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Conservatives flex muscle in House speaker race – but what do they want?

Grassroots conservatives are doing a victory lap after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy abruptly withdrew from the speaker race – but whether they can come together behind a consensus candidate and a common agenda remains to be seen. 
What exactly these groups and lawmakers want in a new leader, and whether they’d back somebody who also has favor with the so-called “establishment,” is the big question as the House postpones leadership elections.
In a series of interviews on Friday, representatives with several influential conservative groups told FoxNews.com they’re looking for a candidate who speaks to their values. Specifically – while their stances are not monolithic – they said they want to see someone who will “hold the line” on budgetary spending caps. Some also want to see more done on tax reform, an often-discussed goal that has never materialized into real action, as well as regulatory reform and efforts to rein in agencies like the EPA and IRS.
“There are places where we can and should be fighting,” Mark Meckler, president of Citizens for Self-Governance, told FoxNews.com.
Meckler has traveled to dozens of states to gauge political sentiment within the conservative base. “They are frustrated that their representatives have been fighting no fight. They feel like all they’ve seen is capitulation, surrender and unwarranted compromise. And they are looking ahead at leaders who will pick those strategic fights,” he said.
Meckler and others say the sticking point is also about style.
“From a grassroots perspective, I think [McCarthy] was polluted from the start in his association with [John] Boehner,” he said. “The way Boehner ran the House, there was very little input from the conservative wing and that was very frustrating for people.”
McCarthy, in withdrawing, said he thinks the conference needs a “fresh face” and voiced doubts about his own ability to attract a majority vote for speaker on the House floor.
His announcement immediately put attention on the conservative House Freedom Caucus, whose 30-40 members were planning to back rival candidate Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla. But that’s just one faction – leaders face pressure from an array of conservative blocs, who in turn face pressure from a network of Tea Party groups, fiscal watchdogs and others pushing for limited government, lower taxes, and other issues, each with a different idea of what fights are worth having and what fights are a lost cause.
One area of common ground might be in budgetary spending caps, which some Republicans have tried to ease for defense.
“Our activists are adamant they hold the line on those spending caps,” said Levi Russell, spokesman for Americans for Prosperity. “I think there is recognition that some issues are more controversial than others. I think you start with spending. I think there is ample opportunity to enjoin the leadership on that issue.”
That, he added, will “give breathing space for the other, more controversial issues.”
Despite grumbling from the base, Boehner has entertained efforts to launch against-the-odds legislative fights with the administration, most notably using the budget as leverage to try and undo ObamaCare in 2013. The effort failed, as did a short-lived attempt to defund Planned Parenthood.
Republicans point to bills passed to green-light the Keystone XL Pipeline and repeal ObamaCare’s medical device tax as victories -- “but that’s small ball. People want to see real things get done,” Adam Brandon, CEO of FreedomWorks, told FoxNews.com.
There is no question these activists feel emboldened by recent events. After McCarthy dropped out, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin declared it the second “victory” for the grassroots – the first being Boehner’s resignation.
Left vying for the speakership are Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Webster. It is not clear whether either could get the roughly 218 votes needed to win. Others are considering joining and top GOP leaders are meanwhile pressuring Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to enter, despite his resistance.
“[Ryan] is a very credible candidate,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., a member of the Freedom Caucus, told Fox News, adding: “Outside of that, there are already other candidates who are here.”
Meckler said there is a good chance other conservatives may end up jumping in by early next week. “There are people who have been in Congress for a little while, they know the people and they have a great track record,” he said, noting he’s heard Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s name bandied about, as well as Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon’s. “I would love to see [Texas Rep.] Jeb Hensarling get in the race,” he added.
As with the presidential primary race right now, Martin said, this is a time for outsiders, and not “establishment thinking.”
Yet, practically speaking, it’s unclear whether any true outsider candidate could muster a majority on the House floor for the speakership. Deep divisions remain in the Republican caucus, with a key complaint against the conservative wing being that they expect the leadership to be unyielding on demands they have little chance of getting.
Republican strategist Brent Littlefield said it is reasonable to look for a leader who sticks to conservative principles, but can “bring everyone together to move an agenda and be a good spokesman for our common beliefs.”
“I don’t think they are exclusive of one another,” he said.

House votes to lift 40-year-old ban on US crude oil exports

The House overwhelmingly approved a bill Friday that would lift the 40-year-old ban on exporting U.S. crude oil, a restriction that critics say hurts job creation and U.S. national security.
The House approved the bill on a bipartisan 261-159 vote. However, the White House has threatened to veto the bill should it make its way to the president’s desk, calling it unnecessary and arguing that the decision rests with the commerce secretary.
The bill heads next to the Senate. While it easily passed the House Friday, the 261-vote tally falls short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.
The export ban was signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1975 in response to the oil embargo by Arab OPEC nations against the U.S. for its support of Israel in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. But repeal supporters say the policy is now outdated -- and failing to repeal it would cost jobs.
"In my view, America's energy boom has the potential to reset the economic foundation of our economy and improve our standing around the world," Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio said in a statement.
"Let’s use the peaceful tools of energy development while creating jobs in America [to] replace the weapons of war in Europe and the Middle East. Let’s use our influence for good by selling this American made product – produced by American workers. Let’s do it in a bipartisan fashion today,” Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said Friday.
Cramer, one of the original co-sponsors on the legislation, had told FoxNews.com Thursday that Republicans hoped to get a significant bipartisan vote in the House in order to put pressure on the White House and challenge the veto threat.
Meanwhile, opponents say the bill would only benefit oil companies.
"This bill is an unconscionable giveaway to Big Oil at the expense of American consumers," said Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla.
Selling U.S. oil to foreign markets would result in higher gas prices at the pump and ultimately benefit China and other economic rivals, Castor said.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said the bill is not needed as long as the U.S. continues to import millions of barrels of oil every day.
"Every barrel exported by this bill will have to be replaced by a barrel of imported oil," she said.
However, supporters of repeal  have said that, should the ban be lifted, U.S. allies might be less likely to rely on Russia and possibly even Iran for their oil needs, which would have important national security benefits for the U.S.
“It is unfortunate that the White House fails to understand the national security and geopolitical benefits of lifting the ban on oil exports,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska., said in a statement Thursday.

Donald Trump says Bowe Bergdahl should have been executed

LAS VEGAS –  Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Thursday that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl should have been executed for leaving his post in Afghanistan.
"We're tired of Sgt. Bergdahl, who's a traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed," Trump said to cheers at a rowdy rally inside a packed Las Vegas theater at the casino-hotel Treasure Island.
"Thirty years ago," Trump added, "he would have been shot."
It was practically an aside in a litany of complaints at the end of a more than hourlong, free-wheeling speech that included a large dose of media-bashing and a claim that he was behind Rep. Kevin McCarthy's decision to drop out of the race for House speaker.
Bergdahl was charged in March with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. The Army conducted a hearing on his case earlier this month. His attorney, Eugene Fidell, said in a statement that Trump "has become a broken record on this subject."
"If he took the time to study what actually emerged at the preliminary hearing he would be singing a different tune," Fidell said.
Trump has, in the past, pantomimed a firing squad, Fidell said.
Bergdahl has been accused of leaving his post in southeastern Afghanistan in June 2009. He was held prisoner by the Taliban for five years, then exchanged for five Taliban commanders being held by the U.S. Trump has long railed against the deal.
The speech was punctuated by shouts of support from the crowd that filled about 1,620 seats in the Las Vegas Strip casino theater normally reserved for acrobatic Cirque du Soleil productions.
At one point, in a moment that appeared to be impromptu, Trump brought a supporter in the audience to the stage who declared she is Hispanic and voting for Trump. Myriam Witcher, 35, of Las Vegas, waved an issue of People magazine with Trump and his family on the cover, asking Trump to sign it.
Afterward, the Colombian immigrant, who noted she came to the United States legally, called Trump her "No. 1 person in the United States."
His speech spanned a spider-web of topics that included his disdain for media coverage, many of his fellow Republican presidential candidates and current political leadership as well as Thursday's news that McCarthy had dropped out of a race for House speaker.
"You know, Kevin McCarthy is out. You know that, right?" he asked the crowd. "And they're giving me a lot of credit for that because I said you really need somebody very, very tough and very smart. ... We need smart, we need tough, we need the whole package."
Trump didn't identify who had given him credit for McCarthy dropping out.

Obama reportedly considering executive action on gun control

Next it will be Knife Control?

As President Obama visited the community rocked by last week's Oregon college shooting Friday, the president was reportedly considering executive action on gun background checks -- after he called for Americans to turn gun control into a political issue in the wake of the shooting.
Obama met Friday with survivors and families of those killed in the attack at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. The gunman killed nine before killing himself.
"I've got some very strong feelings about this, because when you talk to these families, you are reminded that this could be happening to your child, or your mom, or your dad, or your relative, or your friend," Obama said at the end of his visit.
"And so, we're going to have to come together as a country to see how we can prevent these issues from taking place," he said.
The Washington Post reported that the White House is considering executive action that would compel background checks for "individuals who buy from dealers who sell a significant number of guns each year." Dealers who exceed a certain number of sales each year would be required to obtain a license and perform background checks, the Post reported.
Current law says only those “engaged in the business” of selling guns need to obtain a license and perform a background check. Exempted are those who make occasional sales, or who buy or sell guns as part of a personal collection or for a hobby.

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Obama himself had not ruled out the possibility of acting unilaterally on the issue, saying in his news conference after the shooting that he had asked his team to see what he could do on his own to address gun violence.
“In terms of what I can do, I've asked my team, as I have in the past, to scrub what kinds of authorities do we have to enforce the laws that we have in place more effectively to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.  Are there additional actions that we can take that might prevent even a handful of these tragic deaths from taking place?” Obama said at the Oct. 1 news conference.
The proposal to expand background checks originally was part of a package of considerations mulled after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., but was rejected after federal lawyers expressed concern that setting a numerical threshold could be legally challenged, and ATF officials voiced objections that it would be hard to enforce, the Post reported.
On Monday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest refused to rule out executive action from the Oval Office on the issue – saying it was an “ongoing” effort on the part of the president’s team.
“And the fact is there are a lot of things that can be done that don't undermine the basic constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans,” Earnest said.
Obama risks being outflanked on the issue by former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton who this week announced a number of gun control proposals, including overturning a law that prevents families of shooting victims from suing gun makers and using executive action to change the definition of who qualifies as a firearms dealer.
RELATED VIDEO: The truth about gun crime in America
Obama’s attempts to pass gun control measures through Congress previously have been unsuccessful, and in 2013 he announced 23 executive actions in the wake of the Newtown massacre. In his remarks after the Roseburg shooting, he called on the U.S. to turn gun control into a political issue.
“And, of course, what’s also routine is that somebody, somewhere, will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue. Well, this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic,” Obama said.
However, any gun proposals would likely see unified opposition among Republicans in Congress and GOP 2016 hopefuls. Republicans argue that mental health, not guns, are to blame for mass shootings and that White House proposals on the issue would violate the Second Amendment and wouldn’t do much, if anything, to prevent mass shootings.
"Talk of gun control makes the liberals feel warm and fuzzy.  However, the cold reality is that when you disarm the good guys you put them at the mercy of the bad guys. That’s what gun control does," Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Friday in an opinion piece for FoxNews.com.
The president may face opposition to his gun control proposals even in the town of Roseburg when he visits Friday, although the White House has said that the visit will be about comforting the victims, not about proposing new gun laws.
Staunchly conservative Douglas County is filled with gun owners who use their firearms for hunting, target shooting and self-protection. A commonly held opinion in the area is that the solution to mass killings is more people carrying guns, not fewer.
"The fact that the college didn't permit guards to carry guns, there was no one there to stop this man," Craig Schlesinger, pastor at the Garden Valley Church, told The Associated Press.

Witness reportedly says French train hero was protecting woman during stabbing

Spencer Stone, one of three Americans hailed a hero in the French train attack in August, had his condition upgraded from serious to fair Friday and could get out of bed after being attacked outside a California bar.
Eric Cain, a worker at A&P Liquors, told KTXL he thought what he was witnessing was just another bar fight early Thursday morning.
"Next thing I know, I start walking back in the store and I hear a pow, like someone got hit so I turn back around and that's when it started running in the street," Cain told the station.
Cain said he realized one of the men involved was stabbed but he didn’t know who he was.
"It looked like he was protecting the girl because there was girls and guys and after the fight they all just kinda dispersed," said Cain.
The next morning, the victim turned out to be Stone.
Stone was out with four friends when they got into a fight near a bar with another group of people, Sacramento Deputy Police Chief Ken Bernard said.
"We know it's not related to what occurred in France," Bernard said.
The deputy chief didn’t disclose what sparked the argument but said there’s no evidence the assailants knew who Stone was.
Stone, 23, was knifed three times in the upper body and expected to survive after about two hours of surgery, said Dr. J. Douglas Kirk, chief medical officer at UC Davis Medical Center.
A grainy surveillance video from a camera outside a liquor store shows a large man who appears to be Stone fighting against a half-dozen people at an intersection as cars as onlookers pass by.
The group spills into the street as people take swings at each other, and the man who appears to be Stone knocks one person down before another man strikes at his back.
Police said two assailants fled in a car. No immediate arrests were made.
Sacramento Police Sgt. Doug Morse said Friday police interviewed a 24-year-old woman who was also hurt in the fight and was treated at a hospital for abrasions.
"We're really hoping that additional witnesses or anyone involved comes forward," Morse said. "Right now detectives are working around the clock to clarify all that stuff. It would be way too premature to discuss what witnesses saw."
Bernard said he did not know whether Stone was drinking but noted that others in his group were.
Kirk said Stone remained heavily sedated in the intensive care unit. He declined to discuss any details about the surgery or whether any vital organs were damaged in the stabbing, beyond saying Stone had "significant injuries."
The airman was conscious when he arrived at the hospital.
"I suspect given his history of recent events he is quite a fighter," Kirk said.
Doctors expect Stone to fully recover. Stone's family asked Kirk to convey their gratitude for all the expressions of concern they had received.
The incident comes after Stone and two of his childhood friends from Sacramento, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and college student Anthony Sadler were vacationing in Europe when they sprang into action aboard a Paris-bound passenger train and tackled Ayoub El-Khazzani, a man with ties to radical Islam. He had boarded the train with a Kalashnikov rifle, pistol and box cutter.
Stone, who is assigned to Travis Air Force Base in California, suffered a severely cut thumb and a knife wound to his neck during the struggle with the gunman.
President Barack Obama met with the three Americans last month, and they have been awarded France's highest honor.
Stone is the second of the three Americans to be shaken by violence at home since their return.
Last week, Skarlatos left rehearsals for TV's "Dancing With the Stars" to rush back to Roseburg, Oregon, after a gunman killed nine people at the community college that Skarlatos attends.