Latest / The Agora / September 17, 2026 — Ballots, Basis Points, and Bipartisan Bedfellows

Transcript

September 17, 2026 — Ballots, Basis Points, and Bipartisan Bedfellows · The Agora

• 0:21
  Arthur Kline: Good evening.
• 0:22
  Welcome to THE AGORA.
• 0:23
  Tonight — the Supreme Court blocks Trump's mail-ballot police,
• 0:28
  the Fed hikes rates in open defiance of Trump,
• 0:32
  and Massie moves to impeach Hegseth as Johnson sends the House home.
• 0:37
  Plus two lightning rounds.
• 0:39
  I'm Arthur Kline.
• 0:40
  It's Thursday, September 17th, 2026.
• 0:43
  Let's go.
• 0:48
  Arthur Kline: ISSUE ONE — the Court spurns the Postal Service.
• 0:51
  A seven-to-two vote on September 14, Thomas and Alito dissenting.
• 0:56
  Kavanaugh joined the majority but wrote election officials lacked time to implement
• 1:01
  the rule before November 3.
• 1:03
  Trump called it "a big loss for Republicans" and his three appointees "merely a
• 1:09
  shell of their original selves."
• 1:11
  Sloane, is this a rebuke of Trump, or just a calendar problem dressed up in robes?
• 1:17
  Sloane Barrett: Neither, Arthur.
• 1:18
  It's a rebuke of the Postal Service,
• 1:21
  and a president who mistakes his appointees for employees.
• 1:25
  Start where I always start: Article I, Section 4.
• 1:28
  The times, places, and manner of federal elections belong to state legislatures,
• 1:34
  and Congress may alter them, Congress, not a mail carrier with a docket.
• 1:39
  This rule would have required state officials to upload every mail voter's name,
• 1:44
  address,
• 1:45
  and ballot barcodes to a Federal Ballot Mail Portal before an envelope went out.
• 1:50
  Show me where Congress authorized that.
• 1:53
  Kavanaugh's timing objection is the polite version;
• 1:56
  the impolite version is that the Postal Service was legislating.
• 2:01
  As for "a shell of their original selves," Trump appointed originalists and got
• 2:06
  originalists.
• 2:07
  That's not a betrayal — that's the warranty working.
• 2:10
  Eli Navarro: Hold on, Sloane — "the warranty working"?
• 2:12
  Kavanaugh didn't say the portal was unconstitutional, he said it was *late*.
• 2:16
  That's not a rebuke, that's a rain delay.
• 2:18
  A federal database of every mail voter's name and address comes back next cycle.
• 2:22
  Sloane Barrett: Wait, no, Eli — a rain delay ends when the sky clears.
• 2:26
  This one doesn't.
• 2:27
  Give the Postal Service another decade and it still isn't Congress.
• 2:32
  Article I, Section 4 has no calendar exception.
• 2:35
  Next cycle, same defect.
• 2:38
  Arthur Kline: Sloane's right on the text and wrong on the stakes —
• 2:42
  Kavanaugh gave Trump a road map, not a wall.
• 2:45
  Nora — rebut.
• 2:46
  Nora Kessler: Arthur's half right.
• 2:47
  Kavanaugh's opinion was an Administrative Procedure Act ruling about time,
• 2:52
  not an Article I ruling about power,
• 2:55
  so Sloane is claiming a constitutional warranty on a case decided on procedure.
• 3:00
  Only Thomas and Alito reached the merits, and they reached them the other way.
• 3:06
  But "road map" overstates it too.
• 3:08
  A federal portal that must receive every mail voter's name, address,
• 3:12
  and two barcodes before a single envelope leaves the county clerk's office isn't a
• 3:18
  calendar problem,
• 3:19
  it's a capacity problem, and capacity doesn't improve because the deadline moves.
• 3:25
  Eli's rain delay is close, with one amendment: the field is also underwater.
• 3:30
  The administration gets another swing only if Congress writes the statute,
• 3:35
  and I'd put those odds just below Thomas writing for the majority.
• 3:39
  Grant Mercer: Right, but Nora — capacity's the smaller problem.
• 3:42
  The scandal is my side built this.
• 3:44
  Republicans spent decades saying Washington shouldn't touch state elections,
• 3:48
  then tried to route every mail ballot through a federal portal.
• 3:52
  Kavanaugh spared us the embarrassment.
• 3:54
  Nora Kessler: Grant, sure, but hypocrisy didn't stop the portal,
• 3:57
  the Administrative Procedure Act did.
• 4:00
  Embarrassment isn't a legal standard.
• 4:02
  If your side had drafted it two years earlier,
• 4:05
  Kavanaugh's timing objection evaporates, and we're counting votes on the merits.
• 4:11
  Arthur Kline: Embarrassment isn't a legal standard — but it's a political one,
• 4:15
  and Trump just proved it.
• 4:17
  Eli — rebut.
• 4:18
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, Trump proved it in a sentence —
• 4:21
  "a shell of their original selves" isn't jurisprudence, it's a customer complaint.
• 4:25
  He thought he bought votes and got judges.
• 4:27
  Channeling my inner Yogi: those three justices haven't changed,
• 4:30
  and that's what's different.
• 4:32
  Nora's odds are too comfortable.
• 4:34
  Kavanaugh's ruling doesn't say a federal registry of every mail voter's name and
• 4:38
  address is illegal
• 4:39
  — it says it's illegal *in September*.
• 4:41
  The remedy for "too late" is "earlier," and this administration reads every loss as
• 4:45
  an instruction manual.
• 4:46
  Sloane's warranty rests on Article I, but only the two dissenters reached it,
• 4:50
  and they sided with Trump.
• 4:52
  Seven said nothing about an executive that starts the clock in January.
• 4:55
  That's the road map, and Kavanaugh drew it.
• 4:58
  Arthur Kline: Buyer's remorse dressed up as a legal opinion.
• 5:02
  He wanted a Court, he got one.
• 5:04
  Grant — rebut.
• 5:06
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, it's buyer's remorse from a man who never read the receipt.
• 5:09
  Trump thinks he bought an outcome; what he actually bought was a temperament,
• 5:13
  and a temperament that rules on procedure will rule on procedure against you too.
• 5:18
  Eli's instruction-manual point is fair as psychology and wrong as prediction,
• 5:22
  because the manual Kavanaugh handed out has one page,
• 5:25
  the page says "Congress," and Nora already priced those odds.
• 5:28
  The ruling is Michael Corleone's line — it's not personal, it's strictly business —
• 5:33
  and Trump answered with a personal grudge because he can't tell the two apart.
• 5:37
  And my side built a federal database of every mail voter.
• 5:40
  If a Democrat had proposed that,
• 5:42
  Sloane and I would be chaining ourselves to a mailbox.
• 5:45
  Arthur Kline: Grant, that's Eli's point with a Republican accent.
• 5:49
  Yours?
• 5:49
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, the accent is the whole point.
• 5:52
  Eli thinks this ruling matters because Trump will try again earlier.
• 5:56
  I think it matters because a Republican-appointed majority told a Republican
• 6:00
  president no,
• 6:01
  on a Republican priority, and the sky stayed up.
• 6:04
  That's the argument conservatives have made about the Court for decades —
• 6:08
  that it isn't a branch of the party — and this week we tested it with our own money.
• 6:13
  Eli expects the portal back in January.
• 6:15
  I expect the party to quietly drop it,
• 6:17
  because a national list of every mail voter's name and address is the surveillance
• 6:22
  state we warn our donors about.
• 6:24
  If we don't drop it, Trump's "shell of their original selves" becomes the platform,
• 6:29
  and that's the loss — not the ruling.
• 6:31
  Arthur Kline: Grant hears "no."
• 6:33
  I hear "not yet" — Kavanaugh's timing dodge is an invitation, not a verdict.
• 6:40
  Sloane — rebut.
• 6:41
  Sloane Barrett: Arthur, an invitation requires an addressee, and this one is addressed to Congress,
• 6:48
  not the Postal Service.
• 6:49
  Courts decide on the narrowest ground; that's not a dodge, that's judicial hygiene,
• 6:55
  and it's why Nora is right that seven justices never reached Article I.
• 7:00
  But "never reached" isn't "rejected."
• 7:03
  Start the clock in January and the Postal Service still isn't one of the bodies
• 7:09
  Article I,
• 7:10
  Section 4 names.
• 7:11
  Timing cures the Administrative Procedure Act defect;
• 7:15
  nothing but a statute cures the delegation defect.
• 7:18
  When Eli hears a road map,
• 7:20
  I hear a one-line memo to the Capitol that says "your job."
• 7:24
  Public Enemy had the response to the "invitation" theory: Don't believe the hype.
• 7:30
  And Grant's right about the mailbox — I'll bring the chain.
• 7:35
  Nora Kessler: Hold on, Sloane —
• 7:36
  the two justices who actually reached your Article I question were Thomas and Alito,
• 7:41
  and they voted for the portal.
• 7:43
  Your warranty has its own originalists dissenting against it.
• 7:46
  That's a memo to Congress with a very shaky signature.
• 7:50
  Arthur Kline: Seven justices, two dissents,
• 7:52
  and one president discovering that lifetime appointments ship without a return
• 7:58
  address.
• 8:00
  Arthur Kline: ISSUE TWO — the Fed defies Trump.
• 8:03
  On September sixteenth,
• 8:05
  the committee voted 12–0 to raise the target range a quarter point,
• 8:11
  to 3.75 to 4 percent — the first hike since July 2023.
• 8:17
  Chair Warsh said inflation remains above the 2 percent target,
• 8:22
  with PCE at 3.7 percent in July.
• 8:25
  Trump had demanded cuts — rates of 1 percent or less.
• 8:30
  Eli, was this hike inflation-fighting, or Warsh proving the chair still has
• 8:37
  a spine?
• 8:38
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, that's a false dichotomy —
• 8:40
  "inflation-fighting or spine" assumes the two can't both be wrong at once.
• 8:45
  A 12–0 vote is spine,
• 8:46
  and I'll take an independent Fed over a president demanding 1 percent with PCE at
• 8:50
  3.7 any day of the week.
• 8:52
  But look at what's actually inflating.
• 8:54
  Diesel is running above six dollars a gallon because of the Iran war.
• 8:58
  Interest rates don't refine oil and they don't end wars —
• 9:01
  they raise mortgage rates and cost people jobs.
• 9:04
  As Yogi said, a nickel ain't worth a dime anymore —
• 9:07
  and a quarter-point won't buy it back.
• 9:09
  This is the 1970s mistake: treating a supply shock like an overheating economy.
• 9:14
  Warsh stood up to Trump. Good.
• 9:15
  He also stood on the wrong people's necks.
• 9:18
  Arthur Kline: Twelve-zero isn't spine — it's a committee hiding in a crowd.
• 9:24
  Nora — rebut.
• 9:25
  Nora Kessler: Arthur, twelve economists agreeing isn't hiding in a crowd,
• 9:29
  it's a statistical anomaly.
• 9:31
  Unanimity against a president demanding one percent is spine with a quorum.
• 9:36
  Eli's half right: a quarter point doesn't refine diesel or end the Iran war.
• 9:41
  But that's not the job.
• 9:43
  The job is keeping six-dollar diesel from becoming next year's rents and wage
• 9:48
  contracts,
• 9:49
  and PCE at 3.7 percent in July says that migration has started.
• 9:53
  Eli's 1970s history is backwards.
• 9:55
  Arthur Burns, no relation, didn't hike into the oil shock;
• 9:59
  he called it temporary and waited for OPEC to relent,
• 10:03
  and a supply shock became a decade.
• 10:05
  Holding rates and waiting for the war to end is prevent defense.
• 10:10
  Atlanta ran it in Super Bowl LI up twenty-eight to three and lost.
• 10:14
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, Nora's Burns history is right and her lesson is wrong.
• 10:18
  Burns failed by waiting;
• 10:19
  Volcker fixed it with a recession that put a generation of steelworkers on
• 10:23
  unemployment,
• 10:23
  and nobody at the Fed ever sent them a thank-you note.
• 10:26
  If the fear is six-dollar diesel migrating into rents,
• 10:29
  the tools are releasing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, breaking up the refiners,
• 10:33
  taxing the windfall —
• 10:34
  not making the mortgage more expensive so the trucker can't afford the diesel *or*
• 10:39
  the house.
• 10:39
  As for prevent defense: Atlanta didn't lose because it stopped attacking.
• 10:43
  It lost because Brady was still on the field.
• 10:45
  The Iran war is Brady,
• 10:47
  and Warsh just benched his own offense as though that stops him.
• 10:50
  Wall Street noticed — the Dow fell 631 points.
• 10:53
  Sloane Barrett: Arthur, Eli's toolkit is the tell.
• 10:55
  Release the reserve, break up the refiners, tax the windfall —
• 10:59
  every one of those is a president or Congress acting,
• 11:03
  and only the tax is even Congress's job under Article I, Section 8.
• 11:08
  Rates aren't the wrong tool for a supply shock;
• 11:11
  they're the only tool the Fed is *authorized* to hold.
• 11:15
  Congress gave the committee two mandates, stable prices and employment,
• 11:20
  not a foreign-policy portfolio.
• 11:22
  And the Dow dropping 631 points isn't an indictment — markets wanted cheap money,
• 11:28
  and the Framers didn't put the S&P in the Constitution either.
• 11:33
  Twelve to nothing against a president demanding one percent isn't standing on necks,
• 11:39
  it's a creature of Congress remembering the dollar has a warranty too.
• 11:44
  Grant Mercer: Sloane, sure, but— "only tool authorized" isn't a defense, it's a confession.
• 11:48
  The Fed is hiking because Congress won't cut a dime and the president wants
• 11:53
  one-percent money during a war.
• 11:55
  Warsh is mopping a floor two branches keep flooding.
• 11:59
  Arthur Kline: "A confession" — the Fed's the only adult in the building,
• 12:03
  and Grant's blaming it for the parenting.
• 12:06
  Nora — rebut.
• 12:08
  Nora Kessler: Arthur, Grant isn't blaming the adult, he's explaining why the adult is exhausted,
• 12:13
  and on the diagnosis he's right, which I'll say quickly before Eli objects.
• 12:17
  Fiscal policy is flooding, monetary policy is mopping,
• 12:21
  and the mop is the only instrument that answers to a calendar.
• 12:24
  Which is also the problem with Eli's toolkit.
• 12:27
  Releasing the reserve is a one-time draw,
• 12:30
  breaking up refiners is a multi-year antitrust case,
• 12:33
  and a windfall tax needs the same Congress Grant just said won't cut a dime.
• 12:37
  The Fed moved in one meeting.
• 12:39
  When the better tool is locked in a committee that isn't meeting,
• 12:43
  the worse tool in your hand is the policy.
• 12:46
  Volcker's recession wasn't the alternative to Burns's patience.
• 12:50
  It was the bill for it.
• 12:51
  Eli Navarro: Hold on, Nora — "the tool in your hand is the policy" is surrender.
• 12:54
  Congress isn't weather; Johnson sent the House home *this week*.
• 12:58
  And the mop's bill gets paid in layoffs,
• 13:00
  while the people flooding the floor stay dry.
• 13:03
  Arthur Kline: "Congress isn't weather" — good line, wrong forecast.
• 13:07
  Johnson sending the House home *is* the climate.
• 13:10
  Sloane — rebut.
• 13:12
  Sloane Barrett: Arthur, the forecast is right and the metaphor is exactly backwards.
• 13:17
  Congress isn't weather, it's the landlord,
• 13:20
  and the landlord left town with the water running.
• 13:23
  Eli's remedy is for the tenant, the Fed, to stop mopping until the landlord returns.
• 13:30
  That's Burns, with better intentions.
• 13:32
  Independence exists precisely because the Framers anticipated a legislature that
• 13:38
  would rather leave than take a hard vote;
• 13:41
  Madison called it faction, Johnson calls it recess.
• 13:45
  The Fed's mandate is Congress's own statute,
• 13:48
  and the remedy for a Congress that won't cut a dime is Article I, Section 2:
• 13:53
  an election, not a chair freelancing as energy secretary.
• 13:58
  The House's fiscal posture is pure Big Tymers:
• 14:01
  Gator boots with the pimped out Gucci suits / Ain't got no job,
• 14:06
  but I stay fly / Can't pay my rent, 'cause all my money's spent / But that's okay,
• 14:12
  'cause I'm still fly.
• 14:13
  The layoffs Eli fears are the bill for that verse.
• 14:17
  Arthur Kline: Warsh hikes, the President fumes,
• 14:20
  and this panel cites Big Tymers to the Federal Reserve.
• 14:24
  Everybody's still fly.
• 14:26
  Nobody can pay the rent.
• 14:30
  Arthur Kline: ISSUE THREE — Massie moves to impeach Hegseth.
• 14:33
  September 15:
• 14:34
  Thomas Massie filed eight articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth,
• 14:40
  citing an unauthorized war against Iran.
• 14:43
  Same day, the House passed a war powers resolution on Iran, 220 to 204,
• 14:48
  seven Republicans in favor.
• 14:50
  September 16: Speaker Johnson sent the House home early,
• 14:55
  no vote on impeachment or the Epstein files.
• 14:58
  Grant,
• 14:58
  eight articles against a Defense Secretary and a Speaker who sent the House home —
• 15:05
  is this a constitutional reckoning or a one-man press conference?
• 15:10
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, it's both, and the order matters.
• 15:13
  The reckoning is the war powers vote — the House did its Article I job on Iran,
• 15:17
  and seven Republicans risked primaries to do it.
• 15:20
  The impeachment is the press conference, even though the filing has substance:
• 15:24
  thirty-four pages that also allege unlawful Caribbean maritime strikes and
• 15:29
  retaliation against Senator Mark Kelly for protected speech.
• 15:32
  Those deserve hearings, not a document dump.
• 15:34
  But Johnson decided for everyone.
• 15:36
  This is Mr.
• 15:37
  Smith Goes to Washington if the Senate had simply gone home rather than let Jimmy
• 15:42
  Stewart talk.
• 15:42
  I'll get yelled at by my own side for this,
• 15:45
  but sending members home to campaign on a war they just voted to end isn't a
• 15:49
  schedule.
• 15:50
  It's a hiding place.
• 15:51
  Nora Kessler: Right, but Grant— a concurrent resolution never reaches the president's desk. H.
• 15:56
  Con. Res.
• 15:57
  93 is a strongly worded memo, not law.
• 15:59
  Seven Republicans risked primaries for a document with the legal force of a
• 16:05
  resolution honoring National Pickle Day.
• 16:08
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, Nora's right on the parchment and wrong on the point.
• 16:11
  Yes — a concurrent resolution never reaches the president's desk, and H. Con. Res.
• 16:16
  93 binds nobody.
• 16:17
  But nobody ever adjourned the House to avoid National Pickle Day.
• 16:20
  Johnson did adjourn to avoid the fallout from this one,
• 16:23
  which tells you the Speaker considers a non-binding memo dangerous enough to flee.
• 16:28
  That's the confession.
• 16:29
  Congress has a war powers statute with real teeth — cutting off funds,
• 16:33
  forcing the joint resolution —
• 16:35
  and it chose the toothless version because the toothless version is what you can
• 16:40
  vote for and still get invited to the fundraiser.
• 16:42
  So Nora's Pickle Day line indicts the wrong people.
• 16:45
  The seven Republicans used the tool they had.
• 16:48
  The Speaker hid the toolbox.
• 16:49
  Eli Navarro: Wait, no, Grant — you've got it backwards.
• 16:51
  The war powers memo is the press conference;
• 16:54
  impeachment is the Article I tool for an officer waging unauthorized war.
• 16:58
  Massie grabbed the tool with teeth;
• 16:59
  Johnson adjourned before anyone could count them.
• 17:02
  Grant Mercer: Eli, come on — teeth need a jaw.
• 17:04
  Impeachment requires a House majority and two-thirds of the Senate;
• 17:09
  Massie's resolution has exactly one signature.
• 17:12
  The war powers vote got 220.
• 17:14
  Only one of those tools actually bit down.
• 17:18
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, Grant's jaw metaphor bites him.
• 17:20
  A war powers resolution that binds nobody is 220 teeth with no jaw behind them —
• 17:25
  Nora already conceded it has the legal force of Pickle Day.
• 17:28
  Massie's resolution has one signature because the Speaker adjourned the House before
• 17:33
  anyone could add a second;
• 17:34
  you can't count cosponsors in an empty chamber.
• 17:37
  In 1876 the House impeached Secretary of War William Belknap unanimously,
• 17:41
  hours after he resigned, because Article II, Section 4 says *all* civil officers,
• 17:46
  and the House meant it.
• 17:47
  Hegseth allegedly waged war without authorization;
• 17:50
  the House's answer was a memo and a plane ticket.
• 17:53
  My own Yogi-ism: they voted 220 to 204 to do nothing,
• 17:56
  then went home to make sure it got done.
• 17:58
  Nora Kessler: Arthur, Eli's Belknap precedent proves Grant's point, not his.
• 18:02
  The House impeached Belknap unanimously after a bipartisan committee spent months
• 18:08
  building the case.
• 18:09
  Massie has one signature,
• 18:10
  and the seven Republicans who voted for the war powers resolution,
• 18:15
  the only people who've actually shown they'll break with Hegseth on Iran,
• 18:19
  have added zero cosponsors.
• 18:21
  That's the whip count, and it's not adjournment's fault; they had all of Tuesday.
• 18:26
  So this is Willis Reed limping out of the tunnel for Game 7 in 1970 while the rest
• 18:32
  of the Knicks board a plane home.
• 18:34
  The walk worked because a team followed him onto the floor.
• 18:38
  Massie's gesture has an empty arena.
• 18:40
  And Johnson didn't hide the toolbox.
• 18:42
  He turned off the lights so nobody could see how few members wanted to open it.
• 18:48
  Arthur Kline: Belknap had a committee.
• 18:50
  Massie has a filing cabinet and a grudge.
• 18:53
  Sloane — is one signature an impeachment or a press release?
• 18:57
  Sloane Barrett: Arthur, it's neither.
• 18:59
  Article I, Section 2 gives the House the sole power of impeachment,
• 19:03
  and "House" means a majority voting, not a member filing.
• 19:07
  One signature is a motion.
• 19:09
  Massie's eight articles have a real constitutional spine,
• 19:13
  unauthorized hostilities against Iran violate Congress's war power in Article I,
• 19:18
  Section 8, but they indict the wrong officer.
• 19:21
  Hegseth didn't start this war; the commander in chief did,
• 19:25
  and a secretary is his instrument.
• 19:27
  Belknap sold his own office, Hegseth executed someone else's orders.
• 19:32
  Impeaching him is suing the process server.
• 19:35
  And the Speaker's calendar is pure Jay-Z: If you're having girl problems,
• 19:39
  I feel bad for you, son / I got 99 problems, but a floor vote ain't one.
• 19:44
  Johnson made sure of that by leaving.
• 19:47
  Nora's whip count is right, but the empty arena isn't Massie's failure,
• 19:51
  it's the House's.
• 19:53
  Eli Navarro: Wait, no, Sloane — Article II, Section 4 says *all* civil officers,
• 19:56
  no instrument exemption.
• 19:57
  And retaliating against Senator Kelly wasn't an order Hegseth executed;
• 20:01
  that's his own conduct.
• 20:02
  Process servers don't pick the targets.
• 20:04
  Sloane Barrett: Fine, Eli — one article fits.
• 20:07
  The Kelly retaliation is Hegseth's own hand, and I'd hear that one.
• 20:11
  The other seven indict the man giving orders.
• 20:14
  Impeach the instrument for the war and the president keeps the war.
• 20:20
  Arthur Kline: Impeach the instrument, spare the hand on the trigger — that's not rigor,
• 20:25
  that's a dodge.
• 20:27
  Eli — rebut.
• 20:28
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, it's a dodge with a footnote, and the footnote is the confession.
• 20:31
  Sloane conceded the Kelly article stands on Hegseth's own hand — good,
• 20:35
  that's one article the Constitution obliges the House to hear,
• 20:38
  and the Speaker adjourned rather than hear it.
• 20:40
  As for the other seven: Article II, Section 4 contains no "following orders" clause.
• 20:45
  If a Defense Secretary waging an unauthorized war is merely the instrument,
• 20:48
  then every cabinet officer is unimpeachable so long as the president initials the
• 20:52
  memo,
• 20:53
  and the Framers built an accountability chain with exactly one link.
• 20:56
  It's a false dichotomy besides — indicting the instrument doesn't spare the hand;
• 21:00
  the House can name both.
• 21:01
  Johnson's plane tickets didn't protect the president.
• 21:04
  They protected the Speaker from a roll call.
• 21:06
  Nora Kessler: See, Eli, that's the part that doesn't follow.
• 21:09
  The roll call Johnson supposedly fled already happened Tuesday,
• 21:13
  on the war powers vote.
• 21:14
  Seven Republicans broke ranks and zero cosponsored Massie.
• 21:18
  The whip count isn't hidden.
• 21:20
  It's published.
• 21:21
  Eli Navarro: Nora, no — those are two different roll calls.
• 21:23
  Voting to end a war is free; voting to remove a Secretary costs you a primary.
• 21:27
  Massie filed Tuesday, Johnson adjourned Wednesday.
• 21:30
  One business day isn't a whip count, it's a stopwatch.
• 21:33
  Arthur Kline: And now, The Herald — with Simone Hargrove.
• 21:38
  Simone Hargrove: This is The Herald — the week beyond the table.
• 21:41
  The Senate, on September 15, rejected the CLARITY Act,
• 21:45
  a federal cryptocurrency framework, by a vote of forty nine to fifty,
• 21:51
  after months of debate over consumer protection and market stability.
• 21:56
  The House, meanwhile, unanimously passed the Common Cents Act,
• 22:01
  which would eliminate the one cent coin and round cash purchases to the nearest five
• 22:07
  cents;
• 22:07
  supporters cite savings at the U.S.
• 22:10
  Mint, critics the costs to low-income shoppers and small businesses.
• 22:15
  In California,
• 22:16
  a major teachers union has sued the state over about three point nine billion
• 22:22
  dollars in Proposition Ninety Eight education funds the union says were delayed,
• 22:28
  leaving districts planning cuts for a new academic year.
• 22:33
  The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance rates the United
• 22:39
  States at its weakest democratic performance in fifty years of measurement,
• 22:45
  citing polarization, strained electoral norms, and weakened checks and balances.
• 22:51
  In the sciences,
• 22:52
  the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revised how it tracks measles
• 22:58
  outcomes and now reports no measles deaths in 2026,
• 23:02
  a figure experts attribute to low mortality and changed surveillance criteria.
• 23:08
  And in Washington,
• 23:09
  lawmakers introduced a bill defining a thirty two hour workweek with no cut in pay,
• 23:16
  which employers and labor groups in California are weighing against existing wage
• 23:22
  and hour law.
• 23:23
  From beyond the table — I'm Simone Hargrove.
• 23:26
  The Agora continues.
• 23:29
  Arthur Kline: ISSUE FOUR — LIGHTNING ROUND — the Kennedy Center goes dark.
• 23:34
  On September 15, 2026,
• 23:36
  the Trump-appointed board voted to close the main building for up to two years,
• 23:42
  a renovation estimated at $257 million.
• 23:45
  The same day, CFO Donna Kauranen resigned after roughly eighteen months in the post.
• 23:52
  Sloane, two years of closure, a crumbling ceiling,
• 23:56
  and a president who wants his name on the marquee first — renovation or ransom?
• 24:02
  Sloane Barrett: Ransom, Arthur, and the ransom note has a signature.
• 24:06
  The president said the renovation wouldn't proceed unless his name went on the
• 24:12
  facade.
• 24:12
  That's a federal building, chartered by Congress, and Congress names buildings,
• 24:18
  not tenants.
• 24:19
  So a president is holding a leaking roof hostage for a marquee,
• 24:23
  and a board appointed by that president voted to go dark rather than tell him no.
• 24:29
  Kauranen read the room and left; I don't blame her.
• 24:33
  A renovation fixes the ceiling.
• 24:35
  This one fixes his ego first.
• 24:37
  Arthur Kline: Ransom with a signature —
• 24:39
  or a landlord demanding his name over the door he's paying to fix?
• 24:44
  Pick one, Grant.
• 24:46
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, "paying to fix" is doing a lot of work in that sentence — he isn't paying,
• 24:50
  we are.
• 24:50
  That's appropriated money, and Congress holds the deed.
• 24:53
  Judge Cooper barred the name hours before the board voted to go dark,
• 24:57
  so the sequence is: court says no, board pulls the plug.
• 25:00
  That's not a landlord.
• 25:01
  That's a tenant who lost in court and shut off the water to the whole building.
• 25:06
  My side used to call that extortion when a union did it.
• 25:09
  Nora Kessler: Arthur,
• 25:10
  the board's own draft resolution says the building can't meet payroll within weeks,
• 25:16
  and it blames water intrusion and a partial ceiling collapse in the Grand Foyer.
• 25:21
  That may be true.
• 25:23
  Grant's sequence still sinks it.
• 25:25
  An emergency declared hours after a judge bars the name is the 1985 NBA Draft
• 25:31
  Lottery:
• 25:31
  the envelope may have been random,
• 25:34
  the Knicks may have simply gotten Patrick Ewing fair and square,
• 25:38
  but nobody who watched Stern pull it ever believed that.
• 25:43
  The ceiling is real.
• 25:44
  The timing is the story.
• 25:46
  Arthur Kline: Ceilings collapse.
• 25:48
  So do pretexts.
• 25:49
  The payroll crisis arrived the same afternoon the judge said no.
• 25:54
  Grant — coincidence or leverage?
• 25:57
  Grant Mercer: Leverage, Arthur, and the chief financial officer is the tell.
• 26:00
  If the Kennedy Center genuinely couldn't make payroll within weeks,
• 26:04
  the person whose job *is* payroll would be at a podium explaining the shortfall,
• 26:08
  not clearing her desk.
• 26:10
  Donna Kauranen resigned the same afternoon the board declared an emergency she'd
• 26:14
  have been asked to certify.
• 26:16
  Water intrusion doesn't consult a court docket.
• 26:18
  Nora's lottery envelope is right, and I'd add one thing —
• 26:21
  you don't need to see the envelope when the accountant walks out before the drawing.
• 26:26
  Arthur Kline: Enough.
• 26:27
  The ceiling fell, the CFO fled,
• 26:29
  and the only thing still standing is the argument over the marquee.
• 26:36
  Arthur Kline: ISSUE FIVE — LIGHTNING ROUND — Sanders and Bannon versus the machines.
• 26:42
  On September 15, Sanders and Bannon shared a stage at the first Pro-Human Assembly,
• 26:48
  a Washington ballroom, roughly 300 attending.
• 26:52
  Sanders pledged legislation to permanently ban artificial superintelligence,
• 26:58
  with Representative Greg Casar co-sponsoring.
• 27:02
  Eli, a socialist and a populist demanding a pause on AI —
• 27:06
  strange bedfellows or the same bed?
• 27:10
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, same bed, different pillows.
• 27:12
  Sanders said the public had virtually no input into the AI revolution —
• 27:15
  that's the whole argument,
• 27:16
  and Bannon showing up tells you how bipartisan the resentment is.
• 27:20
  But you can't ban a word.
• 27:21
  Nobody can define superintelligence precisely enough for a statute to catch it.
• 27:25
  The Sherman Act didn't outlaw bigness — it broke up who owned the railroads.
• 27:29
  Regulate the compute, the data, and the ownership, and the machines follow.
• 27:32
  Ban a definition and the oligarchs keep the servers.
• 27:35
  Sloane Barrett: Same bed, Arthur, and the mattress is the administrative state.
• 27:40
  Bannon said Americans won't be supplicants to the oligarchs anymore.
• 27:44
  Then who runs the pause?
• 27:46
  A federal board deciding which companies may compute isn't the end of supplication,
• 27:51
  it's a change of landlord.
• 27:53
  Eli's right that you can't statute a definition nobody can write;
• 27:58
  he's wrong that regulating compute and ownership fixes it,
• 28:02
  that's the same board with a broader deed.
• 28:04
  Show me where Article I,
• 28:06
  Section 8 authorizes a permanent ban on a technology nobody can define.
• 28:11
  Arthur Kline: Sloane, that's a question, not an answer.
• 28:14
  Same bed or not?
• 28:16
  Sloane Barrett: Same bed, Arthur, and I'll make it a verdict.
• 28:19
  Sanders and Bannon both want the public to control AI development;
• 28:24
  both mean a federal board doing the controlling.
• 28:28
  That's not populism, that's a preference for whose bureaucrat holds the leash.
• 28:34
  The one honest answer is the one neither of them gave: Congress, in a statute,
• 28:40
  on a definition that survives a courtroom.
• 28:43
  Until someone drafts that, "ban superintelligence" is a slogan with a co-sponsor.
• 28:49
  Eli's compute regulation is the same slogan wearing a lab coat.
• 28:54
  Nora Kessler: Arthur, same bed,
• 28:55
  and Sloane just called the one measurable thing in this debate a slogan.
• 29:00
  You cannot define superintelligence in statute; Eli's right.
• 29:04
  You can count chips, meter electricity, and license data centers,
• 29:09
  because those are nouns an inspector can photograph.
• 29:12
  That's not a lab coat, that's how we regulate reactors:
• 29:16
  nobody in Congress defined "dangerous," they licensed the fissile material.
• 29:21
  Sanders's bill bans an adjective.
• 29:23
  The honest bill regulates a warehouse.
• 29:25
  Three hundred people in a ballroom agreed on the villain and not on a single verb.
• 29:31
  Arthur Kline: Enough.
• 29:32
  The Fed hiked, the ceiling fell, and Massie stands alone.
• 29:36
  Now the part where you commit to being wrong on the record.
• 29:42
  Arthur Kline: Predictions.
• 29:43
  One apiece — specific, falsifiable, dated, and for once in this hour, no
• 29:49
  metaphors.
• 29:50
  "Possibly, perhaps, could well" is a horoscope, not a forecast,
• 29:55
  and I don't read horoscopes. Go.
• 29:58
  Arthur Kline: Sloane Barrett.
• 30:00
  Sloane Barrett: Here's mine, Arthur: by January 31st, 2027,
• 30:03
  the Postal Service will not republish the Federal Ballot Mail Portal rule,
• 30:09
  and no bill authorizing a federal mail-voter registry will receive a committee
• 30:15
  markup in either chamber.
• 30:17
  Eli expects the portal back in January.
• 30:20
  I'm betting it never returns.
• 30:23
  Arthur Kline: Eli Navarro.
• 30:24
  Eli Navarro: Switching to the Pentagon, Arthur.
• 30:26
  By December 31st, 2026,
• 30:28
  at least one of the seven Republicans who backed the war powers resolution will
• 30:32
  cosponsor Massie's articles against Hegseth
• 30:34
  — and Speaker Johnson will still not have scheduled a floor vote.
• 30:38
  Nora's whip count moves.
• 30:39
  Johnson's calendar doesn't.
• 30:41
  Arthur Kline: Nora Kessler.
• 30:43
  Nora Kessler: Staying with the Fed, Arthur.
• 30:44
  At the committee's December meeting, there will be no cut:
• 30:48
  the target range stays at 3.75 to 4 percent or higher,
• 30:52
  and the vote won't be twelve to nothing.
• 30:54
  At least one member dissents in favor of easing, and Warsh still doesn't blink.
• 31:00
  Arthur Kline: Grant Mercer.
• 31:01
  Grant Mercer: Taking the Kennedy Center, Arthur.
• 31:03
  By March 31st, 2027,
• 31:04
  the board will have abandoned the two-year full closure in favor of a phased
• 31:09
  renovation that keeps at least one theater open,
• 31:11
  and the president's name will still not be on the building.
• 31:15
  The ceiling gets fixed.
• 31:16
  The marquee doesn't.
• 31:18
  Arthur Kline: Massie stands alone, Warsh stands firm,
• 31:21
  and the Kennedy Center ceiling is the only thing in Washington that actually moved
• 31:27
  this week.
• 31:28
  I'm Arthur Kline.
• 31:29
  THE AGORA IS ADJOURNED.