senators that could really make a big difference. ainsley: he does have that likability factor. he is moderate. so he could get some of the independence and maybe conservatives as well depending hun is running in the republican party. what do you think this looks like when he is going to meet with mccarthy. they say this they are going to try to come up with a plan together to stop this wasteful government spending. what does that look like. can they do this? first of all, there is a lot of money out there that s never been spent. ainsley: right. pathed during the covid emergency period. i suspect you can get hundreds of billions of dollars just by not spending. there is alsoen amazing amount. over $600 billion was stolen during the covid period. $20 billion in california unemployment alone. and i suspect recapturing clawing back some of that would be a piece of it. and then, frankly, go through a list of what the government spends money on. we have a multi million dollars proj
it would catastrophic in the words of economists and experts to actually do that. but unlike in the past, the knee jerk response from some key members of the republican conference is not just to raise the debt ceiling and continue paying the bills for things they ve already spent money on. it s instead to use it as a bargaining chip. that s not entirely knew for washington, finding points of leverage. but it is a moment where we re going to get to see play out the dynamics of the house republican congress, some of the agreements that kevin mccarthy made with some far-right members of that group for his speakership in the first place. but there s also going to be a really fascinating dynamic playing out on the senate side, specifically when it comes to mcconnell who is of the mind set that the debt ceiling should be raised and mccarthy has to find a way to sell that to his conference. we ve seen ideas floated from mccarthy that maybe we could find a way to do a short-term hike for a cap
on friday, the treasury secretary janet lennon announced that the united states will hit its that the myth. this coming thursday. that limit is the maximum amount, according to law, that the federal government can borrow to pay for its obligation to pay for things it s already spent money on. that includes, all of the really important functions of government, everything from air traffic control to medicare and social security payments, congress decides what that limit is. so, secretary yellen wrote to house speaker kevin mccarthy, warning him that it is, quote, critical that congress act in a timely manner, to increase or suspend the debt limit, and quote. she wanted to explain that, quote, filler to meet the governments obligations would cause irreparable harm to the u.s. economy, the livelihoods of all americans, and global financial stability. all of that is true. to be clear, the united states government to fight falls on its loans, that would not be a small thing. it s not like pe
i m thinking about how do we actually improve surveillance? how do we prevent this, frankly, from happening again, to our way of life. things that should have not clinical stripes, that funding went away. we don t have the funding anymore from the congressional standpoint to advance our technology with next generation vaccines, intra nasal vaccines, mehdi, that could actually do what i was talking about earlier yes. could solve the problem infection and protect your lungs. yes we just need to scale it. it s crazy we are not spending on money on. that last quick question for you. yes or no. i know you the medical guy. but i ask you the same political prediction i ve asked everyone all night. kevin mccarthy, will he be speaker of the house in your view, come january? well, mehdi, i listen to everything yourself, into, -oriented say. i m going to listen to what they. said it looks like people smarter than i in the feel of politics are saying yes. so, i will say
$40,000 on air fare, $14,000 on car services, which they pointed out, it s not typical of a newly elected congressman. as someone who is running a campaign, what did you make of this? well, i think one of the hardest things to understand about the santos campaign is how he had so much of this money to spend on this. it is sort of unimaginable, especially in a district like that, that is not a district that is large, we are you would need to fly from one corner of the state to another or were you could possibly justify that kind of but lodging expenses. why would your symptoms not be spending that kind of money on, seiko tv efforts, or paid advertising, or the other types of expenses we might see in a typical campaign? what i think is most odd is so much of this money that came into the george santos campaign came from santos himself. he was a self funded candidate in many ways to the tune of