Loading summary
Transcript53 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey there listeners. You might have noticed that the COVID art for this podcast has changed. The website gdpolitics.com also got a redesign. I'm super excited about it and I hope you like it as well. The person responsible for the redesign, Zach Litoff, is actually a podcast listener. He reached out to me, said he liked the podcast but he hated the branding and that he could help me fix it. So I'm hoping to do a substack live with him at some point so you can hear more from him about it and we may even introduce some merch that we have been cooking up. I also realized during this process that I often talk about GDPolitics.com as the place where you can become a paid subscriber, and that is true. A big welcome and thank you to all the recent paid subscribers. We literally couldn't do it without you. GDPolitics.com is also a place where you can go to join the email list so you'll get an alert whenever there's a new episode released or any other news worth sharing, like upcoming live shows. You can also go there to watch videos of the podcast episodes, and those are also on YouTube. Okay, that's my update. Here's the show. Hello and welcome to the GD Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druch and happy Columbus Day to all who celebrate today. Today's episode focuses on something that few Americans and seemingly even few lawmakers in Washington seem particularly preoccupied by the fact that the government is shut down. And given that lack of urgency, how is it actually going to end? After that? We've got something of a grab bag of topics. We talk about the axis of conflict that Democrats are hoping to wage the midterms over that video of Democratic candidate for California Governor Katie Porter bombing an interview that wasn't even particularly hostile. We also look at some polling on free speech and political violence that should give folks cause for optimism and the legal questions at play in President Trump's attempts to send the National Guard to American cities. This is a conversation that Gabe Fleischer and I had last week on Substack Live. Gabe is the author of the newsletter Wake up to Politics. I've talked to him before, so you might remember him, but he started writing his newsletter when he was 9, so he's got a wealth of of knowledge. In any case, relatively little has changed in the shutdown negotiations since we chatted, except one. Note that Trump announced members of the military will continue being paid despite the shutdown. They otherwise would have missed their first paycheck on Wednesday, October 15th. If anything, that removes a pressure point that might have pushed Democrats and Republicans to negotiate. I began by asking Gabe how people are experiencing the shutdown so far. I guess I want to kick things off just by asking you. You know, I was looking at the Google Trends data before we started chatting today, which is like, interest in the Shutdown peaked on October 1st when it went into effect. But then you see interest sort of fall off a cliff. And we haven't heard about lawmakers negotiating very much. We haven't even heard, and maybe this is on the media, all that many stories about things that are actually shut down. You know, the New York Times seems to be doing its regular tracking of our flights delayed or, you know, things like that. But this doesn't feel like a pressure cooker situation like past shutdowns have felt. So if we could just lay the groundwork to understand, like, who is feeling the shutdown right now. What are the actual effects?
- [03:32]
B
Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think that the highest level, the people who are feeling it most closely are federal workers. The federal government is the largest employer in this country. And so, you know, that's already just a huge band of people. That's millions of people who are employed by the federal government and are in the other two categories, neither of which are that enjoyable to be in. Either you're working without pay or you're at home without pay. Either way, not getting a paycheck. Now, importantly, that, you know, the federal government pays people every two weeks. And so the first paycheck that any civilian federal workers will miss is Friday. And then October 15th, we'll see the first paycheck that active duty military members will miss. You know, beyond that, I've written a lot about kind of shutdown law, and really there's not much of it. It's this kind of wild west of, you know, really just whatever the president, whatever the president says is open during a shutdown is open during a shutdown. Which is why I think a lot of people, you know, in some ways, shutdowns kind of let us off easy because I think people like the government shut down. But my life seems to be going just pretty normal. Like, I guess the government doesn't really affect me that much. But the truth is that, you know, essential operations continue just with people not getting paid. So it is true that, you know, most of the ways that we interact most closely with the federal government, you know, continue to chug long in previous shutdowns. Famously, in the 2013 shutdown, the national parks all did close, and that was a way people felt it very closely in the 2018, 2019 shutdown. President Trump did not close the national parks. Now we're in kind of like a middle area where some are closing, some aren't. Kind of open air. Things are mostly staying open, but not all. So that's kind of tricky. But that's obviously one way that people opt in or kind of interacting with the government that gets shut down. That's not. So it is true that the effects are being felt in such a large way. You mentioned flight delays. Know that is kind of a key way that the last shutdown kind of ended. Merch thought to be kind of one of the things that pushed last shutdown towards resolution, which is that, you know, obviously whenever we go to the airport, we're all interacting with TSA agents and air traffic controllers. Those are all essential employees, as they should be. And so they're still working, but none of them are getting paid. And a lot of people do not like to work without pay. And so we saw in the last shutdown with a lot of TSA officers and air traffic controllers calling in sick, so saying, if you're not gonna pay me, I'm not gonna come to work. And so they called him sick. And it was pretty like. It was like almost the next day that, you know, we really started seeing that in a real way. The next day, President Trump kind of folded and felt like that was kind of when the shutdown was getting too. He was the one at that point kind of pushing the shutdown. He felt like it was getting too kind of impact, was getting too widespread that he had to kind of stand down. So you mentioned we're starting to see that now even earlier than we did in the last one, where, you know, we don't know as a fact that a lot of the shortages of air traffic controllers that we've seen at Nashville, seen at a lot of other airports, are due to the shutdown. But I don't think it takes, you know, a rocket scientist to think, you know, why are suddenly all these people not showing up to work? Perhaps it's because we're not paying them. And so, you know, so that's kind of, I think, an impact that we're starting to see. We're seeing flights delays and cancellations, and we'll continue to see that.
- [06:31]
A
I'm curious what other upcoming pressure points might be that would either force Democrats and Republicans to start negotiating on the ACA subsidies or just push Democrats to cave altogether. Now, if we take a look at the polling, we Might not expect that Democrats caving would happen either first or in the short term because it looks like Americans are mostly blaming Republicans and Trump so far, I mean, an average of the polls suggests that by about a 10 point margin, Americans blame Republicans and Trump over Democrats. And that's actually about the same. If you look at the pre shutdown polling and the post shutdown polling, we haven't seen a significant shift in terms of how Americans are understanding, you know, like, who's responsible for this shutdown. And we can talk a little bit more about how the conflict lines have been drawn there and whether the debate is about which party is being intransigent or whether the debate is about health care. Because obviously Democrats want to have this fight over healthcare, but Republicans, if they could get their message together, would want to say, you know, Democrats are being intransigent and the them forcing a shutdown is going to have a negative impact on you and your family, which is maybe a hard, a hard message to sell when you're also saying like, I'm going to do mass layoffs and maybe I won't give you back pay and I'm not going to send money to blue locales anymore. Like you're kind of. Trump is in some ways putting himself in control of the situation while he probably also wants to be sending the message that this is all Democrats fault anyway. Put that to the side for a second. What are, what are some other upcoming pressure points that could force negotiations or somebody folding?
- [08:08]
B
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned, you know, kind of the negotiations over funding and the negotiations over healthcare. I think there's really kind of one deadline for each for the funding. I would say it's October 15th, which as I mentioned before, that's when kind of troops will miss their first paycheck. I do think it's important to note, you know, the last shutdown was the longest shutdown in history, lasted 35 days, but it was only a partial shutdown because, you know, not to go too into the weeds of how this works, but you know, basically what we're dealing with is each year Congress has to pass 12 appropriations. If they don't pass either all 12 or continuing resolution by the new fiscal year, the government shuts down. By the last October 1, 2018, when the last shutdown, the last Trump shutdown started, we had already passed 6 of the appropriations bills and that included the Department of Defense. And so the military was being paid in the last shutdown. They were not affected because about half of at least half of the appropriations bills had already been passed. It was only a partial shutdown. So it's been a long time. And actually, in fact, at all the other previous shutdowns, even if Defense Department hadn't been funded, there was a separate bill passed where both parties would kind of come together to pay the troops last time. Obviously we have several military branches. The Coast Guard is the only one that's actually funded under the homeland Security provisions bill, which actually people remember from the last shot down, that was the bill that was kind of most contentious because that was where immigration funding was funding for the border wall. And so the Coast Guard wasn't funded last. So they did not get paid during the shutdown. That's the only instance at least going back to the 1870s, of members of the military, members of the U.S. armed forces not being paid, working but not being paid. That's the one example is the coast guard in 2019. And so now theoretically, if there's no action by October 15th, we'll see that for all, for Army, Navy, Air Force, the whole military will be going unpaid.
- [10:00]
A
Can we put a finer point on this? What is the concern if the government isn't funded by October 15, that members of the armed forces are going to stop showing up to work as well, or that it's just unpatriotic and lawmakers don't want to be seen as so unpatriotic as to be intransigent enough to not pay the troops?
- [10:19]
B
I think it's much more of a political concern. It's that like, I mean, what kind of better talking point can you imagine, you know, if we're already, you know, as you said, you know, we kind of have this shutdown blame game going on. Doesn't seem like, you know, the Republicans being a little more blamed, but a lot of people are just saying don't know. And as you mentioned with Google Trends data, a lot of people just aren't paying attention to the shutdown. People aren't really noticing. What better talking point can you have them like X party, they're shutting down the governments and our men and women in uniform are not being paid. I mean, it's kind of just like a ready made talking point. It's, you know, if you're trying to get people, you know, kind of emotionally invested in this shutdown, it's kind of, kind of the best case you make. I don't think there's a serious concern that, you know, obviously maybe some would not show up to work. You can't speak writ large. But I think the much more serious Concern is the political one.
- [11:02]
A
So so far, what indication is there that Republicans and Democrats have started talking at all about ending the shutdown? And is it clear whose terms it's on?
- [11:14]
B
Yeah, I mean, there hasn't been much, you know, I was there in the Senate the night before the shutdown started, and I was very struck by the fact that, like, nobody really seemed just like we were talking about voters aren't that worked up at the shutdown. No one in Congress really was either. People were just kind of milling about. They were chatting and Republicans and Democrats were chatting to each other, and no one really seemed to be talking actually about the fact they're about to shut down the U.S. government. And so that was the night before. The next day, they kind of voted again. And then there was it was kind of the only incident that we've seen, the shutdown. There was like this huge kind of bipartisan huddle, a lot of people talking like, oh, maybe they're really going to start negotiating. And there was kind of that shining moment. And then not much. They met for Thai food. Maybe that will kind of grease the wheels. So, you know, there's been some conversations John Federen met with John Thune, but really none that theme to the level of ending this impasse. And just quickly, to answer from your question before the other, obviously, another big part of this conversation is Obamacare subsidies. And the other big deadline there is November 1st, and that's when kind of open enrollment will start under the Affordable Care act for the Affordable Care act exchanges. And so that's Democrats are really kind of that's their kind of deadline they're putting out. We need to have some sort of agreement on the Obamacare subsidies by then. I think you'll frankly, you could kind of argue it either way. I think, you know, obviously this shutdown, there's no question it's made the subs, the kind of enhanced subsidies, a lot more salient than they would have been otherwise. And, you know, I think Republicans, they're taking the line that Democrats have taken during every other previous shutdown, which is like, we, we're happy to talk about these subsidies. Like, we agree that's an issue. That's like what most of the Republicans are saying. But we're not going to do it with a gun to our head. We're not going to do it while the shutdown's still going. So, you know, frankly, I think on one end, maybe the closer we take to November 1, the more likely it is that Republicans will be willing to deal on Health care. But also if the longer the shutdown goes closer to November 1st, it's also possible that is kind of pushing off the eventual date when a health care deal might be decided just because Republicans won't negotiate health care. So we've seen some proposals floated. Susan Collins has been floating kind of an idea. I think kind of eventually there's this expectation that there will be some eventual deal that will kind of, you know, you'll have to give Democrats enough that they'll reopen the government but not give so much that they can say, look, we got the Republicans to negotiate while the government's closed. Something maybe commitment to have a vote on a Obamacare or a commitment to negotiate some sort of kind of, you know, commitment like that is probably where we're driving towards.
- [13:37]
A
Okay, so put the shutdown negotiations to the side for a second. How much of an appetite is there amongst House and Senate Republicans to continue Affordable Care act subsidies? Because on one hand, you could say it's probably in their political interest to make sure that healthcare costs don't rise significantly in the run up to a midterm election where they are the incumbent party in, in both the White House and in both chambers of Congress. And so you might look at Democrats strategy and say, hey, you know, Democrats are throwing you a bone here. Republicans just acquiesce a little bit. Compromise. It'll look good that you're being bipartisan and also you won't get blamed for big increases in terms of the cost of health care. But is that how Republicans are seeing it?
- [14:24]
B
I think some, you know, I mean, I think, yeah. Is there much interest among Republicans in kind of enhancing these Obamacare subsidies, something none of them voted for either in original Obamacare or to enhance them in 2021 or 2020 22? No, this is. Republicans don't like Obamacare. That's something we've known for more than a decade now. But yeah. Is there interest in avoiding this sort of political hit that you're describing? Yes. And, you know, it's really kind of a question of the degree to which Mike Johnson is going to be listening to his most vulnerable members. You know, there is already a bill, even before the shutdown, there was a bill proposed by Jen Kiggins, who's a Republican from Virginia, to extend the subsidies one more year. And that has for. By many of the kind of most vulnerable Republicans in the House, you know, kind of these, a lot of Republicans in these kind of swing districts, they're, they're on board with that, obviously on the Other side, you have, you know, people in the Freedom Caucus who would be very averse to something like this. I think there was interest in at least, you know, looking at it. You know, we know that John Thune has tasked Tommy Tuberville on the Senate side to kind of looking at it. I do think there. There was a high likelihood that some sort of deal, you know, would have come together here. I don't know that would have necessarily been like a clean extension. You know, there's a lot of kind of conversations, the Republican side, about what sort of reforms they can make to the subsidies, whether to kind of, you know, add, you know, the Flex Reduction act. And the American kind of blew away the kind of income limit that had existed for these subsidies before. There's some talk about kind of returning maybe a higher income limit, but still having some sort of income limit. So, you know, you can't have people, you know, there's still some amount of money that people could be earning such that they wouldn't be able to qualify for these subsidies. You know, they think there was interest in. In fiddling with them. But, yeah, I think this was something that very well might have happened. And Donald Trump, as always, is kind of the biggest variable here. It's obviously Republican orthodoxy not to support Obamacare and to. Not to have the government be less involved in health care. But Donald Trump's never been a big fan of Republican orthodoxy. And even we've seen at the meeting with Schumer and Jeffries, reportedly he seems somewhat interested in a health care deal. And then even just a few days ago, he expressed interest, said, we're going to make a deal on this. And then it seems like Mike Johnson kind of called him up and he kind of scurried back and said, no, no, no, not until the shutdown's over. But I do think, certainly, if you remember some of bipartisan negotiations that took place during Donald Trump's first term, he is someone that kind of loves that you have a bipartisan deal, certainly does not like the idea of health care costs going up under his watch, has, frankly, for a Republican, been quite, you know, obviously, with the exception of Medicaid and the one big beautiful bill, has been a lot more averse to kind of cutting entitlements than a lot of other Republicans. And so this is a deal that I could have seen him striking. And then ultimately, you know, that probably would have, you know, entailed him kind of bullying a lot of the Freedom Caucus or conservatives to at least if not vote for it to at Least not, you know, depose Mike Johnson over it or something. So it was something that I think kind of had a fair likelihood of happening and still could.
- [17:12]
A
Yeah. I think one of the reasons that this shutdown feels so different from past shutdowns is, is in the past, when Republicans have shut the government down, they've said, we think it's very important that we address this problem, that we address our, you know, addiction to debt or whatever, and therefore we are going to shut the government down until something is done about. Seems like in this shutdown, Democrats are saying Republicans won't acquiesce to our demands on the aca. So they are shutting the government down instead of sort of claiming the like, we are doing this on the behalf. On behalf of the American people because we think affordable healthcare is that important. And so maybe that's one of the reasons that we're not seeing the same polling trends as we've seen in past shutdowns. Maybe voters have just become used to the idea that it's the Republican Party that shuts the government down. I mean, do you have ideas as to why the polls have consistently, well, not the polls. Why Americans shown in the polls have consistently shown blame for Republicans more than blame for Democrats?
- [18:18]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a lot of the factors that you've brought up. I do think, you know, just as an easy heuristic for most Americans, you know, who is the party that likes government and who's the party that doesn't. And people think, oh, the Republicans, they always like to shut the government down. They don't go for. And we also know not just that's not just the Republicans historically, that's people thinking who over in the last year has been trying to defund government programs and who's been, you know, laying off government workers. And I just do think the Republicans are what pops into their head. And then there's also the dynamic you also noted, which also separates the shutdown from others, that the party that's fighting the shutdown also seems to somewhat enjoy it, or at least elements of the party do and are kind of actively trying to make it worse and try to be hard on government officials. So I think that kind of muddies the blame, too. And then, yeah, what you noted that for the first time, we do see the parties. Maybe not the first time, but to a unique degree, the parties are actually contesting the blame themselves, which I do think just encourages voters to kind of line up with their parties. And I do think it's somewhat of an Odd dynamic because we saw a lot of conversation leading up to this shutdown. There was a lot of Democrats saying the Democrats need to make this some big attentional event and they need to focus attention on Trump and the Democrats need to fight. And it is kind of weird because this health care deadline, it's very real and there are real consequences from that. The Democrats demand overspending much less likely to be fulfilled, but are also a very real complaint that they have that they might be striking a deal for them being taken away. At the end of the day, we all know the real reason that this shutdown is happening is for Chuck Schumer for Democrats to kind of satisfy base. And so it's this odd dynamic where at once they're only doing this so they get the blame or really credit from their base, but then at the same time are kind of so afraid of kind of swing voters blaming them that it's kind of like, wink, wink to our base, this is us. But then to everyone else, no, no, no, this isn't us at all. And so I think it's just kind of like these very confusing messenger dynamics going flying in all directions.
- [20:11]
A
Well, okay, not to say like Democrats strategy is working because I know that's never been a popular message to deliver. But like, on the one hand, isn't this more savvy than what Republicans would have done? In a sense, because usually the party that is getting more blame, Republicans will end up caving because they worry about their standing with the American public, because they're the ones getting blamed. They don't want to be seen as overly intransigent or being responsible for all of the negative impacts of a shutdown, like folks not getting paychecks, ultimately having flight delays, not being able to access national parks and the like. But in this case, and I think Democrats love polls. I mean, I say this as somebody who's, who's covered polling for over a decade at this point. And if the polls showed that Democrats were getting blamed more than Republicans, I think Democrats would be kind of freaking out. But because the polls show that voters are blaming Republicans more, they feel like they've got it pretty good. And then when it comes to health care terrain, that's way better for them even than the shutdown blame game. Right. Like we've seen in recent. I'm looking at an NBC poll right now where it's 3/4 of Americans want Congress to extend ACA subsidies, including a majority of Republicans and a majority of Republicans who identify as MAGA Republicans.
- [21:31]
B
Right.
- [21:31]
A
And put aside the 92% of Democrats and 82% of independents who say they want their subsidies extended. So, like, whether you can sort of pick here, which access are you going to fight on? Are you going to fight over intransigence and shutting the government down and sort of not serving the American public? Well, it looks like Democrats are winning there. Are you going to fight over health care and whether or not you want to make health care affordable for the American people through Obamacare subsidies? You can have a long technical debate about whether those subsidies are good long term. Like, the subsidies don't address the fact that health care is way too expensive. It just subsidizes the way too expensive health care and sort of kicks the can down the road. So obviously that can be a whole other policy discussion. And maybe if Republicans wanted to make the ACA subsidies less popular, they could engage in, in that kind of a debate. But at this point, like Democrats are just winning on whichever axis the conflict is playing out. So is it Republicans who end up.
- [22:27]
B
Caving ibs, I would say, like, and I'm curious to hear what you think too. Like, to me, I think you're exactly right about the polling. And I think in some ways Democrats, yeah, I think they picked an issue, they picked a smart issue. And I think definitely, if you look at past shutdowns, Obamacare was not super popular in 2013, but was not as unpopular as these subsidies are popular now. And you see same with the border wall 2019. So they picked a smart issue and they've gotten lucky because Trump has really not messaged this well at all and has been kind of flipping back and for whether the shutdown is good or bad. So I think you're right. I still think it depends who you define Cave to me, the most likely end of this shutdown is the same most likely end of the shutdown at all. I think one thing that doesn't get a lot of talk about, we talk a lot about the shots in the 90s with Gingrich and Clinton talked about it, the Ted Cruz shutdown in 2013, the Trump shutdown. There's 35 days. There was also a three day shutdown in the beginning of 2018. That was another time. The Democrats actually that was Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi who pushed that shutdown. And what did they get in exchange for it? You know, they were trying to get daca, they're trying to get the DREAM act passed. They were trying to get, you know, protections for immigrants who, you know, came here illegally as children, as minors. And basically what they got is the concession. And that shutdown after three days was a commitment that like, you know, a DREAM act proposal would be voted on in the Senate. And I've always thought, and I continue to think something like that is the most likely kind of end here, is that the Republicans caving. The Democrats will certainly say that. It depends how you kind of quantify it. I don't think we're going to see at the end of the shutdown like a signed, sealed and delivered deal of like how Obamacare subsidies, if they are going to be extended, you know, that they will be extended or how it's going to be structured. I don't think Republicans are going to be willing to negotiate that much in the weeds of this while the shutdown is still going on. But, you know, some sort of commitment like There was in 2018 to hold a vote or to hold negotiations or to have the Republican CR would go into, you know, mid November, maybe we agree to have a CR that is much shorter term and then that's kind of the new deadline for like Obamacare subsidies. Deal with the recognition, as we Talked about that November 1st is you're kind of at the beginning of the enrollment date when they really need to have that kind of issue settled. And so I think it all depends how you define caving. They'll both message it both ways. The Democrats will say they got Republicans cave. Republicans will say, you know, we didn't actually agree to health care, we just agreed to talk about it later, which we were always going to do. So I still think that's the likeliest end here because I still don't think Republicans are going to give away the whole store and, you know, kind of strike a whole deal on this, you know, until the shutdown's over.
- [24:56]
A
I want to talk about some of the other things that are going on in politics, but just to wrap this up, Democrats aren't actually just asking for an extension of the Affordable Care act subsidies. They're also asking to fund Medicaid to the tune of a trillion dollars that had that is projected to be cut with the new restrictions going in place for work requirements and the like. Also restore funding for public broadcasting and, you know, sort of make it harder for Trump to not spend federally appropriated dollars. We haven't touched on any of that. Is that because there is zero expectation that Republicans are going to acquiesce to Democrats demands at all on any of it? I mean, it seems, it seems obvious that that's the case. But I'm just curious if your perspective is any different.
- [25:42]
B
Yes. No, I would say that's the case. And I would say, you know, the Democrats have made the Obamacare subsidies the most salient part of this. And that was savvy on their part because, you know, if you look at, for example, again, to go back to the Ted Cruz shutdown in 2013, the ask basically asking the Democratic administration to undo their most signature accomplishment of the presidency so far, and that was just plainly not going to happen. So you're shaming down the government over something that there was no chance of happening. And I think that's pretty much the same here. Asking them to undo any part of the one big beautiful bill or the rescissions, that's asking them to undo a core accomplishment of the Trump presidency. Not going to happen. Not a chance. This longer thing is something where it's much more, the battle lines within the Republican Party are much more checkered and there's kind of much more willingness to do it within the party. It's much more, you know, it's much more likely that, that, that a deal could be had there. So I think that that is why that Democrats have kind of pushed that to the top of the heap. But, yeah, everything else, really, no chance.
- [26:40]
A
I think we're starting to see the formation of the conflict that Democrats want to try to create going into the midterms, which is you're giving tax cuts to billionaires. And as a result, you know, the cost of healthcare for Americans is going up. And so it's a combination of something of a, either a resurrected or a newer axis of conflict for Democrats, which is like, or maybe a mainstreaming of the Bernie Sanders axis of conflict, which is like, you know, we want to fight the billionaire class, we want to fight the elites. They're screwing over the little guy sort of economic populism with something that has been a safe space for Democrats for decades, which is healthcare. Right. We think Back to like 2018, it was all about healthcare. The Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearing, all about healthcare. Democrats sort of have decided that when in doubt, talk about healthcare. Seems like the case in the shutdown as well. But you also now have a lot of Democrats who are either running for reelection in 2026 or running in primaries who want to talk all about economic populism. And so obviously, health care is part of the cost of living. But I'm curious how you see this progressing. Like, in some ways, can you, can it be all about both? Like, I'm here in New York City where we're about to have a New York mayoral election. You don't hear Mamdani talking all that much about healthcare. You really hear him talking about the price of goods, the price of housing and the like. And it is a little bit of a different message. Like, like one thing you've been hearing Democrats talk about forever versus another thing that feels a little more like urgent gas, electricity prices, the grocery store and the like. You know, a lot of, obviously a lot of Americans get their healthcare from private insurance or they already get it from the government. So the people and, and obviously Democrats are making the pitch that we're not just speaking to Americans who get their insurance through the individual market, because if the individual market goes haywire, costs are going to go up for everyone. Got it? But I am curious whether healthcare remains the main message of the 2026 midterms or if it's more of a pivot to the corrupt billionaires and sort of cost of living economic populism that Bernie Sanders brought to the fore has been sort of simmering. And then folks like Mamdani have sort of burst onto the scene with a, with a pretty strong message on it.
- [29:05]
B
I mean, I think a Democratic politician or strategist would say that they're just, they're not mutually contradictory. I mean, I think, you know, if you look at, you know, New York City, Merrill race, I think you're right. I don't think healthcare has been the most salient issue there. There's not so much the mayor of New York City can do about rising healthcare costs. You know, that just is not much of a, of a local city issue. You know, it's somewhat of a state issue and very much a federal issue. And so I think, you know, I think most Democrats would say, you know, it's not contradictory. And I think to the extent you're kind of not pitting it against, but, you know, putting intention with the Bernie Sanders approach. There's few politicians more associated with, you know, campaigning on universal health care than Bernie Sanders.
- [29:42]
A
Do you think Democrats go there to single payer universal health care?
- [29:46]
B
No, I don't think so. And I don't think they need to. I mean, you know, they're running against Trump. So I think, you know, just like you saw in 2018, think all they're running to do is protect Obamacare, which, as we've talked about, has not, I think has, there's been, as these kind of subsidies depict, has not been a perfect program and has not been fully affordable as, as the name would suggest. But it's a lot more popular than it was, you know, the time of its adoption. It is still a popular thing to be protecting. So it's fighting for Obamacare and fighting against, you know, it makes it very easy when, when the party running against has actually tried to cut healthcare, as they've done, you know, with Medicaid. And so I think it's much more focused on those programs not going big, but only to make the case that I do think talk about cost of living, I think can very much include health care. And I don't know that that's contradictory. And I think a lot of Democrats look at the 2024 election correctly as having been about just costs writ large. People felt life was getting way too expensive and punished the incumbent for that. Obviously, I think a lot of people still think that American life is way too expensive, healthcare included. And the Democrats hope that they'll again punished inclements for that. One other thing I'll say another kind of interesting axis of this, I think is you mentioned the Democrats that kind of message, obviously a very economically populous message the Democrats are kind of leaning into, which I think is a savvy move. It's also I think especially interesting to watch because obviously to some degree it kind of co ops parts of Trump's populism and really makes the Republican Party so uncomfortable. And I think you see that most closely in March until the Green who just came out the other day in support of these Obamacare subsidies. And you see Donald Trump too is somewhat interested clearly in kind of extending these subsidies, which obviously puts them in a big tension with Mike Johnson or with Ted Cruz or kind of more traditional Obama era Tea Party Republicans. And so I think what that move also does, it kind of makes this really fascinating split within the Republican coalition that suddenly there's no better issue than if you can both unite your own party and also kind of make the other party kind of fight amongst themselves. And I think they're all Lombardi is also at a moment where they don't really know it's easier because they generally just kind of fall in line behind Trump, which kind of makes a lot of these kind of inter party squabbles somewhat easier. But they're also in a moment where there's a lot of competing factors of the party and a lot of people trying to push in different directions. And I think this healthcare issue, which even as of the last Trump administration really wasn't one, it kind of now suddenly is.
- [32:15]
A
Okay, well, we've been talking about a place where Democrats are on more Solid footing. Do you want to talk about a place where one Democrat in particular is on some pretty faulty footing?
- [32:24]
B
You know, I do.
- [32:25]
A
Okay. What happened to the Twitter X algorithm that made it entirely that interview that Katie Porter did with a CBS affiliate in California where like, how would you describe what happened?
- [32:40]
B
I would say. Well, I would say first for people who haven't seen it, they're talking about, you know, obviously Governor Newsom's push to kind of redraw the California congressional districts. I'd say the reporter to kind of, to steal a phrase from you, perhaps use kind of a bad use of polling or bad use of data by kind of asking her this question about why she, why Porter, you know, if she's the Democratic candidate for governor, will need, you know, whether she would need Trump voters to win. And Porter's said she loved, which, you know, is as a matter of kind of political analysis, it is probably true that there will be a Democratic and.
- [33:14]
A
Republican candidate, although not necessarily because California does top two. So it could be two Democrats.
- [33:20]
B
It's not guaranteed, but, but according to the polling, it's the most likely scenario. And it's true that I went back and looked the last three governor elections, elections were basically 60, 40, just like the presidential. So Katie Porter's kind of right. She probably doesn't need Trump voters, but you're never saying you don't need voters. Like, that's just not something politicians ever say. So she kind of responded to that question by saying, what are you talking about? I don't need Trump voters at all. And then basically the reporter, very surprised to hear that, just kept asking follow ups, which is what reporters do. And Katie Porter did not seem to be able to answer follow up questions. And she kind of freaked out and she threatened to end the interview and.
- [33:59]
A
From what I understand, did end the interview, although maybe not. I didn't watch all the rest.
- [34:03]
B
I was trying to watch. They posted the full 30 minute episode and I didn't watch the whole thing, which interviewed all the candidates, but I was trying to watch it to try to figure out the answer to that. It seems to me like it did go on. The kind of whole thing is spliced so it seems like she didn't end it, but clearly like she made it. You know, she says to the reporter, I want this to be a pleasant conversation. She made it way testier than it ever had to be by taking over, you think fair questions and just I.
- [34:28]
A
Don'T want to have an unhappy experience with you. And the reporter goes, I don't want to have an unhappy experience with you either. This gives us an excuse to talk about the California gubernatorial race. And then we can come back to Katie Porter specifically, which is you mentioned that the polls suggest it will likely be a Republican and Democrat. Ultimately, I think there's good reason to expect that just because there are enough Republicans in California to get a Republican into the top two. But the polls really don't have any sort of clear aren't sending a clear message to me at this point. I mean, Katie Porter does lead, but she leads by a small like a relatively has a relatively small lead. Then there are several Republicans and several Democrats. I think the most sort of threatening Democrat for Katie Porter is not yet in the race. And that would be Alex Padilla, the senator from California. Right now it's Javier Becerra, who's the former Health and Human Services secretary under Joe Biden, who I think is the second in line amongst the Democrats who are running in California. And then for Republicans, I'm not particularly familiar with them as somebody who's based in New York, but Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, and then there was Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. And in some ways this race is a little bit muddled because the number one person who would have been, who would have cleared the field, Kamala Harris, decided not to run. That's sort of the field as it is, if you are to believe the betting markets, which usually overreact to moments like this. Katie Porter's odds of becoming governor of the next governor of California basically halved just because of this interview. So that's one thing. Sort of how this changes the race for governor, if you think it changes the race for governor at all. But also sort of Katie Porter obviously lost her bid for Senate in California after all, after this video got posted online, a bunch of folks have resurfaced claims of how she's not professional, how she has a much higher than average turnover rate for congressional staffers when she was in the House and that there, you know, these complaints are a long time coming and everyone in the Democratic Party knew that. But now you can see it sort of in full. Both you do you think all of this, you know, changes things in California as far as the gubernatorial race is concerned?
- [36:51]
B
I think, yeah, I don't, I don't know if one interview, I don't know, I think I'm like you kind of skeptical that like one interview will have kind of a seasonic change. But I think, you know, you mentioned Padilla, which I think is a Very important point.
- [37:01]
A
Like he's getting in now. Like he's probably going to get in now.
- [37:03]
B
Like if it has any effect to kind of push him closer to the race, I think that is, you know, kind of important. I do think, if anything, it makes salience to a lot of Democrats across the country the fact that California, it's the largest state, it's a Democratic controlled state. There are I'm sure hundreds of Democratic politicians down the state. And yet I do think with Kamala Harris not in the race, there's been some dissatisfaction with kind of a not super impressive bench running for governor. Obviously you have Porter, who is not super popular within the party, Becerra, who you mentioned a little bit tainted by, I would say, his association with the Biden administration and you know, the border.
- [37:41]
A
Crisis on the like. Yeah, right.
- [37:43]
B
Exactly, exactly. And so I think that is probably not the best. I think neither one of the, I don't think Democrats look at either one of these two kind of front running candidates as like this is who you want in kind of the largest state as kind of the person who will be most kind of elevated as this kind of oppositional figure to Donald Trump. So I do think kind of pushing Padilla further into the race. And then you mentioned some of the other dissatisfaction about her. I do think something like this, you know, in the same way that like I don't want to like this is these are different situations. But like we can imagine scenarios in the past when like we've seen like a member of Congress, something like trip and fall or freeze up and then suddenly something that was kind of an unspoken of secret, suddenly then you have reporters start calling around to people and suddenly this lawmaker that you started hearing nothing about, suddenly you're hearing all about, you know, all these aides off the record or on background saying, you know, oh, they've actually been having issues like this for a long time. And suddenly you see kind of, you know, you know, stories kind of starting to come out because one incident really puts something in the public and the reporters start digging about it. I would not be surprised if you see an effect like that here where suddenly you have a lot more people calling around to people in the Porter universe and a lot more Porter aids willing to talk. And there's a lot of California Democrats that are not big fans of her. So if it does have the effect of just like spinning up a negative press cycle about her, I could also see that happening.
- [38:59]
A
I think that is important to keep in mind what you said about there being California Democrats who may not love Katie Porter in the sense that California is an extremely expensive state to run in. It's a pretty establishment e state. You need to be able to raise a lot of money and you need to be able to reach a lot of sort of different kinds of Democrats in the state. Katie Porter, I mean, Katie. One of Katie Porter's biggest allies is like, Elizabeth Warren, for example, who may, I don't know, may have some sway in California. But when you think of, like, okay, who's Gavin Newsom gonna throw his support behind? Who is Nancy Pelosi gonna throw her support behind? Like, she was pretty aggressive in supporting Adam Schiff over Katie Porter in that Senate race. And so when it comes to, like, the donors and the establishment politicians and sort of how you need to line up support in that state in order to make it over the finish line in a, you know, it's not a Democratic primary, it's a top two primary. But you could see there that being an issue, if behind the scenes, it's like, oh, Democrats don't really like her. They don't enjoy working with her like this, probably. If this has been a problem, then this is no news to Nancy Pelosi, for example, today.
- [40:05]
B
Can I ask you a question? I'm curious. Like, you know, I think one thread of conversation, because it's been all over my X feed too, and I've been seeing a lot of people kind of suggesting. Well, I think a lot of people kind of have the question of, like, how does someone get this high up in electoral politics? She was a congresswoman in a swing district and obviously ran a Senate campaign unsuccessful, but ran a statewide campaign before. How do you get this hyper politics and be that bad at interviews? And I've seen a lot of people suggesting that this is not just a Katie Porter problem, but like a Democratic Party problem that, like, the party churns out these politicians, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, who can't seem to really stand up to not even hostile questioning, just like normal journalism questioning. Do you buy that, that that's kind of a problem the party has? And if so, like, where that comes from?
- [40:50]
A
You know, I have thought a little bit about this, and I think it's also an American media problem. So sometimes I do British media and, you know, I'll be waiting in the wings to talk to the BBC or something like that, and they'll be interviewing a politician. And, you know, whether it's like the BBC or Sky News or whatever, they have Tories on. They have labor on they have Greens, they have Lib Dems, they're roasting them. Right. They're giving them hard interviews and it's impressive. Right. And, and the politicians come to play and they come prepared and they're ready to get into a debate when they go on air. And you oftentimes see politicians from different parties sitting at the same roundtable debating each other. That is so rare in American media today. And like, I know there's this whole caricature of the crossfire being a little bit silly and like, are we actually accomplishing anything by having people just sort of yell at each other? But like, like done correctly, this is how you further debate. And like in some ways we've, we haven't been having very many policy debates where it could be maybe super useful to have that kind of a crossfire situation. But I think a couple things have happened. The mainstream media is not, does not like challenge Democratic politicians enough when sort of we or they do interviews with them. I guess I'm not part of the mainstream media anymore. I, ABC shut FiveThirtyEight down back in March. But, and a lot of that can also be access related. It's not just because American mainstream media is totally libbed out. It's because they want those politicians to come back again in the future. And Democrats have very thin skins and they expect, and their staffers expect whenever they go on that you're going to be like basically nice to them and not ask them really hard questions and the like and, and they get really pissed off when they don't get asked easy questions. Republicans are a little bit more used to being asked challenging questions in mainstream media environments. But I would say Republicans and there are like obviously Republican attack dogs out there as there are Democrat attack dogs. You know, like Pete Buttigieg can go in hostile territory and answer hard questions. Gavin Newsom can go in hostile territory and answer hard questions. Ted Cruz can go in hostile territory and answer hard questions. There are definitely Republicans and Democrats alike who can go do an adversarial interview and sort of be comfortable in that space. But I think like a lot of Republicans are just doing Fox News. You're you. It's like the more sort of talented, quick witted Republicans who are going to go on CNN and NBC and the like or people who kind of like, you know, I mean Trump goes and does an interview and he seems to be having a good time. Like I wouldn't necessarily say that he's like the, the best at winning a debate in an adversarial interview. He'll maybe just shut it down or sort of start attacking the journalist in personal terms or whatever. It may be like, oh, you just don't like me or you're just sort of partisan or whatever. But I think American media in general doesn't create environments where politicians are held to account all that often because you can either just talk to your echo chamber or if you're doing a non echo chambery kind of show, concerned about getting access in the future, drives a desire to have like, as Katie Porter put it, not have an unhappy experience today. And that's, that's unfortunate because like, I would think that if you get into politics, it's because you like debating ideas and you want to be in those kinds of situations. And when I watch the BBC or Sky News or whatever, the, everyone involved seems to be kind of enjoying it. So yeah, I don't know that that part of American politics has, has atrophied. I've been, I've, I've repeated myself a little bit here. But do you have other thoughts on this?
- [44:33]
B
No, I, I think that that's a great point and I think you're absolutely right. I, I, yeah, it was shocking to me to see how unprepared she was for an adversari. And I think, yeah, I can't say I'm like an expert on the interviews that Katie Porter's done in the past, but yeah, if she's only ever gone on Rachel Maddow and you know, done those sorts of interviews, then it somewhat makes sense. And I did see, I think the closest thing or one kind of testing ground that we do have for politicians. Here is one thing that I love. One of my favorite things about kind of covering Washington. When you kind of go to the Capitol and members of Congress, they cannot go from their offices to the floor of Congress without passing hordes of reporters. And I think the smart ones kind of take advantage of that and look at that as kind of media training because like they get good at kind of that give and take of with journalists and then others just kind of shuttle straight to the floor. And I saw Andrew Solander, who's reported Axios, tweeting today, Katie Porter was one member who was known for always ignoring those sorts of hallway questions. And yeah, I think you're probably right is when you kind of shut yourself out, that sort of adversarial questioning, you get so unprepared for it. We saw that with Amala Harris, Tim Walls, who just kind of refused to give interviews and then suddenly like, why are they so bad at interviews. Well, maybe it's because they rarely gave any. And you know, we know at one point in the vice presidency Harris gave. I forget who she was giving interview to, but the one where she was the border really poorly and then she didn't do another one for like a year because of how poorly it went. Whereas I think the lesson from that is you do more and then you get better at them. But I think that's a great point you make about kind of the difference between the kind of expectations here versus other countries where that's just kind of the bread and butter of being a polit. You're going to expect that sort of adversarial question.
- [46:13]
A
Yeah. I want to talk about a couple other things before we sign off today. And one is a fantastic piece that actually you wrote on Substack this morning, which gets at two things that we've been talking a lot about in the wake of Charlie Clark's assassination, which is political violence and free speech. And I know that, that I'm bringing up a somber topic here, but your piece was actually quite optimistic and sort of positive in the way that it describes Americans relationship to political violence, which is seeing it as overwhelmingly negative, and free speech, which is seeing it as overwhelmingly positive. And you put a lot more numbers to it. So I want to give you the floor and you can talk about it a little bit. And, and I have also been looking at some of the data on political violence as how Americans view political violence as well. And I'm happy to jump in. Yeah.
- [47:09]
B
I mean, you know, this is a piece that was kind of percolating in my head for a while, actually, and I was planning to write it closer to after Kirk's assassination, but then the kind of shutdown came in and I kind of had to put it to the side. But I did think it was important to kind of return to. Because I think, I mean, and obviously Kirk's assassination was so awful and it was awful to see in front of some small corners people who were kind of actively kind of celebrating it. And I think think we did. I think it became, or I think the kind of messaging about it became that it was this kind of evidence of this kind of very. And it was in some ways, obviously, you know, of the kind of divisiveness of our political culture. No one denies that that exists. But I also think it's important to go back to that moment and look, you know, whether it truly did kind of divide us more, as I think was being said, or perhaps you Know, one thing that we have noticed and the researchers have researched this is actually, I think there's this great fear that, like, political violence will beget political violence. And obviously, I think there's a degree to which that's been true. But actually. And this was true when it was studied after the Trump assassination attempt. And now actually political violence, support for political violence, at least in those two examples, dipped after examples of political violence, which I think all of us would agree is a really positive thing to see that people are looking at these kind of, you know, kind of gruesome acts of violence and actually, you know, liking political violence less. And most importantly, that's coming from already a very low level. And so I used data from the Polarization Research Lab, which is out of Dartmouth, and, yeah, and basically, they're finding that before the Kirk assassination, it was basically 97 to 3Americans opposed political violence. And that's when you ask the question in very specific terms. And a lot of polls do kind of overplay the support for political violence by asking it really broadly. But, you know, violence is a very specific thing. You know, as I wrote in my piece this morning, you can't just violence someone, you know, like violence. You either, you. You're asking about specific. When you ask about specific acts, whether you would actually murder someone or support murdering someone, people have very negative reactions before the Kirk assassination, 97 to 3, when asking about a specific case of partisan murder. And now that's down to 99 to 1. And then, as you said, I was also writing about, I think, another huge fundamental issue that really kind of came up after that assassination was these questions around free speech. And we saw the Trump administration trying to really kind of quell on political dissent and silence dissent and even silence people who are criticizing Kirk and people who are making questionable comments about the assassination. And I do think it kind of went by with a little bit, not enough kind of attention, the fact that really, ultimately, Jimmy Kimmel, as we know, came back on air, and we know that the FCC commissioner, he had threatened to hold broadcast licenses if that were to happen. But so far, Kimmel's back, and the FCC isn't really doing anything. And that's in large part because there was a lot of Republican senators who really spoke really vocally against Brendan Carr doing that in what was really a kind of rare, perhaps one of the most prominent examples of a lot of Republican senators really taking something the Trump administration was doing and saying, that is going too far. We do not support that. And really, those Republican senators, they won and the Trump administration did back down. And once again, that was something that's supported by polling data. I pulled a poll from YouGov that is basically the political violence of 99:1. And this is like 85:7 in terms of people who support the Trump administration silencing political dissent after the assassination. So these are two very basic principles. So perhaps it's kind of easy to dismiss that they're so supported. But I do think we've heard a lot of people last week saying they're not as broadly supported as they are. And I do think it's important to remember that these are two ideas that Americans still really overwhelmingly oppose political violence and really oppose kind of government intervention into free speech.
- [50:55]
A
Yeah. And I think, as you suggested, getting into the details of some of the questions being asked does put a finer point on how Americans feel about this stuff. I mean, in the polling that you looked at, there's also some comparative polling between the United States and other countries. And you see, when you ask, like, the specific question, you know, are you okay with other people denigrating, like, your religion? Like, is it okay for other people to, like, denigrate your religion in public life or whatever? Or should they be allowed not is it okay? It's do they have the right to. Americans are alone as being the most supportive of that right of anybody that was. This is across all different kinds of, like, Western democracies as well as non Western democracies. Americans stand apart in terms of how much they, you know, a clear majority of Americans saying that people have the right to speak poorly of sort of the religion that I practice or what. And then it was also like, talk about minorities in denigrating to whatever. Like, it's not things that you think are good, but things that, you know, free speech allows nonetheless. So I thought that was an important point. And then also when it comes to how we talk about support for political violence, and you said, right, you can't just violence somebody. If you're going to pull this responsibly, you have to ask, like, what exactly is it that Americans are supporting if they say they're supporting political violence? And there's been a couple different, different research projects on this that have found those sort of simple polls that will suggest that somewhere in the range of 20% of Americans support political violence. Way overstated. So, first of all, it's part of a litany of questions. And people will very quickly just go through and say, yes, no, yes, no, yes. When you stop and you sort of impress upon people what it is that they're answering. You get fewer Americans supporting political violence. But then also, when you break it out, into what kind of violence are you saying that you support? Like. Like, is it. You break a barrier at a protest, that's. That's violence, but that's not killing somebody. And so it's important to break those things out. Like, yes, we don't support destruction of property also. That is, I think we can say this, not as bad as political assassination. And so when you get to actual political assassination, it's almost nobody in America. Not almost nobody. I mean, obviously, 1% of a country of 350 million, like, and all it. And all it takes is one. And so, like, we see. We see the repercussions of the. All it takes is one sort of reality. But the important piece in all of this is when Americans, when Democrats believe that Republicans support political violence, they themselves are more likely to support political violence. And when Republicans believe that Democrats support political violence, they themselves are likelier to support political violence. So when you sort of telegraph this misperception of how much Americans support political violence, violence across the country, it's quite. It can have quite deleterious effects in further, in normalizing views that violence is okay and making people sort of more hateful and fearful of each other. And it's actually, it's not just when it comes to political violence. On all kinds of questions, we see that Americans have real misperceptions of each other, you know, how intensely opposite partisans sort of believe their views or how extreme they might be. And so I think in this moment, sort of taking the time to correct some of that stuff is really beneficial to the country as a whole.
- [54:24]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think the perception piece that you hit on is the really important piece of it. You know, if you. So as we said, you know, basically, it's less than 1% of either party that actually, when you kind of read out an incident of, like, someone murdering someone else, you know, because of partisan politics, it's, you know, less than 1% of either party that supports it. But then if you ask Democrats or Republicans how much of the other party would support, you know, someone doing this from their side, it's a third. Both. That's the average response. Both, you know, is Democrats think that 33% of Republicans will support it. And it's the same. Republicans think 33%, on average of Democrats will. Will support it. It's such a huge gap from what the real number is. And I think you're right. We see this in political Violence. And in a lot of other places, if I can give one plug to people that there's a website called PerceptionGap US, and they ask these questions on a whole range of issues of what percent of Democrats do you think support defunding the police? Or what percent of Republicans do you think support ending same sex marriage? Or all sorts of questions like this. And you can kind of take it and test your own perception about kind of the other party. And then you see at the end how much people's average responses differ from what the other party actually says. And these gaps are huge. And I do think that's a huge kind of corruption at the center of our politics. Just something that really, when we are kind of having political debates, we're having these debates with these kinds of caricatures of the other side and in some ways caricatures that are true of, of the kind of political elites, not in terms of the violence thing, but in terms of these other kind of policy questions that are sometimes true of the politicians, but are not at all true of kind of rank and file Democratic and Republican voters. I think that has had really negative effects on our politics and our political discourse. But, yeah, there's no question, there's no more kind of terrifying way it could have an impact than in this violence question where, like, it's not that hard to imagine if it's true that Democrats think a third of Republicans be willing to put violence and vice versa, that one or the other are gonna think, oh, well, we have to do it first. If the other side is composed of one third of really violent people, when actually it's composed of 0.5% violent people, that is a really kind of concerning misperception to take hold.
- [56:44]
A
Yeah. I want to make sure we get to one more topic before we close out here, and it would be something of a preview, I think, of your newsletter tomorrow, and that is National Guard deployments in American cities. I think we're mostly right now focused on Portland and Chicago in particular, and the legality of it. Right. I mean, when Trump deployed the National Guard to California, California obviously sued. The courts determined that the National Guard had been used in ways that were not accepted in militaristic ways against American civilians, that were not acceptable. But they didn't force the National Guard to leave California. They just said if they're going to stay, they have to be sort of protecting federal assets, like federal buildings or ice or something like that. So Trump has sort of taken this idea and I think it is maybe trying to apply it in other cities and maybe even push beyond what the court said in California, which is, okay, we're sending the National Guard in to defend federal buildings from protesters or what have you and protect ICE agents. But we've seen, again, that there are some challenges here and that the, the courts in Portland suggested that the Oregon National Guard could not be used as Trump had wanted to be used. You have been digging into the, the legal complexities of all of this. Where are we right now and sort of, how do you perceive this going forward as Trump pushes harder on Chicago and Portland?
- [58:13]
B
Yeah, this is one of, one of a line of kind of cases that I would say I've been kind of tracking really closely in the newsletter all year. I've been calling them Humpty Dumpty cases, which is obviously kind of a little humorous, but they are serious cases, coming from the kind of line in Alice in Wonderland where Humpty Dumpty says a word, means what I say it means. And kind of the question being, does the President have those sort of Humpty Dumpty powers when he says a national emergency exists? Does a national emergency exist? Or does there have to be some amount of, some fact pattern proven that's obviously very important. In the tariff case, you know, when the President says that trade deficits cause an emergency, is that, you know, just vis a vis, is that an emergency? Or, you know, does there have to be some proof of that? And so that's kind of the question here is, you know, there's a few different laws that allow. Most famously is the Insurrection act, which requires there to be the President to say there's an insurrection. He has not invoked that yet, but, you know, has invoked kind of basically laws saying if the President feels that, you know, the laws, that the laws of the United States cannot be enforced, you know, with kind of the normal law enforcement, then you're allowed to kind of send in the National Guard to enforce the laws. And kind of the question in these cases is, does the President, you know, have that power to just. If he says the laws can't be enforced in this case, he's saying that, you know, because these protests we've seen in Portland and Chicago and LA have kind of prevented ICE from carrying out immigration arrests. You know, the question is, is that just the case because the President says so. And it's interesting, you know, I was asked the other day, I was talking to someone and they asked me what I thought the Supreme Court might rule on this if it eventually goes up to them. And the honest answer is it is A little bit hard to say, just because there is no recent precedent at all at the Supreme Court for any cases, anything to do with this. So I've been trying to dig in, what precedent does exist, what maybe they could look to. And it's very much, you know, it gives us no insight into what these nine justices will do because we're talking about cases from the 1800s. But it is pretty interesting, the case that I've been looking into that is kind of the most recent case, kind of to ask this question of, you know, where, you know, is it solely up to the president when you're sending a National Guard? It's this case called Luther v. Borden. But it's basically from this incident that I honestly did not know about. Do you know about this that there was an incident where Rhode island had two competing governments set up? Basically?
- [60:36]
A
No, I did not know about this.
- [60:37]
B
I didn't either. It's called Doors Rebellion. And basically this guy named Doar, he set up his own government of Rhode island, and there was kind of two governors who were laying claim to Rhode island at the same time. And kind of the question was whether John Tyler, who was president at the time, could send in the National Guard to basically make peace. It was basically like a Rhode island civil war that I had never heard of. And basically in that case, which is from 1849, so it's a long time ago, but it was basically the ruling of the court that the president did have these sort of Humpty Dumpty powers, as I've called them, that, you know, if the president feels that this was based off a predecessor law to the current National Guard statute, but a very similar statute that basically, so it's slightly different language, but basically, if the president made that sort of determination, then it was within his powers. And it was basically the court saying, we don't have a role here. We can't kind of check the President here. And so that's kind of what I'll be writing on tomorrow, is some of the precedents that do exist. Obviously, hard to say if this does go up to the court, court, ultimately, if they would feel the same way. I do think it's worth noting that in several cases we've seen so far this year, not just that, I think, as a lot of people know, we've seen the court rule in favor of Trump several times, but very specifically, we've seen them kind of, you know, creating a jurisprudence around the idea, not just in Trump v. US but also in the Pocket Rescissions case recently. You know, that there are certain, and this isn't, this is an idea that preexists this current court, but we've seen them really, you know, upholding it, that, you know, there are certain kind of areas of a president's power, foreign affairs, military, those sorts of areas where a president's power is at its peak, which is an idea that comes more immediately from Robert Jackson, kind of his concurrence in the case called Youngstown. But what we've seen the Roberts court really lean into this idea that, yeah, if we're talking about kind of foreign affairs and military, that's between the President and Congress, and especially the President, if Congress has delegated power to him, we're going to give him a lot of deference and we're not really going to get involved here there. But, but, but these are somewhat novel questions. So it's kind of the question is whether that would extend even to kind of domestic deployment of the National Guard.
- [62:45]
A
Yeah. I mean, so to, to put it bluntly, the question that you're asking is if he were to use the Insurrection act to say, okay, we need to deploy US Military here, there, wherever there, there would be one sort of legal view that there could be not one instance of violence in the entire country that day. If the president says there is an insurrection, there is an insurrection, because how would any court go about determining sort of where the threshold is between not insurrection and insurrection? And so therefore they can't even attempt to create a line. I think that's justiciability, an annoying word that gets talked about a lot at the court and like, comes into play, came into play for, like, gerrymandering, like, can the court ever decide sort of the difference between, I mean, what is too much gerrymandering and what is, what is the right amount of sort of bipartisanship or whatever. But obviously in this case, the stakes are incredibly high.
- [63:44]
B
And kind of the best kind of parallel in another Trump case is if people remember from earlier this year, his kind of, his use of the Alien Enemies act, which uses the phrase about an invasion or incursion from a foreign military power into the U.S. u.S. He used that to say Trend Aragua, which is a foreign group but isn't so explicitly linked to a foreign government which the Alien Enemies act requires. He claimed that the presence of Trend Aragua in the US that counted as an invasion by a foreign government, and therefore he was able to use the Alien Enemies act to deport Venezuelan migrants that he was asserting where members of Trend Araga without any sort of due process. And in that case, there were different judges that went different ways. But kind of the preponderance of judges who have taken up that kind of question of whether the president could say an invasion existed under the Alien Enemies act, where there was also a body of law that kind of did suggest perhaps that that wasn't Jesus Bolt. Many judges have ruled against the president in that, and the Supreme Court never took on that question. But I guess a little bit contradicting what I was saying before they did. You know, in all of the disputes that the alien enemy that came up before them, they did not tackle the question of whether there was an invasion. They're kind of treating issues that were several steps beyond that. But, you know, those cases did not go well for the president. When you're looking at cases around Kilmar Breguet Garcia and also his other attempts to use the Alien Enemies act, which has basically been thwarted, you don't see him using that anymore because it's basically been paused in every jurisdiction that he's tried. So just to give people kind of some grounding, that's a very similar question that we've seen with Alien Enemies Act. It's yet whether the President, the president says an invasion, does an invasion exist? And then here yet whether the president says an insurrection or an inability to enforce the laws, yet what does that mean? And you see judges sometimes opening the dictionary and let's look at the dictionary definition of invasion. And is that actually at play here or kind of pressing the administration to produce some sort of statistics here in D.C. he claimed there was a crime emergency, and the judge was asking for what are the sort of crime stats that you're seeing and that are making this some unique, you know, level of emergency. And so it's kind of the same. It's very similar questions that we're going to be seeing come up again and again at the courts, but around all sorts of different issues.
- [66:02]
A
Yeah. All right. Well, I look forward to reading your piece on it, but we'll leave things there for today. Thank you so much for joining me.
- [66:10]
B
Always good to talk with you, Galen.
- [66:12]
A
My name is Galen Druke. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@gdpolitics politics.com and wherever you get your podcasts. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes and access to the video for the podcast. You can also join our paid subscriber chat and pass along questions for us to discuss on the show. Most importantly, you ensure that we can keep making this podcast. Also, be a friend of the pod and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts, maybe even tell a friend about us. Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.