Krystal Ball (84:22)
Oh the Medicaid, Yeah. So all the Medicaid portals were shut down in all 50 states. Those are backup. But there continue to be, I mean questions about what the state of affairs even is right now, what the White House actually wants people to be doing or not doing within all of these federal agencies. What the press secretary said in her very first briefing was like, well if you have a question, just like Russ votes line is open. It was not even confirmed at OMB by the way. And I think part of the reason they decided to rescind this first memo was because he is up. I believe Tomorrow his hearings start. And I'm sure this was throwing his potential confirmation into a little bit of chaos as well. Just because, listen, it doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat. Like, every single senator and representative was fielding calls from the Head Start program, the Meals on Wheels program, the domestic violence program, like all the addiction recovery programs, all sorts of veterans, homelessness. All of these programs say, what the hell is going on? Are we gonna get our funding or not? If not, we're gonna have to lay people off. We can't open our doors, the kids can't come to class, et cetera, et cetera. So, truly, both parties were quite concerned about what was going on here, regardless of what they were saying publicly. Now, apparently, as best we know, the backstory here is that. And again, this is very Trump 2017, the memo was written. Stephen Miller sort of directed that this memo be written. Russ Vogt writes the memoir and puts it out, but without going through any sort of, like, review process to recognize the fact that, oh, your language in here very clearly indicates all federal grant funding is frozen. Not just like, whatever trans or DEI or whatever stuff they're not happy about. By the way, the $50 million Gaza condom thing was total and complete bullshit and nonsense. Just so you know, as an aside, but to your point, Sagar, if we could now put before up on the screen, because this kind of gets to what you're talking about. So if you ask people, should you cut spending? Does the federal government spend too much? Is it inefficient? They'll be like, yes. But then when you're like, okay, well, what should they cut? Should they spend more on Social Security or less? They're like, definitely spend more. What about education? Definitely spend more. What about assistance to the poor? Definitely spend more. Medicare? Yes. Medicaid? Yes. Border security is where you get to 50, 50 military. They're like, we're probably spending. Spending plenty there. We're good there. And federal law enforcement, same thing. But by and large, if you go down the list of budget items when it comes to these programs, they are very popular. So Republicans oftentimes run into this where in theory, people are like, yes, the government is spending too much. But then when it actually comes down to these social safety net programs, they do not want to further strip our already threadbare safety net even further. And typically, the defense budget only ever goes up, so that's not on the table politically, even though actually the American people would probably be most open to cuts there. One other thing I wanted to get to here is we can put B6 up on the screen. So even though this was chaotic and continues to be chaotic and unclear and not done in an effective way, it's not like it was done haphazardly. The Huffington Post was able to actually get their hands on some internal documents that prove that this was a plan to provoke this constitutional challenge, to try to directly challenge the, what's it called, the Impoundment control Act of 1974, which says that effectively Congress has the power of the purse. If they pass funding, then the executive is obligated to spend it. This was a post Watergate reform. The Nixon administration didn't want to spend money that was appropriated by Congress on something. I can't remember exactly what. And so this was put into place to codify into law. No, if the Congress appropriates the money, we have the power of the purpose. You as the executive branch don't get to say like, well, I don't like that program, so I'm not going to spend money on that particular thing. Except for rare instances like if there's some new technological gain that creates efficiencies, then there might be a loophole there. But very, very limited. As part of Project 2025 and something that Jeff Stein has been telling us about and we've been reporting on here. And it's also part of the plan with doge. They want to challenge that and basically be able to say that Congress's appropriations are just a basically suggestion. And then the executive branch gets to be like, we like that, we don't like that and have ma. I mean this would be. This would almost be rendering Congress completely irrelevant effectively and making it so that the executive branch really has near monarchical powers to do everything that they want. So that was revealed in terms of these internal documents, which many people have been speculating about, but it's sort of confirmed by haven't imposed. Last thing I'll say I'll get your reaction to this, Sagar, is Lever News had a good report about just looking at, okay, well, how might the Supreme Court rule on such a question? This is a very conservative Supreme Court. A number of these individuals were put on the bench by Donald Trump. So there's certainly possibility that even though this has never been the understanding and it's pretty clear in the Constitution, power of the purse with Congress, et cetera, there is certainly a possibility that they would side with the Trump White House on this. But let's put B7 up on the screen. This could end up being relevant. Apparently John Roberts Weighed in back in a 1985 communique. Weighed in on a question. This is classic David Sirota to be able to find this, by the way, weighed in on this very question with regard to whether the executive branch can just say, no, we don't wanna do that. Sorry, Congress, we're not following the law that you passed. He said that no area seems more clearly the province of Congress than the power of the purse. And discouraged going in the direction of questioning that whatsoever. So that could potentially become relevant. I think it's almost certainly that the almost certain that this will end up at some point at the Supreme Court.
