Melanie Zanona (2:28)

So this was something that I noticed over the past few weeks. Now, to be fair, there has been broad frustrations in the entire Republican conference which we can certainly talk about. But it was particularly notable that we were seeing some high profile Republican women really speaking up and standing up against Speaker Mike Johnson, which we don't normally see. So starting With Marjorie Taylor Greene. Her complaints with Johnson are similar to what she's complaining about when it comes to Donald Trump. I do believe at this time that Republicans will lose the midterms, and I think that's unfortunate. And I think economic populism is the way forward. And unfortunately, I don't see the Republican Party embracing that. She's extremely frustrated that they haven't been putting more bills on the floor that are actually related to some of the things that they campaigned on, particularly that affordability issue. I don't think the president's team nor the speaker have told the president about the legislation that I've introduced that actually much of it directly, literally aligns with the agenda that he campaigned on I campaigned on in 2024. Then there's Elise Stefanik. She really raised some eyebrows when she went on the record with some of her criticisms in a Wall Street Journal interview. And her criticisms with Johnson was about his political acumen. And she says he's not a good strategist. She said that if a vote were held today, she doesn't think he would be elected speaker again, which is a pretty bold statement coming from someone on Johnson's own leadership team. For Anna Polina Luna, she's a little bit of a different case. She's been advocating for specific pieces of bills or legislation that she wants to get to the floor. And she believes that MC Johnson has made promises behind closed doors and then not kept those promises when it comes to actually putting those bills on the floor. And the prime example of this is a stock trading ban. That is something that she's been advocating for. She does not want members of Congress to be able to trade stocks. There is huge bipartisan support for that bill. Johnson initially suggested that he would be willing to put a bill like that on the floor. But in Annapolina Luna's view, she believes that it's being slow walked. I can tell you that I got a lot of pushback from leadership, and not just leadership in itself, but I actually received calls from other members of Congress saying that, you know, what we were doing was going to hurt people. I was also told that I was putting the republic in jeopardy because I was going to cost us the midterms if I brought this to the floor. Now, Johnson and his allies would say they've been busy trying to avoid a shutdown. But Anna Paulina was. Luna was so frustrated that she decided to start this discharge petition, which is this kind of procedural, wonky term. But really what it means is it's a way to go over leadership's head and force bills to the floor without leadership's blessing. And so I described it in my piece for NBC News as a revolt of the Republican women. They're actually rebelling. It's not just frustrations being aired in TV interviews or print newspaper, magazine interviews. It's also something that's being taken directly to Johnson and is having a real effect on the legislative floor and the legislative process.

Noel King (5:42)

It seems possible that some of Mike Johnson's comments in the past have opened him up to some of the criticism from his Republican women colleagues. What are Mike Johnson's views on women, and are they mainstream? How did we end up here?

Melanie Zanona (6:00)

Well, you know, one thing that did come up in my conversations with some of these Republican women is that he recently did a podcast with Katie Miller, that is Stephen Miller's wife. Stephen Miller, of course, is a White House aide. It was a much more casual setting. He was with his wife Kelly during the interview.

Burgess Everett (6:14)

And, you know, men and women are different in this way, is that men have. Can compartmentalize things.

Melanie Zanona (6:19)

Men's brains are like waffles.

Burgess Everett (6:21)

Yes.

Melanie Zanona (6:21)

They have little compartments, and they can.

Burgess Everett (6:24)

So in this arena, like, I'm compartmentalizing all these, you know, a myriad number of high level, high stress issues, and I can just turn them off and sleep.

Melanie Zanona (6:34)

And he made an offhanded comment about how he would want Lisa Mcclain, that's the conference chair, the one woman in leadership, to be the one to cook his Thanksgiving dinner. Now, in his defense, Lisa McClain does talk a lot about cooking, and she likes to, you know, host a lot, and she kind of presents that sort of Persona herself. But for some Republican women, that really rubbed them the wrong way. And so they took that as an example of perhaps Speaker Mike Johnson looking at women in a different way. And you combine that with the fact that women feel frustrated about, you know, not being elevated and having this bottleneck in terms of the leadership. And I think that is why you're seeing this explosion of frustration right now.

Noel King (7:16)

How did Lisa Mcclain respond?

Melanie Zanona (7:18)

Lisa Mcclain is very supportive of Speaker Mike Johnson. She put out a statement actually defending him. I've talked to her as well in the hallways. She says, I don't know where these rumors are coming from or who's the one pushing, you know, all of these stories that are coming out. But I have seen nothing but respect for Mike Johnson. He listens to me, you know, he treats me well. And so she actually was not rubbed the wrong way by those comments, which I do think is important to point out. But that being said, you are the speaker. And if other Republican women are coming to you and saying they don't feel comfortable with rhetoric like that, that can be a problem for you as the speaker.

Noel King (7:56)

One of the less sympathetic responses I've seen to the Republican women who have been complaining is the Republican Party is very sexist. How did you guys not know that? You know, you're just. You're just realizing what everybody else already knew. What. What has gone on in the past. Like, is there a measure of truth to the idea that the Republican Party traditionally sidelines women and nobody should be surprised by this.

Melanie Zanona (8:19)

Well, traditionally, the Republican Party did not put an emphasis on trying to elect women. And they always said, listen, we don't want to play identity politics. We just want the best candidate to win. But at some point, Republicans realized, hey, sometimes the best candidate is the woman. I went to a number of women's group and said, can you help us find folks?

Burgess Everett (8:36)

And they brought us whole binders full of women.

Melanie Zanona (8:39)

And they're not getting the same opportunities as the men, particularly in primaries. This is where it's a huge issue, because women do have young kids and families, and they have bigger challenges to be able to run. It's very difficult to run a campaign. They need resources. They need the fundraising. They need the sort of party structural tools and resources behind them in order to succeed in a primary, to get over that finish line. And Republicans for a long, long time just were not placing emphasis on that. But in recent years, in recent cycles, there was a recognition, and Elise Stefanik actually played a huge part in this. I think we need to have a tone that reaches out to women, and that's something that I've been very focused on, that they need to elect more Republican women and that women can actually flip key, vulnerable seats, which they did after 2018. We saw historic lows in terms of the numbers of Republican women represented here in Congress. And they made a huge effort to recruit more women to get them over the finish line in primaries. And guess what? A lot of them ended up winning. A lot of them were responsible for flipping key seats in the following cycles. And so they did use that as a playbook going forward. But I think traditionally, Republicans have just been so scared of saying, we're purposely trying to elect women. We don't play identity politics. That's what the Democrats do. But that has really held them back for a long time. And that's why, still, even though there are more Republican women than there have been in the past, they are still Way behind where Democratic women are.

Noel King (10:12)

How is Speaker Mike Johnson responding to all of this?

Melanie Zanona (10:17)

He's pretty frustrated. I've heard behind the scenes he's been complaining about some of the reports he's gone on to defend himself. He's been asked directly by reporters, including by some of my colleagues after I wrote the story about his posture towards women. And he is vehemently denying that he is marginalizing women, that he looks or treats them any differently.

Burgess Everett (10:38)

I'm doing everything I can every day to empower all members of the conference. There's no gender division here at all in our conference. It's a meritocracy and we've got great women doing great things. I'm their biggest champion and that's what.

Melanie Zanona (10:50)

But we have not seen him take any actual steps to try to alleviate some of their concerns.

Noel King (10:56)

Johnson has a really narrow majority on Capitol Hill. It would seem to me that he can't afford to make enemies. Is he being a little cavalier about this?

Melanie Zanona (11:07)

That is a great question. He absolutely can't afford any enemies in this conference. And he already has one in Marjorie Taylor Greene that votes against everything and two in another Republican member, Thomas Massie. He pretty much votes no on almost everything that comes to the floor, including voting against Mike Johnson's speakership. And so when you do the math, you can't really afford any other Republicans to be voting no or saying no. That being said, though, Johnson has a degree of confidence because no one expected him to get the job in the first place, and he did. He defied expectations there. He has been able to usher some really big bills through the House, including, as Trump calls it, the one big beautiful bill, or that's the big tax law that they passed that also included Medicaid cuts. And then primarily the reason why he feels like he has some confidence here is because he still has Donald Trump's backing. And Donald Trump was asked by a reporter whether or not he still had confidence in Johnson, given all these recent sort of critiques and rebellions that we've been seeing spark up. And Trump gave his full throated support for Speaker Mike Johnson. And so because of that, I do believe that Johnson feels like he's okay for now, but he knows better than anyone that every single vote counts. And so getting that majority next year is going to be critical and not only just winning the majority, but making sure they have a bigger margin than what they have now.

Noel King (12:39)

NBC's melanie zenona. Coming up, mike johnson's health problems.

Burgess Everett (13:02)

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Noel King (13:11)

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Melanie Zanona (16:42)

You're listening to TODAY Explained.

Noel King (16:45)

We're back with Burgess. Everett Burgess is the Congressional bureau Chief at Semaphore. All right, so Burgess, remind us, things stand on health care as we approach the end of the year.

Burgess Everett (16:56)

There has just been a ton of drama about the enhanced premium tax credits. These are these subsidies that the Democrats put into law when they had majorities in Congress. They are expiring at the end of the year. Premiums on the Affordable Care act exchanges are going to shoot up because of the expiration of these subsidies. Tens of millions of Americans are now about to experience dramatically increased health insurance premiums. That's totally unacceptable. It's the reason that Democrats shut the government down because they wanted to extend these tax credits. The reason that the government is shut.

Melanie Zanona (17:29)

Down is because the Republicans have insisted on taking down the subsidies also Medicare.

Burgess Everett (17:35)

Medicaid, all of that. And it's part of the year end fight on Capitol Hill right now. So it's been this long running roll up to them expiring at the end of the year, frankly, because there is not currently a plan to revive them that can pass both chambers, members of.

Noel King (17:51)

Congress when they do expire, which Americans will be affected?

Burgess Everett (17:56)

It's a small percentage, but a large number, millions of people that use the Affordable Care act exchanges to buy their insurance. So people that don't get employer based insurance or people that don't get, you know, Medicaid, Medicare, et cetera. For the millions of Americans who are using these subsidies right now to help buy their health insurance on the Affordable Care act exchanges, you could probably expect your premiums to go up at least temporarily next year in January until Congress figures out a solution to this.

Noel King (18:21)

So Speaker Mike Johnson has been dealing with many revolutions divides in his caucus and this Week is gonna be a big week for him as it pertains to healthcare, to the aca. What's going on?

Burgess Everett (18:35)

Well, Republicans have been very sensitive to the generally accurate criticism that they do not have a health care plan. We have the tool in the toolbox to make another unilateral Republican run at reforms that we believe will bring the cost of care down. And so what we're seeing in the House and we saw recently in the Senate is an effort to put something up so they don't look completely empty handed.

Noel King (19:00)

I would be willing to do a.

Burgess Everett (19:02)

Short term extension of the premium tax credits for those people with higher premiums if they will concede that we've got to do something for the $6,000 out of pocket. I think there's a deal to be had here. Now, Mike Johnson has a very thin majority, so he has a bunch of moderate members who want to revive those subsidies that we were talking about. And so they are going to get a vote on an amendment this week to this larger package that has no chance of becoming law. We'll see where it goes from there. It'll be an important vote because it'll kind of tell us what is the level of support for an extension of these tax credits and perhaps offer a blueprint for maybe extending them sometime in January. On the other hand, this vote goes poorly for the gop. If conservatives get really mad at Mike Johnson for even allowing this vote, it may tell us that these tax credits are, are pieced and Republicans are just going to have to live with it.

Noel King (19:53)

All right, so some small number of Republicans say, let's just extend the credits. This is what the Democrats want. The other Republicans, the ones who say, no, no, no, we are not going to do an extension. What are they proposing? What is their idea?

Burgess Everett (20:06)

It's really a political, larger theoretical argument about the Affordable Care act and whether you should just let it collapse on its own or prop it up with these subsidies to make health insurance less. Republicans have not changed their opinion about the Affordable Care Act. They still don't like it.

Melanie Zanona (20:27)

Democrats voted for the ACA in 2010. It went into effect in 2014. That was the year that we saw our health insurance policy for a family of five go from $800 a month to $2,400 a month.

Burgess Everett (20:41)

The division is between those who think let it collapse, design a completely new health program, or those who say, well, people need help now. We shouldn't punish our constituents because we don't have a better plan that can get into law. And so we're going to see this, I think, tilt well into next year because of this larger philosophical argument. Republicans want to do a larger revisioning of health care. Some of them do. People like Rick Scott who want to take all these other Obamacare subsidies, not these expiring ones, these are just the heart of the program, and redirect this money to consumers directly to them buy their insurance, which is a totally different idea about how to run a health insurance market. So we're going to see that play out. And Republicans have majorities in the House and the Senate and they have the White House so they can pass some health care laws with no Democratic support if they want to. So that's another dynamic we're going to be watching.

Noel King (21:36)

Have the Republicans that don't want the subsidies extended, have they, have they offered any specific ideas?

Burgess Everett (21:44)

Yeah, I mean, there's this Rick Scott plan. There's this more conceptual idea of taking the money that would fund the subsidies and put them in health savings accounts. The Senate voted on that last week. It failed. It was really just an attempt to unite Republicans around something because otherwise Democrats were going to have a proposal and Republicans would have nothing. So there's a little bit of a political management to that more than, hey, Republicans are really dead set on making this happen. And I'm not sure there's consensus in the party to do anything without Democrats. And so that's kind of where we are. It's a little bit of a fork in the road, which is, do you try to cut a deal with Democrats which means they get some of these subsidies extended because that's their top priority, or do you say, screw that, we don't want to do anything with them, we'll try to do this all on our own. We saw how that went in 2017, failed on the Senate floor spectacularly. Haven't really come back to it since then. But all old things become new again in politics.

Noel King (22:39)

Where's Johnson on extending the subsidies?

Burgess Everett (22:41)

Johnson does not like the subsidies. Most of his leadership team does not like the subsidies. The people that are pushing for it are people who represent districts that are competitive generally speaking, or that could be competitive if this is a so called blue wave year next year. So it's a little bit of a tension between those who have these safe seats where you could lose a primary that's that's your biggest political threat, and those who are in battlegrounds where you could lose a general election to a Democrat because you haven't done enough to keep healthcare premiums from going up.

Noel King (23:13)

Earlier in the show, we were talking about how there are Republican women on Capitol Hill who are deeply frustrated with Mike Johnson. And I wonder, does that extend to the healthcare fight? Is this a larger problem for him and how is he trying to lead through it?

Burgess Everett (23:29)

I certainly think when he heard all of this new Marjorie Taylor Greene positioning, it was over this issue. Right. It started with her saying, yes, I do not like the Affordable Care act, but why are we not here working on this?

Melanie Zanona (23:43)

I think it is a crisis. I don't think it's something to wear political party team jerseys on. I think it's something that we have to address and fix.

Burgess Everett (23:52)

This was during the shutdown, kind of when. I don't know if this is when she got the idea, but this is when she implemented this new strategy, which was criticize the speaker, say that we should be in town working on this and helping Americans by extending these premium tax credits. There's definitely a bit of a groundswell on that that I feel like it's just a handful of very outspoken Republican women in the House that we're hearing from on this. But, you know, the reality is they don't have the same number of Republican women chairman that they used to. And so there is a little bit of a gender divide in the conference and a feeling among some of the women that they're not getting hurt as much as they should be.

Noel King (24:30)

If we take into account what's going on with some of the Republican women and we combine that with what is a mess, frankly, over health care, is there any risk that Johnson loses the speakership?

Burgess Everett (24:42)

You know, they still have this motion to vacate, which is a fancy way to say you can launch a referendum on Mike Johnson's speakership. This is the way Kevin McCarthy lost his job. The big difference is they've changed the threshold to nine members. And so there was some reporting last week from MSNBC about potentially forcing another vote on this from Marjorie Taylor Greene as she leaves. I don't know. You need nine people to go there. And that would also be enough people to deny him the speakership, potentially. I think it's a long shot, but it is always a possibility, and it is always something that's sitting over his head. I think there's an equal threat to his speakership, frankly, from doing a deal that ticks off fiscal conservatives so much that they say he's not a conservative speaker and we need a new one so he can face tension from either direction when it comes to his leadership.

Noel King (25:35)

All right, we are. We are 16 days out from the end of the year. What happens next with this healthcare fight?

Burgess Everett (25:41)

Well, if you go back to the shutdown, the government was partially funded for the rest of the year into September of next year, and it was partially funded till the end of January. And so now some folks that I've been talking to, including Roger Marshall, senator from Kansas, who's trying to find a solution on this healthcare issue, he says the new deadline's really January 30th, which is the government shutdown deadline. If that sounds familiar. It should, because that's the exact same fight that we just had in September, October and November. Now, the result of a shutdown would not be as catastrophic. SNAP is funded, for example, but nobody wants another shutdown. But Democrats again have some leverage here on this issue. So we're going to be watching this well into January. Now, on January 15th, that's the end of the open enrollment program for the Affordable Care act direct exchanges. So there's still a driving force. Even though Congress isn't going to get this done by the end of the year. I can't tell you exactly how it's going to go. It feels pretty hard to get a deal on this at this point. It feels like the sides are pretty dug in and I think Democrats, some of them are going to be happy to see Republicans get blamed for these premium increases. So there's, there's starting to be some midterm politics to this as well. So I can't tell you how this is going to go, but it's an uphill battle to get these tax credits extended.

Noel King (27:08)

That was Semaphore's Burgess Everett Kelly Wessinger produced today's show. Amina El Saadi edited Patrick Boyd and David Tadashore engineered and Laura Bullard checked the facts. I'm Noel King. It's today.

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