Big Beautiful Blunder

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist – Episode "Big Beautiful Blunder" (Released July 1, 2025)

Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: Bethany McLean, Accomplished Journalist
Producer: Cory War
Social Media: Ashley Kahn's Our PC Astra Greene
Collaborators: Kathleen Sykes, Michelle Pesca

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Overview

In the July 1, 2025 episode of The Gist, host Mike Pesca delves into the intricacies of a controversial legislative bill dubbed the "Big Beautiful Blunder." The episode provides a critical analysis of the bill's implications on taxation, Medicaid, and the national deficit. Additionally, Pesca engages in an in-depth interview with renowned journalist Bethany McLean, exploring the intersection of politics, labor unions, and the American steel industry, particularly focusing on the situation in Northern Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range.

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Breaking Down the "Big Beautiful Blunder" Bill

Mike Pesca opens the episode by addressing the recently passed bill, highlighting its multifaceted impact on the economy and social welfare:

• Deficit Concerns:
  "It adds three and a half trillion dollars to the deficit. Almost four and a half trillion cents," Pesca emphasizes the staggering financial implications of the bill ([00:02]).

• Tax Cuts Favoring the Wealthy:
  The bill provides significant tax breaks to the rich, inadvertently benefiting lower-income deciles marginally. Pesca notes, "Tax cuts for the rich, they also help, let's be very fair, they help the less rich, the second highest through fourth lowest deciles get slightly richer too" ([02:15]).

• Impact on Medicaid:
  The legislation includes cuts to Medicaid, adversely affecting the poorest Americans. Using data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Pesca states, "The lowest 10% of the country... wind up losing $1,600 under this bill" ([04:45]).

• Overall Critique:
  Pesca succinctly summarizes the bill's downsides: "It gives to the rich, it takes from the poor, and it adds to the deficit." ([02:30]).

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Interview with Bethany McLean: The Steel Industry's Crossroads

Bethany McLean's Roots and Perspective

Bethany McLean, a veteran journalist known for her investigative reporting on Enron and her recent work on the U.S. steel industry's challenges, shares her personal connection to Northern Minnesota:

• Hibbing, Minnesota:
  "I went back to Hibbing for my 100-year anniversary of my high school last summer... there's something in the water," McLean reflects on how her upbringing in the Mesabi Iron Range shaped her resilience and investigative spirit ([05:39]).

The U.S. Steel Acquisition Saga

The conversation shifts to the attempted acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, highlighting the interplay between economic pragmatism and political maneuvering:

• Acquisition Offers:
  McLean explains, "Cleveland Cliffs offered $7.8 billion and $35 a share, while Nippon Steel offered almost double at $15 billion and $55 a share." The higher bid by Nippon Steel seemed straightforward, but complexities arose due to union politics ([08:27]).

• Union's Stance:
  Contrary to expectations, the national union supported the Cleveland Cliffs deal over the more lucrative Nippon Steel offer. McLean suggests this was a politically motivated decision influenced by longstanding sentiments against Japanese steel ([09:52]).

• Political Implications:
  "The Biden administration turned down the Nippon deal for reasons of national security... it was really politics," McLean asserts, critiquing the administration's handling of the acquisition as a move to curry favor with unions rather than based on genuine economic concerns ([10:23]).

• Local vs. National Perspectives:
  McLean highlights a disconnect between union leadership and steelworkers on the ground. "Steel workers on the ground understood that if somebody doesn't invest in this company, then there will be no more jobs," she states, emphasizing the pragmatic desires of the workforce versus the union's political decisions ([12:28]).

Declining Democratic Support in Northern Minnesota

The discussion transitions to the shifting political landscape in Northern Minnesota, traditionally a Democratic stronghold:

• Cultural and Economic Shifts:
  McLean explains, "Northern Minnesota has always been culturally distinct... the Democratic Party has not done a great job of solving or showing investment in this area," attributing the region's drift towards Republican support to a combination of cultural alienation and economic disillusionment ([20:17]).

• Perception of the Democratic Party:
  "The modern DFL is very out of touch with Northern Minnesota," McLean observes, indicating a growing sense of neglect and misalignment between the party's policies and the region's needs ([22:16]).

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Medicaid Cuts and Their Human Impact

Pesca critiques Senator Katie Britt's defense of Medicaid cuts, juxtaposing political rhetoric with the tangible effects on vulnerable populations:

• Senator Britt's Justification:
  Britt claims, "We're cutting the waste, fraud, and abuse, and ensuring Medicaid is for those who need it," attempting to frame the cuts as a means to streamline the program ([30:26]).

• Real-World Consequences:
  Pesca counters, "These requirements are going to reduce Medicaid and not just to the people who we want to have Medicaid reduced," highlighting the indiscriminate nature of the cuts and their broader societal implications ([30:42]).

• Economic Realities:
  Discussing the federal poverty level, Pesca underscores the inadequacy of Medicaid thresholds, stating, "If you make $18 an hour... you are not cheating the system. We need people who work at that rate, but businesses need to pay employees more," advocating for more substantial support mechanisms ([32:54]).

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The Spectacracy of Politics

In the episode's concluding segment, Pesca explores the role of spectacle in contemporary politics, arguing that essential legislative matters are overshadowed by performative distractions:

• Distraction Tactics:
  "The Trump administration are wizards of spectacle," Pesca critiques the administration's strategy of diverting attention from critical policies through high-profile conflicts and controversies ([29:44]).

• Spectacle Deficit vs. Surplus:
  He posits that significant legislative actions like the "Big Beautiful Blunder" suffer from a "spectacle deficit," meaning they receive insufficient public attention compared to more sensational but less impactful events ([30:26]).

• Call to Action:
  Pesca urges listeners to prioritize attention on substantive policy issues over fleeting spectacles, emphasizing the need for a more informed and engaged citizenry in the "spectacracy" that governs modern politics ([32:42]).

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Closing Remarks

Mike Pesca wraps up the episode by acknowledging his production team and encouraging listeners to engage critically with the pressing issues discussed. He underscores the importance of understanding the deeper economic and political currents shaping American society, urging a move beyond superficial political spectacles.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Mike Pesca on the Deficit:
  "It adds three and a half trillion dollars to the deficit. Almost four and a half trillion cents." ([00:02])

• Impact on the Poor:
  "The lowest 10% of the country... wind up losing $1,600 under this bill." ([04:45])

• Bethany McLean on Union Politics:
  "The Biden administration turned down the Nippon deal for reasons of national security... it was really politics." ([10:23])

• Shifting Political Allegiances:
  "Northern Minnesota has always been culturally distinct... the Democratic Party has not done a great job of solving or showing investment in this area." ([20:17])

• Medicaid Cut Critique:
  "These requirements are going to reduce Medicaid and not just to the people who we want to have Medicaid reduced." ([30:42])

• Spectacle in Politics:
  "The Trump administration are wizards of spectacle." ([29:44])

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Conclusion

This episode of The Gist offers a comprehensive critique of significant legislative actions and their broader socio-economic impacts. Through insightful dialogue with Bethany McLean, the discussion sheds light on the precarious state of the American steel industry, the erosion of traditional political loyalties in Northern Minnesota, and the human cost of fiscal policies targeting government programs like Medicaid. Mike Pesca's analysis calls for a more discerning public engagement with policy issues, urging listeners to look beyond political spectacles to understand and influence the foundational structures governing society.

Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

Foreign It's Tuesday, July 1, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. The rushy blows, which works on more levels than Moby Dick. I'm talking about the big beautiful bill. I can't believe I have to call it that. It passed. And in order to buy off. Sorry, Cajole and convince Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski there is a tax break for whaling boat captains. Not sure if the Republican senators from Kansas's constituents benefit that much from the whaling tax break. Three Republicans could not be broken. Collins, Tillis and Paul. You got to say Rand Paul, don't you? It seems weird to say Paul, but all the others, like Ron Johnson, who still gets called a deficit hawk in today's papers, they all voted for a bill that adds three and a half trillion dollars to the deficit. Almost three and a half trillion. And maybe these senators will fall in November, but not Ron Johnson. He's not up for reelection. Most vulnerable Republicans or would be vulnerable Republican senators are not. Now, I will get to the politics of this more in the spiel, but I just wanted to say right here, up top, very clearly why the bill is bad. You will hear three reasons. It gives to the rich, it takes from the poor and it adds to the deficit. So last one first. Yes, it does. Quite irresponsibly. The official score even pushed the costs of the tax cuts to almost four and a half trillion dollars. It's funny I say almost funny, but sad. I say almost four and a half trillion dollars. It's really 4.45 trillion. But you know what that point 05 trillion is? It's $50 billion. That's a lot. But we could say almost four and a half and you'll be like, yeah, sure, 50 billion. 50 billion and all of that. All those trillions of dollar tax breaks. That was even before they handed out the humpback kickback or whatever they'll wind up calling it. I tried to get humpback kickback going with a hashtag. I even used a hashtag. I don't know if it's taking off. Listen, we can't sustain this deficit is a line you've probably been hearing your whole life, but so is you can't keep eating french fries with every meal. And that eventually comes true. This will too. Now, tax cuts for the rich, they also help, let's be very fair. They also help the less rich, the second highest through fourth lowest deciles get slightly richer too. It's hard to have tax cuts help People who pay very little or no income taxes. That's true. That's absolutely true. But of all the things to spend money on, or in this case, to forego income for putting money in the pockets of the median American, that is a good thing. But of all the costs, because these things all have tradeoffs, unless you are a senator. But of all the costs, wow, are these terrible. And this brings me to who the bill hurts in order to pay for some of the tax cuts. The bill, some of the tax cuts the bill eliminates some Medicaid. And the people who need Medicaid are definitionally less well off than most Americans. So the CBO, a very fair organization, points out that the lowest 10% of the country we're talking about, if you're a single earner, incomes in the $20,000 range for entire households wind up losing 1600 dollars under this bill. I don't know, maybe it doesn't seem like a lot to you. It definitely seems like a lot to them. And those final figures could change, but it could also get worse. So call me Zoran v. Debs, but we should not be further immiserating the very worst off Americans. There are all tradeoffs and this tradeoff is wrong. It's bad policy, too. So congratulations to you, Captain Ahab. You netted your white whale, while the worst off among us got got dick on the show today, the spectacle, spectacle of the big, beautiful boatload of chum. But first, Bethany MacLean is an accomplished journalist who recently went back to her home in Minnesota and started talking to the local steelworkers about a deal being held up in the name of presidential politics. She stops by the gist to talk about unions, political identity, American steel and the less than steely spines that our leaders have demonstrated. Bethany Maclean, up next, Bethany McLean has been on the show a few times. She was here with her coauthor Joe Nacera for the book the Big Fail, what the Pandemic Revealed about who America protects and who it Leaves Behind. It was probably the definitive early word, earlier than all these other reconsiderations of the pandemic. But of course, she's perhaps most famous. Can you say perhaps. And of course, I'm going to. For her groundbreaking blockbuster reporting exposing all the shenanigans at Enron. And I have been interested in this story about Nippon Steel acquiring U.S. steel. And Bethany wrote about it in the Free press. And it was in this story, even though she's been on a few times, that I found out that she is the daughter of the Iron Range. Yes, The Mesabi Iron Range in Minnesota. Bethany, welcome back to the gist.

[Bethany McLean]

Thanks for having me on.

[Mike Pesca]

Is that fundamental to your identity to be a daughter of the Iron Range?

[Bethany McLean]

You know, in some surprising ways it is. I went back to hibbing for my 100 year anniversary of my high school last summer. And I was thinking when I was there about how much it had shaped me. I'm not entirely a daughter of the Iron Range. My parents weren't from there, but I did grow up there. And I graduated from Hibbing high school in 1988. And there's some fascinating origin stories about Hibbing and about the people, people who founded the town, battling with the mine, with, with, with the owners of the mines there. And I thought maybe this, this thing in me that has always fought the powers that be did actually come from. Maybe there was something in the water.

[Mike Pesca]

There definitely is something in the water of Hibbing. It is, it is punched above its weight in terms of generating important Americans. Roger Maris, Kevin McHale, a guy named Bob Dylan, they're all from Hibbing. A town of like less than 20,000 people. How, how the hell does Hibbing do it?

[Bethany McLean]

Yeah, that's. I don't know. It must be something about the winters where it is, or at least it was below zero for long stretches on end that it makes a certain sort of very, very tough and iconoclastic person. But I think there is something to be said for that.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes, tough, but also desperate to get out. And so those are two qualities that combine to make Hibbing famous from its expats. So what is the Hibbing relationship to this, to US Steel particularly.

[Bethany McLean]

So Hibbing has long been. This part of northern Minnesota is known as the Mesabi Iron Range because it's where all, most of the iron ore and in the United States is mined. And that's a critical ingredient in the making of steel. So the American steel industry and northern Minnesota have always been tied at the hip and that, that the mining business in, in northern Minnesota has. It first fell on really hard times in the 1970s and it's been up and down ever, ever since then. But, but, but it's, it's still the core industry there. It's really the only industry in northern Minnesota. So the two are just joined at the hip. When you think about American steel or the American steel industry, you can't have that without northern Minnesota.

[Mike Pesca]

Are these United Steel Worker union members?

[Bethany McLean]

They are, yeah. They're all those are. When you drive into many of those towns in northern Minnesota, the first thing you see still are the union offices. It's very hardcore union territory. And as a result was always strongly democratic until recent years.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So this touches on the political and the cultural. But let's talk about the economics. What was going on with US Steel when a couple of different companies sought to acquire them a few years ago?

[Bethany McLean]

So US Steel had fallen on really hard times financially. It was losing, losing money. It wasn't clear that it was going to be able to continue as, as an independent company. And it needed a savior of some kind. A deal needed to be done.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And so a couple of suitors lined up. And if I were running US Steel, I know what offer I would take. A company called Cleveland Cliffs offered 7 billion, $7.8 billion and $35 a share for their stock. But then the Japanese company Nippon Steel comes in almost double the offer, $15 billion, $55 a share. So no brainer. Right?

[Bethany McLean]

You would think. But that's where the whole mess ensued. And as far as I can best understand it, the union actually supported, at a national level, the steelworkers union supported the Cleveland Cliffs deal in part because they had had a much better relationship with Cleveland Cliffs than they had had with U.S. steel. And they thought they could force U.S. steel into Cleveland Cliffs arms and get the deal that the union wanted. And the union did not want steel deal. And they've thrown allegations of steel dumping and various bad practices on the part of Nippon Nippon Steel over the years. The truth is, as. As a very astute observer of northern Minnesota told me, none of these companies are perfect. But the steel workers union basically went all in on the Cleveland Cliffs deal.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So they were arguing that their bosses take 50 cents on the dollar or I don't know what the subunits of yen are. Yes, this is what they were offering. And they didn't see, as I do, as you do, that the more wealthy a company acquires you there are things that could go wrong. But the more ballast you have for these crosswinds for the, for any American steel producer, why was that argument not made or pursued?

[Bethany McLean]

I think it wasn't made because the deal became political very, very, very quickly. I think that Biden needed the support of the, of the steelworkers union. And so the Democratic Party went all in on turning down the deal with Nippon Steel. And they did it for reasons of national security. But even at the time, that was really controversial. It wasn't clear whether it was really reasons of national security. And that argument is really rooted in an old version of the steel industry and an old version of the Japanese. The problem today, if you're going to be nationalistic about it, is China. It's not Japan. And we're long past the days where we've used Japan as the rival that we needed to, that we needed to squash. But because Biden needed the support of the steelworkers and because the steel workers were in favor of the Cleveland Cliffs deal, because I think they thought they would get better treatment from Cleveland Cliffs than from Nippon Steel, the deal the Biden administration turned down, the deal with Nippon Steel, and both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on the campaign trail said the same thing.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So let's be clear. You were being perhaps politic. It was entirely pretextual to call this a national security issue. It is laughable to think that the Japanese would intercede and not supply the United States steel in a time of having to build airplanes for war or whatever. But it was an allowable excuse. After the Biden administration pursued some other avenues, some other federal agencies that could have scotched the deal, this was available to them and everyone just knew. And I don't even think the Biden spent a lot of time trying to justify this on true national security grounds. It was, we're here to help the working man. We're here to help the steelworker. But what your reporting shows and what's really interesting is that there was a split between the union leadership and the steel worker. So how did you get at that and what was the split?

[Bethany McLean]

Well, I think steel workers on the ground understood that, understand the economic basics, which is, look, if somebody doesn't invest in this company, then there will be no more. It's all very well and good to talk about U.S. steel being owned in the U.S. and being made in America, but if the company's going under, it's going under, and there won't be any jobs and there won't be any American steel. And that's for pretty pragmatic people on the ground. That's how they saw it. Now, it wasn't 100% clear. I was told that in northern Minnesota, on the range, there was opposite opposition to the ground, to the deal on. On the ground, because there still is this bogey man of Japanese steel from the days where the mining industry first turned tough back in the 1980s, when the industry really first started to struggle. And in those days, growing up there, if you would be taking, not quite taking your life in your hands, but close to drive a Japanese car. And so that bogeyman isn't entirely gone. So it's not quite as clear cut as people on the ground. Supply supported it. The national union didn't, but, but it's pretty clear. And when you saw in the rally in Pennsylvania after the Trump administration said they would let the deal go forward, people wanted this deal. People understand what it means to have investment in American steel and dollars available for investment in jobs that otherwise just isn't going to be there.

[Mike Pesca]

Did Nippon Steel pledge to adhere to any union rules or even if they weren't union rules, just general protections that would allay the concerns of the union workers and the union.

[Bethany McLean]

So what I have been told is that the deal actually isn't any different than it ever was. And so I mean there's this whole talk about the golden shoe thing which I still am not. I don't think anybody is actually quite clear on what that means. But the people who have done the deep digging into this deal, including a guy named Aaron Brown who's a wonderfully well versed reporter who goes by the name Minnesota Brown actually on the Iron Range, says the deal is exactly what it, what it ever was and that anything that Nippon has promised was, was promised to the. In the original shape of the deal. It was just pure politics. It really was.

[Mike Pesca]

So the golden share of this arrangement, which is a little opaque, allows for, allows for such things as a certain number of Americans on the board and getting the United States permission to not to go below certain levels of steel production. And you're saying that that was that golden share was always part of the deal and none of this political toing and froing changed anything. But can a case be made. I'm trying to steel man the Biden position that without the pushback maybe U.S. steel wouldn't have gotten even those protections.

[Bethany McLean]

I mean, maybe, but I don't think so. I think Nippon Steel was very eager to do this deal and whatever was extracted this time around in this recent incarnation of the deal that Trump approved could have been extracted from Nippon the last time around.

[Mike Pesca]

Chris is the case. Sorry to interrupt, but they're operating in the United States, right? It's not like they could relocate their steel plant. You're in the Iron Range because the iron's in the ground. There's they can operate as a non union shop even if they're foreign owned. Isn't that true?

[Bethany McLean]

Yes, that's completely true.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, so then this gets me back to what are we talking about?

[Bethany McLean]

Right, well that's, that's, that was always my perspective on it from the beginning. What are we talking about? You can't offshore the mining of iron ore in northern Minnesota. You can't take, you can't take those jobs and take them out of the country. And so if investment dollars are coming that are going to start support those jobs, those jobs are going to be here in America. So why does it matter where the investment dollars are coming from? If you're going to start going down that road of nationalistic argument, then you better not start allowing companies to have foreign shareholders, because then some of the investment money that supports those companies is coming from foreigners. And so how it just strikes me as the silliest of arguments possible when there are things that can't be moved outside the United States, like iron ore in the ground.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. I'm also also compelled by the idea of disincentivization of a business owner in the United States having to take a 50% haircut because the federal government tells you so. I suppose that there are some reasons why that maybe should happen. And I remember reading at the time the union put forward that Nippon Steel doesn't adhere to the same high standards as a US Union would, maybe as Cleveland Cliffs would, because Cleveland Cliffs was, I don't know, beaten down by the union. And when is this the case, unions are this strong that they have such sway over these giant companies? So, yeah, again, I'm trying to steel man things, but it seemed like just bad economics and a bad argument all the way down. But what I want to get to is, was it ever good politics? I kind of shrugged and said, joe Biden wants to win Pennsylvania, and I guess the workers in this steel company will vote for him now if he protects their jobs. Was that from your reporting? Was that an accurate assessment of the politics of this?

[Bethany McLean]

No, it was never good politics. It was about having the union's endorsement, which I guess mattered a little bit, but people on the ground were going to be inclined to vote for Trump regardless. And so the idea that, I mean, maybe on some cases, maybe it swayed the vote a little tiny bit, but it just struck a me as idiocy from, from the, from the beginning because the national union saying they were opposed to the deal and would support Biden, I don't think that's going to change how a steel worker on the ground is going to vote for this. It didn't change how Northern Minnesota voted that the national union told people that, that we like Biden because he's voting against this deal. Northern Minnesota still voted for Trump. And so I don't think it was ever even good, good politics. I, it Just even that part of the argument struck me as incredibly suspect. I think people, I think both Biden and Kamala Harris were desperate for the endorsement of the union. And I don't know that that union endorsement, what, that actually got them when push came to shove.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. Now, to be very fair, it's not like Donald Trump had a better theory of the case. He pledged the same thing. He matched the Biden Harris campaign on this. He didn't see through it and said, ah, the union membership is really with me.

[Bethany McLean]

No, he didn't. He. He did. He was, he was exactly the same sort of. I was going to use the word idiot. Is that. Am I being too blunt? He was. He played, he tried to play exactly the same kind of game on the campaign trail that, that, that, that, that Biden inherited. I was going to say, and I guess this is just one example where President Trump's lack of constancy is actually a good thing.

[Mike Pesca]

Mm. And we should say Trump won Pennsylvania, the Harris campaign and Harris Walls won Minnesota. So I don't know that the votes of those states were ever going to change based on this. Yes, does. But.

[Bethany McLean]

But they did. But they did. But they did not win northern Minnesota. They did not win the Iron Range. So if you, if what you were doing was trying to sway the votes and steel country, it didn't really work.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. But if Northern Minnesota were its own state, wouldn't it be more like Ohio or maybe Montana? I mean, without at this point, it.

[Bethany McLean]

Would be hardcore Trump land. That's a very recent change.

[Mike Pesca]

And is that for cultural reasons, or did the Democrats do something to lose that hate? They're trying to stick up for the unions. What else can the Democrats do?

[Bethany McLean]

I think that's a whole deeper story, but it's something I've been fascinated by for a long time, because growing up in Northern Minnesota, it was reliably hardcore Democratic. And there has been a move away from the Democratic Party in the last decade. The region narrowly voted for Trump in 2016. And there's lots of documentation of how much the region has started to go Republican now, including this something that people there told me about the resignation of two prominent Democratic Party members who resigned from the party and went independent because they didn't feel like they could represent the range being Democratic. And it's tied up in a whole bunch of things. I guess it's cultural, it's partly economic, it's partly the sense that the wealthy Twin Cities doesn't get northern Minnesota anymore and that a lot of the values coming from the wealthy Twin Cities, areas about environmentalism are in direct opposition to economic development on the range. Northern Minnesota has always been culturally distinct from the rest of the state. It's, it's northern. It's not, it's, it's not the Midwest. But I think that's become really profound in, in, in recent years. And it's something that it's, it's a movement that fascinates me because I think it is broadly indicative or it tells. It's a microcosm of what has happened in other parts of the country too.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, it's fascinating to me too, is their perception over where the Democratic Party is on climate change. We're talking about many people whose jobs and incomes are tied to extractive industries. But is it accurate or is it more, to use the term used before, a bogeyman, an exaggeration of what the actual Democratic, especially within Minnesota Democratic policies, DFL policies are?

[Bethany McLean]

It's that.

[Mike Pesca]

I know that. I know, I know the jargon. I know the Democrat farm labor jargon.

[Bethany McLean]

Yes, the dfl. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's really hard to say what's truth and what's. It's, what's, what's perception. When I was there, when I was back in northern Minnesota for my 100 year anniversary of my high school last summer, I was sitting in a, in a bar with some people I've known for, for my whole life and one of the women said, said they want us to serve their sandwiches about the wealthy people coming from the Twin Cities and then. And the policies of the Democratic Party. Is that truth, is that perception? Probably, probably some mixture of both. But that sense that the, that that the DFL has, the modern dfl is very out of touch with northern ministry. Minnesota has been creeping in steadily over the past decades and is now really, really thoroughly ingrained. The truth of that is that the economic issues in northern Minnesota are tough. And so whether the Republican Party is better situated or better able to solve that, I think is it remains to be seen. But for sure, the Democratic Party has not done a great job of either ace solving it or be acting like they care to solve it or making people feel like they're invested in solving it.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And so maybe a listener is saying, okay, Minnesota, let's just think of it as a proxy for a microcosm of the United States. You got your big cities, those are the blue states, you got your rural areas. Of course those are going to go more conservative. So how is it any different? And I would Just say that Bethany is from Hibbing. And for decades the people of Hibbing did vote Democratic. And everything that we're talking about with how things changed on the national scale, you know, a lot of the red areas now were always red or leaning red. But it's totally different in Minnesota. Is it exactly because of extractive industries and the perception of climate change? Is it somewhat because of, of what she just put her finger on, which is they don't even communicate the message that they do care. It's something, it's something where the Hibbing that you grew up with politically is different from the Hibbing today. And the question is, is that all a reaction to the Democratic Party or is it something else?

[Bethany McLean]

I think it, I think it is more broadly true. I remember being told a story by another friend who when the trades went to D.C. to meet with Obama and they got a junior aide showing up who was on his phone the entire time and didn't really care because there was this sense, I think broadly written, the Democratic Party, oh, we've made friends with big tech, we have all these cleaner, nicer, easier to solve problems. Look at this old labor union. Really hard to solve problems de industrialized parts of America. Yuck. We don't need to deal with that anymore. We've moved on from that. And so I think that is more broadly, I think the Democratic Party walked away from what had traditionally been their constituents in part because the problems were ugly and thorny and not easy to solve. And so I think in that sense, northern Minnesota does tell a broader story.

[Mike Pesca]

So you're an economics reporter. Is there any way for Democrats to get this area back short of, of rewriting the trends of globalization over the last couple generations?

[Bethany McLean]

Well, I think more broadly the Democratic Party has to figure out how to make workers feel that they're cared about and how to feel like the Democratic Party gets it and is doing something about this. And I think it's just a constituency that the Democrats are left up for grabs and maybe not quite in this pointed away as with northern Minnesota and kind of just not getting that these investment dollars could mean a lot to this area. But I think more broadly that soul searching that the Democratic Party is, I hope, engaged in right now in figuring out how to preach a message that all of America can understand.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Then the last thing I would add is that Democrats are often described as being beholden to the groups. I'm sure there's, it's, it's a little reductive. Fine. But yes, they have many members of their constituency that represent many different factions. And we're seeing more and more that those who claim to be the representatives of the groups don't represent them them as perfectly as they purport. So this is why Democrats, national Democrats have great relations with many of the Latino groups and yet Latinos defected. They voted more for Democrats and Republicans, but defected in massive numbers because it turns out maybe the groups weren't representing as many of the Latino voters as they purported to. Same thing with unions. The union. There could be a trap. And again, we're not saying Donald Trump is figure this one out any better than the Democrats, but there could be a trap as defining what the union, unions themselves and the union heads want as what the workers in the union wants. Now, I don't know what to do about that. Like, if you want to hold faith with a union worker, what are you supposed to do besides listen to what their duly elected union representatives say? But it could be a phenomenon that's going on.

[Bethany McLean]

Yeah, I think that's a really wise point, I guess more broadly, I co host a podcast called Capitalism and we had a woman named Joan Williamson who has written a book called Outclassed and she's a hardcore liberal who wrote a book about what the Democrats need to do in order to win back working class voters and about this cultural chasm. And it's a really good book because it's one of the first that is not reductionist about, about, about the whole thing. And so I think that's a book I'd recommend to anybody who, who wants to look at this from, from, from, from a perspective of trying to overcome divisiveness rather than trying to add, add to divisiveness. But, but, but I agree in these situations where there is this gap between what the national union says and what people on, on, on the ground actually does, it, it does get really, really complicated. But then from just from a sheer economics point of view, I don't understand why it is that complicated. Why, let's go back to the Nippon deal. Why can't you just cut through the BS surrounding this and say, wait, here's this company that's willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in steel making and in jobs in the U.S. how, what's, what's wrong with that? How can this, how can this, how can this possibly be a bad thing? And when it starts getting more complicated than that, when you start getting away from the first principles of willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs, then maybe the argument is going astray. Somewhere, right.

[Mike Pesca]

Bethany McLean is a veteran business writer. She wrote Saudi the Truth About Fracking and How It's Changing the World. She wrote for the Free Press an article called the Nippon Steel A Masterclass in Winning the World Working Class. Bethany, thank you so much.

[Bethany McLean]

Thank you so much.

[Mike Pesca]

And I will plug Joan Williams will be here tomorrow. I don't know if it's tomorrow, but I already did the interview with her and she was sitting on this couch right across from me not a week ago. And now the spiel big beautiful comes at a cost and that cost is equal parts obfuscation and diversion. When asked to justify the Medicaid cuts that will fund some of the bill but not all, Alabama Senator Katie Britt told CNN's Jake Tapper what the backers of the bill all say the cuts are warranted because the recipients aren't.

[Bethany McLean]

What you're talking about is abled bodied working aged Americans without dependents and home having, having them work, train, volunteer in some capacity 20 hours a week in order to receive those government benefits. This goes back to Bill Clinton era politics.

[Mike Pesca]

She's not lying but of course she's leaving out that it is going to hurt people who need Medicaid. Not just the unsympathetic non working poor, the able bodied loafers. They're all a stand in for the struggling burden, sympathetic Americans who will lose out on some benefits and always do whenever additional requirements are added. Republicans should know this. Republicans are always saying that government programs are sloppy, haphazard, have unintended consequences and they do. Acknowledged so what? The program requiring Medicaid recipients to fill out forms and document their efforts in order to earn Medicaid. That's the only government program that doesn't have unintended consequence. Every bit of government red tape always reduces the number of people who benefit or get to buy into the government program. Always happens. So of course these requirements are going to reduce Medicaid and not just to the people who we want to have Medicaid reduced. That's why the requirements are in the bill, not to be mean. It's in the bill to balance out somewhat balance out the spending. The point isn't to get everyone who gets Medicaid to qualify it. The point is to get fewer people Medicaid. It's the only way to save money. If all it was was designed to get everyone working or volunteering for 20 hours and still getting as much Medicaid as before, it wouldn't be counted as savings in the bill. Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma was on Meet the Press answering Kristen Welker's question with what you will hear an initially dishonest answer. The words out of his mouth are absolutely not, but it's really a. Yeah.

[Bethany McLean]

But, Senator, as you know, President Trump promised no Medicaid cuts. Is the big beautiful bill a broken promise? Absolutely not. What we're doing is cutting the waste, fraud and abuse, and I want to.

[Mike Pesca]

Use that word, abuse out of the.

[Bethany McLean]

Medicaid system and making sure it's for the people that it was originally intended for. Keep in mind, right now there's 35 million people that live under the poverty.

[Mike Pesca]

Line inside the United states, yet there's.

[Bethany McLean]

70 million that's on Medicaid.

[Mike Pesca]

The last part's true. Can you believe all these people who aren't even in poverty can use help with medical bills? So the law allows heads of households of three who are making 138% of the federal poverty level to qualify for Medicaid. Want to know how much much that is? It's $36,777. So if you make $18, really, like $18 and 4 cents an hour if you work full time, if you have two kids at home. Yeah. You are not cheating the system. We need people who work at $18 an hour. Businesses need people to work for that low rate. But doctors, hospitals, medications, they need to be paid something for their services. We might need the government to step in and supplement in this case. That's why we have a government. I say none of this is an injustice. Mark Wayne Mullen is right that the budgetary math isn't working. The system won't sustain. But paying for poor or relatively poor people to have some access to health care is, as I see it, a priority worth sacrificing for. So what you'd like to think is that there are enough people who agree with me who might one day vote out of office, the likes of Brit and Mullen. Yeah, good luck. They're in Alabama and Oklahoma. But, you know, there are states like Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida. Yeah, I know with the last two, I'm talking like it's 2006 over here. But those states have Republicans running for reelection, and they might be vulnerable. That's why this is the kind of vote that is forecast to have political consequences. But so often it doesn't, because that's not the only consideration. How actual policies affect actual people or how this one policy might weigh with other policy. Voters have different priorities, but it's also because this isn't the issue we've been paying the most attention to, even though it is the most important issue. What I am saying is that the big beautiful bill, name aside, is the enemy of spectacle and the Trump administration knows it. The Trump administration are wizards of spectacle. We all know we live in the attention economy, but often the thinking goes, why can't we just pay attention to the things worth paying attention to? And then the blame goes to the media or maybe to ourselves for not being serious people. I am saying that there is a spectacle deficit when it comes to the most important aspects of government and a spectacle surplus when it comes to much less important things that seem like government. I'm not talking about Kardashian. I'm talking about things in the news that we're all supposed to have an opinion on and we do. But they're much more spectacle intensive. By the way, the left gets this. The left isn't better than the right. Think about Zoran Mumdani. He won because of the four Cs. Charisma, communication and campaigning. Spectacle, spectacle, spectacle. What's the fourth C? It's Cuomo. Kind of an anti spectacle guy. I guess you could argue the specter of a sepulchral Cuomo is quasi specter. But in terms of the bill and CBO scoring and 138% of the federal poverty level, what chance does a bill like that have? So for a while you probably noticed, as I have, that there has been an argument that Trump is doing this thing to distract you from this other thing. So the big beautiful bill was first proposed and it looked as bad as it looks now. And then what he did was he got in a fight with Elon Musk to distract you from that thing. And then to distract you from the fight with Elon Musk, he sends troops and the National Guard to L. A And then to distract us from that, he bombs Iran. And then to distract from that, I don't know, he uses words like obliterated and make Iran great again after the fact. I don't think any of this is actually some great strategy. First this, then that. I do think the guy is very comfortable and conversant. Inspect spectacle. It's not so much that he's calibrating which spectacles are going to help, it's that he knows spectacle will help. I want to make clear I'm not arguing something like we are not a serious people and are easily distracted by shiny objects. I mean, I believe that to be true, but it's not novel or unique to Americans and it's not the crux of my argument. My argument here is that so much of the coverage of the bill asks the question how will it affect November elections? And I think that's telling. It's weird we jump ahead to that more so than we do with Iran bombings or Supreme Court cases. I think it's an acknowledgement of the spectacle deficit around the bill. Actual legislating of policy are not spectacle, but elections are. So it is only by tying it to the prospect of future spectacle that we can make it seem real. Also, other than the bill, let's acknowledge Donald Trump is riding fairly high. The markets are at their peaks. The Iran strike seems to not have come with blowback. Trump's first tax cuts, by the way, were the least popular domestic policy agenda of his first administration. So the Democrats don't have much else. And this, by the way, is a big thing to have. There's no cynicism here in Democrats opposing this bill. You get into the business of being a Democrat by being opposed to bills like this. But if I'm saying that Democrats don't have much beside the bill, I'll also say they don't have spectacle, say, for the spectacle of infighting and fracture. So I beseech you, pay attention, as we must as citizens of what has unavoidably become a spectacracy. And please note, the root word for spectacracy is not spectacular, far from it. And that's it for today's show. Cory War is the producer of the gist. Ashley Kahn's Our PC Astra Greene runs social media. Kathleen Sykes collaborates with me, though I make all the mistakes on the GIST list. And Michelle Pesca sees it all stands besides stride the entire operation improve G Peru, do Peru. And thanks for listening.