Transcript

Schümerdämmerung · Politix

0:00
SPEAKER_01: You know,
0:00
SPEAKER_01: I think if you want to resist Donald Trump in a concrete way,
0:03
SPEAKER_01: by far the best thing you can do is give money to Susan Crawford.
0:06
She is running in a really important state Supreme Court race
0:09
in Wisconsin.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: The election is on April 1st.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: Elon Musk has put $13 million into this already.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: He's got a lot of money,
0:16
SPEAKER_01: but if he can be beaten here,
0:18
SPEAKER_01: hopefully he'll be demoralized,
0:19
SPEAKER_01: demotivated.
0:20
And it's also just a great chance to show that,
0:22
like,
0:22
the people are not with him.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: participate in a takedown Tesla rally.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: If you own a Tesla, sell it.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: If you have Tesla stock, sell that.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Elon Musk is sort of like a rogue state within the state,
0:33
SPEAKER_00: and he needs to be decapitated in the metaphorical sense.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Hey, everyone.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: You're listening to a free preview of the Politics Podcast.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: This week,
0:45
we'll take an after-action look at the Senate Democrats'
0:48
decision not to fight
0:50
SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump's illegal impoundments by blocking the appropriations bill.
0:55
We'll also discuss how that dovetails with the Trump
0:59
administration's rapidly
1:00
SPEAKER_00: increasing contempt of court.
1:03
And whether the Democrats are about to embrace the politics
1:07
podcast synthesis of
1:09
policy moderation mixed with aggressive political and
1:12
procedural fighting.
1:13
And whether that's the sweet spot for the party in the Trump
1:15
era generally.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: If you want to hear the whole conversation,
1:18
SPEAKER_00: you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics.fm.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, welcome to the Politics Podcast.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm Brian Boyler.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm Matthew Glacius.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: So this week, everyone hates the Democrats.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Republicans hate Democrats.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Democrats also hate Democrats.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: We're going to get into why.
1:39
The good news,
1:40
and maybe there's just like a general lesson here,
1:41
is that all this...
1:43
democratic infighting uh hasn't really slowed trump's slide
1:47
into unpopularity so
1:48
like all the protests against him and musk seem to be
1:52
accelerating if anything um
1:53
and and maybe the the lessons that there's like democrats in
1:57
congress not really
1:58
wanting to take these big attention grabbing stands means that
2:01
there's nowhere for
2:02
all the energy to move but but into the streets which i think
2:05
at this point is sort
2:06
SPEAKER_00: of like
2:07
SPEAKER_00: where it belongs.
2:08
I have to say,
2:09
well,
2:09
obviously we should talk about Schumer and this whole thing.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we will.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: I am...
2:13
SPEAKER_01: I am struck,
2:14
SPEAKER_01: though,
2:14
SPEAKER_01: like as recently as two days ago when I was like,
2:19
what am I going to say on Monday to Brian about what we should
2:22
do on the podcast?
2:23
SPEAKER_01: I was like, everybody's hair is on fire about Chuck Schumer, you know?
2:27
SPEAKER_01: And like two days before that, I was like furiously texting people.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: I was like, is Schumer going to be thrown overboard as leader?
2:34
SPEAKER_01: You know,
2:34
is this going to be like the Senate Democratic caucus going to
2:37
be like House Republicans?
2:39
SPEAKER_01: But now...
2:41
SPEAKER_01: Just like 24 hours since we last...
2:44
SPEAKER_01: I just...
2:45
I feel like the pace with which things are blowing over takes
2:49
me by surprise.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: Not to say there isn't still anger there, etc., etc., etc., etc.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: But it's like...
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Clear that like nothing is actually going to change, right?
3:00
SPEAKER_01: For better or worse, Schumer is the leader.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: If you look at who voted with Schumer,
3:05
SPEAKER_00: it was clear to me that it was not going to,
3:08
SPEAKER_00: there was not going to be like a Schumer did this.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: House Democrats are mad.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: Most Senate Democrats are mad.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: And so pressure builds on Schumer to resign.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Like there was a tell there,
3:16
SPEAKER_00: I think,
3:17
SPEAKER_00: that most of the people who voted with him are like safe seat Democrats,
3:20
SPEAKER_00: retiring Democrats,
3:22
SPEAKER_00: not necessarily just the frontline Democrats.
3:25
And so it was kind of like,
3:27
he's protecting the frontliners,
3:29
we're protecting him.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: And together, there's enough of us that nobody could depose him anyway.
3:34
So it was clear to me that it like,
3:36
even if somebody like Chris Murphy decided I had enough that
3:41
SPEAKER_00: him running against Schumer wasn't going to go anywhere.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that we can say that it's fully blown over.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: I sense the same things that you're talking about.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: But like, I think Schumer had to cancel his book tour.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Indivisible is calling for him to step down.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: I think it's unclear like how...
3:56
SPEAKER_00: how long the tale of this sense of betrayal is and how that manifests as,
4:02
SPEAKER_00: say,
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SPEAKER_00: street protests go.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: But yes,
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SPEAKER_00: like if from the perspective of like people in the takes business and,
4:08
SPEAKER_00: you know,
4:08
SPEAKER_00: focusing on what's actually happening before them,
4:11
SPEAKER_00: it was sort of just done.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, he made the call and now it's in the past.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's not like that's the only thing to deal with.
4:17
Like the very next day,
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we're like teetering next to a constitutional crisis again.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, like they're- I would just say like most notably-
4:26
SPEAKER_01: Two things.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: One in the Senate is that Brian Schatz voted with Schumer.
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SPEAKER_01: Schatz,
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SPEAKER_01: I would say,
4:34
SPEAKER_01: nobody knows what the future holds,
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SPEAKER_01: but he is the most likely sort of next generation Democratic leader.
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SPEAKER_01: There's other people who are in the mix,
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SPEAKER_01: but Schatz was kind of the,
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SPEAKER_00: you know...
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SPEAKER_00: He's being groomed.
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SPEAKER_01: The early frontrunner.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: And he chose to...
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cast a leadership vote in support of Schumer rather than
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position himself to do a challenge.
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SPEAKER_01: So that's one thing.
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The other thing,
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though,
5:00
that I feel like really changed from an inside politics perspective.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: You're right.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: Like long tail, long fuse, mass anger, you know, that continues to exist.
5:10
But the most salient thing in the breakdown was the extent to
5:19
which six days ago,
5:22
Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi seemed to be throwing Schumer
5:27
under the bus.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, like their public statements were like,
5:32
SPEAKER_01: Very anti-Schumer, right?
5:35
SPEAKER_01: And that's unusual to see intra-leadership division like that.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: Jeffries has very clearly walked that back.
5:44
He hasn't walked back the things that he was saying six or
5:50
seven days ago,
5:51
SPEAKER_01: but he had a meeting with Schumer in Brooklyn,
5:54
SPEAKER_01: made it clear that Hakeem Jeffries just—
5:57
SPEAKER_01: wanted people to think that,
6:00
wanted the fired up grassroots to like Hakeem Jeffries and be
6:04
mad at Chuck Schumer.
6:06
But like once that crisis was passed,
6:09
he now wants them to not be mad at Chuck Schumer.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, they got to work together too.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just- Right.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: But I mean,
6:14
like there could have been- I think there's another thing
6:17
happening there,
6:18
which is that like everyone except for Jared Golden in the
6:21
House caucus did-
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:25
Did what Jeffreys asked of them,
6:27
thinking that Schumer was going to follow suit.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: And so if Jeffreys is just like,
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SPEAKER_00: well,
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SPEAKER_00: I guess it didn't work out,
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SPEAKER_00: then it looks like he hung them out to dry.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but this is where I want to get into what really happened here.
6:38
Because I think Jeffreys,
6:41
wittingly or unwittingly,
6:43
has done a bit of a screw job on everybody.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, which is that...
6:50
SPEAKER_01: I talked to people,
6:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
6:52
SPEAKER_01: people who are more left-wing than me,
6:54
people who are both ideologically more left-wing than me and
6:57
more Boitler-ish than me,
7:01
SPEAKER_01: two,
7:01
SPEAKER_01: three,
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SPEAKER_01: four weeks ago,
7:02
SPEAKER_01: right,
7:03
SPEAKER_01: about strategy heading into this,
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SPEAKER_01: because I had significant concerns about a shutdown.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: But what they were telling me then was,
7:12
SPEAKER_01: look,
7:14
SPEAKER_01: if we can get all the House Democrats to hold together,
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SPEAKER_01: probably
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SPEAKER_01: House Republicans won't be able to pass anything on a party line.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something you and I had agreed on on the show as well.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: Nobody was saying,
7:33
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't saying,
7:33
SPEAKER_01: you weren't saying,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:36
SPEAKER_01: people I was talking to,
7:37
SPEAKER_01: nobody was saying guaranteed.
7:40
But there was a history of House Republicans being unable to
7:46
pass continuing
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SPEAKER_01: resolutions on a party line.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: And so there was a concern from frontline House Democrats,
7:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:53
SPEAKER_01: because people worry,
7:55
SPEAKER_01: they voice their worries to leadership.
7:57
There was a concern from frontline House Democrats that if you
8:00
had a vote,
8:01
where like,
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SPEAKER_01: You know, almost every House Republican votes for the CR.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: But like there's 10 defectors and all the Democrats vote no.
8:13
And there's a government shutdown that House Republicans and
8:17
Trump and everybody
8:17
SPEAKER_01: would be like,
8:18
SPEAKER_01: Democrats shut down the government.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: And the guidance that they got,
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SPEAKER_01: right,
8:23
SPEAKER_01: like what leadership said and what leadership persuaded them of.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: was if there's a government shutdown under those circumstances,
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SPEAKER_01: we will say that it's Republicans who shut down the government.
8:35
Republicans shut down the government by refusing to engage in a
8:38
good faith bipartisan process.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: They control things.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: They screwed up.
8:44
And you can see if you look at tweets from like quite liberal Democrats,
8:47
right?
8:48
SPEAKER_01: They were like trying to get their frontline colleagues on board.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: So they were all running with this message.
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It's going to be a GOP shutdown because Republicans won't be
8:56
able to get there.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: I think that was a good bet.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: Like, I know people who are like, that's crazy.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: I can't believe Hakeem called that play.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: I thought it was a good play.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: I said it was a good play before they did it.
9:08
As happens in life,
9:10
sometimes you call a good play and it doesn't work out,
9:13
right?
9:13
SPEAKER_01: And this play did not work out.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: So they House Republicans got their shit together.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: They passed a CR that was clean enough that it is challenging to,
9:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:31
SPEAKER_01: it doesn't include some like spectacular stuff.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: like we're cutting Medicaid by 14% or something like that.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: But it made a couple of concessions that got right-wing people on board.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: And they sold,
9:45
Mike Johnson sold his people on the idea that we're going to
9:48
jam the Senate up by
9:49
SPEAKER_01: doing this.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: Let's not play into Democrats' hands by voting against it.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: So that then kicked it to the Senate,
9:55
SPEAKER_01: where I think Schumer was faced with a more difficult procedural choice.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: And then,
10:03
SPEAKER_01: but as soon as the House vote happened,
10:06
Jeffries and everybody in the House sort of started pretending
10:13
that their play had
10:14
SPEAKER_01: been a Senate filibuster all along,
10:16
SPEAKER_01: which just,
10:17
SPEAKER_01: like,
10:17
SPEAKER_01: isn't true.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: Like,
10:20
SPEAKER_01: if you've listened to previous episodes of this podcast,
10:22
SPEAKER_01: at,
10:22
SPEAKER_01: like,
10:23
SPEAKER_01: old off-message articles,
10:25
SPEAKER_01: at the tweets House Democrats were doing,
10:26
SPEAKER_01: like,
10:27
SPEAKER_01: the scenario Democrats were hoping for
10:31
SPEAKER_01: was for a CR to fail in the House.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: That would have absolutely been optimal.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: So let me pull back a second.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:40
Because I just want to set aside the question of whether
10:44
Democrats could have won
10:45
SPEAKER_00: the public opinion battle if the government had shut down,
10:49
thus putting a lot of pressure on Republicans to come back and
10:53
negotiate around
10:53
SPEAKER_00: whatever terms Democrats wanted to.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: Let's just say that Democrats are destined to lose that.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's why...
10:59
people are like,
11:00
Schumer did right by us by ending the filibuster at the last minute.
11:06
I still don't understand why they have tons of faith in his
11:11
leadership abilities,
11:12
SPEAKER_00: his strategic thinking about how to approach this,
11:15
SPEAKER_00: because there's a sequencing thing on both sides of this.
11:18
What I wanted from the outset when Doge first started rampaging
11:23
through the
11:23
SPEAKER_00: government was like,
11:24
SPEAKER_00: look,
11:24
SPEAKER_00: there's going to be a government shutdown fight in March.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Schumer and Jeffrey should just go to the mics and say,
11:31
SPEAKER_00: no Democratic votes until this craziness stops.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: So they didn't do that.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: So from there, like you have like first phase of retreat.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: What's the next optimal move?
11:43
SPEAKER_00: And that's where it's like,
11:44
SPEAKER_00: if you pass a CR,
11:45
SPEAKER_00: like a clean CR though,
11:46
SPEAKER_00: like we won't filibuster it.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: But if you can't, then you need our votes.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't do that either, right?
11:54
Like what they did was say,
11:56
we are going to filibuster and it's going to make you guys cave.
12:00
Until Johnson called the bluff and then it was like scramble,
12:04
scramble,
12:04
scramble.
12:05
And it's like there seemed to be no coordination between the
12:08
two of them and no
12:09
SPEAKER_00: like murder boarding of how to like maximize the leverage.
12:14
It was just like the way you maximize leverage is always you
12:17
threaten a filibuster.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: and then hope for the best.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: And like, I, there's not a lot of wheels turning there.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: I,
12:24
I feel like people on the outside were further ahead of what
12:27
they should do to try
12:29
SPEAKER_00: to get the outcome that they wanted than they were.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: And if like it, like if, if I'm,
12:34
SPEAKER_00: not just shots,
12:36
SPEAKER_00: but like one of the front liners,
12:37
SPEAKER_00: I would be,
12:39
SPEAKER_00: even if you think that it's best to avoid a shutdown,
12:42
SPEAKER_00: what was he thinking?
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Like where?
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Like how does he see the chessboard?
12:46
SPEAKER_01: But I mean,
12:47
SPEAKER_01: this is why I'm emphasizing the extent to which,
12:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
12:53
the challenge of leadership in general is that you need to
12:56
build consensus and it's
12:58
SPEAKER_01: hard because people disagree.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: And I think that what happened here fundamentally
13:04
SPEAKER_01: is that everybody,
13:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:07
SPEAKER_01: frontliners and base people,
13:09
SPEAKER_01: left-wing people,
13:10
SPEAKER_01: moderate people,
13:12
SPEAKER_01: all reached this kind of superficial consensus around the idea that this
13:18
SPEAKER_01: house-focused strategy was good.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: you know, that they were counting on.
13:24
They thought there were odds above 50% that if House Democrats
13:28
all voted no,
13:30
SPEAKER_01: there would be a government shutdown that originated in the House.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: It would have been great.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: Right, no, no, no, yes.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: But I mean,
13:39
SPEAKER_01: see,
13:39
SPEAKER_01: and if that was the case,
13:41
if the government was shut down right now due to a CR failure
13:44
in the House,
13:45
SPEAKER_01: you and I would be in agreement.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: Like everybody would be happy.
13:51
And the problem was this possibility was so alluring that it
13:58
got people off.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: So I heard from a senator,
14:02
SPEAKER_01: a Senate Democrat,
14:03
SPEAKER_01: who was looking forward to this,
14:04
SPEAKER_01: who was like,
14:05
SPEAKER_01: there's going to be a shutdown originating in the House.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: We're going to get our morale back.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's going to like us again because we're going to be fighting.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: And he was telling me that he was worried
14:18
that Thune would preempt the House by putting a clean CR on the
14:24
floor in the Senate,
14:27
right?
14:27
SPEAKER_01: And that if a clean CR came up in the Senate,
14:31
SPEAKER_01: it was going to be hard to convince Senate Democrats to filibuster it.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: And then if that passed, it's like the bargaining leverage around Doge—
14:43
would be eliminated,
14:45
and the whole House fight would just be about clean CR or not.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: Now,
14:51
SPEAKER_01: knowing today,
14:54
SPEAKER_01: if we knew back then what we knew now,
14:57
having a shutdown that originated in the House that was focused
15:01
on Democrats want
15:02
SPEAKER_01: this bipartisan clean CR that already passed the Senate,
15:05
SPEAKER_01: that would be way better than the outcome Democrats ended up with.
15:10
But at the time,
15:11
there was a feeling that that would be settling for too little.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: And so,
15:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
15:17
SPEAKER_01: this is not as a defense of humor,
15:20
SPEAKER_01: but it's like trying to explain what's going on,
15:23
which is that I think that there was both a bad forecast about
15:29
House Republicans'
15:30
SPEAKER_01: behavior and
15:32
SPEAKER_01: That was, I think, not crazy.
15:34
You know,
15:34
like it was based on behavior of the Freedom Caucus in previous
15:37
CR fights.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: And there was also a greediness.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, you kept having this problem.
15:46
where some like backbenchers would kind of like let slip that
15:49
they were hoping for
15:50
SPEAKER_01: a government shutdown.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: And then like some like cleanup and so on and so forth.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: Too many people wanted a shutdown over Doge.
16:03
to organize a fight on something else,
16:08
but they didn't have unanimity over that point.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, like it's, it's bad.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is like where I am fundamentally trying to agree with you.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: Like Jeffries and Schumer, Schumer very late in the game.
16:25
And I think out of character for him did what I think he should
16:30
have done and sort
16:31
SPEAKER_01: of like took a bullet.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: for his caucus, took a bullet fired by the base for his caucus.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: But he kept,
16:42
he and Jeffries both were sort of maximizing their local
16:47
optimum of like trying to
16:49
SPEAKER_01: push the action to the other house.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: And being like, we're great.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: We're going to win everything for you guys.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: But it's all on Hakeem.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: And then Hakeem was like, we're going to win everything for you guys.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: But it's all on Chuck.
17:02
And it just turned out at the end that there was never real
17:06
consensus in either
17:08
SPEAKER_01: House of Caucus to accept the responsibility for the shutdown.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: They were hoping somebody else would do it.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: And they're going to need to regroup on the debt ceiling.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: And then on the expiration of this and decide what they're asking for.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Because I think that's like the starting point of any of this.
17:30
One thing that you said a couple minutes back was that I hadn't
17:32
actually considered
17:33
until right now is that it's possible to me that John Thune
17:37
from the perspective
17:39
SPEAKER_00: of-
17:41
Senate Republicans may have had moves available to him that he
17:45
didn't play optimally.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Now,
17:48
SPEAKER_00: as it happens,
17:49
SPEAKER_00: it worked out better for Republicans because Mike Johnson was like,
17:51
SPEAKER_00: let's just get our shit together,
17:53
SPEAKER_00: put some ornaments on the Christmas tree that will piss off Democrats,
17:57
SPEAKER_00: pass a not clean cigar and dump it in their laps,
18:00
SPEAKER_00: right?
18:01
And so Republicans walk away with extra concessions and like
18:04
having kicked
18:05
SPEAKER_00: Democrats in the teeth.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: But I hadn't actually thought in my, you know, like,
18:10
SPEAKER_00: looking ahead,
18:11
SPEAKER_00: starting back in January,
18:12
SPEAKER_00: what happens if John Thune preempts all this and passes a clean CR?
18:17
SPEAKER_00: And I think in that case,
18:19
SPEAKER_00: I would have had to say,
18:20
SPEAKER_00: even back then,
18:21
SPEAKER_00: it's just,
18:22
SPEAKER_00: you're going to lose the political fight.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: And so you're going to have to cave,
18:25
SPEAKER_00: but you know,
18:28
SPEAKER_00: when was the last time a Republican leader volunteered a clean CR?
18:32
SPEAKER_00: But like, I think for me, the bigger point, maybe about all of this is,
18:37
like if you want to generalize it outside of this specific
18:40
fight and how well
18:42
Schumer and Jeffries coordinated and how well they foresaw what
18:45
might happen is like,
18:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
18:48
they were around when John Boehner set the terms for the first
18:51
debt limit fight.
18:51
And he was just at like the New York Economic Club and he was like,
18:54
here's how it's going to be.
18:56
We're not going to raise the debt limit unless they give us a
18:57
dollar in spending
18:58
SPEAKER_00: cuts for every increase
19:00
SPEAKER_00: every dollar increase in the borrowing authority.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: And from that point forward,
19:03
SPEAKER_00: the sort of flow of things was locked in because his terms were clear.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I hear what you seem to be saying is that if
19:11
SPEAKER_00: If Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries had done that,
19:14
SPEAKER_00: people in their caucuses would have been mad at them.
19:17
And I'm guessing that there were people in the Republican
19:19
conference back in 2011
19:20
who were mad at Boehner for locking Republicans into a
19:23
difficult bargaining position.
19:25
And like what happens in Republican politics is that they do
19:28
these gambits.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: That one paid off really handsomely.
19:32
But then John Boehner was leader of the party for like five
19:34
years instead of 20.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that is better.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: That would be better for Democrats.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: If people like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and now Hakeem Jeffries,
19:45
SPEAKER_00: instead of being like,
19:45
we have to be consummate temperature takers within our caucuses
19:48
so that we don't
19:49
SPEAKER_00: get ahead of them,
19:50
so that they don't get angry at us and depose us after a brief
19:53
period of leadership.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: And so there's never any like,
19:57
SPEAKER_00: because I'm smart,
19:58
SPEAKER_00: because I'm Nancy Pelosi,
19:59
SPEAKER_00: because I'm Chuck Schumer,
20:00
SPEAKER_00: been around the block.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: I know how leverage works.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: I know how power works.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to front run my caucus.
20:04
I'm going to lock us into a position that's going to make some
20:07
of my members anxious and upset.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: And if that means that at some point,
20:11
SPEAKER_00: sooner than I hope,
20:12
SPEAKER_00: they decide it's time for newer,
20:15
SPEAKER_00: more pliable leadership,
20:16
SPEAKER_00: so be it.
20:17
But I'm going to like be a leader and not just a follower of
20:21
the median of my caucus.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: I think many of my frustrations with congressional leadership,
20:27
whether it's about the shutdown fight or about impeachment or
20:30
about whatever else,
20:31
SPEAKER_00: stems from that.
20:33
It's the way Democrats go about leadership as maintaining
20:37
consensus so that the
20:38
leaders can stick around for a long time instead of doing what
20:41
they think.
20:43
in their experience and based on polling and based on whatever
20:46
else would put the
20:47
democratic party on the front foot and with the most power
20:52
available to them
20:53
SPEAKER_00: against Republicans,
20:54
SPEAKER_00: right?
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Like some frontline members are going to be like,
20:57
SPEAKER_00: this puts me crosswise with a lot of my voters,
20:59
SPEAKER_00: but the leaders see,
21:01
SPEAKER_00: but when we win the fight,
21:02
SPEAKER_00: Republicans are going to be in disarray.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: They're going to be defeated.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: They're going to be more unpopular and that will redound your benefit.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: McConnell gets that.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: John Boehner got that.
21:13
Boehner's been retired for like a decade now as a result,
21:16
but like,
21:17
it's good.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
21:18
SPEAKER_00: it's like a better way to do legislative leadership,
21:22
SPEAKER_00: at least in the modern day,
21:25
SPEAKER_00: than like the Pelosi style,
21:28
SPEAKER_00: which pays off every decade maybe in the passage of a big bill,
21:32
but it doesn't leave Democrats well-situated to actually put
21:37
the screws to their opponents.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I...
21:45
SPEAKER_01: I think especially as regards to the House,
21:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
21:49
the precedent set by Nancy Pelosi remaining as Speaker after
21:59
the 2010 midterms,
22:03
SPEAKER_01: I think was not great.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
22:07
SPEAKER_01: That like a normal,
22:10
I think like normal political party stuff would be that after a
22:14
defeat of that magnitude,
22:16
SPEAKER_01: the leader says,
22:17
SPEAKER_01: I am incredibly proud of what this Congress accomplished.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: The Affordable Care Act is going to transform people's lives globally.
22:27
forever um i know that calling the vote on the waxman markey
22:33
bill probably cost
22:35
some people their seats but i thought it was critically
22:38
important to getting
22:39
climate change legislation over the table and like it didn't
22:43
work out american
22:44
SPEAKER_01: rescue plan uh the american uh recovery and reinvestment act yeah era and
22:51
SPEAKER_01: At that time,
22:52
it would have felt so normal that Nancy Pelosi had this arc
22:57
that she took over from
22:58
SPEAKER_01: Dick Gephardt.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: She led them to victory.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: She led them to a bigger victory in 08.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: She created major legislation.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: She called her shots.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: Some of her shots went in.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: Some of her shots didn't go in.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Then they lost.
23:12
And so she was stepping down and somebody else was going to
23:15
chart a course back to leadership.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Pelosi didn't
23:19
SPEAKER_01: do that.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: And she didn't face a really significant challenge.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: And so then she was minority leader for a while.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: And then she came back as speaker.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: And then she lost the speakership again.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: And, like, again, didn't resign, right?
23:37
SPEAKER_01: And then,
23:38
SPEAKER_01: like,
23:38
SPEAKER_01: kind of did it later in a,
23:39
SPEAKER_01: like,
23:40
SPEAKER_01: non-contentious handoff to Jeffries,
23:43
SPEAKER_01: having just kind of,
23:44
SPEAKER_01: like,
23:44
SPEAKER_01: outlasted all of the inter-party rivals.
23:47
I think if she had happened to be 10 years younger,
23:49
she wouldn't have stepped down.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: I agree.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: And she, you know, it's interesting.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Pelosi's a veteran, but –
23:56
SPEAKER_01: because of the status of women of her generation,
23:58
she actually got into Congress quite late in life compared to a
24:02
lot of people.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you could imagine one was just a younger person.
24:05
It's then just a little bit different just because of how
24:08
things go there.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: But like, yes, I mean, I agree that, you know,
24:14
There is a tendency,
24:15
I don't put this 100% on Nancy Pelosi,
24:18
but it's emblematic.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: The presumption of Republican leadership is that,
24:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:26
you're going to have a short tenure and the idea is to make the
24:30
candle burn as
24:31
SPEAKER_01: bright as possible during your time there.
24:36
And that if anything goes awry in like multiple different
24:40
possible directions,
24:41
SPEAKER_01: you're probably going to be thrown overboard,
24:44
leading to a situation which like most people feel like Kevin
24:47
McCarthy was thrown
24:48
SPEAKER_01: overboard in sort of unfair circumstances.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: Boehner was thrown overboard in sort of unfair circumstances.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: That's just life, you know, like it's tough in the big leagues.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: If you don't want it, don't go for leadership.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: If Pelosi had gone out in 2011, she would have left a heroic legacy.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: There would have been a new face of the party that didn't have her,
25:08
SPEAKER_00: like,
25:08
SPEAKER_00: San Francisco baggage or whatever.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: And,
25:12
SPEAKER_00: like,
25:13
SPEAKER_00: the – you know,
25:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to pretend that this is the only thing because,
25:16
SPEAKER_00: like,
25:16
SPEAKER_00: obviously –
25:17
The passing of the torch from Obama to Hillary Clinton to Joe
25:20
Biden did much more
25:22
SPEAKER_00: to shape public perception of what it means to be a Democrat,
25:25
SPEAKER_00: who are the Democrats,
25:26
SPEAKER_00: than what – like the musical chairs and the Democratic leadership.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: But there is something about the fact –
25:33
SPEAKER_00: that the Republican speakers have been Boehner and McCarthy,
25:37
SPEAKER_00: Boehner and Ryan and McCarthy and Johnson.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: Like they're all white guys.
25:41
And so I don't want to pretend like that's,
25:43
but like,
25:43
they're very different.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: And then the,
25:46
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:46
SPEAKER_00: the Republican leadership has been George W.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Bush,
25:48
SPEAKER_00: McCain,
25:49
SPEAKER_00: not much change there,
25:50
SPEAKER_00: like some,
25:51
SPEAKER_00: and then Mitt Romney and then Donald Trump.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, what, eh.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: what it means,
25:56
what people think of when it means I'm going to associate
25:58
myself with this party
25:59
has undergone a big change in a way that I think has probably
26:02
just benefited the party.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Like maybe not optimally in terms of like how many,
26:08
SPEAKER_00: like what number of Americans say they're proud to be Republican,
26:12
SPEAKER_00: but one that's really better optimized for winning elections.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: And I think that the Democratic like
26:21
SPEAKER_00: doubling down,
26:23
like taking all the good things away from Barack Obama and
26:25
finding leaders that
26:26
have the less good things and then leaving the basic leadership
26:31
structure in place
26:32
SPEAKER_00: has like really ossified things.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: It's like the Democrats have not changed much.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: They've not, there's no new blood.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: There's no excitement.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: And so like,
26:39
SPEAKER_00: so like Pelosi's second,
26:40
SPEAKER_00: second tenure as majority as like speaker was like less impressive than
26:47
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I agree.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: But to bring this back a little bit to what we're talking about here,
26:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:55
SPEAKER_01: my problem with,
26:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
26:58
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
26:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:59
SPEAKER_01: but like,
27:02
SPEAKER_01: Jeffries took over as minority leader.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: And then in 24, Democrats didn't take a House majority.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:13
I don't think that means like necessarily he should have been
27:15
deposed right away.
27:17
But I think it's striking about the way Democrats do things
27:20
that like nobody said that.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: He didn't he didn't face a challenge.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: You know,
27:26
SPEAKER_01: and like,
27:27
I think you could point to these are not like super interesting
27:31
ideological disputes,
27:33
SPEAKER_01: but like there were like tactical mess ups around fundraising,
27:37
SPEAKER_01: candidate allocation,
27:38
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
27:38
SPEAKER_01: et cetera.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: It seems to me that this would be a totally different universe of norms.
27:44
But any time you're the Democratic congressional leader and
27:49
after the election you
27:50
SPEAKER_01: don't have the majority,
27:52
SPEAKER_01: I feel like there should be some level of leadership spill happening.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: Because the conversation should always be, how do we win majorities?
28:04
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, if you were already the leader,
28:09
and you didn't win a majority,
28:10
that calls into question your plan to win a majority.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: Now,
28:14
SPEAKER_01: Democrats,
28:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't guarantee,
28:16
but like Democrats are very likely to win a majority in the
28:20
House in the midterms.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: But I almost like I want to see like in sports terms,
28:27
SPEAKER_01: like in locker room terms,
28:28
SPEAKER_01: like I want to see Jeffrey's like guarantee victory.
28:31
You know,
28:31
like if they don't take the majority,
28:33
he should like fall on his sword.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: Like that's really embarrassing.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: Flip to the Senate.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: Senate situation is different in a number of different ways.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: But like,
28:42
SPEAKER_01: here's my big problem,
28:43
both with Chuck Schumer and with every other member of the
28:48
Senate Democratic Caucus.
28:50
Schumer does not have a plausible story in which Democrats win
28:58
a majority in the
28:59
SPEAKER_01: United States Senate.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: Not in 2026, not in 2028, not really ever.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: The only strategy Schumer's got is pulling inside straight,
29:13
SPEAKER_01: maybe Susan Collins dies,
29:17
SPEAKER_01: maybe Trump plunges us into depression-level conditions.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: But you look at the maps,
29:23
SPEAKER_01: you look at how Democrats do in those states,
29:26
SPEAKER_01: it's not going to happen.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have a program for victory.
29:32
And then to displace blame from Chuck Schumer to just like
29:35
literally everybody.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: And like neither does anybody else.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: Nobody is complaining about that.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: Nobody is like,
29:42
we need a strategy to put Iowa and Ohio back on the map or to
29:48
bring Texas and
29:49
SPEAKER_01: Florida onto the map or to tempt Lisa Murkowski into switching parties.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of like stare at North Carolina and pray.
30:01
But even North Carolina is a state that's voted for Trump three
30:04
times out of three.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: There are many more Democrats from Arizona,
30:08
SPEAKER_01: Georgia,
30:09
SPEAKER_01: Michigan,
30:10
SPEAKER_01: Pennsylvania,
30:11
SPEAKER_01: Wisconsin,
30:12
who represent states that have voted for Trump two out of the
30:16
last three elections
30:17
SPEAKER_01: than there are Republicans in states that even Biden won just once.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: They're really behind the eight ball in a bad way.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: And people need to be...
30:30
And it's funny because Schumer was asked about like all these
30:34
calls for him to step aside.
30:35
And his defense of himself was like,
30:37
I'm the best for winning Senate seats.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: He's really proud of his record,
30:41
which I admit has like exceeded expectations cycle by cycle
30:46
because Republicans
30:47
SPEAKER_00: keep nominating psychos for winnable races.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Right.
30:51
I don't think that that's like much for Schumer to pat himself
30:54
on the back about.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: But it is true that usually at the outset of these cycles,
30:58
SPEAKER_00: everyone's like,
30:58
SPEAKER_00: oh man,
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Democrats are going to be fully wiped out.
31:01
And they either hang on to a narrow majority or like they limit
31:03
their losses.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: I think this is like a good critique of Chuck Schumer.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: But then it's also just like, it's a challenge.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: I think in particular, like a challenge to, you know, indivisible.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: Which,
31:19
SPEAKER_01: like,
31:20
SPEAKER_01: let's be clear,
31:20
SPEAKER_01: like,
31:21
this is an organization that called on Democrats to endorse
31:24
defunding the police.
31:27
That denounced any effort by Democrats to get stricter on
31:32
border security.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: Like.
31:36
I think Chuck Schumer has failed to articulate a plausible path
31:41
to Senate majorities.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: That is a damning failure of a party leader.
31:45
It creates a strong prima facie case that new blood and new
31:50
ideas are welcome.
31:52
But we also have to think seriously about what those new ideas
31:56
are and what the
31:57
SPEAKER_01: track record of the people making calls for new leadership is.
32:03
I respect the hell out of the work that Indivisible did in
32:09
Trump's first term and
32:10
is doing again this year in terms of organizing people to go to
32:13
town halls.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: I think they're very strongly tactically effective at that,
32:18
SPEAKER_01: and it's invaluable,
32:19
SPEAKER_01: and nobody else is doing it.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: But unlike big picture questions,
32:24
they have advocated for strategies that I think indisputably
32:28
would have put
32:29
SPEAKER_01: Democrats in worse shape.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: And what we need,
32:32
and I know why nobody in the caucus wants to call for the kind
32:38
of like wrenching,
32:39
contentious ideological shifts that would make it plausible to
32:44
contest these,
32:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:47
SPEAKER_01: R plus five states that Democrats need to win in.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: But it's like, that's the conversation that you need to have.
32:54
Schumer has been safeguarding his standing within the caucus by
32:59
not putting on the
33:00
SPEAKER_01: table contentious,
33:02
SPEAKER_01: but like potentially workable ideas.
33:04
And now his critics are like,
33:06
also not putting plausible ideas on the table.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay,
33:09
SPEAKER_00: I agree with a lot of that,
33:10
but you said something at the outset about how this all has to
33:13
be about winning elections,
33:15
SPEAKER_00: and Jeffrey should fall on his sword if they don't win in 2026,
33:20
SPEAKER_00: and Schumer's situation is even less defensible.
33:24
But on the other side of the paywall,
33:27
I want to press you on that,
33:29
because I...
33:30
SPEAKER_00: I think in normal times, that's the correct thing.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Like the party leader is supposed to do two things.
33:37
They're supposed to figure out how to win majorities and then
33:41
also lead the party
33:44
SPEAKER_00: through what they do with the power that they win.
33:47
And we're in a moment right now that I think raises some
33:53
questions about where the
33:55
SPEAKER_00: emphasis ought to be
33:57
SPEAKER_00: for what people like Schumer and Jeffries are tasked with?
33:59
Is it to be looking ahead to 2026 or to be throwing their
34:04
bodies at a unfolding
34:08
SPEAKER_00: civic and moral crisis?
34:09
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think the answer to that question is clear,
34:12
SPEAKER_00: but we can fight about it on the other side.
34:15
If you want to hear that,
34:16
go to politics.fm and upgrade your subscription.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: Bye.