BENSON BYTE: Sen. Dave McCormick Rips Sen. Chris Murphy's "Sarcastic" Iran Remarks

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when the feds, you know, really in a risky position, it's overextended itself, its balance sheet is out of control, it's sort of begun to migrate into a more political posture. It needs to be reformed, and Kevin's the guy to do it. Now, I've heard there are a number of your Republican colleagues who are fans of this pick and are inclined to support his confirmation, except they want some sort of resolution on what is viewed by many, and I'm very sympathetic to this view, that the investigation into the current Fed chair, Jerome Powell, is politicized and basically retribution from the Trump administration over political and policy differences. I have not really seen anything that. satisfies me that this is a legitimate investigation. And some of your colleagues reportedly agrees saying that needs to be cleared off the decks before they're willing to vote for anyone, even someone who's very qualified like Kevin Warsh. Where does that stand in your mind, that whole issue? hopeful that we'll get that resolve pretty quickly. My position has always been that, you know, I have real policy disagreements with Chairman Jerome Powell, and it does look to me like this building was spiraling out of control in terms of the cost, but I see no evidence of criminal misconduct on the part of the chairman. And so I think this notion of some sort of criminal prosecution is not appropriate or warranted. And this is exactly the kind of thing that should be handled in the banking committee. We have subpoena power. We have oversight responsibility. And so what I'm hoping will happen is that the Justice Department will refer this to the Senate Banking Committee. We, by the way, if we have any evidence of criminal activity, we can refer it back to the FBI or whomever. And we ensure the very thing that President Trump... has been talking about, which is he wants to get to the bottom of this and make sure there's accountability. And so I'm hoping that can be part of the resolution where this is taken up by the chairman of the banking committee. Chairman Scott's ready to do that. I think that would probably resolve the issues you mentioned about others on the banking committee, Republicans on the banking committee. And if we could do that, I think we'd have a path forward. And listen, we've got to get a new Fed chair in place. before Chairman Jerome Powell's term ends, which is May 15th, and Worst is the right guy to do it. We're a country in conflict in the Middle East with lots of uncertainty and economic policy. We need a new Fed chair. Let's stick with the economy here for a moment. Last week, Tax Day, we talked about it here, a fair amount. I think that... Many in the media and on the Democrat side would be very happy to just skate right past one of the signature accomplishments, certainly one of your first in the U.S. Senate being involved in the so-called one big beautiful bill or the working families tax cut where you avoided.

one of the largest tax increases across the board on nearly all Americans and indeed extended tax cuts and further cut taxes specifically targeted at working people, no tax on tips, overtime, etc. And the data has come in showing these tax refunds on average significantly up over last year. That's a tangible achievement for American families, American businesses. I feel like it's getting somewhat short shrift at the moment. Is that something that Republicans can run on, for example, ahead of November? And is it something that the voters actually care about? Because often you'll see a problem solved or a crisis resolved. And people say, OK, glad the bad thing didn't happen, but there's not a lot of gratitude necessarily when it comes to voting patterns as a result of that. What do you make of that? Well, we need to keep telling the story and making the case of the American people. But I was in Pennsylvania for five or six days over the last 10. And people feel it. I mean, it's 11% increase in their returns, $3,500 on average. You know, something like 23 million people took advantage of the tax break on no tax on overtime. Something like $25 million took advantage of the no tax on Social Security, $5.5 million on the no tax on tips. This is a big deal. And if you're a Pennsylvania making $52,000 a year, which is the median income, This is a big benefit to you. And I think people are absolutely feeling that. The other thing I'd say, guy, which hasn't gotten enough attention in my mind, is what the president has done with lots of support from the Congress on fentanyl. If you said the two things I campaigned on, it was economic opportunity for working families, and it was closing the border and stopping the flow of fentanyl, which killed 4,000 people in 2024. I had the FBI director in Pennsylvania two weeks ago. We had all the law enforcement, the Attorney General, U.S. attorney and so forth. And we talked about what's happened on fentanyl because of the presence actions, closing the border, going after the cartels with military capability, stopping the flow of prefactors from China. The prediction, the early projections on 2025 for fentanyl deaths are 1,600. in Pennsylvania from 4,600, down 60%. That's 1600 tragedies too many. So we're not done yet. But these are the big things that are happening because we have the President, President Trump in the White House, and because we have a majority in the Senate and the House. And we've got to go make that case. Listen, politics is about touching the issues that matter most of people on the ground. doing real things to solve their problems and making sure they know it. And I think we've accomplished the first two, to some degree, we still have work to do, and we're probably falling short on the third piece, which is making sure they connect the dots and all the good work.

that President Trump has done and their representatives have done since coming into office. Or the positive things outweigh whatever they're still frustrated about, right? That's part of the argument to be made because, I mean, you can say, hey, here's your big tax refund. That's money in your pocket that makes life more affordable for you. And by the way, look at these fentanyl death numbers. And by the way, look, we've closed the border, something that you guys were so upset about just a few months ago and now it's done. People can say, okay, cool, thank you. But now we're upset about these things, right? So it's the sort of constant give and take and tugging back in each direction. And I think Republicans probably need to do a better job. Certainly on selling it and reminding people of it on a regular basis here heading into November. Meanwhile, and this is another one that's totally dropped off the radar, and yet it is still going on, the DHS shutdown is not over. Senator. I mean, you know this. Some of the worst disruptions have been at least temporarily jettisoned. And there were conversations around a solution that I think is coming at some point. But as far as I know, the DHS shutdown, the Democrats started and is still happening, is underway. How does that end? When does that end? Yeah, three point plan underway here to solve that problem. First of all, it's an absolute disgrace for the Democrats to hold us all hostage. by not paying the people who are serving us. And by the way, this isn't ICE or Border Patrol. They're being paid. It's the people in TSA, the Cyber Center, and so forth. So an absolute disgrace. And I'll never do that. No matter who's in charge and the majority, I'll never vote to shut the government down for political leverage. So President Trump acted, used the emergency authority to make sure people are getting paid. The Senate passed a bill, which... did not have the complete funding, but funded a lot of DHS, I hope and think that the House will pass that bill. And then we'll finally fill out all the funding and more for ICE and Border Patrol through the process of reconciliation. And what's going to happen there is we're going to pass funding that gets us passed. President Trump's term into the next president's term, so the Democrats can no longer use funding of DHS as a point of political leverage. And listen, it's indisputable that a big part of this is Trump derangement syndrome, and so we want to take that off the table. It's messy. There's been procedural differences between the House and Senate on how best to do it. I think we're all on the same page now, and I think this is the path that's going to make sure. The people that protect us are funded. By the way, this is at a moment where the risk is going up. So you talk about irresponsibility. The Democrats are doing this. Chuck Schumer is doing this at the moment where we have terrorist attacks at a synagogue in Michigan, where we have attacks in New York City, where we have a big cyber attack on striker medical, the biggest ever. This is absolutely irresponsible, and we're going to put an end to it.

You just articulated your position that regardless of which party was in control of the White House and the various levers of power, you would not vote to shut down the government for political leverage. That is the position held currently by exactly one Democrat in the Senate, and that would be your colleague, John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, who's, that's been his very consistent position. He's voted that way. And he is just getting... beaten up by his own side for that and for his vocal support of Israel and like non-insanity on the border, openness to voter ID, even though he's against the Save America Act. I mean, this is a guy who votes with his party, what, 90 plus percent of the time, but he is being treated like he has gone to the dark side as some right winger. And based on what I've seen and some of the polling, it seems like they are chomping at the bit to throw him out and not even nominate him again for reelection. That seems to be the direction of the party over there. Do you have any sense? Does he have a future in that party? Is he going to run again? Might he leave that party? I don't want to get out in front of him, but you know him very well. You guys are friends. It's probably a strike against him, frankly, with that whole crowd. But it's not just the left-wing fringe. It seems like the whole party kind of hates him now. Well, listen, I think it does reflect how far. The Democratic Party has lurched to the left, excuse me, with these radicals that are staking out positions of anti-Semitism as an example where... The mainstream of the party is afraid to speak out because they're going to be punished by the radicals. And John Fetterman is the opposite of that. He's just a decent man of courage that wants to do the right thing for Pennsylvania and speaks his mind. I think he had a near-death experience that's made him say, listen, I've got no time, no toleration for the nonsense. So I respect him. I like him. We're good friends, and we look for ways to work together. I'm not sure what. the Democratic Party is thinking with regard to him, and I'm not sure what he's thinking. I've never pushed him on it, but I wouldn't underestimate him. I think he is, you know, everywhere I go, people say to me, the relationship you and John Fetterman have is unique, and I think there's people across the country and certainly across Pennsylvania that admire the positions he's taken. So I'm not sure what his political future is exactly, but I would bet that he has one. And I don't know, I don't expect he's going to come. to the republican party because if you look at his positions he's voted you know ninety percent of the time as a democrat so it's not that he's a conservative, it's that he's a moderate, but a man of principle who speaks his mind. And that's no longer tolerable in the Democratic Party. Yeah, I mean, I saw one Paul, I believe, recently where he was like in third place for to get renominated. There were two people running ahead of him. If he stuck with that party, I wonder maybe would he run as an independent? I guess that's something he'll have a few years here to decide. But he looked at his popularity in Pennsylvania across all parties.

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