Transcript
A (0:00)
Democrats got nothing out of this. This is the same deal that Republicans had offered weeks ago. This shutdown was completely unnecessary and the fallout for Democrats has already begun. But to understand what happened last night, let's go back a week. On Tuesday night, Democrats won major elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and perhaps most notably the New York mayoral race. Part of the reason that's so notable is the New York Democrat candidate who won the mayoral race, Zoran Mandami, was handpicked by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Bernie Sanders. Now, AOC has been the primary aggressor against Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer. And many believe that the main reason that Democrats shut down the federal government was because Chuck Schumer was worried about a primary from aoc. Mondami winning the New York mayor race on Tuesday likely gave gives a lot of strength to the Bernie AOC wing of the party, which does not help Chuck Schumer. But Politico reported that late last week Democrats had been thinking about moving towards ending the shutdown. They had been discussing a path forward. And if you've listened to 10 Minute Drill, you know that we've been talking for a long time about the fact that at some point Democrats will look for an off ramp, a way to end the shutdown, knowing that they'll get nothing out of this, but they'll try and find ways to sort of put lipstick on a pig. But late last week, there were a number of Democrats that were starting to look for that off ramp. And after the Tuesday elections, the burning wing of the party felt emboldened and shut that down. Here's what Politico reported. Some corners of the caucus believe Sanders and his allies who have not participated in the bipartisan talks, are simply wanting to brawl with Republicans without having a realistic plan to bring it the longest shutdown on record to an end. The progressives have yet to articulate any sense whatsoever of how they think this ends or any proposal to get Republicans to the table other than waiting longer and longer, said a Senate Democratic aide who granted anonymity to comment candidly about caucus dynamics. And in the meantime, it's the families who can afford it the least that are increasingly getting walloped by the shutdown. We're not going to get a better offer, another Democratic aide involved in the bipartisan talks added. So that frustration was boiling. And one tension that's always existed in the Democratic Party is the sort of Bernie versus the establishment wing. Now, the Bernie wing has been on the rise for the last several years as the party has shifted to the left. But a number of moderate or so called moderate Democrats in the Senate have tried to resist that. And they understand the fact that Bernie has not ever been a part of a winning coalition, has not ever really sponsored legislation that's passed. He's just there to fight and as this Democrat staffer said, brawl with Republicans. And so that tension continued to rise into the weekend. And also over the weekend, Senate Republican leadership announced that they would not close the Senate. They would continue holding votes and forcing the Senate to stay open until they reached a compromise. And that is a big part of how we got to this place. Another thing that happened late last week though was Chuck Schumer announced the Democrats demand for a full one year extension of subsidies, which led to this very heated exchange with Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno.