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- [00:00]
A
I'm always hesitant to read too much into oral arguments. It's always hard to know exactly what happened. I was there at the court for these oral arguments. It was a fascinating kind of almost three hour session.
- [00:09]
B
You're like Forrest Gump. Every. Every topic I bring up. You're like, you were in Congress for the shutdown. You were in the Supreme Court for the tariffs. No, I love it. I love it. And clearly you have all of the info to back it up.
- [00:21]
A
Yeah, no, I try to. If there's something interesting going on in Washington, I try to be.
- [00:36]
B
Hello, and welcome to the GD Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Drouke, and it appears that the longest government shutdown in American history is coming to an end. On Sunday night, eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus joined Republicans in advancing a deal that would fund the government through January. It would also fund programs related to agriculture, military construction, and the legislative branch for most of 2026. What Democrats got in return is a promise to vote on the enhanced Obamacare subsidies in December, a reversal of government layoffs made during the shutdown, continued funding of the Government Accountability Office, and maintaining the office's ability to sue the Trump administration. All eight of the senators who voted with Republicans are not up for reelection in 2026, and Democratic leadership criticized the deal, along with plenty of other Democratic lawmakers. As of the time we're recording this, the budget still has to make its way through the Senate, pass the House, and be signed by President Trump. That's a story we're going to begin with today. And we're also going to dig into more takeaways from last week's elections and news from the Supreme Court. The tariff case is mainly what we're going to focus on, but the court made some news this morning as we were getting ready to record on the same sex marriage challenge and mail in balloting. So we'll get into some of that. And here with me to do all of it is Gabe Fleischer, author of the Wake up to Politics newsletter and friend of the podcast. Gabe, welcome.
- [01:54]
A
Thanks so much for having me.
- [01:56]
B
Okay, Gabe. So the question of the hour. According to recent polling, Americans blame President Trump and Republicans more than they blame Democrats for the shutdown. By a double digit margin, around 70% of Americans support an extension of the Obamacare subsidies. And even after the longest shutdown in history, with workers going without pay, threats to snap benefits and snarl travel, in a recent KFF poll, about 50% of Americans still said Democrats should hold out until their demands are met. Add to that. That by every measure, Democrats had a great election night last week, and Trump is facing just about his lowest approval rating of his second term. So why is now the moment that Democrats are folding on the shutdown?
- [02:40]
A
It's a good question, and I don't think it's a hundred percent clear. You know, we've gone through about 41 days of this, and I think there were points where it seemed like, you know, a deal was kind of right in the offing. There was points where it seem like the two sides are very far apart. I think just in the last week, we kind of had both of those, where right before Tuesday's elections, it seemed like a deal was, like, right on the verge of happening. Then the elections happened, and for a moment, it kind of seemed like everything had collapsed. And then obviously, the talks kind of seemed to have picked up right back again after a few days. I think it's not 100% clear. I think, you know, from the perspective of the Democratic senators who agreed to this compromise, one turning point does seem to have been, you know, President Trump. As you said, polls are showing that the public are blaming Republicans more than Democrats for the shutdown. And even Donald Trump seems. Seems to have accepted that. He seems to be saying pretty openly, we're getting the blame for this. But even after he's made that realization, his next move was not to say, okay, we should negotiate on healthcare. Instead, he was saying we should eliminate the filibuster. So I think it became pretty clear even to these moderate Democratic senators, that even with President Trump accepting that the public was blaming him, there was still no deal to be had on Obamacare. And I think that was kind of the crucial turning point was this finding that, you know, the shutdown could go on 40 days, 50 days, 60 days, go on for the rest of the year, and still there was no sign there would ever be a healthcare deal that would come out of the shutdown. And so I think some moderate Democrats kind of ran the calculation. How willing are they to subject the public to the pain of Thanksgiving, travel delays, continued uncertainty around food stamps if there was just no sign that they were ever gonna get their kind of core demand?
- [04:12]
B
Lots of takes are being published this morning. One from Matt Iglesias is that you can only understand this if you understand this through the lens of the filibuster. And in fact, you can't even just understand this through the len lens of moderate Democrats caving or something like that, because there are a lot of moderate Democrats who are criticizing that steal it's more the institutionalists, the folks who really value the filibuster and the power that the filibuster grants to in particular, the more moderate or institutionalists, or even just individual senators in general. So we're kind of all been focusing, we've been all focusing on the Obamacare subsidies, but is this more about the filibuster than anything else?
- [04:55]
A
I don't think it's more about the filibuster. I mean, the way I put it in my newsletter is I think there are essentially three different ways this could have ended. Obviously, the Democratic best case scenario was that enhanced Obamacare subsidies would be extended. There are not the votes for that in the House or Senate, or at the very least, there is not the will on the part of the leaders who control the four calendars to have that happen in the House and Senate. Then Donald Trump's best case scenario was that the filibuster would be eliminated, which obviously unlocks the ability for him to achieve a whole host of different legislative. There are not the votes for that in the Senate. And so I think in some ways, maybe that makes it about the filibuster. But just the reality is neither the Democratic plan or the Trump plan to end the shutdown really had the votes. And so therefore, you end with this kind of middle ground that I think was always kind of the most likely end game. I think I, you know, I think we talked about this being the most likely end game a few weeks ago, being this kind of middle ground where Democrats cave and accept kind of a vote on Obamacare subsidies. I have to admit, I've been a little confused by seeing, you know, I've seen people like Matt Iglesias. I think, you know, there's a lot of Democrats that were secretly hoping this would lead to the end of the filibust. I don't really understand that, to be honest. From a Democratic perspective, I think, you know, Donald Trump is right that, like, there is no benefit in being the second party to be under, like, post filibuster control. Like, that's the. His whole reason why he wants Republicans to eliminate the filibuster. Now, by the same token, I don't really think it helps Democrats much for Republicans to have ended the filibuster. I still think it's probably likely they're gonna do it in their next trifecta. So why have this period of Republican policy achievements, which Trump is absolutely right. There's a whole host of policy achievements that he cannot do now that would happen under the filibuster that Democrats, many of which the Democrats would really not like to see, and many of which I think the Democrats are kind of deluding themselves, would actually be quite popular and quite difficult to undo. Voter ID being one example of something that polls really well that Trump has talked about doing without the filibuster. So I think that is maybe to some degree what Democrats were kind of hoping would happen here. But I don't think ultimately they would have been served by that endgame either.
- [06:50]
B
Okay, here's another take that I read this morning from Tim Miller of the Bulwark, and he's claiming that Dems won the shutdown fight and acknowledges that this may be one of his most controversial takes. So he said this fold won't matter at all in next year's midterms, but making the GOP own the dog big beautiful bill, slash tariff, slash healthcare policies will this is not an example of Dems not fighting like Republicans. It's a longer shutdown than anything the Kamikaze Tea Party ever did. The people who are mad about this are a small subset of the electorate that treat politics like sports, and it's possible that they're crying about the fold will contribute to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. There was no path to getting the Obamacare subsidies back because the GOP controls everything and was never going to do it. And they are fake populists. Dem should run against them on that topic and they have a great case study now. MTG Marjorie Taylor Greene helps them with that. The fact that there was no getting Obamacare subsidy extensions endgame was obvious at the start and anyone setting that expectation was lying to people ratio away. Do you agree with that?
- [07:50]
A
There's a lot of that I agree with. I agree that it was always very unlikely Democrats were ever gonna achieve the Obamacare subsidies. You know, I've written in my newsletter, if you look at every single government shutdown in American history, there is not a single example of a party forcing a shutdown and then achieving their core demand. So I agree with him on that. I certainly agree not many people remember this by November 2026, but to the degree that any little part of this is still memorable, the Democrats. I mean it was always the case that it was gonna be more politically advantageous but for Democrats for the Obamacare subsidies not to be extended. So by that token they've still preserved this issue for the midterms and they get to point to I do think there is one kind of possibility here where the Obamacare subsidies that the heightened Obamacare Subsidies extended. The end of the year, people's premiums went up. But without something like the shutdown, it might have gotten less attention. I'm not sure I buy that only because I think a lot of people would have noticed their health care bills going up. But still, if you do buy that, then this was a way that they kind of were able to force attention on what is obviously a good issue for them. And then that will help. It'll actually help them down the line that they failed to achieve it. So I think there is a lot of that I agree with. I don't know if I would phrase it as a win for Democrats so much as not a loss, which I think is always kind of the best you can hope for from a shutdown. And I think that's partially because, I mean, he kind of speaks to it, the fact that, like, I don't think the Democratic base is going to read it just how that reading is. And I think he is right that any Democratic leaders that were telling their voters that the Obamacare subsidies were going to be extended by this were lying to them. The issue being that means that all of the Democratic leaders were lying to Democratic voters. And what generally happens when you've been lied to by your party leaders, we've seen this happen in the Republican Party in the past, is that your voters get upset about that. And so I think this is gonna cause a lot of backbiting within the Democratic coalition. I think the Democratic Party, I think it is perhaps understandable, considering the conditions they were in, where I don't think Chuck Schumer probably could have avoided this shutdown fight. But that said, if he still wanted to keep his job and keep the confidence of his caucus, but that said, he did not do a great job of kind of managing people's expectations for the fact that it was not incredibly likely that they were going to get a lot out of this, policy wise. So I think they did do a poor job managing the expectations that are going to kind of reap the consequences of that over the next few weeks and months.
- [10:04]
B
Well, though, if you look at what Democratic leadership is doing right now is they're trying to position themselves on the side of the Democratic base that is disappointed by the end of the shutdown. So obviously, back in the spring, Chuck Schumer voted with the Senate Democrats who voted to not create a government shutdown. This time around, he is not voting to end the government shutdown. He's saying that he's disappointed by it, as is Hakeem Jeffries. So he's trying to create this situation where the bad guys are, well, a group of eight Senate Democrats, two of which are retiring, some of which have an independent streak, and none of which are up for election in 2026. So I think they are trying to in some ways have it both way, where they set really high expectations, really focused Americans attention on the Obamacare subsidies, probably knowing that they wouldn't get the enhanced subsidy extension, but now still positioning themselves alongside the insurgents of the Democratic Party who are pissed off and, you know, can maybe try to channel that anger. Does that make sense?
- [11:09]
A
Yeah, yeah, it does make sense. And that is certainly what they're trying to do. I mean, you know, if there is one thing that came out of, you know, this shutdown up until, you know, slicing off, you know, yesterday. But if you take kind of the bulk of the shutdown was obviously after in March when Chuck Schumer did not vote for a shutdown. His poll numbers tanked among Democratic voters. And it is true that there was polling evidence in the last few weeks that Democratic opinions of Democratic Party leadership was increasing. Chuck Schumer's polls were increasing among Democratic voters. And so now we'll see. I think that's absolutely the gambit that he's trying to pull off. We'll see if they believe him. So far, obviously, we don't have polling evidence, but the evidence from, you know, people like Ro Khan, Seth Moulton, both of whom are Democratic members of the House, Moulton running in a primary in the Senate, Khanna, I think widely expected to run for president in 2028. You see people like them who saw this deal, saw that Schumer voted against it, and are still saying it's time for Chuck Schumer to go. My guess is the members of the Democratic base who cared enough about this to be upset at Schumer in March will still be upset at him after this. But we'll see. I think he's certainly trying that gambit and we'll see if it works.
- [12:15]
B
Yeah. And of course, now all of the polling is going to be a little bit complicated by the fact that Democrats just did well in last week's elections. And so that's probably raising Democrats feelings or sentiment about the party as well. So the sort of whether or not this was a successful shutdown in the base's eyes versus just how much is this happiness for doing well in last week's elections will be hard to parse through. But I do want to ask about what happens next with the Obamacare subsidies. So they have been promised a vote in December. Folks like my former colleague and frequent GD Politics guest Nate Silver, have said this is a gift to Republicans. Republicans should just vote to extend them because that will take a vulnerability off the table for the midterms. Do you think there's any chance that Republicans vote to extend the Obamacare subsidies?
- [13:06]
A
As far as we know, and you know, obviously it's important to note this is all like a handshake agreement. There's no continuing resolution or appropriations bill somewhere that says there shall be a vote on X bill by X state. But as far as we know about the handshake agreement, it's gonna be a vote on a Democratic bill by the second week of December. My guess is that bill is gonna be a messaging bill by Democrats that maybe even will permanently extend the Obamacare subsidies, something that I don't think Republicans are interested in. Probably that will include very little, if any, changes to the subsidies from how they're currently structured, something like that. Which is my guess is if the Republicans are offering the Democrats a vote on any bill of their choosing, that's the type of bill they'll put up. Something like that has no chance, in my opinion, of Republicans taken. That said, there are conversations going on right now in the Senate Republican Conference. We know Tommy Tuberville is one member, kind of part of these talks, obviously, of kind of moderates like Susan Collins who are part of this, too, that are looking at potential ways to kind of structure the Obamacare subsidies differently, perhaps with kind of putting back income limits into them or maybe doing it for a shorter amount of time rather than permanently, maybe one year, maybe two years. I do think bipartisan talks along those lines. I don't rule them out from happening. It's, you know, it's going to be a narrow path of, you know, what can get Republicans on board and then also Democrats and then also kind of get Freedom Caucus people in the House on board without Mike Johnson risking his job by putting it up for a vote. So it's like a very tricky balance to pull off. I don't think it'll be pulled off with whatever vote the Democrats put up, but. But I think these negotiations will continue. And there is certainly some interest on the Republican side on. On putting a deal like this together, but. But with a lot of different reforms to the bomb career subsidies put in. So, you know, those talks will continue, and I think there is a chance they happen, but that's probably something that would happen, you know, after this December vote.
- [14:49]
B
Let's put to the Side, some of the hot takes that I referenced this morning from your historical perspective, I know you've done a lot of research on shutdowns over the past 40 plus days. Did Democrats get more out of the shutdown than the party that provokes the shutdown usually gets?
- [15:08]
A
I would say it's pretty equivalent. I certainly not more. You know, there's been a lot of talk the last few weeks that perhaps one reason why Republicans are shouldering more blame for the shutdown is because people just know that usually it's Republicans that shut down the government. The one real exception to that is 2018. I think that's always been kind of the neatest parallel to the shutdown. That's the beginning of 2018. Not the end of 2018, which was the longest shutdown until this one, but the very beginning of 2018. There was a three day shutdown that Democrats pushed. And in exchange for that, they got exactly what they're getting this time. Then it was over the DREAM act over immigration, and they got the promise of a vote in the Senate on an immigration bill of their choosing. That bill then failed, but they agreed to shut down. They agreed to end the shutdown in exchange for a vote. I would say that's pretty neatly equivalent to what they got now, especially seeing as, you know, everything else they got on top of that is really just resetting to how things were at the beginning of the shutdown. You know, there is the agreement to undo the kind of mass layoffs that were done during the shutdown. But obviously those are just people that had their jobs at the beginning. There's the agreement, as you said, to kind of give back pay to federal workers that is only just agreeing to what pretty much everyone thought was already the case because of a 2019 law that then Donald Trump was kind up saying he had a different interpretation up. But that really just puts us back to where we all thought going into the shutdown, which was that when federal workers are furloughed or when they're not paid during shutdowns, they then get back paid. So I would say it's pretty much exactly equivalent to what they got out of 2018. Whether you're going to preference, if you look at what some parties have gotten more kind of hard policy concessions in the past, small ones. But more than just the promise of a vote, I guess it depends. Would you say kind of a tiny policy concession is better than like a political messaging vote? Mileage may vary on that. You know, in 2013, when the Republicans shut down the government, they Got a really small tweak to Obamacare. So maybe this is more than that. But obviously at least that was a change to policy, even a really small one. This is not even going to lead probably to a change of policy. So I think it depends how you score it.
- [17:05]
B
What do you make of how Democrats are dividing up in terms of who ultimately voted to pass this legislation, who's criticizing it? I already mentioned that moderation is not really the axis on which to judge this because you see people like Alyssa Slotkin who are criticizing this deal, who has branded herself as something of a moderate, a bit of a heterodox lawmaker. Also, folks like Jon Ossoff, who is the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate this cycle, is not supporting this deal. So what is the dividing line here? I mean, one other take that I've heard is these are people who just really care about government and feel bad that people are not getting paid. I'm willing to be earnest in some cases in politics, when politics warrants it. Is that too earnest in the, in this case? Like, how do you understand what's going on here or is it. Or there's another option, which is that like this needed to happen and these guys have always been understood as the sacrificial lambs who are going to get it through and provide the rest of the party an opportunity to rail.
- [18:07]
A
I think there's a lot of truth to that last interpretation you just offered. I don't think that means all of the 40 plus Democrats who didn't vote for this deal wanted it to happen, but I do think more of them did than voted for this deal. And as you noted earlier, these are all people, some of them are retiring, none of whom who have to face angry primary electorates in 2026. So I do think there is a degree to which these members are covering for a lot of others, which be earnest or not, but government shutdowns cause pain. And I'm sure Democrats were hearing that from their constituents. And like, Democrats are the party that just do care more about people getting, you know, food stamp money, they're just the party more associated with, you know, support for that program. And I do imagine it was difficult for Democrats to know that with every vote they cast, as much as they might have said it was, you know, the Donald Trump shutdown, they knew they had the power to kind of return these benefits and they weren't. So I think there's a, there's a degree to that. So there's a degree to who had political risk and who Didn't. I think another important dividing line to note is age. I mean, what do people like? Cuz you're right. I think moderation is not really the key dividing line. But if you take moderates like, you know, Alyssa Slotkin and Ruben Gallego and John Ossoff, you know, what do they have in common? They're some of the youngest Democrats in the Senate. And I do think a lot of this does come down to this kind of age divide in the party. I think it's just described as, you know, people who want to compromise versus people who want to fight, people with experience versus kind of newer members. There's a lot of ways you can kind of draw it, but at the end of the day, I do think it's kind of this institutionalist, more veteran members versus these kind of younger firebrands, moderate, progressive, whatever. These are people that, you know, the kind of institutionalists who kind of know how shutdowns generally work, kind of came to this realization that probably this one was not gonna yield to much. I think many of them didn't really want to shut down the government in the first place. You know, the vote, you know, the night before the shutdown started, I was there in the Senate, Jeanne Shaheen took a long time before she ultimately did vote to shut down the government. And obviously now she's one of the key negotiators. But it was very clear just from watching from the Senate press gallery that she did not wanna be doing this. And as you noted before, I think a lot of them do think a lot more highly of the filibuster, which is also not an issue that breaks down along moderate progressive lines. I mean, you look like who's one of the biggest filibuster opponents in the Senate Democratic Caucus. It's John Fetterman. So everything on that issue is a little bit scrambled. But clearly one issue is that the longer senators have been there, it does seem like the more they've realized that over the long run it does help them to have the filibuster, and it is kind of something they would rather have in place. Whereas a lot of these younger senators, especially ones, you know, something a lot of those members have in common, they came from the House, where they, I think, were spent a lot of time very frustrated by, you know, policies they wanted to get passed, not getting passed because of the Senate filibuster. A lot of these younger members just have no patience for that.
- [20:49]
B
Yeah, a divide worth continuing to watch, which is like this sort of angry moderate lane, which is, I think definitely I would describe Alyssa Slotkin as that. If you listen to her speeches, she's sort of like outraged at the, at the division and the gridlock and whatnot. But like, her policies themselves sort of straddle some more conservative and more liberal positions. So the, the sort of mellow institutionalists versus the angry moderates. Another divide. How, I'm curious, like, does this all just happen again in January? Because much of the government funding will run out by the end of January. You know, it's hard not to notice that this happened just before holiday season begins, when a lot of Americans are going to be flying, including lawmakers themselves. And so in some ways, this extension gets us through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, but then if Democrats feel sort of strident enough, do they just shut the government down again at the end of January?
- [21:48]
A
I mean, it's a real possibility. And as you noted, you know, one of the three funding bills that, you know as part of this deal is expected to kind of be approved, that will kind of be full fiscal year funding is the agriculture bill, which, you know, because food stamps were partially started as, you know, kind of a boost for farmers, that food stamps live within the agriculture bill. And so that is one of the programs that will be fully funded as part of this compromise. So if you do buy the theory, and I do think it's true to some extent that a lot of these Democrats who, I guess both the Democrats who voted for the deal and the Democrats who secretly wanting this deal were kind of, you know, very dismayed by the idea of a shutdown kind of hurting people who rely on food stamps. That's, you know, just a piece of the puzzle taken off the table for a potential next January shutdown. So I think that is one reason to think not necessarily that a shutdown will happen, but it is just something to keep in the back of your heads that, like, if that really was kind of the two Democrats, the most painful part of this shutdown, that won't be a factor. And then as you note, if travel was the other factor, obviously people still fly in February, March, but it's nothing compared to kind of what happens around Thanksgiving and around winter holidays. So I think there's a strong reason to think could have another shutdown. The question, of course, being how would another one look any different? And I think a lot of that will depend on what we see in the next few weeks happen with the Obamacare subsidies. If there does seem to be real genuine progress towards a bipartisan deal on Obamacare subsidies, that would be one way Chuck Schumer might be able to climb down from being pushed into another shutdown by saying, hey, look, I really think we might have a deal here and maybe they'll agree to like a short term funding deal in January to kind of keep inching along with the hope of getting a subsidy deal. So I wouldn't say there's a guarantee there's a shutdown. If for no other reason, then Democrats would have to think long and hard about getting into something that would just once again potentially disappoint a huge segment of their base if they're not gonna get much out of it. But then again, I think you certainly can't rule it out having watched how this one went.
- [23:43]
B
And in some ways, one of the things we've learned over the past 40 plus days is that shutdown brands are strong. So Americans perceive Republicans as the party of shutdowns. That may be part of the reason why they've continued to blame Republicans more than they've blamed Democrats, even though to most detailed observers it's pretty clear that Democrats move to shut the government down. But if Democrats just start shutting the government down every few months, the sort of branding of the two parties might change. So Democrats will also have to think about like, how much do we want to get into this game where we start to be seen as the intransigent party that shuts down government as well? I want to move on and talk about takeaways from last week's elections, but first, a break. Today's podcast is brought to you by you, the listeners. Without paid subscribers, GD Politics wouldn't be possible. Your support means that we can continue making an independent podcast guided by curiosity, rigor and a sense of humor. Paid subscribers also get about twice the number of episodes, access to the videos and can join the paid subscriber chat. You can also connect your personal feed to your favorite podcast player so you get every episode wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, a reminder, we now have merch, so head over to gdpolitics.com merch for that and gdpolitics.com to become a paid subscriber. See you there. As listeners know, we did a lot of coverage of the off year elections last Tuesday. Democrats had a great night overperforming their polls and expectations across Virginia, New Jersey and seemingly California. Although much of the vote is still not counted in California. And of course it still looks like Zoran Mamdani will win an outright majority, if a very slim majority in the New York City mayoral race. I want to get into actually some of the, the politics of the results. And I'll say later this week I'm going to dig deeper into the demographics and geographics of the results to sort of talk about which parts of the electorates moved and was it turnout versus persuasion? Were Trump voters actually casting ballots for Democratic candidates and the like? But with you, Gabe, I know your focus is Washington in many ways, so I want to talk about how the outcome is reverberating through D.C. first, though, what's your top line takeaway from Tuesday night?
- [26:01]
A
I think there's no way to read these elections other than, you know, Democrats obviously kind of swept the table in kind of every race kind of worth watching, from very high profile ones to kind of much more obscure races that we saw in Georgia. Democrats really performed well across the board. I've written this. I'm personally pretty hesitant, just feeling like, I guess maybe I've been burned before in terms of you and me. We're big election nerds and we watch races like this very closely. And I never will not do that, but having, I feel like gone through a few rounds of watching these races very closely and then seeing pretty clearly how they do not necessarily translate to kind of being kind of predictive of future election results. Because clearly we are in a situation where the type of electorate you can expect to turn out to an off off year election is just so different now in very clear ideological ways. So different than an electorate certainly for a presidential year, but even from a midterm year. So I am, I will say, pretty hesitant to draw any larger conclusions from what is undoubtedly still a strong Democratic night. I do think, obviously I know we'll get into this that is separate. Even if there's no literal, there's not literally anything that changes from these elections. That doesn't mean, obviously the power of narratives to shift still exists. And I know we're gonna get into that. So there can be changes on that level still.
- [27:20]
B
I'm curious how lawmakers have reacted to the results. We've been hearing a lot from elections analysts, how they're reacting to the results. Do you think that this has changed the dynamics in Washington at all? And perhaps more specifically, has it caused Republicans to start thinking more about what life after Trump might look like?
- [27:43]
A
I think it has to some degree. I mean, I think it's very interesting. I mean, obviously a lot of people remember, you know, after the 2012 elections to kind of go back, you know, wind back quite some time. And obviously that was, you know, widely perceived as, you know, kind of A large kind of drubbing for Mitt Romney and for other Republicans up and down the ballot. And that led to this kind of autopsy that the Republicans did then obviously mostly discarded, but still won, even though they discarded it. And I think ever since then, you've kind of seen this Republican resistance to really thinking deeply about when they've lost elections, even though obviously despite the fact that Donald Trump has been in the White House for a lot of the time since then, they've lost a lot of elections and they've consistently performed really poorly, like I said, in these off year elections, which I do think is a reason not to imbue them with too much predictive power. But it's also, if you're a Republican, a reason to stay back and be like, okay, maybe losing this off your elections doesn't mean we're gonna lose on bigger nights. But still, wouldn't we on net rather have the governorships of Virginia, New Jersey, or even rather have the utility commissioners in Georgia? You'd still rather have more power than less. And I think for a lot of the past decade plus, you've just not seen Republicans really wrestling with their losses, most famously after 2020 when they refused to even admit that they had lost. So I've been struck by seeing, I would say a little bit of a break to that pattern in the last few days. I saw one example is Vivek Ramaswamy. I don't know if you saw this, but he's running for governor of Ohio, put out a video pretty clearly laying out, we have a problem in the Republican Party. And you've been hearing that from a number of other Republican strategists as well. And I think they absolutely are starting to think kind of the defense from the White House. And Trump literally wrote this on Truth Social was, ah, this doesn't matter. Trump wasn't actually on the ballot. So this isn't a test of Trump, which, okay, from Trump's perspective, that might be a reasonable takeaway, but that doesn't make Republicans feel any better because unless Donald Trump tries to run for an unconstitutional third term, they're not gonna be running with Trump on the ballot ever again. They need to figure out how to do that. So I absolutely think you're starting to hear Republican lawmakers talking about that. I mean, you're seeing a lot more focus on whether the Trump White House is really leading them down the right path, whether they need to be just like, I think there's a lot of concerns in the Democratic coalition after the 2022 midterms and the 2021 elections, whether the Biden White House was focusing enough on affordability and cost of living in inflation rather than kind of pursuing other kind of projects that were of interest to the president and his staff. I think you're seeing a lot of Republican lawmakers go through the same kind of questions of do we really want to be kind of pursuing this really expansive kind of social agenda and aggressive agenda in a lot of ways, when clearly a lot of people are still very concerned about the cost of living? I think you are absolutely hearing Republican lawmakers starting to grapple with that.
- [30:23]
B
Yeah, you were saying that Vivek Ramaswamy mentioned that there's a problem with the Republican Party and some others saying similar stuff. How are they diagnosing it? I mean, are they specifically saying we need to lay off some of the emphasis on social issues? Is it. And which social issues? And maybe it's hard to figure out where immigration falls in the sort of national security versus social versus economic or whatever. You can frame it in different ways, I guess. But is there, is there any hesitancy to how aggressively the Trump administration is pursuing immigration? Or is it folks who have said, for example, oh, well, when some Earl Sears focus too much on trans issues, when folks in Virginia are mostly concerned about federal government layoffs and the shutdown and the cost of living, like, how exactly are the Republicans who are being a little more introspective of diagnosing the problem?
- [31:15]
A
I think it's a real mix of diagnoses and I wouldn't say there's kind of one unified takeaway. I do think a lot of them are maybe not saying we need to talk less about immigration per se. Cuz that is still on balance an issue that does help Republicans to some degree. But I think, you know, mainly that they just need to that I think the kind of narrative coming out of the Trump White House that, you know, inflation has been solved, the economy is doing well again, just like how that didn't really work for Joe Biden when voters didn't actually feel that, you know, maybe that's not a message that's working. And I think there are a lot of Republicans that I know we're gonna talk about this later would secretly not be too upset if the Supreme Court overturned President Trump's tariff and kind of take that millstone around their neck ahead of the midterms. So I think that's one takeaway. On the other end of it, Alex Bruswitz was kind of a top official on Trump's 2024 campaign. I believe digital director played a big role in kind of their, that kind of podcasting strategy and digital strategy that they did. His takeaway from the election was that the Republicans didn't hug Trump enough and that the reason why you had candidates like, like win some Earl Sears lose was because she had criticized Trump in the past and that, you know, these kind of MAGA base voters didn't turn, turn out enough. Again, it's, it's always so striking to me to see these kind of exact parallels of, you know, just like how many Democrats would say, you know, just true progressivism hasn't been tried. And now, you know, Al Truswitz saying, you know, it's just true MAGA ism, not being, you know, deployed. You know, that is always, I think, gonna be the read that, you know, some segments of the party are deploying. Would not be surprised if you hear Donald Trump, Trump starting to say that. But I still think that doesn't really answer the kind of core issue, which is when you have candidates running in electorates that are not super Trump friendly, like Virginia and New Jersey aren't, if they are not given the kind of leeway to kind of separate themselves from the president that maybe they need, that's not gonna work out well for them. And so I would not be surprised if this looks like conversations with Mike Johnson and John Thune trying to urge the president to kind of lay off a little bit on some Republicans who maybe need to criticize him to be reelected. But at the end of the day, you know, the president is just not, he's not a very helpful coalition partner traditionally. He's not usually really open to kind of moves like that and kind of insists on this kind of complete loyalty that I don't think is really going to help win over independent voters.
- [33:22]
B
Right. I mean, I remember in the waning days of Obama's presidency, there was a lot of criticism of how so much of the focus of his eight years was on the White House and on Obama himself, and that the Democratic Party had forgotten about or not focused enough attention and resources. I think a lot of the criticism was about like funding state level races and the bench of talent for the party. And you know, it was a, it was a challenge because Democrats had this exact issue where there were lots of low propensity voters who turned out in presidential elections during the Obama years, but they didn't turn out during midterm years. And so the party atrophied. This is maybe a version of that on steroids, where it's almost clear that Donald Trump himself is not so concerned with the future of the Republican Party beyond him. That does create a really difficult dynamic. Whereas, at least during the Obama years, there were Democrats who criticized Obama and were clearly sort of skeptical of his project and took a more moderate lane and, and the likes. I mean, regardless of what Trump wants at this point, do you think there are going to be more Republican members of Congress who buck him?
- [34:33]
A
I think certainly you're already seeing some of it in very subtle ways. I think, you know, you've seen you kind of votes and overturning the tariffs, you know, that have gotten a few Republicans kind of peeled off. I think you've seen these kind of quiet ways that sometimes replicas have pushed back against their spending moves. So I think you're seeing it to some degree. I mean, one kind of thing I've been thinking about lately is I do wonder the degree to which kind of winning the presidency and having a successful presidency does require to some degree, just like a cult of personality where, like both of these parties at this point are these such fractious coalitions that like, there really is no good way to have Mitt Romney and Rand Paul and Marjorie Taylor Greene all in one tent. And same with Joe Manchin and Bernie Sanders. And maybe the only way to kind of paper over any differences like that is to be like a Barack Obama or Donald Trump like figure where you're just like, yeah, we'll figure out the policy later. Just, I'm really charismatic and everyone in my party loves me and you'll all be okay and you'll stop with the kind of backbiting to just support me. And I wonder if maybe you can't really have a successful presidency without that. But the flip side of that being, I think like you said, those cults of personality figures don't tend to be very good coalition partners. They don't really care about anything beyond their kind of cult of personality because they don't really care what happens to the party when they leave. As you said, Obama, you know, there was more than 1,000 state legislative seats that were lost under the Obama era. Under the Trump era, the Republicans have had a terrible record in a lot of these kind of down ballot elections. You've seen also during the shutdown, Trump has really been a really bad coalition partner, repeatedly straying from kind of the narrative that Republicans wanted of we won't negotiate or of trying to kind of minimize the pain of the shutdown. Instead, he was trying to expand the pain of the shutdown even as Republicans were being blamed for it. I think clearly just not having much care for kind of the future of the party. And so I do think it is something of a paradox where you kind of need to have that kind of level of just kind of unique magnetism in a party to maybe win or to be kind of a popular president. That's obviously something like, for example, Joe Biden lacked the other hand. Joe Biden was also someone who was really adept in some points of really kind of working within the party coalition and really did care about kind of the bench of the party and spent a lot of time on that. So I think that is something of a paradox and how Republicans are kind of, it's being biting Republicans just like it bit Democrats. And I think they're in just a really difficult position because like, we know what happens when Republicans break with Donald Trump. Trump, he posts on true social and he backs primary challengers against them. And I really think it's gonna take John Thune and Mike Johnson sitting Trump down and convincing him not to do that for him to be willing to kind of hold his fire. I do think we'll see Republicans start to break with him, but he'll need to hold their fire doing that. And especially seeing as he doesn't really need even Mike Johnson or John Thune for much longer, I don't really see what reason he would have to hold his fire in doing that.
- [37:18]
B
Yeah, it's an important and fascinating difference between say a presidential system and a parliamentary system where like you kind of have to develop this cult of personality in order to, to win elections and to keep people, to keep people in line once you do. But there are downsides as well. I want to wrap up on the Supreme Court. Like I mentioned, we had discussed talking about the tariffs case, which we will get to. But this morning the Supreme Court made some news and that it declined to take up the challenge to Obergefell, which is the case that legalized same sex marriage nationally. Was there much of a question about how the Supreme Court would proceed on this? Was this a surprise at all?
- [38:02]
A
It wasn't a surprise to me, I'll say that. You know, so this obviously got a lot of attention in the last few months of this kind of question once Kim Davis is the Kentucky county clerk who kind of brought this case. It's been a long gestating case, but she kind of brought it before the Supreme Court. And there was a point a few months ago, critically, not right when she filed the petition, but when it really first started to get a lot of attention. And I will say there was a bit of a reason why it started getting a lot of attention, which is that the Supreme Court basically asked the other side in that case for briefings, you know, basically to respond to Kim Davis asking the Court to hear this. So it was, you know, we did see the Supreme Court actively, you know, asking for something in this case. Importantly though, I think what got a little bit lost in the conversation is all it takes is one justice to ask for that step to be taken, to ask for the other party in a case to give these filings. So we did know there was at least one justice kind of, at least willing to entertain the idea of hearing this case. But the Supreme Court operates on a rule of four for actually hearing cases, for granting what's called certiori or cert, it's kind of the legal term for the cases they choose to hear. And so four Justices would have needed, needed to say yes to kind of agree to hear a case like this. I think if we theorize that maybe the one who asked for more briefings was maybe Clarence Thomas or Sam Alito, I don't think it's all that hard to count to maybe two in terms of Justices who might have been in that four. Clarence Thomas famously, in his concurrence in Dobbs, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, he actively said, hey, maybe the Supreme Court should also look at overturning Obergefell, the case that legalized same sex marriage. But no other Justices joined that concurrence. And although the majority opinion and other concurrences in Dobbs didn't openly say that Obergefell would always be preserved, it did go out of its way to say it was, at least for now, not revisiting Obergefell. And I think we've seen, you know, heard statements from other of the conservative justices that kind of would have suggested there a wasn't much of an appetite, there's not much an appetite to revisit same sex marriage. I just do think it's a different issue to conservative legal movements than Roe was, which was kind of this decades long desire to kind of have Roe overturned, Obergefell doesn't kind of command the same passion on the conservative side. And then also there's the issue, even if this is something the conservatives decide to do one day, this was really, I think the sense from a lot of court watchers was this was not, this was a really poor vehicle to do it. Just because kind of the character at the heart of this Kim Davis, it was kind of a weird. It's kind of a weird case, this kind of long running case. She's a bit of, kind of a fringe figure, and it was kind of. She kind of tacked on this idea of kind of overturning the Burkeville right at the end of this very long legal journey that kind of hinges on, frankly, somewhat separate legal issues. And so I think there was kind of a broad sense that they weren't likely to jump on this and certainly weren't likely to jump on this challenge to Obergefell.
- [40:44]
B
And additionally, this morning, we heard from the court that they are going to review a case out of Mississippi that challenges Mississippi's laws regarding counting. Well, mail in ballots that arrive after election Day and whether or not there's a grace period during which they can be counted. It's worth saying that the appellate court ruled that they could not be counted. And so the Supreme Court reviewing this means that they. Well, had they not reviewed this, it would have changed how mail in balloting works and whether or not ballots can be counted after election Day. Since the Supreme Court is reviewing it, they may. They sort of side with Mississippi's current laws, which would continue to allow those ballots to be counted. But, of course, oral arguments have yet to be heard, and we will follow that case wherever it does take us. I want to talk about tariffs before we close today. The headline coming out of the oral arguments surrounding the challenge to Trump's tariffs was like, conservative justices seem pretty skeptical. The liberal justices you might have already imagined were skeptical. And it seems as though, you know, the expectation has been set in some ways that the Supreme Court is going to rule against the Trump administration. Is that your read on this as well?
- [41:55]
A
I mean, I think it's always, you know, I'm always hesitant to read too much into oral arguments. It's always hard to know exactly what happened. I was there at the court for these oral arguments. It was a fascinating, you know, kind of almost three hour session.
- [42:06]
B
You're like Forrest Gump. Every. Every topic I bring up, you're like, you were in Congress for the shutdown. You were in the Supreme Court for the tariffs. No, I love it. I love. And clearly you have all of the info to back it up.
- [42:19]
A
Yeah, no, I try to. If there's something interesting going on in Washington, I try to be there. I can't always do it, but it's my goal. So I was there at the Supreme Court for the argument. Sitting right in the press gallery with a pretty good view of all nine Justices. And, you know, and I've covered a fair amount of oral arguments, again, I think enough to kind of realize that, you know, a lot of these justices, I would say, you know, the kind of, you know, Sotomayor and Jackson on the left and kind of Thomas and Alito on the right, you can always pretty much judge by all arguments. Not that you probably needed to know where they're gonna lean, but the other justices in the middle do kind of enjoy asking these kind of devil advocate type questions. So I think it's. You never wanna be sure. That said, I mean, the one exchange that I think really jumped out at me there was this absolute battering that Neil Gorsuch really gave to kind of Trump Solicitor General, who will also note John Sauer, who, if people listen to the arguments, this probably comes across. But even watching it even more was, and I've felt this way the other times I've heard Sauer argue is a very like frenetic, nervous presence in the court, like has a very, I would say, off putting style of just arguing these cases. He's moving around a lot, he's moving his hands, he's talking really fast. At one point, I think it was Justice Jackson who literally said, like, I did not understand that you need to slow down versus Neil Katyal who was arguing against the tariffs and is a much smoother, careful kind of presenter before the court. But either way, way Gorsuch and his kind of exchange with Sauer went after him again and again, just really kind of knocking a number of holes in Sauer's arguments. And to be frank, a lot of the arguments that Sauer's presenting really kind of at some points they would even contradict his own arguments. Certainly repeatedly contradicted the President in terms of his repeated claim that the tariffs had nothing to do with revenue, even though President Trump talks all the time about all the money that are coming in from these tariffs. So I think you certainly saw, there's no question the three liberal justices, you saw skepticism towards the tariffs. I would also put Gorsuch, although he's kind of traditionally more on the right, even of the conservative wing, more on the right side of the bench. But he's also very much a libertarian, very much kind of skeptical of government overreach, skeptical of executive power, skeptical of government taxation, and a really strong believer in separation of powers. It was clearly very concerned with this idea of kind of the executive kind of taking legislative power in this case. So I think you can definitely count to four there of people who seemed pretty against the tariffs. And then the fifth vote would probably be John Roberts or Amy Coney Barrett, again, both of whom asked pretty tough questions on both sides, definitely did ask skeptical questions of the tariffs. So it's by no means impossible to imagine either of them ruling against the tariffs. They definitely, John Roberts, at one point, literally, he literally, he invoked the major questions doctrine, one of the major, kind of major parts of the case against the tariff, this idea that questions of major economic and political significance should be decided by Congress. And he also kind of pretty directly said basically that tariffs are taxes, which is also a key kind of argument of the challengers, that tariffs are taxes and therefore should be decided by Congress. And so I would say Roberts and Barrett, their potential with votes to strike down the tariffs. But they also ask tough questions on the other side. And, you know, it's always kind of. You can never be sure of kind of which way they'll shake up.
- [45:31]
B
Is there a way that the court could rule against the administration on tariffs while allowing many of Trump's tariffs to remain intact? Because obviously, at this point, the tariff scheme is, well, pretty well entrenched in American economic policy at this point would be relatively disruptive. Not that the court necessarily needs to take that under consideration. They can do disruptive things. But you do sometimes see the court trying to thread needles in highly charged, highly disruptive cases, which I think, for some, which is one of the reasons I think people were surprised by Roe, is like, even if you think that the court wants to overturn Roe, the theory was that they were gonna chip away slowly at it, sort of not be so disruptive to American life. Obviously, they didn't choose that path. So they may not choose that path in any number of cases. But if they wanted to try to do a sort of more subtle needle threading here, if they rule against Trump in this situation, will all of a sudden all the tariffs go away?
- [46:31]
A
Well, I think it's very important to note there is no scenario in which they rule against Trump and all the tariffs will go away. And that's because the only tariffs that are issuing this case are tariffs issued under a law called iefa, the International Economic Emergency Powers Act. And so that is kind of the broadest tariff authority, at least that Trump is claiming. And those are the tariffs being challenged here. That does include kind of all the Liberation Day tariffs people remember. So all the kind of country by country tariffs that he imposed. It also includes tariffs, even additional tariffs, top of that, against China, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and India. So those are all under ipa. But even if the Supreme Court says no, IIPA does not give you the power to impose tariffs. There's still a whole host of other authorities. They're less flexible authorities, but other authorities that Trump has used to impose tariffs that include section 232, which allows these kind of sectoral tariffs. So we've seen kind of the steel tariffs, aluminum tariffs, we've seen all sorts of other kind of sectors covered by tariffs, and a lot of his other kind of import taxes covered under other legal authorities. So that wouldn't necessarily be the Supreme Court threading a needle, but it would be a way that even if they strike down aipa, Trump can still claim some sort of victory here and still be like, okay, I can't do tariffs under aipa, but I just love all these other laws that I can impose tariffs under. And it would still be a way for him to kind of snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and still make the court seem. At least the court does know that that is what ending here. So it might make it seem less like they're trying to confront him in the way that it might otherwise be portrayed. And I think a really easy kind of parallel is when the Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration's efforts to cancel student loan debt debt under what was called the Heroes Act. And that was, again, a really kind of sweeping attempt of authority. But even still, the Biden administration was still able to cancel student loan debt by other means, much less student loan debt in much less sweeping ways, some of which had legal issues of their own, just like Trump's. Other tariffs could still be challenged for other reasons. But, like, this is not the Supreme Court saying, you can't do X, you can't do X because of this one law. You're trying to do it, and then you try to do the same thing or similar things with other laws, and those legal battles are hashed out. So I do think that is really important for people to note that there will still be a lot of tariffs that will remain. And we've seen the Trump administration even adding new tariffs under those other authorities as this kind of preparation for them being struck down. And I will also note just really quickly, in terms of threading the needle, another thing they could do, thread the needle, not in terms of whether or not the tariffs are struck down or not, but if they do strike down the tariffs, there's this second order question of, okay, you know, we've had these tariffs now for several months. A lot of money has been collected by the government. You know, taxing these imports that American companies have tried to import into the U.S. how does that get handled? One thing they could do, you know, obviously the best case scenario for the Trump administration is they say these tariffs were illegal, but oops, you still get to keep the money, even though we just said it was collected illegally. It would be way too complicated for you to give it back. So, hey, you get to keep it. It. That would be one little fig leaf they could give to Trump or obviously you could open up a really kind of complicated, confusing process of the refunds and that would be really complicated. Not saying they won't do it, but it is one way to both kind of avoid the chaos that it was openly set at the court. Justice Barrett, I think openly said it would be messy, that would happen and it would also give Trump something of a win even if the tariffs are struck down. But he can still kind of keep this kind of huge amount of revenue he's going to collected.
- [50:02]
B
And now Trump has set up any potential ruling that the money would have to be returned in many ways in opposition to the American public because he said that Americans might get $2,000 checks because of the tariffs that have been collected. And so obviously that would no longer be the case if the Supreme Court ruled that all that money had to be refunded. Okay, you've done a fantastic job explaining so much of what's happening in Washington right now. I want to ask, as we wrap up, is there anything in particular you're going to be watching in the remaining month and a half of the year in Washington as we head out of the, I guess what is supposed to be the most boring electoral year of the four year cycle and into a midterm year.
- [50:43]
A
It's a good question. I think one kind of under the radar thing for people to watch. And I've been writing this since kind of the beginning of the shutdown Stalemite is despite how hyped up obviously this shutdown fight got under the radar. Kind of the bipartisan appropriation negotiations to actually, you know, fund the government for the whole fiscal year were actually humming along fairly productively, especially in the Senate where we've seen the Senate Appropriations committee approve all 12 of the appropriation bills, all of them with like sweeping bipartisan majorities. And then you see this in the three bills that are now being passed that we talked about are all these are all bipartisan appropriations bill, even though the kind of on top of it there's become this kind of like really sticky fight over like the stop gaps in between Actually, under The surface, all 12 of these bills, they're actually proceeding along in somewhat of bipartisan fashion. So I'll be watching that process. I know it's kind of nerdy, but it's also kind of like another potential escape valve to another shutdown that we talked about. If, you know Susan Collins and Patty Murray, who are the top leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee, they decide to say, okay, we have the shutdown, it was really chaotic, but we're putting it behind us. We're gonna go back to the appropriations negotiations. You could just have kind of the outcome of the spending fight be these kind of pretty bipartisan bills. And that kind of avoids a fight, at least over huge swaths of the government if we kind of see more of these so called minibus packages proceed through. And it is worth noting, you know, even though the process has been less bipartisan in the House, this is a case of the Senate really jamming the House with kind of the more bipartisan probations bills that Collins and Murray negotiated. So I'm going to be curious to watch that process in the next few weeks, see what signals we're hearing from on the Hill. We call them the Cardinals, the kind of top leaders of the Appropriations Committee and seeing if there's any movement there that might kind of avoid a kind of larger partisan shutdown fight. It's maybe a long shot, but we do at least have some evidence to suggest that there has been movement in the last few weeks and months.
- [52:37]
B
All right, Gabe, this has been great. Thank you so much for joining me today.
- [52:41]
A
Thanks so much for having me, Galen.
- [52:42]
B
My name is Galen Druke. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@gdpolitics.com and wherever you get your podcasts. Better yet, become a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes and 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 go 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.