'If You Can Keep It': The Fight Over Funding The Government

0:07You're listening to the 1A Podcast. I'm Jen White. And I'm Todd Zwilich. It happens every year, sometimes even more frequently than that. A fight is brewing over funding the government before a deadline on September 30th. It is a fight that could be a rare moment for Democrats out of power to demand Republicans and the Trump administration change course. But what to demand specifically? Republicans in the House passed a stopgap measure with a razor-thin margin to fund the government through November 21st. The funding bill is now in the Senate, where it faces a tougher road. Senate Republicans tried to pass the House's version of that bill, but failed to meet the 60-vote threshold to avoid a filibuster.

0:47Senate Democrats proposed an alternate continuing resolution bill to fund the government through Halloween. That version also extended health care premium subsidies and rolled back Medicaid spending cuts. The Democrats' bill failed. Here's Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday. And I hope and pray that Trump will sit down with us and negotiate a bipartisan bill. That's how it's always been done in the past. That's how shutdowns have been avoided in the past. And if he doesn't, I'm just confirming here, you will vote no. Is that correct? We are hoping that he will negotiate with us.

1:25And if he doesn't. So far, he hasn't. And we've had two bills in the House and Senate, and neither of them have passed. Our Democrats are firm. We need to get something done to relieve the distress the American people are in. For 1A's weekly politics series on our democracy, If You Can Keep It, how this month's government funding fight could turn into a shutdown. Democratic leaders are hearing their voters want the party to do something in response to the Trump administration. Is the shutdown the moment to do that? And what could Democrats accomplish? Stay with us. We've got a lot to get to.

2:04So let's get into the nuts and bolts of the possible shutdown with our first guest. Joining us in studio is a voice you hear often on the 1A News Roundup, Megan Scully. She's Congress Editor for Bloomberg News. Megan, it's great to have you back. Thanks for having me. Now, Megan, you're very familiar with the ins and outs of Congress. You've reported on shutdowns in the past. How close are we to seeing a government shutdown this time around? So ordinarily, I would say nine days out from a shutdown, we still have a lot of time for negotiations. This time, there are two things that are very different.

2:36One, Congress up and left town on Friday. The Senate will not be back until next Monday night. And the House won't be back until October 7th. So essentially, they are, you know, essentially potentially forcing a shutdown just by their absence. The House is hoping to jam the Senate and force the Senate to pass the House passed bill in quick order. But the Senate doesn't do things quickly. So coming back Monday night and averting a shutdown, you know, within 30 hours is a tough ask for that slow moving chamber. The second thing is that Democrats, particularly Senator Schumer, got a lot of heat just six months ago when he essentially rolled on Republican demands.

3:21And he and enough Democrats in the Senate joined Republicans to avert a shutdown just in March. The Democratic base was so angry he had to cancel a book tour, and he's been hearing it ever since. Why were they angry, Megan? And six months ago, I remember that Democrats approved a spending bill. It was kind of, oh, business as usual on Capitol Hill. Why was the Democratic base so up in arms? They don't usually get up in arms about some budget bill. Well, Democrats are out of power in Washington. And unlike on Trump's big tax and spending bill, which could pass under special rules in the Senate with a simple majority vote, government spending is one area where Democrats can really exert themselves.

4:04Republicans need at least seven Democratic votes to push this through. So what Democrats wanted at the time was for Chuck Schumer to use that as leverage to enact a host of demands. But Schumer and other moderate Democrats in the Senate feared that Trump was too popular and too powerful just two months into his presidency. So they ultimately caved and averted the shutdown. Has that calculation changed this time around? I think the politics right now are very different for all of the reasons, Todd, that you mentioned. Things are very tense on Capitol Hill right now. And Schumer seems more resolute this time.

4:44Perhaps he learned his lesson last time. We know that at least one Senate Democrat, John Fetterman, will vote with Republicans to keep the government open. Now, Schumer is trying to keep the rest of his caucus at bay and to get them to vote in unison against it. Several who voted with Republicans last time have said that they will remain resolute this time around. The biggest thing on the—the biggest issue right now are these Obamacare premiums and the Biden-era subsidies that will expire on January 1st. voters will start getting notices of increased premiums starting November 1st. And Democrats want to avoid these huge spikes to premiums.

5:31Remind us what will happen if the government does shut down. What functions will still occur, which will not? So we are awaiting guidance, essentially, from the White House Budget Office, OMB, which determines agency by agency what happens in a shutdown. There have been 14 shutdowns since 1981, so we're pretty skilled at this. There are things like Social Security and Medicare. Those are mandatory programs that are not reliant on year-by-year appropriation. So people will still be getting their Social Security checks. In a prolonged shutdown, we could see delays in new enrollees or change of addresses.

6:14But I just want to be very clear, that will still happen. That's always something that people are concerned about. Um, many federal employees, but not all, will be furloughed. Those deemed essential will have to report for work without pay. They will be paid back at the end of the shutdown per a law that was passed after the 35-day shutdown in 2018 and 2019. Air traffic controllers will report to the job. Although, again, the longer this goes, the more problems that can creep up. Back during that 35-day shutdown, air traffic controllers threatened to strike, which would really hobble air traffic in this country.

6:54Things like economic and labor reports could be delayed. And that has been a huge focus of Trump, who has taken on the Bureau of Labor Statistics and really pushed back against these nonpartisan reports that they put out. So Democrats are out of power right now, as we've stipulated, and that's obvious. There's something axiomatic about all these government shutdowns that you mentioned. What was it, 18 since? I think it was 14. Oh, 14 since 1981. Well, that's a lot. Most Americans, I think, don't really sit around super concerned about which government report is going to come out or how many government workers get furloughed, right?

7:36Shutdowns are a messaging war. It's the party that wins. It's the party that shifts blame effectively. Did Democrats, if they refuse to support Republican bills and shut the government down, did they have a plan to win? What do they say is their plan to come out of this, Rosie? So they say that their plan is to fight, go to the mat on these health care cuts, the cuts to Medicaid and more immediately the cuts or the increases in these health care premiums for those on Obamacare. they see this as a winning issue with voters. Republicans, though, have been very effective in messaging. Certainly they were in the last shutdown showdown just in March.

8:18And Democrats have kind of cowered and been afraid that they would be the party that is put to blame for these. So it does become a messaging war. There are, you know, the two sides last week in the Capitol, it got to the point of absurdity where, you know, Chuck Schumer was saying that Republicans wouldn't meet with him. He sent a letter in the mail to Majority Leader John Thune, who works down the hallway from him. So we're kind of in this—they're both sort of fumbling for a response still at this moment. So what are you watching most closely in the coming days? We're down to days, yeah. So two things.

9:01One, I'll be very curious if Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, get their demands for a meeting with Trump. This is not something that has happened yet. And the other is whether Congress comes back before next Monday. That's Megan Scully, Congress editor for Bloomberg News. Megan, thanks for speaking with us. After a quick break, we bring in two new voices to the conversation. That's right after this.

9:31Let's hear from two guests who can help us understand the fight in Congress further. Joining us in studio is Joel Payne. He's a political contributor for CBS News. He's also chief communications officer at the progressive organization Move On. Joel, welcome back to the program. Good to be with you. Also with us in studio is Brian Boitler. He's the founder of Off Message. That's a liberal newsletter on Substack. Brian, welcome back. Great to be here. And we're hearing from you. Jill in Ann Arbor emails, I'm a Democratic voter and I want our leaders to stand tough during negotiations. Republicans are in full power and a shutdown is on them this time.

10:05Democrats should not accept anything less than the reversal of cuts to Medicaid and SNAP and the permanent extension of ACA tax credits. For tens of millions of Americans, it could be a life or death decision. No action, shut it down. So while this might be a fight about funding, there's also things happening in a larger context. This summer, the Trump administration has attracted numerous lawsuits from their push to have ICE and other federal law enforcement arresting people on the streets. This is part of a mass deportation campaign. Then there's his decision to deploy the National Guard into American cities.

10:38And now there are these comments from FCC Chair Brendan Carr and President Trump about Jimmy Kimmel and free speech on major broadcast networks. And that's after the show Jimmy Kimmel Live was indefinitely suspended, after Kimmel spoke last week about the assassination of right-wing organizer Charlie Kirk. He's saying, in part, that right-wing groups are trying to mischaracterize the political leanings of the alleged shooter. So, Brian, while this is a fight about funding, how does the broader context of these moves from the administration make this a fight about something more than that? Because for the last nine months, President Trump and his administration have been using funds appropriated by the Congress to do things that are illegal.

11:17And then he's also been violating the terms of the budget deals that Congress strikes on a bipartisan basis. And so the people who are in Congress now voting on funding the government past September 30th are going to have to ask themselves whether they're OK with that state of affairs continuing. And the only way to stop it is to use measures in the budget process to rein in the lawbreaking across all of these realms. So given that they're the opposition party, but Republicans will likely need some of their votes to get a funding bill passed, what basic strategy do each of you feel Democrats should use right now when it comes to the question of whether or how to fund the government?

11:55And I want to hear from both of you, Joel. Yeah, and you mentioned my affiliation with MoveOn as chief communications officer. We actually sent the letter to Leader Schumer, Leader Jeffries, others on the Democratic side on Capitol Hill, pushing them to fight, particularly on the grounds of health care, on extending those ACA premium benefits for people and also trying to claw back some of the Medicaid funding that came out in the big, beautiful bill. We found that our members, which represents a good chunk of the grassroots base of the Democratic Party, wanted them to fight on those issues. Over 90 percent of our issues were supportive – members were supportive of that.

12:31And I think that that speaks to this hunger that the base of the party has for Democrats to, one, show that they're willing to fight, show that they know how to fight, and get caught fighting. Like it's one thing to just hear, hey, you know, Democrats are scrapping it out behind the scenes. But they actually, I think the base of the Democratic Party actually wants to see a fight. They're spoiling for a fight. And did your letter outline how far Democrats should push in this case? Should they push to the point of a government shutdown? I think, one, if Democrats are having a conversation about whether or not they are responsible for a government shutdown when Republicans have unified control of government, they've already lost.

13:09That is a messaging loss that you cannot allow to happen when Republicans control all the levers of power. This should not be a question of whether or not Democrats allow for a government shutdown. It's whether or not Republicans are going to be serious about respecting the rule of law and balance the balanced powers of all the Congress versus the executive power. So this is really a messaging challenge for Chuck Schumer and for Democrats to not allow an upper hand to be had by Republicans. If they weren't going to fight on this, they needed to say that weeks if not months ago. not now. Brian?

13:47So I think that the policy objectives, as Joel outlined, are worthy ones. I don't think it's the right grounds for Democrats to pick a fight on for a couple reasons. One is Democrats need, however they prosecute this fight, they need to be caught fighting. They need to find a way to push Trump back because Trump has just been moving forward at them all nine months, and they haven't really figured out how to resist that. But they also need to be able to have an argument that carries the day. The way government shutdowns of the past have all ended, every last one of them going back to 1995 with Newt Gingrich, is that the public gets upset, and then they get specifically upset at the party that is viewed to be responsible for shutting down the government.

14:28And in every instance, that has been because the party responsible, in all major cases, Republicans, have asked for something that is sort of outside of the parameters of the annual budget as a condition for their vote. So in Newt Gingrich's cases, It was taxes and Medicare cuts. And in 2013, led by Ted Cruz, it was to defund Obamacare. These are all extraneous demands from the context of the budget fight. However, questions about what's legal and not, whether Donald Trump will actually honor the budget agreement that Congress passes are integral to the budget. And I think Democrats will have a much easier chance of convincing the public that Republicans are to blame for the shutdown if they say we can't be a party to a deal that you're going to renege on or that you're going to mine this budget for money and use that money to break the law.

15:17We can't do that. And so our demands are centered around those questions. At the same time, Brian, fights over budgetary levers or what's in a budget can really be lost on the public, right? The public, as Joel sees, Democrats want to see Democrats fighting. The public can see troops in the streets. They can see these things. They can't see Obamacare subsidies. They can't see a fight over rescissions. They don't know what that is. So how do you translate that problem into, from your perspective, something that wins when it's not compelling? So there's a separate but related debate that I think Democrats are having among themselves about to what extent do they want the public to feel the harms that Trump is causing?

15:58At least make the public aware of what Trump is doing before they step in to try to correct it so that the public can be clear in its mind about who's to blame for what. And if you stop Donald Trump from cutting people's health care before he's had a chance to do it, are people going to realize that he did something that was going to harm the public, that was going to be very unpopular? I think that that has to enter into the calculation right now as to whether Democrats want to use health care as a chit in these negotiations. negotiations. But as you suggested, some of the other things that Trump is doing have already happened.

16:30The National Guard troops are already in the street, and that is a lawless action. And if they're going to make a list of demands that they want to negotiate over with Republicans, pushing back on that, you know, that is an illegal use of your budget authority, among other things, is going to be distinct from health care in that if they happen to win on those grounds, people will notice because the troops will be sent home. Stephen writes, I firmly believe the correct answer is to let the government shut down unless the Republican leadership wants to embrace a bipartisan answer. Let the people see that the majority has no desire to lead and can't agree among themselves about anything.

17:07And Amy says, the Democrats aren't making headway doing the usual, shut it down. Joel, I'd love to hear your response to what we just heard there. Yeah. And by the way, I should add, while I'm sharing the perspective of our millions of MoveOn members that we kind of regularly do sentiment analysis with, I don't know if it's actually in conflict with what Brian is sharing. I think what he is saying is adjacent to the point that I'm making, which is, again, Democrats need to get caught fighting. I was having a conversation with someone on Capitol Hill recently, and I was advising them the bigger risk that, you know, there's this risk thing that Democrats are struggling with right now about what's risky.

17:47The biggest risk is to not be willing to take risk for Democrats. And I actually— That's how you wind up with a 25 percent approval rating from your own party. I'm surprised when you quoted that number that 35 percent was the high watermark. I thought it'd be a little bit higher. One, the biggest risk is not taking a risk. And second, I actually think the math on government shutdowns has changed. I worked in Congress two decades ago. When I was there, when Harry Reid was the majority leader, when Barack Obama was president, I actually think people's relationship to the government was different.

18:19As Brian kind of outlined, people's relationship to the government right now is the government is sending people, mask people into the streets to kidnap folks off the street. They are stripping away critical funding. They're using the levers of government to target political enemies. That's not really a government that people are quite as fired up to save. So that doesn't mean that there aren't critical services attached to it. It just means that the risk equation for people, I do believe, has changed. Now, some more on the political context that Democrats who you guys want to influence are operating in right now.

18:49President Trump and many members of his administration spoke at a memorial for Charlie Kirk on Sunday in eulogizing Kirk. Trump said one area where he disagreed with Charlie Kirk was how he viewed his political opponents. The president said, I hate my opponent and I don't want what's best for them. His deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, had this to say. We will carry Charlie and Erica in our heart every single day and fight that much harder because of what you did to us. You have no idea the dragon you have awakened. You have no idea how determined we will be to save this civilization, to save the West, to save this republic.

19:34Brian, this series is called If You Can Keep It, not If You Can Fund It. You know, I mean, there is the deputy chief of staff, the chief aide to the president. He's making this existential. He's not making this about health care subsidies or even Medicaid. So how did Democrats effectively be seen fighting or if this is a leverage point for them, push back in a shutdown fight to against a against a context like that? Well, so this goes back to what I was saying about perception is that if Democrats go to the public and say, hey, we're not going to give Republicans our votes to fund the government unless they reinstate certain health care subsidies.

20:11Republicans can say, hey, this is – what's that got to do with the price of tea in China? We are going to – this is a debate about funding the government on an annual basis and measures like taxes and health care have nothing to do with it. That's a really hard debate to win because there's truth in what they're saying. If Democrats say you can't ask us to vote for a deal that you guys are going to renege on, and then they can point to statements like the one Stephen Miller made at the Charlie Kirk Memorial, like the White House is saying that they're going to take the money and the power given to them by Congress and use it to crush their opposition.

20:41You can't ask us to fund our own demise in that way. That's, I think, a more compelling argument that even people who are skeptical of Democrats in this moment can wrap their heads around, that it really is Republicans announcing in advance that they don't intend to honor the agreement, that any negotiation is actually in bad faith. Well, how can anyone expect Democrats to participate in a negotiation like that? Put that in the context of our current media environment, though, when people are often in closed bubbles of communications. And so while Democrats may have platforms to talk directly to their base about that, reaching a broader swath of the American public with that messaging might be more tricky.

21:23Well, Jen, it's the how, right? So Schumer and Jeffries, I believe, recently put out this letter encouraging and inviting Trump to negotiate. And even if Trump said today he wanted to negotiate, he might say he doesn't want to negotiate tomorrow. And it's such a dated way of going about that fight. And it's what frustrates the base. It's what frustrates They're political allies. And it's also what has you lose cycles because you're playing checkers and they're playing 3D chess. Like they're not focused on winning a process argument with the public about whether or not they negotiated in good faith or whether or not they stayed true to all of the past virtues of dealing with government shutdowns.

22:06They're focused on winning. And one thing you can say listening to Stephen Miller, that is not someone who is willing to be an equal partner at a table. He wants to crush his opposition. And Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, I think, have to adjust to that reality. We're hearing from many of you. Marianne in Charlottesville, Virginia writes, It's a yes from me. I'm sick of what's happening in this country. Senate Democrats have got to use the only power they have. So to come, why the Trump administration's actions this summer could affect what Democrats demand during shutdown negotiations with Republicans.

22:38We'll be right back.

22:44We got this note from Aaron who says appropriations are a constitutional requirement. Congress has played fast and loose with this requirement for years now. A clean continuing resolution to allow for deliberate debate on policy gives people time to continue these debates. I'm extremely concerned that the president will take a shutdown opportunity to seize additional power, which, as Megan Scully mentioned, I think at the top of the show, was largely Chuck Schumer's argument six months ago when Democrats caved on a funding fight at that time. I would love to hear your thoughts, your responses to that message, Brian.

23:18It's certainly a risk. Nobody who would come on your air and say they know how a shutdown fight would proceed and end and who would be to blame and what the world would look like on the other side of it would be telling the truth. But I do think that making the question of Trump's power, especially his illegitimate assertions of power, central to the debate reduces the risk that on the other side of the fight, Trump is continuing to encroach in areas where he doesn't have lawful power because that will have been the epicenter of the debate as opposed to something extraneous. And if Democrats latch on to something that puts them in an unwinnable shutdown fight, they might get caught trying, but they will lose the fight.

24:02They will lose the issue. And any power Trump has seized in the interim will have happened sort of on the side of the debate, which we'll have focused on in this instance, health care. New York Times columnist Ezra Klein made an interesting point about this a couple of weeks ago about how this fight is really kind of an excuse to take the country's attention. Almost treat this as like a forcing mechanism to talk about the type of government that Donald Trump is running, the priorities that he's focusing on, and to like force a conversation about how Donald Trump is going about his second term.

24:37So, yes, there are risks with losing individual parts of a government shutdown fight. One, if you're a Democrat, Donald Trump has already been taking extra legal, over-the-top abuse of power to do things that he's not designed to do from the White House. So he's already doing that. And secondly, you have so few opportunities to use leverage. Really, it's this. You might have a defense appropriations bill at the end of the year. There are very few fleeting opportunities for Democrats to hold the public's attention like this. And so that's another reason why you might want to take advantage of this opportunity for Schumer, Jeffries and the Democrats.