Why the stakes for this shutdown are higher

0:00A quick note before we start the show. These days a lot of listeners are asking how they can support Consider this and there is a super easy totally free thing you can do and it takes literally two minutes. Go into the podcast app where you're listening to this right now and rate and review this show. That is it. Doing that helps other people find Consider This, and that helps us keep going. Thank you. The political theater around the government shutdown that could be hours away feels a lot like the ones that have come before. There are the accusations of hostage-taking. Here's Senate Majority Leader John Thune on NBC's Meet the Press over the weekend.

0:38What the Democrats have done here is take the federal government as a hostage, and for that matter, by extension, the American people, to try and get a whole laundry list of things that they want. You see, Republicans need Democrats' help to clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. But Democrats say they'll only give it if Republicans agree to undo some of the cuts to health care programs that they just passed in their big bill this summer. Republicans had different fiscal priorities during the shutdown fight in 2013, but President Obama's response? It's almost identical. They don't get to hold the entire economy hostage over ideological demands.

1:16Then there are the attempts to paint the other side as irrational. The president is giving Democrats one last chance to be reasonable today. That was White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt Monday morning. You can hear a similar tactic from President Bill Clinton in 1995. after House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted that a snub on Air Force One had factored into negotiations around that year's shutdown. I can tell you this, if it would get the government open, I'd be glad to tell him I'm sorry. Here's what's different, though. When Congress doesn't pass a funding bill, the White House has broad discretion in determining which operations continue.

1:53President Trump has suggested he may use that power to target Democratic priorities. A lot of the things that Democrats fight for, which in many cases aren't very good things, will not be able to be paid. So we'll watch and see how they do with that. And the White House Office of Management and Budget goes even further in a memo to agency heads. Normally, federal employees are furloughed for the duration of a shutdown. This time around, the memo says that the administration could lay people off altogether if they work on programs that are not consistent with the president's priorities. And there is another question looming over the standoff.

2:32Would President Trump abide by any compromise agreement? He has repeatedly refused to spend funds budgeted by Congress during his second term, a point Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota acknowledged to NPR. Well, one of the things we would hope to see is some language that would help with that. Because we shouldn't be giving him a blank check. He is treating the government budget as his own personal spending account. Consider this. A government shutdown is always a political gamble. For Democrats, the stakes of this one are even higher.

3:10From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

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4:16It's Consider This from NPR. With the shutdown deadline less than 48 hours away, the top congressional leaders from both parties met with President Trump in the Oval Office in a last-ditch effort to head that off, or at least to look like they're trying. But that meeting ended with both sides dug in. Here's House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. It was a frank and direct discussion, but significant and meaningful differences remain. Democrats are fighting to protect the health care of the American people. And we are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans.

4:57Period. Full stop. And Vice President J.D. Vance. You don't put a gun to the American people's head and say, unless you do exactly what Senate and House Democrats want you to do, we're going to shut down your government. Vance concluded by saying we are headed for a shutdown. NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh and senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith are following this story. They join me now. Hi. Hello. Hey, Wana. Deirdre, let's start with you. Tell us what happened at this meeting at the White House. Well, as you heard, there's no plan to avoid a shutdown and both sides are really hardening their positions.

5:30Democrats say they're still demanding that any deal to fund the government also has to address health care. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he thought the president was hearing during this meeting the impacts of this health care issue that Democrats are pushing. They want to have some kind of deal to extend health care subsidies that are expiring at the end of this year. Those tax credits help middle and working class Americans buy health care plans. But Republicans criticized Democrats coming out of their meeting. The Senate Majority Leader John Thune called it hijacking. And one of the remarkable things about this moment is these are the very words Democrats have used in the past to complain about Republican tactics in previous shutdowns.

6:11I have to say the White House is rolling into this potential shutdown with confidence. Republicans came out of that meeting saying they are united. They said the sort of short-term funding bill they want has been supported by Democrats many times before, which is true, and they are demanding that they do the same this time. Vice President Vance even said Democrats had some good ideas, but he added any negotiations need to happen with the government open, not shut down. Mind you, he and pretty much everyone else at this point seems convinced that a shutdown is happening. Right. Do Democrats have a reason to think that they're going to get Republicans to agree to their demands?

6:49I mean, they argue that the Republicans control the White House, the Senate and the House. But they say, you know, they're trying to get some of these things front and center as part of the debate. Look, Democrats are also trying to reverse the Medicaid changes that were part of the president's signature tax bill. Most of them admit that is not going to happen. But there is bipartisan support for doing something, probably outside of this government funding bill to address these health care subsidies, maybe do a one year extension of these tax credits. But it's clear that Republicans are keeping those issues separate.

7:26They see them as an end of the year issue. I mean, we have all covered Washington for a long time. And I have to say, this White House is taking a really different approach to this potential shutdown than I remember President Trump taking in the past. Tam, why the change? Right. So the 2018 shutdown that stretched into 2019 was really started by a demand from President Trump, demanding billions of dollars to fund his border wall. At the time, he literally said he would be proud to shut the government down. And then he did. So his administration worked to minimize the impact felt by the American people.

8:00One example, they kept the national parks open, even though most people in the Park Service staff weren't allowed to work. This time is different. Late last week, budget director Russell Vogt said agencies should make plans for mass firings during any shutdown. So not just the usual temporary furloughs, but permanent job cuts. Now another government office is out with a new guidance that says that one of the few activities furloughed employees could use their government issued devices for during the shutdown is checking to see whether they've lost their jobs. And we should just point out that firing workers instead of just furloughing them, that is a big change.

8:38Right. And this is the kind of change by the OMB-Russ vote that Schumer warned about back in March when he and other Democrats did give Republicans enough votes to avoid a shutdown. But, you know, at the time, Schumer said that's what, you know, they should be worried about, that it was risky to let the Trump administration decide what was open, what was essential and what wasn't. So Democrats were worried about how the administration would handle a shutdown in March, so worried, in fact, that they voted for a spending bill to avoid it. What's changed? What's different now? I mean, the politics are just a huge driver in this whole debate.

9:16The Democratic base was furious in March with Schumer and those other Democrats that helped Republicans avoid that shutdown. They really want Democratic leaders to fight. That's what leaders, lawmakers across the spectrum are hearing from their supporters. I've heard that from members of Congress here at the Capitol. Outside advocacy groups on the left really think that the top leaders in Washington need to take on the Trump administration. Schumer says things are different now because the administration since then has clawed back money that Congress approved. They've withheld money for other programs and they've laid off federal workers on their own through these cuts that the Trump administration has done.

9:55And this is the very reason that Republicans in the White House are confident that Democrats will get the blame for this shutdown if it happens. We've talked a lot about the politics, but we know that shutdowns, they have real consequences for people and their access to government services. What do we know at this point about who will feel the earliest effects if there is a shutdown? One unusual feature of this impending shutdown is it's been pretty difficult to get a complete picture of what all the agencies are planning to do. The White House has been saying, though, that funding will run out quickly for the Women, Infant and Children program known as WIC, which provides nutrition assistance and health care screenings.

10:28It also depends on how long a shunt out could last. If it's a week with federal workers getting back pay, there might not be widespread fallout. Back in the 2019 shutdown that Tam talked about earlier, that went on for 35 days. And one of the tipping points that came that caused Republicans to relent and reopen the government was after TSA workers who weren't getting paid called out sick and there were airport delays. So there are real world impacts, but those could take days or weeks to see. NPR's Deirdre Walsh and Tamara Keith, thanks so much. You're welcome. Thanks, Juana. Before we go, a quick plug for our most recent bonus episode, an extended interview with a survivor of this summer's massive flooding in Texas about what life looks like there now, months later.

11:15Bonus episodes of Consider This come out every other Saturday for our NPR Plus supporters, who also hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. If you are one of those supporters, thank you. If not, you can learn more and sign up to support NPR at plus.npr.org. This episode was produced by Connor Donovan and Alejandra Marquez-Hance with audio engineering by J-Ciz. It was edited by Kelsey Snell, Courtney Dorning, and Sarah Handel. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers. This message comes from Cachava. That wellness goal you set at the start of the year?

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