let me just say debbie is exactly right. that s exactly what she said when we spoke on wednesday. i asked if she would now be punished for the vote she had taken. she just smiled and said perhaps, but i know my district, i know my district. and she did. she does. as a democrat and republican, debbie, i want to take the conversation a step further and touch touch on that. both of you pointed to this incident at a wake-up call, a teachable moment. what is the turning point we re taking politically? what is the next step? what is the wake-up call here? debbie first. i really think we need to make an effort, a real substantive effort to come together in a meaningful way and bring the parties together. the republicans are going to have their caucus retreat this week. the democrats is next week. i think we need to schedule a separate day-long or however long that our leadership
not as graphically, i m not drawing any false analogies here. but there were also lists on the democratic side that targeted this woman who voted against nancy pelosi. she got it from both sides politically, didn t she, jeff? she did. in fact, my last conversation with her was on the floor of the house on wednesday after she had made that vote. we talked about that. she had supported some of my efforts earlier last year on earmarks, and i don t think her leadership was too happy with either. so she did, from the left and the right. she took some heat and just like we know from her moving about her district, she went about it anyway. so that s what i think everybody loves about her. debbie, certainly, even if you didn t agree with her, i m sure you certainly respected her
more at peace with where they were than any time before. do you think there s finally a collective exhaustion has set in from the politics of personal destruction that has affected this political culture for 20 years now? i hope so. there are enough things for us to disagree on. those disagreements will come and they should. there should be partisan debate on certain issues. but where we can agree, we should. i have the same feeling you did this week, and certainly on that conference call yesterday, debbie will likely say the same thing, but i sensed a moment that i hadn t for a long time, where neither party was looking to take political advantage, but just to respond to this situation as we should. that was very refreshing. representative jeff flake,