlier on, learned had committed themselves to Nit. To Newt. And said,
Newt Gingrich: It’ll take a while.
Bob Michel: as Newt says, it'll take a while. Yes.
Steve Kornacki: Coming up, for all the talk of Republican unity, Gingrich becomes an obstacle to the head of his own party and helps to torpedo a presidency.
The story of Newt Gingrich leading a revolt against his own party's President starts with a promise, a campaign promise.
George H.W. Bush: My opponent won't rule out raising taxes, but I will in the Congress will push me to raise taxes. And I'll say no, and they'll push and I'll say no, and they'll push again. And I'll say to them, read my lips. No new taxes.
Steve Kornacki: That's George Herbert Walker Bush accepting the nomination for president at the Republican National Convention. It's August of 1988. And his promise of no new taxes wins over conservative skeptics and helps to deliver him to the White House. But by 1990, the economy is heading toward recession, budget deficits are growing and just as President Bush had predicted, Democrats in Congress want to raise taxes. Except now, Bush is in a more pragmatic state of mind.
Dick Gephardt is the Democratic majority leader by this point, I asked him about Bush's position.
When does the idea come on the table, that the President might be willing to reverse himself?
Dick Gephardt: We were called down to the White House, two or three times, George Mitchell, Tom Foley, myself.
Steve Kornacki: Those are the three top Democrats in Congress.
Dick Gephardt: And the Republican leaders, I guess it would be Dole and Michel.
Steve Kornacki: That would be Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole. And you know, Bob Michel. The President wants to hold a budget summit, because he's worried about the growing deficit, and he wants an agreement between the parties to address it. But at this point, in the spring of 1990, according to Gephardt, he's told the Democrats --
Dick Gephardt: I can't have taxes on the table, because I gave this speech when they got nominated and said, read my lips, no new taxes.
Steve Kornacki: But remember, Democrats hold the power in Congress. The Republican president can't pass a budget without them.
Dick Gephardt: I think we had dinner in the Oval Office. I'm not sure it was around there somewhere. And he looked at us across the table and he said, OK, I'm putting everything on the table. And he said, I've written you a letter that says we're going to have a sub -- we've agreed to have a summit. And George Mitchell who was unbelievable, said to the President, could you amend the letter to say, and everything's on the table, including taxes. And so, the President said, oh, man, but he did it.
So, we go outside the White House And we're waiting for the cars to come up. And the President is standing next to me, and he's going foot to foot, he’s just nervous as a cat. I said, Mr. President, what's wrong? And he said the fat’s in the fire. And he knew what he had done to have the summit, because he was offending the whole right-wing of the Republican Party.
Steve Kornacki: The government is drowning in red ink, and it needs more revenue. That's what Democrats see. And it's what Bush sees, too. And it's what the top two Republican congressional leaders see as well, Bob Michel from the House, Bob Dole from the Senate. So, for four and a half months in 1990, leaders from both parties tried to hammer out a deal. And on the last day of September, Bush announces it, standing with congressional leadership from both parties in the Rose Garden.
George H.W. Bush: The bipartisan leaders and I have reached agreement on the federal budget. Over five years, it would reduce the projected deficit by $500 billion. That is half a trillion dollars.
Steve Kornacki: He explains how they got to that number, a mix of spending cuts and caps and --
George H.W. Bush: Or the agreement would increase tax revenues by $134 billion. The largest single increase, single contributor, would be a phased-in increase in the gasoline tax of five cents per gallon in the first year, and another five cents in the following years. I do not welcome any such tax measure, nor do I expect anybody up here does.
Steve Kornacki: This is a major event, you don't gather a bipartisan crowd of politicians in the Rose Garden if you don't think you've got a done deal. But on this day, the real action is happening off camera. Because the man whose job is to round up votes for his party, the House Republican Whip isn't there.
But the next day, Newt Gingrich is on NBC Nightly News.
Newt Gingrich: Going into the Rose Garden implied support. So, I went out the other door.
Steve Kornacki: And as he did, he phoned a friend.
Bob Walker: I got a call from Newt as he was walking, I think down the street.
Steve Kornacki: Bob Walker, Newt’s ally in Congress.
Bob Walker: He said I think we just went to war. And indeed, we did.
Steve Kornacki: The Republican establishment had been hopeful that Gingrich would fall in line. But Dick Gephardt could have told them what Newt was going to do. As the House Majority Leader, he'd been running the negotiations for the better part of a year
Dick Gephardt: We weren't getting anywhere.
Steve Kornacki: So, a few weeks before that announcement at the White House, he rounds up the bargaining teams, congressional Democrats and Republicans and White House staffers, and he busses them over to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
Dick Gephardt: For like four days and nights, locked them up in the officer's club. And we finished the negotiation there. I had a hot fudge sundae with Bob Dole every night. I think I gained 10 pounds in that summit.
Dick Gephardt: This is where Gephardt finds out that no matter what anybody agrees to, the Minority Whip isn't going to support it.
Dick Gephardt: We were sitting around a big square table, going through all the pieces, and I had told Dick Darman who was leading the White House's effort. We had to have some tax in this somewhere, if we're going to have cuts on everything, including defense. And so, they put some things in taxes on luxury boats or private airplanes, I forget what it all was. And I'm sitting next to Newt during this negotiation, and he's reading magazines, and he didn't say a word. And I leaned out, I said, Newt, what are you doing? And he said, I'm not going to be for this. And I said, you're not? Darman told me, you're going to be for it if we get a compromise. He said, no, I'm not going to be for it.
So, I went to Darman, and I said, this is what he's saying. He said, no, no, no. I said, the President is got his word. He is going to be for it. I said, well, that's not what I'm hearing. So, watch out.
Newt Gingrich: I am the Whip of the House Republican Conference, not of the President.
Steve Kornacki: That's Gingrich again on NBC News. The way he sees it, the deal threatens everything he's been trying to achieve: clear and vivid contrasts with Democrats, small government versus big government, individual opportunity versus welfare, state dependency and so on. Tax hikes are something that Democrats do, not Republicans. The rest of the congressional GOP leadership doesn't see it this way. But plenty of rank-and-file Republicans do, they're with Newt. And for President Bush, this is a mortal threat. If he and his party can't produce enough votes for the deal, then it could all fall apart.
So, two days after announcing the deal, the President makes his case in a prime-time address to the nation. And he lays it on Dick with a reference to Saddam Hussein's recent invasion of Kuwait.
George H.W. Bush: As we speak, our nation is standing together against Saddam Hussein's aggression. But here at home, there's another threat, a cancer gnawing away at our nation's health, that cancer is the budget deficit.
Steve Kornacki: Bush has invoked an impending war to sell the deal. But if he thinks that's going to bring the House Republican whip into line.
Deborah Norville: Good morning, Congressman.
Newt Gingrich: Good morning.
Deborah Norville: You've said that this deal is bad for the economy. The President say anything to change your mind last night?
Newt Gingrich: No, I listened intently and of course I have the greatest respect for him. And I've supported him --
Steve Kornacki: The President and the rest of the congressional leadership are for this compromise plan. But Gingrich knows how it'll play back home. At a press conference later that day, he says he's hearing from those people.
Newt Gingrich: In my district as of a few minutes ago, we had 775 calls today, 83 percent against the agreement.
Steve Kornacki: Other members — Republicans and Democrats — are hearing the same, and the midterms are just a month away. There seems to be a populist backlash afoot. And it's not just because of what Newt Gingrich and his allies are saying in Washington.
Rush Limbaugh: If you listen to this show, every day, you never need to read another newspaper, again, never read a magazine, I do it for you. And you get a bonus. I tell you what, think about this.
Vin Weber: When you talk to the average Republican who listened to Rush Limbaugh or saw us on C-SPAN, they would pick up and repeat things that they'd heard again and again and again. And you know, you think about it and just in practical life, people sit around in the local restaurant, and they start arguing about politics, and most of them are not terribly political. But if there's a couple people at the table that listen to Rush Limbaugh, they can win every argument, because most people don't pay that much attention to it.
Steve Kornacki: Keep in mind that at this time, conservative talk radio is exploding. That's thanks in part to the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, an old rule that had required broadcasters to give equal time to opposing political viewpoints. Stations across the country are striking gold programming to the right side of the spectrum. Rush Limbaugh has three-hour daily show goes national in the summer of 1988 and is by far the biggest breakout star.
Rush's politics are much like Newt's, a combative populist infused daily assault on the Democratic Party, the media and the so-called Elite. And on any Republican who would give Democrats aid and comfort. When it comes to fighting this tax hike deal, Rush and Newt are brothers in arms.
Rush Limbaugh: Bush doesn’t think you'll suffer from -- or be harmed by his flip flop on taxes.
Newt Gingrich: Hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs and it will be on our heads. We don't need a tax increase right now folks, we need to cut spending. I yield back the balance of my time.
Steve Kornacki: The deal comes up for debate in the House on October 4th, and it goes late into the night, into the wee hours of October 5th in fact.
Leon Panetta: Mr. Speaker, I yield for unanimous consent to the gentleman of Colorado, Skaggs.
David Skaggs: I thank the gentleman. As distasteful as it is to choose bad policy, it's better than choosing no policy.
Steve Kornacki: Ray LaHood was there. You heard him in the first episode. He's a former Republican congressman and Secretary of Labor. But back then he was the chief of staff to the Republican leader, Bob Michel, whose influence was waning.
Ray LaHood: Here you have a man who worked his whole career on compromise and working with Democrats. And that entire process fell apart. It just completely imploded.
Bill Frenzel: I now yield five minutes to the distinguished Minority Leader, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Michael. And I’d note the House is not in order.
Bob Michel: The gentleman is absolutely right.
Steve Kornacki: It's one o'clock in the morning when Bob Michel takes the floor.
Bob Michel: We couldn't get our side 176 together on the President's budget. Oh, I wish you just think about the problem, the trauma we get when the mathematics don’t play out --
Ray LaHood: And you ended up with a splinter group, a big splinter group of conservatives, whose main claim to fame was I did not come to Washington to raise taxes.
Steve Kornacki: And they killed the initial deal on the floor.
Ray LaHood: That's correct. They sure did.
Steve Kornacki: Do you remember that night? What was that like?
Ray LaHood: You know, it was it was as acrimonious as, as you could get it during that period of time.
Steve Kornacki: With so many Republicans joining the Gingrich rebellion, there are Democrats who begin peeling away too, they don't like some of the concessions that their leaders have made. The possibility that this vote may actually fail is now very real.
Bob Walker: There was just a huge division among Republicans.
Steve Kornacki: Bob Walker, who's in the building on this night. He's with Newt but he's noticing which members of his party are supporting the President.
Bob Walker: The Republicans that they got were kind of the establishment Republican who had been around for a long time. Knew George Bush when he was in the Congress, all of this. I mean, many of the votes we had were the younger members.
Steve Kornacki: Dick Gephardt is obviously there that night too. And he says there's no mistaking Newt's ambitions with this vote.
Dick Gephardt: Gingrich's goal, only goal, was to win the House back. And he was dedicated entirely to that goal. In fact, I think when I said to him, what are you doing Newt? You're going to be for this, aren't you? And he said, no, he said, I want to win the House back. I mean he was honest, and that's what he was doing.
Steve Kornacki: The deal goes down in flames. A rebellion from his own party has sunk a delicate deal that the President spent months carefully constructing. For George H.W. Bush, it is pure humiliation. And among House Republicans, the emotions are raw.
Vin Weber: I went up to Denny Hastert at that time, who later of course, became speaker, and he refused to shake my hand, because he believed we were destroying the administration. And, you know, our belief was the administration was in the process of destroying itself.
Steve Kornacki: Ultimately, the Republican rebellion means that Bush has to cut a new tax hike deal with Democrats. This one, much more on the Democrats’ terms. He signs it quietly just before the 1990 midterm elections. Two years later, in 1992, Bush is defeated. And to this day, it's debated what role the 1990 tax hike played in that loss. Many people I've talked to say he never recovered from going back on his promise, or from what some insist, was a betrayal by Newt Gingrich. Whatever the precise cause, Bush would end up being a one-term president weakened by a Republican primary challenge from the right and then defeated in November by the governor of Arkansas.
On paper, the 1992 election would leave the Republican Party at its weakest point in years, Democrats would now control everything the presidency, the Senate, the House, with massive margins too. It looked bad for Newt's dream of taking the House. But what no one understood then was that his goal would never be realized with a Republican in the White House. So, the 1992 election of William Jefferson Clinton actually created the perfect set of conditions for Newt Gingrich's rendezvous with destiny.
That's next on The Revolution.
We made multiple requests to speak with Newt Gingrich for this podcast, but he was never made available. And then, after this series was released, we did hear from him. You’ll hear that conversation in episode 7.
From MSNBC, this is the third of six episodes of The Revolution. If you like what you've heard, please give us a five-star rating and a review on Apple podcasts. And be sure to tell your friends and follow on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening right now.
The Revolution was written and hosted by me, Steve Kornacki. The series is produced by Frannie Kelley, Ursula Sommer and Adam Noboa. It's edited by Alison MacAdam. Our associate producer is Eva Ruth Moravec. Special thanks to Lacey Roberts. Sound design by Ramtin Arablouei. Bryson Barnes is our technical director and he wrote our music. Soraya Gage is our executive producer. And Madeleine Haeringer is our head of editorial.