who s headed to the back bench in the house of representatives. joe johns, thanks. even congressman sorry. even the nominee, david brat, was a surprise at his showing last night. funny thing happening on youtube, after the msnbc interview today, according to tweet from our cnn political commentator, washington correspondent for the new yorker, quote, wow, someone is taking down brat s videos. probably just a coincidence. virginia is for lovers, we re told. also apparently now for mind-scrambling political upsets. what exactly is happening on the ground right now in old dominion to allow for a shenandoah shattering shakeup? jim gilmore, former governor of virginia, and president of the precongress foundation, and tom davis, former u.s. congressman from virginia and former national and republican congressional committee chairman. congressman davis, what went wrong for eric cantor?
i think the press is in the habit of doing juxtapositions like that that don t capture reality well. i m a ph.d in economics and so you analyze everybody situation uniquely because every international situation is unique. so i don t have a pattern that fits every single incidence, but i think it s absolutely necessary that the u.s. does project its power abroad. i think our defense department is bigger than the next ten combined. without that i think would you have chaos without our commitment to rights abroad and keeping the peace. but that does not mean that we should not ask some of the european countries to pay part of the bill now. they ve all become rich and developed and so it s time to share the burden. all right. mr. brat, i will let you go. i know you re coach of your debate team there at randolph macon, so i figured you wouldn t
well, this brat-like challenge from the right to eric cantor is what is keeping the republican republicans in line here in richmond and perhaps you have been reading of the standoff between terry mcauliff and the house republicans over the additional extension of well, that is just going to steal that, and you know, is there any state assembly republicans vote for terry mcauliff right now? if you think that the cats were scared, imagine how they are feeling this morning. but as far as cantor is concerned, one of the often hearing that david brat was the strange er stranger in this race, the unknown, and actually, i would argue that it is eric cantor. virginians in the heartland of this state saw very little of eric cantor. his district was drawn to accommodate him and made to ord
versus outsider, as you said, david versus goliath kind of thing that caught him by surprise. thank you so much. of course, we should remind you, after congressman cantor finishes speaking with the members of the house republican conference, he ll come out and speak. we will carry that live. before the double digit annihilation last night, many assumed that cantor would someday take over as house speaker. now he s been usurped by a guy who had just two paid staffers ran his campaign on a flip phone and described by a student on ratemyprofessors.com total eye candy. joe johns joins me live from richmond. who exactly is david brat? reporter: well, he s an interesting guy. he is an economics professor, and a lot of people say he has a lot of things going for him. at the end of the day he had a lot of help in this race from the incumbent, who is widely seen ace disconnected from the dave brat pushed hard on
they miss diagnosed the electorate. they didn t understand what was going on on the ground. when you re in leadership you have to make compromises, pass debt ceilings and that was disconnected from the republican base, and he didn t go back to explain. he s all over the country amazing ronnie for other candidates trying to help the team but ignored his base. so, jim brat, governor, sorry, professor brat attacked cantor saying, quote a vote for eric cantors a vote for open borders, for amnesty. an issue he hit time and time again, governor. immigration reform. now in washington, i don t know that cantor was viewed as somebody willing to compromise immigration reform but that s how brat went after him. was that very important in the electorate? i think it s an element. i think the republican electorate is very committed to the rule of law, so they re worried about that aspect of the issue. but it isn t the central point here. there are a couple of central points jake. one, the mess