GOP Passes Megabill, Betrays Its Own Voters

Summary

Pod Save America Episode Summary Episode Title: GOP Passes Megabill, Betrays Its Own Voters
Release Date: July 4, 2025
Hosts/Guests: Dan Pfeiffer (Host), Jen Psaki (Guest Host), Congressman Ro Khanna

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Introduction

In this pivotal episode of Pod Save America, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki joins host Dan Pfeiffer to dissect the recent passage of a significant Republican bill, broadly referred to as the "Megabill." Released on Independence Day, the episode delves deep into the legislative maneuvering, the bill's implications for American voters, and the broader political ramifications within the Republican Party.

Passage of the GOP Megabill

[02:55 – 05:00]
Dan Pfeiffer opens the discussion by outlining the tumultuous journey of the Megabill. Initially stalled by moderate and deficit-averse Republicans, the bill eventually passed the Senate and House under intense pressure, with President Trump signing it into law on July 3, 2025.

Dan Pfeiffer [04:16]: "Why did they cave? They folded without getting a single concession of consequence."

Jen Psaki attributes the bill's passage to a combination of strategic negotiations, pressure from Trump, and political calculations aimed at avoiding primary challenges.

Jen Psaki [04:16]: "They made a bunch of changes. They are hoping they can skate by before the cuts really impact people."

Content and Consequences of the Megabill

[26:04 – 44:18]
Pfeiffer enumerates the bill's stark impacts:

• Health Care: 17 million Americans will lose health insurance over a decade.
• Hospitals: Over 300 hospitals face closure.
• Food Assistance: More than 3 million people will lose SNAP benefits due to new paperwork requirements.
• Energy Bills & Jobs: Household energy bills will rise by $170, and 800,000 clean energy jobs will be lost by 2030.
• Tax Cuts: The bill primarily funds tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and large corporations.

Jen Psaki criticizes the Republican narrative that downplays the bill's adverse effects, highlighting the "gaslighting" tactic used to mislead the public about Medicaid cuts.

Jen Psaki [09:17]: "It's about keeping people from going to healthcare. They're just finding money to cover the tax cuts for the highest income."

Republican Party Dynamics and Voter Betrayal

[07:23 – 14:49]
The hosts discuss the internal fractures within the Republican Party, noting that both hardline deficit hawks and Medicaid critics ultimately supported the bill without substantive changes. This unity, despite the bill's unpopularity, signals a deep betrayal of the party's working-class base.

Dan Pfeiffer [09:00]: "Instead of taking those out, no one's arguing to take those out. They're just arguing for more Medicaid cuts to do it."

Jen Psaki underscores the Republicans' abandonment of traditional political accountability, where constituents' voices once acted as checks against harmful legislation.

Jen Psaki [10:24]: "The connection between public opinion and governmental action has been severed in the Republican Party."

Implications for Future Elections

[39:07 – 42:50]
The conversation shifts to the midterm elections, with Psaki and Pfeiffer positing that the Megabill could serve as a galvanizing issue for Democrats. They suggest that the bill's negative impacts on everyday Americans—particularly in closely contested districts—could drive voter dissatisfaction and lead to significant gains for Democrats in the House and potentially the Senate.

Jen Psaki [40:35]: "If you look district by district... you can tell the story of the direct impact."

Strategies for Democrats

[44:18 – 62:25]
Jen Psaki and Congressman Ro Khanna discuss the strategic messaging Democrats must adopt to counteract the GOP's narrative. Emphasizing localized impacts and personal stories, they advocate for a communication approach that highlights how the Megabill adversely affects individual lives, thereby resonating more deeply with voters.

Ro Khanna [75:03]: "We've got to show how this is actually taking away health care for folks and food assistance for folks."

Psaki cautions against focusing on deficit arguments, suggesting instead that Democrats spotlight the immediate human costs of the bill.

Jen Psaki [35:58]: "I don't think the Democrats should make this about deficits."

Media and Public Awareness Challenges

[15:44 – 30:03]
The hosts explore why the Megabill hasn't received widespread public attention despite its significant consequences. They attribute this to a fragmented media landscape and competing national crises that overshadow the bill's impacts. Additionally, they note the Republicans' control over media narratives, which minimizes the bill's perceived unpopularity.

Dan Pfeiffer [15:54]: "The connection between public opinion and governmental action has been severed in the Republican Party."

Role of Social Media and Communication

[30:57 – 38:12]
To effectively communicate the Megabill's ramifications, Pfieffer and Psaki advocate for leveraging social media and grassroots storytelling. By utilizing authentic, personal narratives over polished media campaigns, they believe Democrats can better engage with voters who distrust traditional media outlets.

Dan Pfeiffer [23:36]: "People are going to use individual stories of people. They're more likely to believe people than politicians."

Immigration and Other GOP Agenda Items

[48:20 – 63:29]
The episode briefly touches on GOP immigration policies, highlighting President Trump's controversial "Alligator Alcatraz" migrant detention center. The discussion critiques the lack of strategic value in such policies, suggesting they serve more as political distractions than effective solutions.

Jen Psaki [53:08]: "This is this language that doesn't even match... They're not going after the people with criminal records because they're harder to get. So it's just... strongman tactics."

Congressional Realignments and Third Parties

[50:34 – 52:41]
The conversation veers into the realm of potential third-party formations, sparked by frustrations with the current bipartisan system. They discuss Elon Musk's rhetoric around forming an "American Party" and the significant challenges third parties face in the U.S. political landscape.

Jen Psaki [50:51]: "There is not actually appetite for that. Elon Musk is certainly not that."

Concluding Insights with Congressman Ro Khanna

[70:38 – 86:17]
In an extended segment, Congressman Ro Khanna joins the discussion to provide his perspective on the Republican betrayal through the Megabill. He emphasizes the strategic failings of the GOP, their disconnection from working-class voters, and the broader consequences of their policies, including exacerbating national debt and undermining America's economic future.

Ro Khanna [76:33]: "It's the poverty trap. And so you're taking away investment, the kids, you're adding all this debt to these kids all to basically provide these tax breaks for the wealthy."

Khanna calls for Democrats to focus on localized impacts and robust economic arguments to sway voter sentiment against the GOP's agenda.

Ro Khanna [84:22]: "We're headed down memory lane... We've got to make the case about what's going to make this country strong."

Final Thoughts and Call to Action

[86:11 – End]
The episode wraps up with a summary of the discussions and a reinforcement of the importance of voting and engaging in upcoming elections to counteract the GOP's detrimental policies. Dan Pfeiffer encourages listeners to support Pod Save America and engage with their community to advocate for change.

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Key Takeaways:

1. GOP Megabill's Passage: The Republican-led Megabill, despite its unpopularity, passed through Congress largely due to internal party pressures and President Trump's influence.
2. Impact on Americans: The bill is set to have severe repercussions, including loss of health insurance for millions, hospital closures, reduced food assistance, increased energy bills, and significant job losses in clean energy.
3. Political Betrayal: The Republican Party's actions signify a profound betrayal of their working-class base, prioritizing tax cuts for the wealthy over essential social programs.
4. Election Implications: The Megabill could serve as a central issue in upcoming midterm elections, potentially benefiting Democrats if effectively communicated to voters.
5. Communication Strategy: Democrats need to leverage personal stories and grassroots communication to highlight the bill's adverse effects, bypassing traditional media gatekeepers.
6. Media Control: The GOP's influence over media narratives has minimized public awareness and perceived unpopularity of the bill.
7. Future Political Landscape: The episode underscores the potential for significant realignments in American politics, driven by the GOP's disconnect from their electorate.

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Notable Quotes:

• Dan Pfeiffer [04:16]: "Why did they cave? They folded without getting a single concession of consequence."
• Jen Psaki [09:17]: "It's about keeping people from going to healthcare. They're just finding money to cover the tax cuts for the highest income."
• Ro Khanna [76:33]: "It's the poverty trap. And so you're taking away investment, the kids, you're adding all this debt to these kids all to basically provide these tax breaks for the wealthy."

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This episode serves as a critical examination of the Republican Party's legislative strategies and their consequences on American society. Through informed discussion and expert insights, Pod Save America equips listeners with the necessary understanding to engage in meaningful political discourse and advocacy.

Transcript

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[Shankar Vedantam]

Are you on the right track? What do you want to be remembered for? Is this really all there is? Asking big questions about your life can feel overwhelming, but the Hidden Brain podcast hosted by me, Shankar Vedantam, is here to help you get started. All through the month of July, Hidden Brain will bring you our you 2.0 series with a special focus on purpose, passion and meaning. If you're feeling adrift, alone or burned out, this series is for you. Join Us.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Welcome to Pot Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. John is off this week, so you're getting an upgrade. Our great friend Jen Psaki hosted the briefing with Jen Psaki on msnbc, former White House Press Secretary and one of my favorite coworkers ever. Jen, thanks for doing this Dan.

[Jen Psaki]

I don't know that this is an Upgrade. But you are one of my favorite coworkers ever, too, and in fact, one of my favorite bosses, which I always like to remind you of every time we talk.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No one would ever believe now that I was ever your boss. And even then, that was. That was more on the org chart than in reality. We were colleagues.

[Jen Psaki]

We were partners. Okay, we can revise history. That's totally fine.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's fine. I'm good with that. Okay, today we're gonna talk about the big horrible bill, which is very likely being signed into law as you're enjoying your Fourth of July barbecue. We'll also get into the latest on immigration, including Trump's threats to denaturalize and deport Zoran Mondavi. And we'll be talking with our friend Ro Khanna, one of the smartest people in the House of Representatives, but about where we go from here. But let's start with the bill because a lot has happened since John and Tommy recorded on Monday afternoon. On Thursday afternoon, the House Republicans, by the slimmest of margins, passed the Senate's version of Trump's so called big beautiful bill. There was some drama along the way. Republican deficit hawks and moderate holdouts banded together for a while to keep the bill from coming to the floor. But in the end, all but two of them did what Trump air Republicans do best. They folded without getting a single concession of consequence. Democrats, for their part, did the best they could to delay the final vote. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke for eight and a half hours in opposition to the bill, setting a new record for the longest floor speech in modern history. But ultimately, it wasn't enough to stop the bill's passage, which Trump said he'd signed on Friday morning. Jen, let's talk about how this bill ended up passing. As of last night, it looked like there were enough holdouts to, if not kill it, at least delay the bill's passage. I went to bed at 10 o' clock Pacific time last night. They were all holding out. When I Woke up at 4:00am Pacific Time, that all folded. What changed? Why did they cave?

[Jen Psaki]

I mean, I had a similar east coast version of sleep time, but when I went to bed or when I was getting ready to go to bed, there were still the four holdouts, which meant they would have had to flip one, which they clearly did more than that. You know, I was thinking about this this morning and I was reading this piece in the New York Times where they had this paragraph or two where it talked about how there was a version of a Republican Conga line that came to the White House and Trump signed all of these things. And people left the White House after this charm offensive and felt maybe warmer about the bill, which that was earlier in the day, but I think that continued throughout the course of the evening, clearly. And Mike Johnson made this calculation, which is a calculation he's made in the past to make go to the floor even if you don't know you have the votes. He did it when he was running for leadership and hope the pressure will flip people. And what happened in the middle of the night? Was it a Trump call? Was it a promise made to somebody about something we don't entirely know, or was it some of these people made the calculation they didn't want to be primaried and they'd rather face the voters in their district. That also could have happened. It's not surprising. I wasn't shocked by it moving forward. I'm sure you weren't either. Doesn't mean it's like not disappointing. It's hugely disappointing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But yeah, it's just so wild on one front. Right. Like, yes, we get it, these guys fold all the time. But they all said just hours earlier, I will never vote for this bill.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If I don't, I need changes, give me changes. Then they voted for a bill with no changes. Not a single comma, period, quotation mark number was changed from the Senate bill that arrived earlier that day. They just rubber stamped that. And I guess and I talked about this a little bit in my interview with Ro Khanna that you'll hear later. There's a lot of fear of Trump in the primary. It's just no one means what they say, which maybe that's just naive to even care about. But they don't even adhere to their lies. They're lying about what's in the bill. And even within the framework of that lie, they can't stick to it.

[Jen Psaki]

True. And remember, there were two different reasons why House members were opposing the bill. Right. There was the Freedom Caucus who all were so outraged by the cost. Right. Or how expensive the bill was. A hugely expensive deficit adding bill. They were outraged by that. I'm never gonna support this. Some of them were threatening, like, we'll walk out, what have you. They obviously did it. Most of them didn't do that. And then were the. There were the members who were at least verbally outraged by the Medicaid impact of Medicaid, and they just still went ahead and did it. So it was like two different groups convinced themselves to come forward and support the bill. And you know, who knows what they're telling themselves. It may be it's their political survival, but yeah. Completely disappointing and outrageous and you know, hopefully they pay a political price. They will.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The thing that's interesting was there for a long time there were four no votes.

[Jen Psaki]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Three conservatives and Brian Fitzpatrick.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Who is a. I can't really call anyone in this caucus a moderate, but he is, he represents a vulnerable swing district.

[Jen Psaki]

Moderate. Ish.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, he's more, he's more moderate than Jim Jordan. So congratulations. Whatever. Right. And he, his vote was mostly somewhat about Medicaid, but really also about. He's mad about them cutting off arms.

[Jen Psaki]

Ukraine.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, to Ukraine. And he, to his credit, voted no and then turned off his phone and left and never came.

[Jen Psaki]

I don't know why more people don't do that, by the way. Why would people stick around? That's like a side note to, to wait to be pressured by Lil Mike Johnson. I don't know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's very strange. But then, so most of the argument which is just, you know, here you have this bill that is going to kick 17, but we'll talk, get into the details. But it's keep you off their health care, take food away from poor people, do all these terrible things. And most of the people opposing it, people who are most likely to bring it down, were not mad about any of that stuff. No, they were not mad that the bill was too cruel. They were mad that it wasn't cruel enough. And just like the total fucked up nihilistic cruelty of the Republican Party comes to bear in this because their argument was we said we needed a bill with $2 trillion in cuts. Their claim was that's the deal that Mike Johnson made to us. That was what was in our budget resolution, that that's what we passed. And then the Senate gets their bill and they make a bunch of changes. They actually make some of the Medicaid stuff worse. Almost no one's complaining about that. Maybe one guy from North Carolina who ended up voting for the bill. What the Senate did was they made a bunch of business tax cuts permanent, which added a half a trillion dollars to the bill.

[Jen Psaki]

Made it more expensive. Yeah, right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So instead of taking those out, no one's arguing to take those out. They're just arguing for more Medicaid cuts to do it. It's just like we the opposition, it's just really important for. I think, but it is most of the opposition with the Republican Party was not that the bill kick people off its health care, didn't kick Enough people off its health care.

[Jen Psaki]

No, 100%. And the other part that's completely gross, there's many gross parts, is that when they talk about this, a lot of them explain it as well. We just wanted to extend the tax cuts. And the Medicaid stuff is just a pay for. It's just a pay for. Like, it's not a policy decision. It's like. No, it is a decision because it's a huge impact of the bill. As if it was a sidebar thing. They were just trying to find money to cover the tax cuts for the highest income. As if that makes it okay. Which I find even more disgusting. Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Minutia, as JD Dance would call it.

[Jen Psaki]

Which that as a note. And I don't know if you've talked about this, but the fact that it wasn't like a reporter caught him in the hallway tired, he typed that up, or a staffer typed that up and posted it. Right. It was like, you know what I'm going to say? The Medicaid cuts is minutia. That's what I'm going to type that up on my phone or whatever. Whatever he may have done. Yeah. All of that together is. I mean, it should be incredibly alarming for people. It should be.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. There's something broken in our system because people voted to hurt their own constituents for a bill that's incredibly unpopular. And those are supposed to be the circuit breakers in the system that keep people from doing things. They're supposed to be under pressure, political pressure, to not do terrible things. But that traditional political pressure of the voter has been subsumed by pressure from one man in the President of the United States. And that's when you sort of tip over from democracy into some sort of fascistic authoritarianism. Because the core idea that the people have the power to democracy has fallen by the wayside because it's really only about one person.

[Jen Psaki]

Very true. I know. I mean, you're the polar coaster man. So, like, you know more about polls than most people, I will say. And you probably saw these. There were a couple of polls and we'll see how it plays out. Because now Trump's gonna do the big thing with the B2 bombers and all this kind of stuff happening when he signs it. The Washington Post Ipsos poll this week where it showed that by like a 10 point margin, and I can't remember if it was 12 or 13 points in a different 10 point margin in white working class voters, did not like the bill, um, and by like a 12 or 13 point margin white rural voters didn't like the bill. Those are Trump voters. Those are core people. I mean, he won those groups by large margins. What's tricky, there's a lot of tricky things here. One of the tricky things is what the Republicans did in this bill is they made the implementation of the cuts not until after the midterm elections. So it's going to have to be not you've lost your healthcare, but they are going to take your healthcare away, which still could work, but. But it's a little bit more nuanced than, like, it's leaving next week.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, there's a lot of work to do, and we'll get to some of the politics and the communications around it in a minute. But I just. When John and Tommy recorded on Monday, the bill had not passed the Senate yet, so they went through a similar process. They recorded, then we're up. You know, all. You know, the Senate goes into this process all Monday night. Is it going to pass? Is it going to pass? Lisa Murkowski is holding out in the end. Lisa Murkowski cuts a specific deal for her state that some people are calling the Kodiak Kickback, which I think is a great term. Did you see her defense of why she voted for it and what did you think of it?

[Jen Psaki]

It was.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It.

[Jen Psaki]

First of all, it was in the category, and she's not the only one. There's a lot of people in Trump's Cabinet and members of the Republican Party who do a similar defense, which is the, like, I'm an observer of what's happening defense. Like, I don't even know what's going on. I hope the House fixes it and makes it better. It's like you were the deciding vote in the Senate, ma'. Am. You know, I mean, like, you were the one who just allowed this to move forward, but it is almost like they're taking away their own power because they don't want to take responsibility. And that is so consistent. I found her defense to be so. It was agonizing. I hope the House makes it better. Almost just offensive to people who she represents. I mean, really, you have the ability to vote which way you want. And I hope that Kodiak kickback, I don't know that it's gonna. It's not gonna solve all of the other things that are going to impact the people of your state.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

She. It's just the idea, like, she thinks her constituents are idiots. Yeah, Right. Because she can't possibly be as obtuse as she's acting here. Everyone knows that it's not coming back from the House. But if it were to come back from the House, it's not going to be better on Medicaid. Right. It's the opposite. It goes the opposite direction. The House would make it. If they did it made it. If they made any changes at all, it would be to make the Medicaid provisions more onerous on the people of her state and to probably, I would imagine, since the state of Alaska has a grand total of one House member, they would have taken out the Kodiak kickback because that would offended people everywhere else. And it's just. You're exactly right. People, they are just people. They're. Everyone involved here is so unwilling to take responsibility for what they have just done to the people of their states or of their districts.

[Jen Psaki]

It is. I know. Also, Lisa Murkowski, you've been in the Senate a long time. The House is now run by little Mike Johnson, who's like, how high should I drum? Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, depending on the day. So, like, you think they're going to make it better? I mean, she obviously doesn't. It's, again, as you said, treating people like they're stupid.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Do you think Democrats did enough to oppose this bill?

[Jen Psaki]

I love what Hakeem Jeffries did. I think it's great. I think it brought the vote at least into the light of day. Is that gonna make the ultimate difference around midterm elections? No, but I think it was at least a smart, tactical thing to do leading up to it. You know, I'm not. It's hard to envision. Now. I want to hear what you think about this, that they could have done anything to prevent Republicans from going the way of Trump and getting enough of them. But could they have put more pressure on in districts? Could they have spent more money in those places? Could they have done more targeted efforts? Probably. But again, I'm still not totally sure, given how willing to cave and spineless this caucus is, it would have changed the outcome just because of who the final votes were. But what do you think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I think that's right. So the polling, in addition to showing this bill is incredibly unpopular, the polling shows that people have not heard a lot about it.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah, right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It just hasn't broken through to people.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So I think it's. While I am, as people who listen to podcast know, I talk a lot about the media ecosystem, how challenging it is to get attention. Democrats obviously did not find a way in this very difficult environment to get enough attention for this Bill.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah, right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't know what, like, I don't have a great idea of what's the thing they could have done at a time in which Trump is bombing Iran and we have the tariffs and there.

[Jen Psaki]

Are alligator Alcatraz, I mean, all the.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Freaking things happening, sending the military to Los Angeles, the middle of this. Like, I just don't know what the silver bullet was. But if the measure is, did you focus the nation's attention on this terrible bill? Then they did not do that.

[Jen Psaki]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I do not think that would have changed the legislative outcome here. Because the general view, how this has always been in politics is you defeat a bill when you're in the minority by making the bill so unpopular that the majority thinks it is not in their interest to pass it. This bill is so unpopular, it's the most unpopular piece of legislation in the history of modern polling. And they still voted for it anyway. And almost every single one of them voted for it. And so I don't know that they'd gotten a whole bunch more attention that would have stopped the bill. It may have made it easier to inform, to made more people aware of it, which would have driven their numbers down, which can help us in the midterms over time, but they just did not have a ton of tools to actually do it because there is now this. The connection between public opinion and governmental action has been severed in the Republican Party.

[Jen Psaki]

I mean, I feel like we're having a crossover week. Dan, I'm really enjoying it because I think I asked you this question the other night, but now I'm curious what you think now that now it's passed. Because now it's passed. And I think they had a. Although it's passed, I mean, Jeffrey's doing. What he did was good. You've seen some sort of, like, you know, action and excitement among House members who really showed up. What do they do now, like this weekend and the next couple of weeks? Because the key thing to your point is it's. What is it, 42, 43% only? No. And also in every poll you see the more people learn about it, the more they hate it. So it's like there is huge opportunity in informing people more. But what does that look like in this media environment?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think there. There's no easy answer. I want to stipulate that, like, I am very sympathetic to all the people who have our former jobs working for all these members. Like, this is just. It's not.

[Jen Psaki]

We didn't have TikTok and our age.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We have directing it just, it was a different world. Like we can actually get attention by going to the, the traditional media now. It's very hard to reach people and the people who don't know about the bill are people who either passively consume news or actively avoid political news. And so reaching those people is very hard. I think what this means is that we're going to have to talk about it all the time.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's even when we're not getting attention about it. We need people with big platforms to talk about it. We need the people within the party with the biggest platforms. And that includes our former boss. That includes the. All the people who, who have inkling of running for president in 2028. It includes the former vice president and our nominee have to be out there talking about this. Those people have not really been on the playing field yet. And so our biggest megaphones have not been talking about it because we will win this battle from public opinion the more people know about it. Because even just as it's gotten more attention over the last six weeks here, as the House has said to be considering it, it has gotten less popular. And one thing that I think should give everyone some confidence in the Navigator Research polling among Republicans. Among Republicans. As I said on your show the other night, the poll, the bill is 10 points less popular now than it was six weeks ago. And so there is like if we talk about it, we can actually do it. But it's going to have to be more than it's going to. We're not going to. There's not going to be one single thing that does it. I think this is one of those times where it's just like repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition right into the campaign cycle.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah. And I think the, I mean this reminds me a lot of 2018. I don't know if it reminds you of 2018 just because that was a campaign all about healthcare that cycle. That was when Democrats won back a lot of seats, won back the house, 40 something seats. I think Pelosi became speaker again and it was about Republicans efforts to take things away. And now it's like they're actually taking things away because. But it was very focused to your point. And again the media environment was very different then. So it's more challenging. But more than. I looked this up the other day. More than 50% of the ads post Labor Day were about healthcare. I mean it wasn't about 20 topics. Right. That's my point. And we got a long time till the midterms. But it is sort of a modern Day lesson in some ways.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it is. I agree with you. It's like we were able to. With. With a measure of pretty significant discipline across the party, which is notable in a party that's not. Not always disciplined to. On the idea that they were trying. That they cut taxes for rich people and were going to try to pay for it by taking your health care away.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The slight difference here that I think makes this a little more challenging for us is because of a different media environment, because people were so dialed into political news back then. Everyone knew the Republicans tried to take the ACA away because of the famous moment with John McCain and the thumbs down. We still had the capacity for monocultural political moments back then. And so there was context. So you knew that. So when you saw an ad or heard a politician say they did it, you actually knew it happened. And the hard part here is most people are not going to know that Republicans voted to take Medicaid away at the outset. So when you see the ad or you hear the politician who you're instantly skeptical of, if you don't have context for that attack, you're more likely to dismiss it, which is why the work now matters for when the campaign kicks off. Like the goal should, like, should very clearly have a baseline measurement of what public awareness is of several provisions in the bill, including Medicaid cuts. And then where is it six months from now. Right. Where is it eight months from now to actually know if we're making gains on that front?

[Jen Psaki]

I realize this is your show and not mine, but I do think you're one of the smartest people in politics. I'm gonna ask you one more question, or we can talk about it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, since you framed it that way. Yes. Go ahead.

[Jen Psaki]

No, tell me. You better be smart, or I've built up what you're gonna say. I, um. The other thing that I think is challenging in a different way now, and Trump has always been a liar, but now it is like everybody's lying. He's lying. Like that report the other day a couple days ago about how he private. In the caucus meeting, he said there are three things you can't touch. Social Security, some one or something else, and Medicaid.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And it's like Social Security, Medicare. And Medicaid.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah, Medicare, Medicaid, yeah. And somebody in the room, like a Republican member, was like, we are touching Medicaid. And it's. And it's like, is he lying to himself? He's not a policy wonk. But like, you have to be basically dead. Not to see like what the cuts are. It's like how do you combat that? Because it is pushing this complete gaslighting into the public and that's what the Democrats are fighting against.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is the part where we're going to need to use individual stories of people.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. Because there are. People are going to be more likely to believe people than politicians always. Like if I was working on campaigns in for 2026, instead of shooting like slickly produced, well lit TV ads of, you know, people to camera talking about what these Medicaid cuts are made of them, I would have people recording videos, vertical videos on their phone.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. So it looks like a FaceTime call.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Because that's how people consume information now. And they're very. The more slickly produce something is the more skeptical they are of it.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Because they don't trust the news, they don't trust politicians. And so I think we're really going to need individual people because people don't really trust Donald Trump.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Outside of his base, they don't really trust Democrats either. But they might trust someone from their community.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Talking to it. So that's, that's sort of, I think how you, how you would have to do it.

[Jen Psaki]

RPS as we used to call it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Rp where it always comes back to the real people.

[Jen Psaki]

Real people. Foreign.

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Shankar Vedantam]

Are you on the right track? What do you want to be remembered for? Is this really all there is? Asking big questions about your life can feel overwhelming, but the Hidden Brain podcast, hosted by me, Shankar Vedantam, is here to help you get started. All through the month of July, Hidden Brain will bring you our you 2.0 series with a special focus on purpose, passion and meaning. If you're feeling adrift, alone or burned out, this series is for you. Join us.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

All right, let's shift gears a little bit to what happens now. First and definitely most important, here's what the bill will actually do. And I want to say this because all of you are going to be at fourth of July barbecues. You can be with your friends and family. That is an opportunity for you to talk to them about what's in this bill. So let's do this. 17 million people will lose health insurance over the next 10 years. More than 300 hospitals will be at serious risk of closing the doors entirely. More than 3 million people will lose their food assistance because of new paperwork requirements for SNAP benefits. Individual household energy bills will go up by $170 over the next 10 years. And more than 800,000 clean energy jobs will be lost by 2030. And all of that is to pay for tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the ultra wealthy and large corporations. Jen, other than gaslighting, is there any way the Republicans could actually sell this piece of shit to their constituents?

[Jen Psaki]

Well, this sort of goes back to what we were just talking about and you can kind of see a preview and it's good to know how they're going to sell it, right? Or not sell it, how they're going to talk about it and defend it. I mean, they've clearly tried to lead with things like no tax on tips. Right? Which is not a bad thing. I'm not against that. But as if that's the driving big thing out of this bill. And the challenge is they have continuously said there are no cuts to Medicaid here. And you have to explain. Right. So it's like you have to explain that they're making it arduous paperwork that people aren't going to be able to fill out and complete and that's going to knock a bunch of people off Medicaid. And there's this particular tax cut that helps people be able to pay for Obamacare. It's like that's a lot to explain. So I think people should assume that they're going to try to continue to gaslight people. And the Democrats need to make it as simple as possible as you've done. I mean, we talked about this the other day. It's like it's got to be. They're taking, they're getting rid of your health care and taking it away so that they can give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. Right. It's like if you're explaining arduous paperwork, you're losing. You should assume they are going to gaslight people and they are will lie. And so it's like being prepared for that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I do want to, I sort of think about this in a couple ways. There's like one, what does a politician say on the stump or goes, how do they say that? Then there is like, how do people who, like regular activists, volunteers, people who just care about democracy, talk about this stuff in conversations with their friends and family? Because my operating theory of politics is that those conversations are now more important of what? They're the forefront of political communications. Right. What you and I used to do by like dialing up reporters and getting stories in the New York Times. Now what really happens is you tell people how to talk about these things and they go talk about them. And I just want to make one point on Medicaid because this is where the gaslighting has been incredible. It's all about work requirements. And the idea that the Republicans are selling is that there are a bunch of able bodied people who are sitting at home collecting Medicaid checks. And that is not true. But let me just explain how we know that's not true. No one gets a Medicaid check. Medicaid does not mail a check to you. If you are eligible for Medicaid, you go to the doctor, you go to the hospital, you get a cancer treatment, you see a doctor about a broken arm, whatever it is, Medicaid pays the bill. So the only way we're saving money on Medicaid is not to stop sending Medicaid checks to people who don't need them. It is people not getting health care. Right. Or making these people pay for health care themselves, which many of them can't do because they qualify for Medicaid. And so just. And like on the work requirement thing, like, that is the one part in the polling that polls very well. Just we have to like one just factual point here is that the point of these. Arkansas did this. When Arkansas put work requirements on Medicaid, employment did not go up.

[Jen Psaki]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. Ezra Klein and Mad Iglesias made this point on their podcast.

[Jen Psaki]

Didn't prompt people to go back to work or whatever they were describing, because.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There were not people who were being lazy. It doesn't solve your problem to not get a paycheck if you were just going to the doctor when you're sick. Like, it doesn't. This is not like they're trying to treat this like Ronald Reagan's mythical, pretty racist idea. Welfare queens just sitting at home collecting welfare checks. That's not what this is. It's about keeping people from going to healthcare. But in Arkansas, I think the number is 95% of the people who fell out of the program because of the work requirements already had jobs. They were paperworked out of their own healthcare because you have to fill it out once a, you know, whatever it is, depending on the state, once a week, once a month, once every six months. And people, you know, they fill out the wrong form, they don't fill it out on time and they lose their healthcare. So we're just keep people from having health care. And I think just if you're talking about Medicaid with people, people are going to use this work requirement thing. And I just want people to have the information to actually talk about it in a way that persuades people.

[Jen Psaki]

Absolutely. And, and I think the separation of how people talk about it with their friends and neighbors, which is the most important question versus what people say on the stump, is a really important one. Georgia is another example of this where they have put work requirements in. It did not work in the same way. It didn't work in Arkansas. I don't even think they're doing it anymore. Or it was like they stopped. So which, which tells you kind of a whole lot about the absurdity of using that as the baseline of your program. So.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

All right, then, as if that wasn't bad enough, there's the question of deficits. Yeah, this is something Republicans love to say.

[Jen Psaki]

They're very pearl clutchy about it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, yes. It usually sounds something like this let's take a listen. The number one threat to our nation right now is our debt. Not China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. It's the debt.

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

Country in the world, but it won't be for much longer if we don't.

[Jen Psaki]

Solve the debt problem we have.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If we don't get our debt in order, we're less safe.

[Ro Khanna]

The national security risk we have right now is our national debt.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Our national debt is larger than the gross domestic product. We're going broke.

[Ro Khanna]

And I think the American people are.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Looking for adult leadership. They're looking for leaders to come. Come to Washington, roll up their sleeves, and stop spending money we don't have.

[Jen Psaki]

Is that the soothing tones of Ted Cruz?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, exactly. Just always the tails on a chalkboard.

[Jen Psaki]

Okay.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, he is annoying in audio, he's annoying in video. He's annoying in real life. 2d3 day in every way is annoying that most of these people you heard there just voted for a bill that Congress's own accounting pros say will add more than $3 trillion to the deficit for no reason. And they're all celebrating. Were these people full of shit then, or are they full of shit now?

[Jen Psaki]

I mean, both.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's always both.

[Jen Psaki]

Yes, it's always both. You know, one of my colleagues. Do you know who Steve Bennetn is? He's very smart. I do writes a lot. He's great. He wrote this thing this morning that I appreciated. I think you would, from working in government so much. It's like, what are you trying to solve when you do your signature? Most presidents are like, what problem can I solve? I ran on the problem to solve it. Or I entered government in and it was. I had. I inherited a problem. Right. Barack Obama inherited a financial crisis. He also was concerned about the millions of people who didn't have health care. Let's go solve those problems. Right? And that is what he focused on, which is a very clear objective. Joe Biden, you know, he inherited Covid. I mean, it's not like Trump created it, but, you know, it's like he was in the middle of a Covid crisis. It's like the most framing thing to me in some ways is like, Trump is like, what problem should I solve? Rich people need more money. That's the problem he's solving. All the things we're talking about in terms of the impacts, like the cuts to SNAP benefits, the cuts to Medicaid, these onerous work requirements, that is all a sideshow in order to solve the problem that he has identified as the biggest problem for his signature legislation. And, and that is rich people need to pay lower in taxes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You know, these people keep saying to, to your point of gaslighting that the deficit's not going to go up. Scott Besson has said that we're going to grow our way out of this. Right. Because if the economy grows, you get more tax revenues and therefore the deficit comes down. But here's the thing, right? This is a very important point. One, it's BS it didn't work last time.

[Jen Psaki]

Nope.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Or any time Republicans use an accounting trick that they love to use called dynamic scoring. This is getting very nerdy, which I know you appreciate.

[Jen Psaki]

I love it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Dynamic scoring is, is one way in which the Congressional Budget Office, the bean counters are supposed to factor future growth into it. So if something grow, they project is going to grow the economy 3% or whatever else, they will then take the new additional tax revenue that will come from that and subtract out the cost of the bill, making it cheaper. Well, guess what? They finally got to use dynamic scoring here, and it made the bill more expensive because they believe this bill, the CBO believes this bill is going to slow down growth because it's going to raise interest rates, and so it's going to make it worse. And just this idea you and I were around when Washington D.C. lost its mind about debt and deficit and thought we were going to become Greece and all of this, and at the exact moment when the government was trying to, we're trying to get out of a financial crisis, we're trying to create jobs, and all of a sudden we're worried about deficits. That was a time which interest rates were close to zero. Now we're at a time of inflation, Interest rates are high. So the cost of that $3 trillion is massively more expensive. When Obama passes the Recovery act, when Biden and Trump passed the COVID rescue bills. So this is like, this is going to have real, real consequences. And so I guess my political question is, do you think people care about deficits? And should Democrats make this a part of their message?

[Jen Psaki]

First of all, somewhere Brian Deese and Jason Furman's hearts are singing because of your explanation of that. I will just say I don't think the Democrats should make this about deficits.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Interesting.

[Jen Psaki]

Every poll I've seen. But you tell me polls are imperfect. I know does not rank that as the high thing. I think it can distract from the other pieces, which is like, what are you taking away from people's lives? Healthcare benefits, nutrition Things like that. Where I do think there's maybe opportunity is like the hypocrisy piece I suppose. Right. Like this person and there are certain districts where this may work. So maybe it's district to district but that's my gut. But you may not agree with me which is always interesting.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't know. I want to ask this question because I am workshopping this in my head.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like no question taking food and health care away from people is top of the list. Right. No question there are voters who care about this. There's like it came up, it would show up in polling in the 2024 election in some way or form. And so there's at least some segment of voters where we should be making that message to. Right. And I think there was some benefit in branding the Republicans as fiscally irresponsible as we were able to do to George. The Republicans in the George W. Bush era when they were waiting because Clinton, I mean now we're headed down memory lane here but Bill Clinton in the 90s actually got us adept got us in a surplus. George W. Bush then spent all that surplus on a tax cut for the mostly benefit the rich and then on a really stupid war in Iraq for a very long time. And then we Obama inherited these huge deficits. So I think there's some benefit in branding the Republicans as such. I also think that the there's going to be massive consequences down the line for debt this large with interest rates this high. And it's important that people know who did this. So that's maybe more of a little bit of a long game because the next Democratic President hopefully in 2029 is going to inherit a gigantic shit show because of this.

[Jen Psaki]

No doubt. Well I wonder because in the polling is it who cares about it most? Is it age specific? Is it like independence or is it geographic or do you. I don't know. I'm just curious.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'd have to dig deeper. It has traditionally been people self identifying moderates and independence and a lot of times it comes from like a pox on both your house's views of the parties they spend money. We have gotten a lot of those former deficit voters just because I think there were probably more traditional college educated suburban voters who've come to our coalition. But there are some and I just think it's one thing we should just think about. There's a fine line. You don't want to embrace the austerity politics that we don't like so that when we actually get into office because we do things responsibly. Right. Inflation Reduction act paid for. The Affordable Care act, paid for. Right. But you don't want to, like people. People lost their minds about this before. We don't lose their minds again. But I do think we Republicans have to own this, and I think there's probably some value in that. But like I said, I'm workshopping it.

[Jen Psaki]

No, no, no. It's interesting. I mean, we'll also see because it's like, you know, Abigail Spanberger, who's more on the moderate side, running to be governor of my state, there's a Michigan primary and the Democratic set. Like, some of these things are going to be workshopped also in these races, which will be kind of interesting to see, too.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And.

[Jen Psaki]

And I'm also wondering about if there are things like you're saddling your grandchildren with debt. You know, it's like, who are they? So I don't know. It's. I'm interested in the outcome of your workshop. I don't know if there's going to be a podcast on that, but we'll listen.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If there's a silver lining here, it's that retaking the House, which already seemed to be somewhat in sight, now seems even more plausible. We've both worked in wave elections that tend to be about one really big issue driving public opinion around the country. You mentioned what 2018 was about. Republicans took the House in 2010 around the Affordable Care Act. When you were at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, 2006, it was about the Iraq War. Do you think this bill could qualify as one of those issues that drives the election?

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah, I do. Because I think that if you look district by district, and I know there's lots of data and lots of groups are wisely pulling this data out there, you can tell the story of the direct impact. I mean, David Valdeo has, like, the highest percentage of Medicaid recipients in the country. Right. That alone is an argument in that district. And there are ways to. And this is like the DCCC days. It's like, make it very localized and specific and about real people and the people. It's impacting and. And it's about taking something away. So I think it could be. We. I mean, it is 18. Are we 18 months? Six. Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Basically.

[Jen Psaki]

I'm not a math.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We're more than a year. We're more than a year.

[Jen Psaki]

I'm not a math expert, but, like, we're more than a year, almost a year and a half away. Lots of things could happen. But I still think this could be the, like, defining topic that is hammered home in a lot of these districts, at least in putting challengers on the map in some ways too, who are running against people who voted for this. But that's just my gut. Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think this should make winning the House easier. It should even make winning the Senate plausible.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Because Republicans just, they, they launched a full frontal assault on the core of their coalition. Right. This is the working class voters who are going to suffer from this bill are their voters now. Right. The p. And it's not just. This is not. There's a lot of, like, when are the, you know, there's a lot thing you see on, you know, Twitter or blue sky from Democrats. Like, when are the MAGA base going to realize that Trump is fucking him over? And it's like, no, they're the mega base. Right. They're, they're for him for a reason.

[Jen Psaki]

They're buying his merch. They're buying alligator Alcatraz hats.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right. They're not going to take off their alligator Alcatraz hat, the Gulf of America hat. But the people who are really like. And they will suffer in this, and they will probably find a way to rationalize it because maybe they care about something more than their own personal financial interests. Right. Maybe it's abortion or just general. They fetishize fascism. I don't know, whatever it is that gets them there. But the people who moved from like Biden to Trump from 2020, 24, or the people who did not vote in 2020, who voted for Trump in 2024, those people are more working class, more, less likely to go to college, more likely to be black and Latino than your average voter. They're more likely to be younger. And all these people are the ones who are gonna suffer most. And so if we can actually communicate with those people, which is one of the great challenges, as we talked about throughout this podcast, it could be something that not just delivers the House, in my view. It could actually fundamentally be a political realignment. No party has ever done to their voters what the Republicans have just done to their voters. Like this has never happened before.

[Jen Psaki]

No.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's an unprecedented moment in American politics and could have unprecedented consequences.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah. Politically brutal vote. And even as there is a delay in the implementation of some aspects of the Medicaid portions of the bill, we're already seeing. There was a story today about a rural hospital in Nebraska that's closing and we will see that and those type of outcomes. The stories have to be told as to why it's Closing and why people have to drive three hours and why people can't get cancer treatments or treatments for all sorts of things. But we'll start to see those and those are things that do hit home.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. We have to make Republicans own everything that is wrong with healthcare system here. I think a lot about when we were in the White House in 2009 and people like this is the thing that was showing up in focus groups all the time is people were so mad at Barack Obama for raising their taxes.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And it's like, no, we gave you a tax cut.

[Jen Psaki]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We know we cut your taxes. But they were getting their taxes raised by their, by this, their state and their county and their city to meet budget shortfalls.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And they just assumed that they were blaming us for it. Right. So when, when people aren't getting the, when the hospital closes, the people aren't getting the services they want, when you know they should own health care inflation. Right. That this is going to raise costs, they should own, frankly all inflation at this point. That's on us to do it. But if we can do that, then I do think it can. It will obviate the challenge of the fact that they've delayed these tax cuts.

[Jen Psaki]

Yes. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The flip side of this anti incumbent wave, if it does materialize, is it can sometimes feel like all you have to do is get out and vote and it'll take care of itself. But given that many of us live in safe districts, we're going to need to be really focused on particularly flippable seats. The good news is we're going to have a really powerful story to tell in those places as you and I have been talking about. Jen, I'm just going to give some examples from our friends here at Vote Save America to show how we can win the House. I'm going to start with Gabe Evans in Colorado 8. He represents the northern Denver suburbs. He won by less than 2,500 votes last time. And under this bill that he just voted for, nearly 30,000 people in his district will lose access to health care and food assistance and nearly a thousand energy jobs could be lost. Marionette Miller Meeks in the first District of Iowa. She represents Iowa City and she won by a grand total of 799 votes. She has been so bombarded by people that she turned off her social media tags and comments. And in her district, nearly 25,000 people lose access to health care. Nearly 29,000 people will lose access to food assistance and 1,300 energy jobs could be lost. And there's one rural hospital in danger of closing all because of that. Then David Valdeo, as you mentioned in California, 22, he represents Bakersfield. He lost a seat in 2018 after voting for Trump's first tax cuts, but then won it back in 2020. 65,000 people in his district could lose access to their health care, 60,000 households could lose access to food assistance, and 3,612 energy jobs could be lost. He just fucked over his district in a truly epic way. And so if you people listening here want to learn more about who we can target and what we can do to take the House back, go to votesaveamerica.com.

[Jen Psaki]

Foreign.

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[Shankar Vedantam]

Are you on the right track? What do you want to be remembered for? Is this really all there is? Asking big questions about your life can feel overwhelming. But the Hidden Brain podcast hosted by me, Shankar Vedantam, is here to help you get started. All through the month of July, Hidden Brain will bring you our your 2.0 series with a special focus on purpose, passion and meaning. If you're feeling adrift, alone or burned out, this series is for you. Join us.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

All right, Jen, one last topic on the politics here. Elon Musk is still seriously on one about the bill. Yeah, he wrote on this social media site that he owns that every Republican who campaigned on cutting spending and then voted for this bill, quote, will lose their primary next year. Was the last thing I do on earth. He also wrote if this insane spending bill passes, the American party will be formed the next day. Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat Republican uniparty so that people can actually have a voice. Do you think the American party is a thing at all? And should we give him until Monday since Friday is a federal holiday, you.

[Jen Psaki]

Know, we're graceful people. So we'll give him till Monday or I will. I don't know about you. Look, here's the thing. The guy has a lot of money. He knows nothing about politics. See Wisconsin state senate race where he wore a cheese hat and threw millions of do tens of millions of dollars at it. And the liberal justice won.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

People will probably and they struck down the abortion ban. It was nuts.

[Jen Psaki]

And elections have consequences. Like there's an example. It is but in terms of the party creation, as you well know very well, it's very hard to create a third party or to run on third party. I mean think about like the Libertarians or the Green Party. They're on a never ending battle to get on state ballots because state laws are all different. Right. So he'd have to not just have money. It's like a full time plus job to try and attempt to do something like that. In terms of creating another party. I think you also have to get I looked this up today because I like to prep is like an advisory opinion. You have to get an advisory opinion from the FEC to like sorry. My point is it's really hard to actually do that. The other thing this reminds me of is God bless the Howard Schultz period of time when everybody was like, we need somebody who, like, we need a party and a person who's not from either side, who can just speak to the middle. People say that. What, every cycle? Wasn't there like a Joe Manchin theory at some point? 2020, anyway, that never works. There is not actually appetite for that. Elon Musk is certainly not that. But it reminds me a little bit of that where like, maybe the talking point sounds good on paper for a second until you see Elon Musk's name attached. But also it's really hard to start a third party and do it actually.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Elon Musk is more likely to colonize Mars than he is to build a viable third party in the century.

[Jen Psaki]

Should we root for that? I mean, who's for him colonizing Mars? Have at least.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, it's on his agenda.

[Jen Psaki]

Yes, you can have him.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Hopefully he goes, obviously, the world's richest man could have a huge impact in congressional primaries. Do you think he actually does anything here?

[Jen Psaki]

It's what's so hard to know. And so my theory, which is quite dark and conspiratorial, but here we are, is that Elon Musk kind of already has what he wants. I mean, he has all this data. Right. There's been tons of stories about this. This is what he wanted from Doge. Doge still has access to all this data. It's data on private sector companies, it's data on competitors, it's data on the American people. So I'm not totally clear if he's just like fucking with Trump. Right. And maybe he just like throws in some money in a couple of races to Trump off if he's still mad. Maybe that's my. Where my gut is. I just. It's hard for me to envision him giving huge amounts of money to like 50 congressional candidates, but we'll see.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, he would need to maximize his impact. He would need to create a super pack to spend the money. Because if he. He can only give, you know, a couple thousand dollars to each primary candidate.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And so if he. Like, there are lots of rich people who could do that. Like ultra wealthy people could do it to every candidate you care about. So being the world's richest man doesn't really help that way. You need a super pac, and who's going to run that super pac, Right. What happened last time was he wanted to elect Trump. So a bunch of pro Trump operatives went to him and found a very easy way to separate him from his money. Who's going to do that this time. Right. It seems like he wants the attention more than he wants to do the actual work. So I mean, if he wants to beat some of these people and make them lose their primaries, but who's running against them too, right? I don't know who's the moderate because we're talking about beating them. Who's the pro Doge Republican who's running in Wisconsin three or whatever else, Right.

[Jen Psaki]

I don't know who that voter, like who is that candidate and like who is the pool of people who are like, I want Elon Musk to really take more control here. I don't, I don't know where that exists. So.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

All right, let's talk about immigration quickly before we go. Trump took a trip to Florida for a photo op at the so called Alligator Alcatraz, the new migrant detention center built by Ron DeSantis in the middle of the Everglades as basically a political stunt.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The discussion yielded by the visit was about as high minded as you'd expect. Let's take a listen.

[Ro Khanna]

Have a lot of bodyguards and a lot of cops that are in the form of alligators. You don't have to pay them so much. We're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Okay.

[Ro Khanna]

If they escape prison, how to run away, don't run in a straight line. Run like this and you know what, your chances go up about 1%.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think our viewers at home should know that this is air conditioned facility. So if any of the news claims are keeping them out in the hot.

[Ro Khanna]

Humid south Florida, that is wrong. It's probably 62 degrees in here or 72. Biden wanted me in here.

[Jen Psaki]

He wanted me.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It didn't work out that way, but he wanted.

[Jen Psaki]

Man, it's a lot to unpack there. Alligators make good cops. My favorite line.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Is any of this helpful beyond Trump's base, do you think?

[Jen Psaki]

Well, here's what here, here's what's kind of interesting over the last six months to me at least, where like Trump was, you know, winning on the border argument. Right. And keeping us safer on the border. And then when you started to see what he was doing under the guise of insane lunatic Stephen Miller and his 3000 a day goal of arresting migrants and kidnapping them and kicking them out of the country, people don't like the individual things, right? So it's like including deporting people, including Kilmar Abrega Garcia, including pulling people off the streets. It's like, this is not what we want. The border to be safe. But we don't like all of these things. And so alligator Alcatraz. I don't know. I guess maybe his base finds it funny. Maybe his base finds it to be a continuation of him. Like, I'm being tough on the border. I'm sending people here. It's hard for me to envision it, built it being appealing. Beyond that, I mean, it's like the cruelty is the point. The joking about putting people in a place that's surrounded by snakes and alligators. It's also, I mean, what struck me about this is like, it's very much in the vein of, I'm a strong man, I'm so powerful, I'm gonna use the military to go in la and look, I have all these dangerous reptiles. I mean, so bizarre, but all these dangerous reptiles who are gonna prevent migrants from being free. And meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of people that they are arresting, pulling off the streets, pulling from their kids, pulling from their parents are people who are not. Don't have any criminal record. Right. It's like. So it's. It's this. It's this language that doesn't even match. They're not going after the people with criminal records because they're harder to get. So to me, it's just all of this, I'm going to, like, beat my chest. Strongman tactics that he, like, resorts to all the time.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. I don't think there's probably a ton of strategy here. I think he probably thought the idea of, like, he's obviously obsessed with Alcatraz. He thought the idea of Alcatraz, of alligators eating escaping migrants, probably seems appealing to him in some way. Like the impact of it. I don't think it has much of a political impact. You're exactly right. His numbers on immigration have gone down. They're now almost as bad as his numbers on the economy, which is like a real problem for him. Over the medium term, at least. What it does is soaks up attention. Right. This is the kind of thing. This is what Ron Desantis was frankly very good at before he embarrassed himself on the national stage from the Republican primary. And Trump is doing the same thing. It was just like, I've done something that's gonna dominate attention for a day. Probably takes attention away from the bill that was passing at the time. You know, you could just like, these are the kind of clips that go viral on TikTok. Right. Both from people loving Trump for doing it. Oh, isn't this cool and funny? And people making fun of him for doing it or hating on him for doing it. And so it just kind of soaks up attention. But it's like. I mean, it's gross and disgusting and cruel and everything else, but I think the political impact of it's probably pretty limited.

[Jen Psaki]

Well, he went there also the day after the Senate passed the big ugly bill. So, like, that is telling. He wanted to talk about Alligator Alcatraz more than he wanted to talk about his signature legislation.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, because, like, in a different world, a president would go do an event somewhere to, you know, build momentum on the passage of your signature legislation to get it through the House. And instead he went to a place to talk about how to. How to run in a zigzag to avoid getting eaten by an alligator. Something I was taught at an early age when I went to visit my grandmother and Florida.

[Jen Psaki]

Oh, tough lesson.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There weren't a lot of alligators by her apartment complex. But I do remember my grandfather teaching me that.

[Jen Psaki]

Dan from Delaware, living the tough life as a child. There you go.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, yes. The mean streets of Boca Raton. My grandparents. My grandparents retired, too.

[Jen Psaki]

Exactly.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay. One potential inmate at Alligator Alcatraz is Zoran Mandami, New York City's Democratic candidate for mayor. Trump this week threatened to denaturalize and deport Mondame if he defies ice. Mondame then fired back on Wednesday. Here's a sampling of that back and forth.

[Ro Khanna]

We'll have to arrest him. Look, we don't need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I'm going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation. A lot of people saying he's here illegally. He's, you know, we're going to look at everything.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Donald Trump said that I should be arrested.

[Ro Khanna]

He said that I should be deported. He said that I should be denaturalized. Less so because of who I am, because of where I come from, because.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Of how I look or how I.

[Ro Khanna]

Speak, and more so because he wants.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

To distract from what I fight for. I fight for working people. I fight for the very people that.

[Ro Khanna]

Have been priced out of this city.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And I fight for the same people that he said he was fighting for. It is easier for him to fan the flames of division than to acknowledge the ways in which he has betrayed those working class Americans. What do you make of his response?

[Jen Psaki]

Very good. I mean, I. He is an incredibly gifted communicator, Mamdani is, which is kind of stating the obvious. What was very smart about it is he didn't take the bait and he Called it out for what it is. And that is exactly the right tactic with a bully. That's what people should do. If, I mean, I will say from personal experience, being attacked by Vladimir Putin, you gotta punch him back and call him out for why they're calling you out. And that's exactly what he did. The Republican Party, it's a state the obvious. I know you guys have talked about this. They wanna make Mamdani out to be the symbol. Right. Of every Democratic candidate. He's an insanely gifted communicator, a huge star. His politics would not work in every district in the country just to state the obvious. Right. He's not trying to say that, nor is that what he's conveying, but that's what they're trying to do. And I also am betting Trump, I mean Trump wants Eric Adams to remain mayor. So there's like lots going on here, but include. And obviously all of that is like gross dog whistle stuff. But I think that's a good model for when you're attacked by Trump. Call him out for why he's attacking. He attacks people he thinks are effective. That's why he attacks them. Right. He doesn't go after, I mean, sometimes weak people in the primary, but he attacks people that he sees as kind of a. He's seen them around too much. But yeah, I thought it was really good. What about you?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I think what I thought really was interesting is Trump is obviously attacking him for who he is. Right. Like Trump cannot fathom the idea that a 33 year old immigrant could be the mayor of his home city. Like that something must be awry. Illegal rigged. It's same reason he had to believe that Barack Obama had cheated on his.

[Jen Psaki]

Birth certificate was actually from a Muslim from Kenya.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You can't like, it's like his brain cannot factor the idea that someone like Zoran Mandani could beat the pants off of someone like Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary. Like he doesn't work that way, so it has to be something else. So it's all gross dog whistle stuff. What is just interesting is just. And this goes to, I think his talent see communicator. And it really is, I think a model for progressive politicians is he is laser focused on his working class advocacy and his populist positions. Right. Cause what he did was racist. What he did was jingoistic. What he did was offensive. But he took it and he pivoted right to the idea that he's attacking him because he's, because Annami is tough on Trump's friends, the billionaires that he. It's the way that he. I'm not saying I know what the right answer here is, because people can handle these things differently, but it's notable to me that Mandani, who's, like, everyone's talking about how he can't run all these places. He's a problem for the Democrats, how he specifically avoided identitarian politics and went right to his populist economic argument, which is what every centrist Democratic consultant would argue. You do. Right. And he did it. I thought he did very well. He's clearly very, very talented. And I was like, I took note of how he handled it, and I think other people could learn some lessons from it.

[Jen Psaki]

I think it's a model for anyone, no matter where you fall.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You could do that if you're running against Dave Valdeo or any of the other people. I mentioned those exact words.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah, exactly. And that being laser focused on working people and how you talk about it. And yeah, I think that was a very good. And what I mean, as you know, is not the working people message is exactly what they.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's mainly being the being a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

[Jen Psaki]

Right? It's like. And he's a proud member, and that works for him. And obviously, he just crushed Andrew Cuomo. It's like. But he's not. If you ask him and I've asked him, it's not like he's saying everybody should run as a Democratic Socialist. That's not what he's saying. So my point is he's not saying that, but the Republican Party is trying to make that be the case or that be the perception. But, yeah, I think that was a very well handled response.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay, one last thing before I let you go. Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, announced on Tuesday that It will pay $16 million to settle Trump's lawsuit over the 60 Minutes Kamala Harris interview. Payment will cover Trump's legal fees, and the balance will go to his presidential library foundation, which I'm sure will be used to buy books, obviously. Yes. As a reminder, this is a totally frivolous lawsuit over a segment of an interview that Donald Trump wasn't even a part of. But Paramount has a big merger in front of Trump's goons and seemed to think it had to pay up. Jen, just as the TV professional on this podcast, can you explain what 60 Minutes did, did and didn't do with the Harris interview?

[Jen Psaki]

So correct me here if I get any aspect wrong. Basically, they did a lengthy interview with her. And they edited down the interview and they used a portion of the interview, a smaller portion that they aired on a different CBS show. And Trump's issue, or the issue they argue is that they made that edit down made Harris look better. I think I'm getting this right here if I remember all the details.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yep.

[Jen Psaki]

Now it, it prompted through this process, CBS to release the full transcript and everything from the interview, which actually, when you look at the full context of the interview, she actually looks better in the full context. She doesn't look amazing in either one, but like she looks better in the full context than she does in the edited down. That's the kind of the irony here, but that's what it is. Now, you and I have been a part of. I mean, how many interviews did Barack Obama do with Steve Croft?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, so many, at least once a year.

[Jen Psaki]

I mean, I don't even know. And they were like often hours long and they would be edited down. This is kind of the normal course of business. And, you know, Republican candidates would do hours long interviews with them. McCain probably did Romney. All these people. It's 60 Minutes. They only have so many minutes even in the 60 minutes. So it's pretty standard fare for networks to do when they interview any big guests, any taped interview, you edit it down.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. This is a entirely frivolous lawsuit that every single legal person on either side of the aisle thought CBS would easily win if they had gone to trial. It probably would have never gone to trial. It would have been tossed out by a judge. But because they truly, like this is just. Kingdom says it's enough. They have a merger before the fcc. The FCC run by Trump's goons, has to approve that merger. The owners of Paramount will get billions of dollars if that merger goes through. If it doesn't, they're in huge, they're actually in huge financial trouble because a whole bunch of pending debt that the Paramount Corporation has and they feel like they have to pay tribute to Trump. They have to give him $16 million to have a pretty standard merger approved. And this comes on top of ABC paying a similar amount of money, the Walt Disney Corporation paying a similar amount of money to settle a lawsuit involving George Stephanopoulos. And we're really sort of. I guess my question for you based on that is, how discouraging and dangerous do you think this settlement is?

[Jen Psaki]

Well, first of all, the message it sends to people like Trump and his lawyer goon squad is not, it's over and we've settled it. It's, you're a good target to watch what other interviews people are doing and see if we can target more. I mean, this is what you see with law firms or with univers. They don't stop when you acquiesce. They keep going because they know you're a target for it. This is like, you know, so there's that. What concerns me is, and you and I worked in media for so long, it's like, is that you never know what's happening in the editorial meetings. Right. And while the editorial meetings are not linked to the legal judgments. Right. But what you don't know is, like, what edict is coming down from any of these places to the editorial leadership about how they're supposed to be covering the Trump administration. And it's not to suggest it's not as obvious as go on TV and say Trump is great and the best president in history. Like, that wouldn't be authentic. It's like, what stories are killed? Right. What stories aren't pursued? I mean, remember Bill Owens from 60 Minutes also resigned, like, just this year. What stories were killed there? What were the frustrations about? So the piece that concerns me is the obedience in advance that you don't see. Right. And most people don't know, like you and I do, that that's where the discussions are had. I mean, questions that are asked in the White House briefing room often come out from down from, like corporate news people in different places. They're not always invented by the reporters in the room. Sometimes they are, you know, and that's the piece that's concerning what decisions are made about what stories get to be on the air and how Trump is covered and that no one will ever be able to see it's disproving a negative. So that's the piece that I think about a lot.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. And if you're someone who doesn't really care about media or thinks that traditional media or corporate media is doomed, there is one other consequence of this, which is Paramount also owns Comedy Central and they are reportedly delaying the latest season of south park because they're afraid it's going to make fun of Trump and upset them and upend the merger. So it's like we're even allowing Trump to make programming decisions at Comedy Central for fear of upsetting our mad king. So I've just leave people with that notion.

[Jen Psaki]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay. When we come back from the break, you'll hear my conversation with Congressman Ro Khanna about what Democrats should be doing in this moment. But two quick things before we do that. If you haven't subscribed to Friends of the Pod yet, please consider doing so. Your support means more to us than ever. You'll get ad free shows and access to exclusive series like my own show, Polar Coaster. We've got a new episode out this week that goes deep on the polling around this terrible bill and key takeaways from Zoran Mandani's win in New York City. Subscribe to [e-mail] friends or directly on Apple Podcasts. Another great way to support our mission here at Crooked is to buy some of our great merch. Featured right now are Our America while supplies last T shirts and Koozies A sentence I never thought someone could force me to say into a microphone, but here we are. Check out the whole [e-mail] shop.

[Jen Psaki]

Foreign.

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

Not like a fanny pack. Fanny pack adjacent. I can't remember what it was called.

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[Shankar Vedantam]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

Joining me today to talk about the shit show in the House over the last 24 hours is Congressman Ro Khanna. Congressman, welcome back to Pot Save America.

[Ro Khanna]

Well, Dan, that's a perfect summary as I flew back Tuesday night and just watched one by one Republicans cave in the middle of the night. Predictable, but still sad to see.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. As you were watching it happen, did you have hope that they might hold or did you know they were always going to fold? Were you watching the arms get twisted, set the scene for us a little bit?

[Ro Khanna]

Well, you know, I figured they would fold. I've been through the story too many times and the fear is palpable. I mean, look, I had done a war powers resolution with Thomas Massie to keep us out of war in Iran. And Massie was targeted by not just Donald Trump's tweets, his top lieutenants, the people who won the presidency. Donald Trump says, I'm going to put you in charge to take out Massey. And that was a chilling signal, not just to Massey, but to everybody Republican. I mean, they are in mortal fear of being singled out by, by Donald Trump. But you know, when we had the boat Tuesday or two nights ago or I guess last night, it was, it's.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Been a long, it's been a long couple days here.

[Ro Khanna]

So you'll have to try to get, of course, understood, 10:00pm and you know, there were about 10 Republicans short. And I thought, okay, you know, it's going to take them a couple days. But they just kept that vote open all night. And you heard about the different deals they were making with Republicans, promising them that they would get further cuts in a future reconciliation bill, promising Trump would do some executive order. And one by one, you saw them basically folding. And the terrible result we saw this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Morning, it's like we have come to, I thought they were gonna fold. We've seen this play several times now in the Trump era. But when you step back from sort of the insanity of this moment, what they just did really seems Totally off the wall. Right here you have one and two ones. One, these members said 24 hours earlier they would never vote for this bill. They declare, unless I get changes, I'm never voting for it. They called it a piece of shit. They were all over it. They got no changes. Right? It's the exact same text that came.

[Ro Khanna]

Back from the Senate, same Senate bill.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And they all voted for it. And on top of that, all of the polling says the bill's incredibly unpopular. Every person seems to imagine this is gonna make it harder for them to win, to keep power, and yet they did it anyway. In your conversation with Republicans who are watching them, do they believe, like, do they believe their own bullshit here, or is this really just sort of fear of Trump?

[Ro Khanna]

That's fear of Trump. They're in the Thom Tillis situation, right? Tillis knows that he can't win the general election voting for these Medicaid cuts. And so he's holding out, holding out, holding out, and probably positioning himself better for the general election. And then Donald Trump basically tweets out that, I'm going to support a primary challenge. And within 12 hours, Tillis says, I'm not running for reelection. I mean, you got to. Look, if Barack Obama tomorrow decided to endorse a primary challenge against me, I wouldn't be happy, but I wouldn't quit. You know, it's not like. It's unbelievable. It's like, Trump doesn't support you, and your career is literally done. And so I think these folks knew that they were between a rock and a hard place. If they voted no, they were done. And so they're rolling the dice, and they're. They're counting on basically being able to mislead the American people. They pushed out a lot of these cuts to 2020, late 2026, 2027, and they're hoping they can skate by before the cuts really impact people. Now, I don't think that'll be the case. States will do anticipatory cuts, but that's. That's the bet they're making.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You know, we've talked a lot on this podcast over the last several weeks about the cuts to Medicaid, the cuts to snap, the tax cuts for the rich, the clean energy jobs that will be lost. But I feel like every hour I'm learning about another terrible thing in this bill. I somehow I did not realize that they eliminate direct file for the IRS in here, making it so much harder for people to file their own taxes. What. What are some of the other things in this bill? You think people should know about that may not have broken through to people.

[Ro Khanna]

Well, they make it very hard for people who are paying back their student loans to get loan forgiveness. You know, there are programs where if you make every monthly payment for 25 years, the government will forgive those loans. They take that away. If you're a doctor or a nurse who's doing public service, there are programs that will help you with student loans. They. They take that away. If you come on hard times and you can't make a payment, there are things that were there to help you. They take that away. They got funding and for university science research in there. They are, of course, the most cruel parts of taking away the health care and the food assistance. But just to put this in perspective, then, look, George W. Bush's tax cuts were awful and skewed to the words the very rich. But, like, everyone got something. And Trump's first tax cuts were also skewed for the very rich, but everyone got something. You know, you were poor, working class, you got something. This is the first time in modern history where while the rich are actually getting tax breaks, the working class and the poor are getting screwed. Like, they're being worse off. They're losing money while the rich are getting more money. And it's. It's literally unbelievable that they all voted for this, especially because the candid truth is more of the working class move to their direction and they're shafting them to help the people in my district. I mean, it's just when you look at the distribution of what this bill is going to do, it's shocking.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's really interesting because this is the pipe dream, right? This is what Paul Ryan used to wake up every morning to do, which was to cut taxes for the rich and pay for it by gutting Medicaid. In his mind, also security, Medicare. But back then, from basically the days of Reagan through the Obama years, when the Republicans pushed that policy, the tax cuts were benefiting their voters, and the cuts to social services were hurting Democratic voters. But that's now no longer the case. Trump actually won voters who made under $50,000 the year Kamala Harris won. The voters made over 100,000. It just seems just wild to me. It's like they have not updated their policy agenda to reflect the shift in their political coalition. It's like they're waging war on their own voters.

[Ro Khanna]

They literally are. I mean, some of these districts, like Valdeos district, district, over 100,000 people, 150,000 people on Medicaid, you would think he wouldn't want a trillion dollars, a cut to Medicaid, and yet he's voting for those cuts to benefit districts like mine, which has a lot of the billionaires. And I think it's two things. One, they're counting on being able to lie, basically controlling the media narrative, to say, oh, nothing changed. They're the Republicans, the Democrats are just exaggerating, people being hurt, and they're, they're basically counting on that tactic. And then two, they, they haven't calibrated the, the true populism. I mean, some of the people in their party actually, like Josh Hawley, have, or at least understand why this is.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Until he voted for it.

[Ro Khanna]

Why. Why this is bad. He still voted for it, but at least, you know, he tried trying to get the child tax rate, mortgage, or at least he gets that this is not smart politics. But a lot of the others, you know, they're not even making an effort to do it, and they hope sheer rhetoric can defy the reality of the policy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That leads me to sort of the next question here, which is, you know, all the polls show this is very unpopular, but they also show that the American people have heard very little about it. There was a poll from Predators usa, the Democratic super pac, which shows that like a tiny fraction of people could even cite the fact that there were Medicaid cuts in this bill. Why do you think it's been so hard to get people's attention on something as important as this piece of legislation?

[Ro Khanna]

I think just we're in a short attention environment. There's so much going on. There was the bombing in Iran. There's Trump's daily assault on immigrants. There's the issues that people are dealing with in their daily lives. And they just look at the headlines on this stuff and they don't really know how it's impacting them. And I think that's going to be the challenge for the Democratic Party is what we've got two tasks. We've got to show how this is actually taking away health care for folks and food assistance for folks. Have real people being telling these stories and be specific of what it's doing now and the next year so that people know before the elections that here's actually what's happening. Because they're going to keep saying, you're exaggerating, you're lying. See, it wasn't nearly as bad. And they've, of course, tried to stack most of the cuts towards the end of the end of the decade.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And that sort of gets to my question is how do we we're heading in these midterms. This should be the central issue of the midterms. But the cuts, like the damage to most people, is theoretical at that point. Have you thought about how we make that case in the context of the midterms to make sure that people like Dave Valdeo pay for their sins here?

[Ro Khanna]

So we're just having this conversation. I don't mind revealing it among the California delegation on text. And I said, look, we've got to have someone do the analysis of what cuts are going to happen starting Tomorrow up through 2026 by states in anticipation of the freeze on the provider tax, in anticipation of people having to fill out all this extensive paperwork to get benefits. And then we've got to find stories of folks like that in Valdeo's district and Calvert's district and Kim's district. We can't. I think sometimes Democrats campaign too much in abstraction. 17 million kicked off. I don't think that connects. I think we've got to be like, here's, you know, Susie, who's two year old now, doesn't have health care. And by the way, here are the specific people this month who have been affected in Valdez district. And we've really got to do our homework and I, I'm going to ask the caucus to try to come up with something so we know the timeline of these cuts and know the specifics in these districts.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You're a proud progressive, like many proud progressives, I imagine you are quite skeptical of austerity politics. But this bill does add $3 trillion in debt. This is a very different environment than other times in which Congress has passed legislation that's unpaid for. Like during the stimulus act after the financial crisis, 2008, the rescue package during COVID We're at a time of high interest rates. There are real consequences to just larding up with debt at this exact moment. Is that something you think Democrats should campaign on?

[Ro Khanna]

Yes. I mean, this is absolutely reckless to have 8% of GDP deficits when you have no external shock. I mean, it's one thing when you had the Great Recession when President Obama came into power, or even the pandemic under Trump and Biden. They had to act or if you have war. But right now you've got no external shock. You've got, as you put it, high interest rates and the money is for nothing. It's going to people who have capital who are not investing it. We know that the previous tax Trump tax cuts. People didn't increase business Investment, they sat on the money, they gave stock buybacks, they wiped off debt from corporations. So you're not getting anything productive from it. And you really run the risk of making all of us poorer as the Fed is forced to buy up these treasuries as people feel that treasuries aren't the best place to invest. So it is putting a huge burden on young people. And I think ultimately that's really the argument we have to make, which is, you know, when you take food away from people and you take away health care, the people you're hurting the most are the kids. Right? I mean, it's the poverty trap. And so you're taking away investment, the kids, you're adding all this debt to these kids all to, to basically provide these tax breaks for the wealthy. There's like nothing about investing in this country's future. All the empty rhetoric about making America great. You're really bankrupting America's future just to satisfy the whims of the wealthiest in.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This country for entirely a short term benefit. It's not even really for gain because we're not. It's not like these are new tax, for the most part are new tax cuts that are going to generate growth in the economy. They're just keeping the tax cuts that they were passed in place, whatever it was six years ago or seven years ago, that didn't really generate a lot of growth anyway. So we're just really screwing the future for a minimal benefit in the present. From a purely, totally agree from a policy making perspective, it makes zero sense. I would just looking at this thing, it just really is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen Congress pass. It just makes no sense why they actually, I know they want to give their tax cuts to their billionaires and I get that that's obviously very important to them personally, it's very important to their donors, it's very important to Donald Trump. But just the entire thing put together just is like a very contradictory exercise. They say they want to lower the deficit, they add a bunch of trillion dollars to the debt, they make recession more likely. They cut all the programs people need when recession happens. They ran on lowering costs. And this bill in every way, shape or form raises costs for people. And that's one thing that's going to be, I think a real challenge for us to explain and show people is that how this actually makes their life more expensive and that this is a specific act done by these members of Congress. Right?

[Ro Khanna]

Yeah. No, I mean, look, it takes away a lot of the subsidies for renewable energy that's going to lead to higher utility costs. It takes away funding in terms of good paying jobs. I mean health care. Look at the jobs report today. One of the reasons the jobs report was decent is all the growth has been in health care jobs. Who then says, okay, what we're going to do is cut health care so that we can have less health care jobs when that's the one sector that's generating good paying jobs and sustaining the economy. So there's a lot in it that is going to impact ordinary people's lives. But I think the broader point is that the only coherence that Republicans have that I've seen in my nine years of Congress is tax cuts. Ultimately. I mean they could dress it up as whatever populism, working class, we're new party. At the end of the day, there's like one unifying principle. They all vote for tax breaks and those tax breaks are always for the wealthiest. And their whole goal is let's starve government, let's get rid of the new deal, let's just move, make government smaller. Who cares about the deficits? We just want to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. And I really think that the Democrats just need to go out there and win the argument to say that's mortgaging America's future. That's not going to help us have kids. We're going to have good paying jobs and strong families. And that's not what's going to help us lead against China or make us a strong nation in the 21st century. And we haven't done enough of that. We haven't argued on the economics, on our theory of the case about what's going to make this country strong. I mean Obama did, Clinton did, but we've got to do that again. The basics of making the case.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Congressman Khanna, thanks for joining us. Go get some sleep. It's been a very long 24 hours for you. Hope you have a great 4th of July holiday.

[Ro Khanna]

Happy 4th. Thanks for having me.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's our show for the Today. Thanks to Ro Khanna for coming on and Jen, thank you again for guest hosting everyone. Check out Jen's excellent show, the Briefing on MSNBC Tuesday through Friday at 9pm Eastern. We'll be back with a new show on Tuesday. Everyone have a great Fourth of July and talk to you soon.

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[Jen Psaki]

Are you.

[Shankar Vedantam]

On the right track? What do you want to be remembered for? Is this really all there is? Asking big questions about your life can feel overwhelming, but the Hidden Brain podcast, hosted by me, Shankar Vedantam, is here to help you get started. All through the month of July, Hidden Brain will bring you our you 2.0 series with a special focus on purpose, passion and meaning. If you're feeling adrift, alone or burned out, this series is for you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Join Us USAA knows dynamic duos can.

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