On the Record

I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won’t do it. … It’s not a free blank check.

 – House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, expressing skepticism about adding to the $63.2 billion already spent for Ukraine. Punchbowl News, an online daily focused on Washington lawmaking, Oct. 18.

Now, I know there is a rising chorus in our party…who would have us disengaged with the wider world. But appeasement has never worked, ever, in history…As Russia continues its unconscionable war of aggression in Ukraine, I believe that conservatives must make it clear that Putin must stop and Putin will pay. There can be no room in the conservative movement for apologists to Putin. There is only room in this movement for champions of freedom.

– Former Vice President Mike Pence, in a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. AP, Oct. 19.

We measured how many people could fit in trains along the entire length of the metro, in metro stations and other underground spaces. There is enough space for the entire population.

– Michal Domaradzki, director of the security and crisis management for the city of Warsaw, updating the public on its civil defense capacity amid fears of a Russian nuclear attack on Central Europe. AP, Oct. 21.

If you own it on the way up, you own it on the way down. They got some really good political mileage from highlighting the sharp improvements over the summer … and now must make the best of a non-optimal situation.

– Tobin Marcus, a former Biden adviser and current senior policy and politics strategist at Evercore ISI, after the average cost of gas hit $3.87 per gallon, roughly 20 cents higher than a month ago. Politico, Oct. 18.

Oil reserves do not exist to win midterms.

– Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, criticizing President Biden’s decision to release more oil from the U.S. strategic reserve to help bring down prices just days before the elections, in a debate with Democratic opponent Rep. Val Demings. AP, Oct. 19.

He can make his mouth say anything today. He is good at that, by the way. What day is it and what is Marco Rubio saying?

 – Rep. Demings, accusing Sen. Rubio of being a serial liar. Ibid.

It’s embarrassing that you think that honoring a person who was a hero by naming a federal building after them is nothing.

 – Demings, in response to Rubio’s charge that she had passed no legislation in Washington, that all she had done was get post offices named after people. Ibid.

No matter how many times she utters “Orange Man bad,” it doesn’t matter when you don’t feel safe in your own neighborhood or public transit or you can’t afford to eat, work and play in New York.

– New York City Council Member Joe Borelli, a Republican supporter of Rep. Lee Zeldin for governor, explaining why Gov. Kathy Hochul’s attacks on Zeldin for being pro-Trump have failed, as the race narrows. Politico, Oct. 22.

It is the elephant in the room. Thankfully, I got to the hospital quickly, in about 20 minutes, and it was turning out to be the finest stroke facility in the state. If that would have happened in a different part of Pennsylvania … I wouldn’t have the honor of sitting on a stage with you right now. And that’s the truth.

– Pennsylvania’s Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, ahead of a debate with Republican opponent  Mehmet Oz, whose campaign has questioned whether Fetterman, who is recovering from a recent stroke, is fit to serve in office. – CNN, Oct. 22.

If you have people who are supportive of the Big Lie in charge of our elections, there’s a lot of stuff they can do. And they can do it in ways that look pretty boring.

– Jim Barton, a longtime Democratic election attorney in Arizona, voicing the widespread concern that election officials who claim the presidency was stolen from Donald Trump will manipulate the midterm results. AP, Oct. 20.

I’m going to work with the lawmakers to make sure we have a system where voting is honest. I’m not sure what it’s going to look like.

 – Kari Lake, the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for governor of Arizona. Ibid.

There is simply no argument that the backers of the “Jim Crow” smear can make to counter this raw, empirical evidence of their dishonesty…We should recognize the magnitude of what happened: The sitting president of the United States alleged that his political opponents were worse than segregationists based on a verifiable falsehood, and many of the very same self-styled voices of reason and decency that had spent the Trump years waxing poetic about the dangers of incendiary political rhetoric just . . . shrugged.

 – Nate Hochman, citing mounting evidence that allegations that Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021 was a racist attempt to suppress minority votes were a deliberate lie. National Review, Oct. 22.

What’s unusual about this election cycle is how many high-profile Democrats — even in this era of video and social-media archives — claim Republicans are lying when they remind voters of their old, now-unfashionable positions.

– Republican pundit Karl Rove, quoting prominent Democrats who now deny their support for defunding the police and emptying the prisons, despite their statements on the record. Wall Street Journal, Oct. 19.

Chaos is bad for the party in power. Inflation is a form of social chaos, as are the unchecked border and violent crime. They didn’t fall from the sky. The first two are attributable to policy decisions by Mr. Biden and the Beltway Democrats, the latter to elected Democrats across the country.

Most voters, especially the independents trending rightward, don’t like chaos. To ride it out, voters can choose between a red wave or a blue wave. The blue wave crested two years ago. It’s not going to return for Democrats in three weeks.

– Columnist Daniel Henninger, Ibid.

I can’t explain it. I think it’s a tragedy for our country that people don’t value the vision that our founders had about a democracy, what our men and women in uniform fight for.

– House speaker Nancy Pelosi, unable to explain a survey that found almost 40 percent of respondents open to supporting candidates who voted to overturn the 2020 election results. The Hill, Oct. 22.

It’s a really tough environment. The problem is, we are talking about fascism at our door. And what people unfortunately across this country, and what we are dealing with, is that people don’t believe the truth, right? I mean, they are being sold lies all the time.

– Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash). Ibid.

Will President Biden run for re-election? He’s showing telltale signs of aging. Held a state dinner and insisted it start at 5 p.m. so he could get the early-bird special…A month from now he turns 80, but the White House has been playing down any celebrations. Internal memos about it have such a high security classification that copies have been found at Mar-a-Lago. But personally, I prefer age to some of the younger congressmen and — women ­— who are, basically, airheads. I’ve interviewed them. They think Machiavelli is a clothing designer. They think bilateral and trilateral are muscles you work in the gym.

– Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 20.

If she [Kari Lake] wins, and if Trump wins the nomination (couple of big assumptions there), she checks a lot of boxes as a VP pick: a “stop the steal” true-believer who…would have demonstrated political viability; a governor from a swing state that Trump lost in 2020; a woman; a politician who has thoroughly absorbed the spirit of Trumpian politics as combat and theater; and a name that can generate big crowds.

– Conservative columnist Rich Lowry, who wrote that while Lake “is not my kind of Republican,” noted that her communications skills as a former news anchor are formidable. National Review, Oct. 19.

We are pleased the temporary stay has been granted. It’s very important that the legal issues involving presidential power be analyzed by the court before transferring over $400 billion in debt to American taxpayers.

– Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson, one of the six attorneys general leading the effort to block the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program, praising the federal appeals court decision. Meanwhile, 22 million borrowers have already applied for the relief. AP, Oct. 22.

Not long ago we observed that she had the political shelf life of a lettuce. In fact it proved rather shorter than that.

– The Economist, on Prime Minister Liz Truss’s resignation a day after vowing to fight on, making her Britain’s shortest-serving PM, 45 days. Oct. 20.

The political instability that used to mark Italy out has fully infected Britain. Since the end of the coalition government in May 2015, Britain has had four prime ministers (David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss), as has Italy. The countries are likely to stay in lockstep in the near future.

 – The Economist, Oct. 19.