← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
12/20/24: BREAKING: Shutdown LOOMS After Elon/Trump Deal FAILS
00:32:27
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- [00:00]
Crystal
You wake up, put on your Ray Ban meta glasses. You're living all in. You realize you need coffee so you.
- [00:06]
Emily
Say hey Meta how do I make.
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Sagar
A latte brew two shots of espresso.
- [00:10]
Crystal
After meta AI gets you caffeinated, you're ready for some beats.
- [00:13]
Emily
Hey Meta Play hip hop music.
- [00:15]
Crystal
You head to meet some friends but can't remember the place.
- [00:18]
Emily
Hey Meta call Eva Ray banned Meta.
- [00:22]
Crystal
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- [00:49]
Emily
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- [00:52]
Crystal
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Emily
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- [00:56]
Emily
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- [00:58]
Crystal
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- [00:59]
Sagar
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- [01:30]
Emily
Good morning everybody. Hope your day is off to a good start. We are sort of barreling towards a potential government shutdown today tonight if nothing changes. So Emily and I just wanted to give you a little update on what has happened since Breaking Points aired yesterday. Great to see you Emily. Thank you for joining me this morning.
- [01:45]
Mike Johnson
Thanks for having me, Crystal.
- [01:47]
Emily
Yeah, of course. I need you to interpret what's going on in the Republican side of the ledger here. So let me just give people a little bit of an update. So yesterday we heard from Trump and Musk and others that they had a new deal in order to avert this government shutdown. So basically they need to fund the government and Trump also wants them to extend the debt ceiling or get rid of the debt ceiling altogether, which is something I would certainly support. And so he put out this statement here. Success in Washington Speaker Mike Johnson the House have come to a very good Deal for the American people. The newly agreed to American relief Act of 2024 will keep the government open, fund our great farmers and others, and provide relief for those severely impacted by the very devastating hurricanes. A very important piece vital to the American first agenda was added as well. The date of the very unnecessary date sale debt ceiling will be pushed out two years to January 30, 2027. Now we can make America great again very quickly, which is what the people gave us a mandate to accomplish. So you will guys will probably recall there originally was a deal that had been negotiated between Democratic and Republican leadership that both included continuing government funding and also had a lot of other pieces. So there was something that would rein in pharmacy benefit managers. There was money for research into pediatric cancer. Whole bunch of other priorities that were put into there as well. And that's what Elon Musk and some of the Republicans began vociferously objecting to and caused that whole thing to fall apart, leaving this process in total chaos. So this announcement from Trump is, hey guys, we have another new deal that includes fewer of those other things, more just sort of like closer to a quote, unquote clean continuing resolution, plus extension of the debt ceiling that they negotiated amongst themselves that went to a floor vote yesterday. And you know, spoiler alert, it did not end up passing. But Emily, before we get to some of the more details, you know, what was your initial reaction to the contours of this deal as it was laid out?
- [03:55]
Mike Johnson
Yeah, so exactly what you just said in the sense that this is 2014, basically, this feels like the fights 2015, the fights against John Boehner with one major difference. You know, back then it was Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows putting together the House Freedom Caucus and saying we are always going to object to omnibus bills. Mike Johnson comes in, comes in after Kevin McCarthy and says, we're not doing omnibus bills. We're just, we're not going to do it. So you're always going to have the Chip Roys, the Thomas Massie's of the world opposing what Mike Johnson negotiated. And he probably would have had to have Democrats vote for it in order to get this bill passed. And it probably would have. But this is what happened. Elon Musk and Vivek, now that they are in charge of the Advisory Department of Government Efficiency, realized they could not stay quiet on what Johnson was about to do, which was a very normal, conventional Washington compromise in order to avoid a Christmas shutdown. But they knew they couldn't just shut up because this thing had funding for the Global Engagement center, which has funded places that suppress conservative websites and all of those that you can't, if you're head of Doge, say, oh, we'll fix it next year. So because they intervened, this became dramatic and it wasn't going to be at all. And normally you would have had the exact same people protesting. The only difference this time around is they had a shot in the arm from, from Elon and Vivek and that's where everything sort of spun into the drama.
- [05:23]
Emily
Yeah. So originally just for people to recall, Republicans control the House, but the margin is very, very narrow. So if you even have a handful of dissenters, say, nope, not voting for an Omnis omnibus deal, then you're done. You have to work with the Democrats. So that's what they did. Johnson had negotiated this. He seemingly felt that he had the blessing of Trump in terms of these original negotiations. And it certainly appeared, although, you know, we'll get to the, the Trump people really push back on this. But it certainly appeared like Elon jumps in and forces Trump's hand because Trump doesn't really care about austerity. He's not, he has not positioned himself as an austerity politician. In fact, he's really positioned himself opposite of that. And it's part of how he was so successful in terms of the Republican Party. And so he's fine with what they're negotiating. Elon starts tweeting up a storm, causes a ruckus, creates this kind of collapse in support among the Republican caucus. So it's not just now a few dissenters, but it's most of the caucus. So you no longer have a deal that's tenable, that can be passed so that all falls apart. The new deal that they struck, this is some of the contours of it. Internal GOP funding deal Johnson's expected to put on the floor. Funding extension for three months. Clean farm bill extension, $110 billion disaster aid package as negotiated with Democrats. This is like for western North Carolina, other places that were really hard hit by the series of hurricanes. Clean health care provision extenders. I don't really know what that means, minus PBM reform. That's actually a real loss because that pharmacy benefit reform would help to bring down prescription drug prices and is something that has bipartisan support and critically, a two year suspension of the debt limit to January 2027. And Emily, maybe you can speak a little bit to this debt limit part. But part of what's going on here, which is also funny, is Republicans have consistently used the debt Limit to sort of extract concessions from Democrats. They'll use that as effectively a hostage taking tactic. So now that Trump is going to be in the White House, he wants to not have to deal with, with the debt ceiling and have that hanging out there because he wants to be able to do in particular his, you know, extension of the tax Cut and Jobs act primarily goes to the wealthy. He wants to make sure all of that is taken care of. Now that is contra to the Chip Roy and the Thomas Massey's of the world who don't think that they should ever vote for a debt ceiling increase, period, end of story. So already you can see that there are some even within the Republican caucus potential fissures here. Not to mention Democrats feeling like, well, screwed you guys, we had a deal. You've got control, you know, you have the majority of the House. If you want to fund, if you want to figure this out amongst yourselves, go do it and leave us out of it. Because the deal we negotiated, you've now at this point tanked.
- [08:18]
Mike Johnson
And what does Elon do if Trump is as president? Because this is a win for Donald Trump, kicking the debt ceiling to 2027 means he's not going to have to deal with it in the first six months of his presidency, which would be, that could raise some serious tensions. Like for example, Elon Musk, like for example with the Chip Roys who Donald Trump went after by name yesterday and said very unpopular member, Chip Roy, etc. Chip Roy is one of his most ardent defenders and is a very like.
- [08:49]
Emily
Actual principled conservative, stalwart, Tea Party style. Yes, conservative, dyed in the wool, you know, attempting to be very, I mean it's not my politics, but trying to be principled about his like deficit hawk view of the world, 100%.
- [09:05]
Mike Johnson
And this is where you have that new tension with Trump and potentially with Ellen. What does Elon think about lifting the debt ceiling? What if Donald Trump is just like, hey, we got doge, we're working on shrinking the size of the government, we're working to make it more efficient. So we're just going to lift this debt ceiling and what are the debt hawks do? So he now, he avoids having that fight six months into his presidency with a margin of like what, one to three members of the House of Representatives. I mean it would be a really, really tough battle. So that's a win. What they did is say we're just going to do a kind of skinny cr, a clean cr. The continuing resolution is basically leaving government funding at the level that it is we don't know if that's going to work. It cut out a lot of the random stuff, but it does still have things like they had to reauthorize the farm bill. Like that was. There are certain things that were on a deadline, like the hurricane funding is another good example. So still a big bill, but a big bill that a lot of them are going to have to vote for.
- [10:04]
Emily
Yeah, so that was, that's the contours of the bill, the quote unquote deal that was struck within the caucus. And as Emily is pointing to, even within the Republican caucus, there are problems with this deal. And in order for them to pass it effectively on their own, they need to basically get every single person in the caucus to vote alongside of it. So we've mentioned Chip Roy. He was not the only one who ends up voting against this deal within the Republican caucus. Actually, 35 Republicans, which is quite significant, end up voting against it. But just to give you a sense of, you know, their view of the world and why they said that they oppose this deal, here is Chip Roy on the House aggressively making the case against this new version of, of the continuing resolution plus debt ceiling extension. Let's take a listen to that.
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Chip Roy
Fact of the matter is $330 billion. Congratulations, you've added to the debt since you were given the majority again on November 5th. It's embarrassing. It's shameful. Yes, I think this bill is better than it was yesterday on certain respects. But to take this bill, to take this bill yesterday and congratulate yourself because it's shorter in pages but increases the debt by $5 trillion is asinine. And that's precisely what Republicans are doing. I'm absolutely sickened by a party that campaigns on fiscal responsibility and has the temerity to go forward to the American people and say you think this is fiscally responsible. It is absolutely ridiculous.
- [11:42]
Emily
Absolutely ridiculous. Now, I think it's an open question whether this party really campaigned on fiscal responsibility because that's not like a core Trump value. You know, I mean, like I said, one of the things that he really was known for breaking the mold of within the Republican party both in 2016, again in 2020, it's like, I'm not going to touch Social Security, I'm not going to touch Medicare. Obviously those were long time cuts, those programs were long time priorities of the Republican caucus. And people like Chip Roy are still in that, you know, still very much in that camp. So in any case, Emily, the fact that you end up having not just CHIP ROY But 35 Republicans vote against this deal that both Elon and Trump ultimately get behind. Not to mention Mike Johnson who's like, feels sort of like irrelevant to this whole process. If we're being super real, what does that say to you? Because it is interesting. You clearly have some group within the caucus that is trying to strike somewhat of an independent stance here and not just look like they're being pulled around. Pulled around by the nose, either by the President or by the richest man on the planet.
- [12:46]
Mike Johnson
It was interesting. I think it was maybe after RFK Jr started getting involved in the campaign, you would hear some of the techno guys, Elon Musk, talk about the debt and the deficit and sort of start campaigning on that. But it was in a different way. It was like in this big picture, long term way. And it made people like Chip Roy really happy. Like finally we are coupling this populism. It's kind of a throwback to the Tea Party, but a new variation of it. Like we're coupling this populism with concerns about the debt. And I think what they're learning right now is nobody is serious about that except for the people who are already serious about it, the Chip Roys and Thomas Massey's, etc. And you know, that was probably a good prediction even back in like September when these conversations were being had. But does Elon Musk really. I mean, I don't know if this is where you're going with it, if it's still adding $5 trillion to the debt. Now if you're Elon Musk and you're Donald Trump and you're Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson is somebody who was always Freedom Caucus adjacent and they had high expectations for Mike Johnson.
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Emily
See, this is why I need you here, Emily. I would never know that. Go ahead.
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Mike Johnson
Yeah, it's like Fight Club. You don't, you don' necessarily always say if you're in the Freedom Caucus, but Jonathan was not, but he, he's also somebody who is, who has talked to, talked the talk about the debt for a long time. And he is not leading here. He's, he looks like he's being led. I don't know if his speakership survives into next year. That is something that's being talked about intensely behind closed doors, actually out in the open right now as well. So I mean, this is just like they have leverage. If you're Mike Johnson or Elon Musk or Donald Trump. Right now you're saying we used all the leverage we possibly can. This is a Christmas shutdown is the Friday Before Christmas, we're still going to add $5 trillion to the debt because we're not going to solve the national debt crisis right now. Sorry, Chip Roy. And Chip Roy comes in and is like, hey, you're adding $5 trillion to the debt. Like, that's the impasse here.
- [14:35]
Emily
Yeah.
- [14:36]
Mike Johnson
And they're just not. I mean, that's the question as to whether they can get anything passed.
- [14:39]
Emily
Right. Well, because. Because the margin is so narrow and if you even lose, you know, Chip Roy, Thomas Massie. What, they can lose like five people? If that.
- [14:51]
Mike Johnson
And then they would. I mean, presumably they have to start adding pork back into the bill to get Democrats to vote for.
- [14:57]
Emily
That's. That's right. So if you don't keep the Republican caucus 100% together, then you're going to have to, you know, add back in the research funds for kids with pediatric cancer. You know, you're going to have to add back in. There was some genuinely, like, you know, I know there's people just have like a principle against putting things together in this one bill, but there were genuinely good things in this bill that I think you and I would both agree on. Like the pharmacy benefit manager thing that gets stripped out. You also had a provision that would make sure that hotel, like these random fees that you get in hotels, you have this provision about hotel fees and disclosure around them, which is, you know, small ball, but the kind of thing that people like to, to be able to understand what they're. They're paying for. And also, many people noted there are some provisions in here that would have restricted investment in China. Elon, of course, has huge investments in China. And this provision maybe would have directly impacted him because it had to do with, you know, high levels of technology, things like AI investments. He has planned, you know, AI investments for these, of the Tesla in China that gets stripped out. Suddenly Elon likes the bill. So there's a lot of self interest at play here as well with regards to Elon Musk, which is, you know, part of why, as a matter of principle, I object to having this man who is not only the richest man on the planet, but has incredible conflicts of interest just throughout the entire government is one of the largest contractors to the Pentagon, as one example, being so incredibly powerful in our politics. And so you see it in little things like this where maybe it gets stripped out just because Republicans want to strip a bunch of things out. Maybe it gets stripped out because this billionaire who now is a rival power center to President Trump himself, decided that this was not good. For his own ideology and his own business interest. So go ahead, Emily. If you want to react to that, then we can. A little bit about the Democratic side here.
- [16:59]
Mike Johnson
Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's. It's like this. First of all, I love that your pets have formed their own Freedom Caucus. Very appropriate. Like storming the Capital.
- [17:06]
Emily
Relevant.
- [17:08]
Mike Johnson
But no, I mean, it's just. It's this question about short term versus long term. And, you know, if you can ever even address the long term, if you don't address the short term, that's what the Chip Roys of the world are going to say. And I think what they're learning is that Elon Musk might have this, like, theoretical concern about the national debt, but it's going to be secondary, probably to higher priorities.
- [17:29]
Emily
Mm. Indeed. All right, so you have the Republicans, who some, you know, 35 of them are like, no, we're not going along with this. We don't want to raise the debt ceiling, etc. So then you need a good number, several dozen Democrats to join you. So let's go ahead and play. This is actually, it's interesting. This is this guy, Jared Moskowitz, who's actually been sort of like, Elon curious. He was the one. Isn't he the one that came out and was like, oh, I'm going to join the Doge Caucus. Like, I want to be involved in this? So the fact that even a very centristy type Democrat like Moskowitz was going pretty hard against this deal was an indication that Democrats were more or less going to be lockstep against it. Let's go ahead and listen to him making the case. One minute to the gentleman from Florida. Mr. Moskowitz.
- [18:14]
Jared Moskowitz
The gentleman from Florida is recognized for one minute. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, denial is not just a river in Egypt. Let's talk about the last two years. It was the Democrats who raised the debt ceiling, not the Republicans. Last time, many of you voted against it. It was the Democrats who kept over the government not once, not twice, but every single time we needed to keep the government open, it was the Democrats who kept the government open. More of us voted for it than you. And all I've heard for the last couple weeks about this giant mandate, landslide trifecta. Put on your big boy pants, pass your own bill. We're only here. We're only here because you guys can't agree amongst yourselves. So hold on a second. Hold on a second. Democrats will keep government open for the American people. We will mediate the disagreements between that side of the room and that side of the room, we will do that for you. But you got to at least invite us to that meeting. So if you want us to solve your problem, because you can't agree amongst yourselves, reach out. Thank you, Mr.
- [19:25]
Emily
So there you go. Put on your big boy pants. Like, listen, y'all want to do this on your own, go ahead, do it on your own. But if you want us to participate and you want our votes, you're going to have to negotiate with us. You're going to have to add back in some of these provisions that you took out. And I also, Democrats are not in the mood to clear the decks on the debt ceiling for Trump either, so that he can have a free hand to mostly cut taxes for the rich, which is the one thing that's, like, almost guaranteed to happen in the new Trump administration because the tax cuts, Cuts and Jobs act is up for certain provisions of it up for renewal. So Democrats, in the end, almost all of them, there are a handful of exceptions, vote in lockstep against this deal that was struck with Musk and Trump and Mike Johnson and whoever else in the Republican caucus.
- [20:16]
Mike Johnson
And by the way, it goes to the Senate, too.
- [20:19]
Emily
So, I mean, it's just, I know. That's so true. We're just talking about the House. And not only does it go to the Senate, it's got to get 60 votes in the Senate.
- [20:25]
Mike Johnson
Yeah.
- [20:26]
Emily
So you're nowhere close to that. Nowhere close.
- [20:29]
Mike Johnson
Right. And it is, you know, Friday morning and they're supposed to vote on something. And we're about to talk about this at 11. Unclear whether that passes now. At risk of sounding like Sagar, it is sort of always fun that when there are moments of intense parliamentary theater and drama in the Capitol, you know, makes us feel like the country is still alive. There was a point where, like, Rosa DeLauro from Connecticut, Democrat from Connecticut, yielded her time to chip roll the dynamic. It's great when they, when they have to, when they have to work late at night before Christmas, they just, all of their anger just gets taken out on each other. So it's, that's fun to watch. Maybe we'll get more of it today, actually.
- [21:08]
Emily
Oh, I'm quite sure that we will. So you were just referencing the latest. So that bill goes down in flames. Not even close. In fact, they were using a method not to get you in the weeds here, but that would require two thirds majority to vote. Obviously doesn't get anywhere close to that. It doesn't get really close to a majority either. And the latest is the House Republicans were meeting this morning or some subset of them anyway. And Anna Polina Luna, who is a, you know, Trumpy Republican but also I, I think an ally of Speaker Johnson. Right. Emily.
- [21:41]
Mike Johnson
Fair to say she's just popular. Yeah.
- [21:43]
Emily
Okay. All right. More or less. She's like kind of famous. Didn't she the one that like posed in a bikini or something and like got a lot of attention that way. Anyway, that's that lady. So she just came out of the Speaker's office and said there will be a vote on something very similar to yesterday. She said ours will not negotiate with Dems. She also said the vote will be at 10, which I've been told is ambitious Internal leadership goal not meant to be announced. Right now as we're recording this, it's 9:40am Severely doubt they'll be voting on anything by 10am but in any case it's hard to see how the result would be any different if the bill is not substantially different. Emily, unless you see it differently.
- [22:19]
Mike Johnson
No, I mean I have. It's none of them know how this is going to work out. Again, we haven't even talked about Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senate leadership. Leadership. Obviously Democrats know that Republicans always get blamed for a shutdown. So. No. And that's whether or not it's valid. You know, and sometimes it's like Democrats are refusing to negotiate. Cheryl Atkinson actually posted kind of a long anecdote from 2013 or 2014 and how when she was inside CBS there was this internal pressure to get the story being about Republicans shutting down the government. And Republicans know that that's always what happens. But I think there's this lack of confidence or this, there's this confidence now, the swagger now because I feel like they have the wind at their back after Trump won, which is A, why Chip Roy thinks they should be getting a better deal and B, why they're playing a bolder hand that they're just going to get be able to sort of circumvent the corporate media's narrative about how this is all Republicans fault and if Democrats refuse to negotiate then they can somehow blame the Democrats. I just don't think that's going to work.
- [23:20]
Emily
Yeah, well, I mean because you had a thing and then Elon starts tweeting and then you don't have it. So I mean it's very clearly like the action was on the Republican side in terms of this really kind of it came a little bit out of nowhere. Usually these shutdown threats have Some like weeks, if not months of build up and jockeying and what's going to happen and brinksmanship. That can kind of appear to be like both sides, but this one, because they had a deal. And then it's just like Elon one day wakes up and starts tweeting and then it's all collapsed. And now suddenly here you are hours before the shutdown and Republicans are scrambling and can't agree amongst themselves, et cetera. Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that the public is going to feel like you guys are the ones that the tanked the deal that created this chaos. And you know, there's real ramifications when the government shuts down, especially at the holiday, holiday time. It's not like every function shuts down. You still have essential workers and functions that are, you know, occurring, but there are costs to it. Soccer was pointing out people who are going to travel. TSA is going to be more limited traffic, air traffic controllers, like you're going to have fewer personnel, you're going to have more chaos in terms of travel. That's just one example of the types of services that won't continue in a government shutdown. Then you also have some of the additional pieces in this that were important to both sides. So the disaster relief being one of them, the farm relief, which actually, I mean, given that that's more of a constituent for constituency for Republicans, it's kind of more of an issue for conservative rural Republicans where because the previous farm bill wasn't, they weren't able to negotiate a new farm bill, so they did like a continuing farm bill. So they haven't gotten the, you know, the aid support that they need and that they're used to during this time. So the Farm Bureau is very concerned about what all of this means. So in any case, there are pieces here that are important to both sides of the, the ledger. And right now it is very unclear how this proceeds. You know, Jake Sherman is out saying he thinks the most likely thing is a quote, unquote, clean cr. That is very short term. I'm talking like a few weeks just to get through the holidays and like reconvene and see what they can come up with in the new year. So that that may be the case. But again, you would have to get every Republican on board. And then again that leaves open the question in the Senate and whether that's gonna, whether Democrats are going to go along with that, whether they're going to be incentivized, just like I want to get out of here. And get home to my kids and have Christmas enough to kick the can down the road into January and figure this out in the new year. So that's kind of where things are.
- [26:02]
Mike Johnson
Well, and this might be the deal with Democrats. They're losing control of the Senate in the new Congress. So is the CR going to kick it until there's no Democratic control in the Senate, the Democrats aren't in control of the Senate, or are they going to strike a deal that does it right before the new Congress? I don't know. I mean, it's a really.
- [26:21]
Emily
But it doesn't matter. I mean, maybe it matters more than I'm thinking, but since you have to get that 60 vote super majority, I don't know that it matters that much whether it's Democrats who have a 50, 50 Senate or whether it's Republicans who, you know, have the, the 53 to 47 Senate. Because you still are going to need some not insignificant number of Democrats to go along with whatever deal is ultimately struck. And they are not in the mood to help out Trump and give him what he wants. They're certainly not in the mood to help out Elon Musk or whatever. So they're happy to watch Republicans kind of stumble around and try to come up with something that they can all vote for in lockstep. And yeah, I mean, that's why, that's exactly the reason why Mike Johnson and seemingly with the backing of Trump thought from the beginning, like, let's just deal with the Democrats now going into like while Joe Biden is still in office, we could just blame them for any part of this that we don't really like that much, clear the day and then we'll have kind of a clean slate coming in, debt ceiling taken care of, government funded, so we can do the things that we want to do. And now that possibility is no longer really on the table.
- [27:31]
Mike Johnson
It's been a, I mean, this is really setting the tone for how they're dealing with each other coming into a new Congress and a new presidential administration. Like, what is Elon's role? Who is he allying with? Who is he talking to? Who is Trump talking to? Who is Mike Johnson talking to? This is going to, this is, they're entering the new year on shake your footing because of all of this. They're spinning it as they're entering the new year, possibly with getting a better deal. And if you're Chip Roy, this has generally been positive because it showed that Doge is at least rhetorically interested in the things that you've been talking about since the Tea Party years.
- [28:10]
Emily
Yeah.
- [28:11]
Mike Johnson
Even if you're disappointed in how they actually are, like, oh, so they see some political value to having this conversation. Yeah, but, but this has caused a lot of. I mean, Trump should not be fighting with Chip Roy going into 2025.
- [28:23]
Emily
No, they, I mean, they just won. They should all be aligned and in love with each other. You know, I mean, you're never happier with your team than when you're on this giant winning streak. And that's exactly there. They should be riding high right now. So it also just raises, I mean, obviously, the two competing power centers. I'll just throw up this last element to give to sort of elucidate that. But, you know, it really looked like Elon was running the show in terms of this whole strategy. Trump was, Trump was fine. To just go along with whatever deal was struck is certainly what it looks like. I think this is the response from Caroline Levitt. No, that is not the response from Caroline Levitt. I'll find.
- [28:59]
Mike Johnson
He doesn't want to deal with Congress. Right. He doesn't want to have to worry about the dynamics on Capitol Hill. He doesn' want to have to worry about what's going on.
- [29:08]
Emily
He's like, whatever, that's fine. I just want to like, you know, come into office and be able to do my thing. This was Caroline Levitt, who's the Trump spokesperson, isn't she's going to be press secretary, Is that right? Am I right about that? And then, okay, so she responded to the Elon Musk is the real leader of the Republican Party rhetoric from the Democrats. She said as soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR contining resolution, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view. President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party full stop. I mean, the fact that they even felt the need to respond to that tells you this, this kind of got, this is getting under Trump's skin. And, you know, I think it's only going to continue. Elon is out there. He's got all the money in the world. He was threatening primary challenges against any Republicans who don't go along. By the way, he's now threatening primary challenges against Democrats in blue districts who, you know, are not centrist enough for his liking. Which, that's another story for another day. But I think that would probably go over as well in a Democratic primary as like a George Soros backed Republican candidate. It would go over in a Republican primary. But in any case, he's clearly willing to throw his weight around. I'm not sure he realizes how close to the sun he's flying in terms of, you know, usurping the power of the party from Trump. So that's the other question, is how long that alliance between the two of them even lasts. Because Trump is certainly not one to brook any threats to his ego, an unquestioned position as the king of the Republican Party. And then you do have genuine ideological fissures between them. I mean, Trump is not really that ideological a guy. So I think when the talk is very theoretical, like, who. Who doesn't like the idea of cutting waste from the government? Right. Like, and the government being efficient. Sure. Sounds great. Right. But then when you're like, yeah, they cut out the funding for the kids with cancer, and they cut out. They're looking at cutting Social Security. Like, Elon's out there retweeting Mike Lee about how the whole program is a fraud, you know.
- [31:06]
Mike Johnson
Yeah.
- [31:07]
Emily
When it comes down to what they actually, you know, what it means when you cut the government. Not just theoretical, like, sure, let's get the waste down. Suddenly these projects become extremely unpopular, which is also part of what you're seeing in this dynamic of when people are actually looking at, like, oh, well, what did you cut from this bill? And it's things that people would like to see, like research into pediatric cancer. Then the. The feels a lot different than just in theory, let's spend less money. So when the rubber meets the road, there's a big ideological difference between Trump, who doesn't really care either way, but has this instinct of. This political instinct of these things are not popular, like, cutting these popular programs is not a good idea. And Elon Musk, who is more of an ideological, like, Javier Milei type ideological figure. I mean, this is someone he's praised. He praised Javier Milei for rolling back tariffs, which, again, total contradiction to Trump and what he was claiming that he supports and what he supported in the past when he was in the White House before. So this is sort of like our first glimpse into some of those potential fissures as well.
- [32:15]
Mike Johnson
Yeah, exactly. And Trump notoriously loves drama. He said as much that he likes it when people on his side are fighting it out because he thinks that's healthy and leads to a better outcome. Or maybe he just enjoys it. Don't we all? But, like, there's. There's. Maybe Trump, like, enjoys the schadenfreude like everyone else does. But the Freedom Caucus people like Chip Roy, their constituents want them to do this, and they recognize that Ted Cruz recognized that back in 2013, 2014, even earlier than that at the beginning of the Tea Party. They have to answer to their constituents. Trump has to answer to the entire country. So that has always been what Paul Ryan tried to bridge the gap between. It's what Kevin McCarthy tried to bridge the gap between. And Mike Johnson, you know, is, I don't even, I don't even know what he's doing. I don't think anybody really even knows what he's doing.
- [33:03]
Emily
Yeah.
- [33:04]
Mike Johnson
But Trump, that's it. Welcome back. Welcome back is what they're all saying to him right now, basically.
- [33:11]
Emily
Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Right. So we'll see what happens today. They're going to allegedly take a vote on something that's very similar. It will probably also go down in flames and they'll be back to the drawing board would be my prediction. But hey, you never know. If they work something out amongst themselves and government. If there is no deal struck today, government will shut down at midnight tonight. So we will certainly keep an eye on it for you. Although all of us are going to be running around and traveling. So I don't know if we'll be able to update you or not, but maybe we'll try, depending on what happens. In any case, I hope you guys have a wonderful holiday. And we will, certainly. And thank you again, Emily, for spending some time with us this morning and helping me understand what's going on from the Republican perspective as well. And we will see all of you guys soon.
- [33:57]
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