Breaking News from Pod Save America - DEBATE: Should Democrats Shut Down The Government?

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

Washington is staring down another government shutdown. Republicans control Congress and the White House, but they still need Democratic votes to keep the lights on—and Democrats say no deal unless Trump negotiates. Is forcing a shutdown a smart fight or a political disaster waiting to happen? Georgetown's Matt Glassman argues Democrats should avoid it at all costs, while Faiz Shakir, former Bernie Sanders campaign manager and now head of More Perfect Union, says Democrats have no choice but to stand their ground. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Washington is barreling towards a government shutdown. If Congress can't pass a funding bill by October 1st, government offices close, government services get interrupted, hundreds of thousands of federal employees either work without pay or not at all. Republicans obviously control both houses of Congress and the White House, but because of the filibuster, at least seven Senate Democrats need to vote for the funding bill in order for it to pass. As of this recording, Republicans don't have the Democratic votes they need to pass the bill. They've put forward. that bill would fund the government at current spending levels until the end of November.

It's also known as a clean continuing resolution or a clean CR, at which point at the end of November, Congress would have to agree to another funding bill or face another shutdown. So that is something fun to look forward to if we get out of this. The last time there was almost a government shutdown in March, Chuck Schumer and just enough Senate Democrats gave Republicans the votes they needed to keep the government open. based on the argument that Trump probably wanted to shut down because it would make Elon's doge work easier and distract from the impact his tariffs were having on the markets and the economy. Most Democrats in Congress and all over the country did not agree. In fact, they were furious that Schumer gave Republicans the votes they needed at a time when Trump already seemed to be ignoring Congress,

the courts, the law, and the Constitution. Which brings us to today. This time around, Schumer has already made it clear that Republicans won't get the votes they need from Democrats, unless Trump and Republicans agree to sit down and negotiate with them. Trump originally accepted and then canceled a meeting with Schumer and Jeffries, and now the Democrats are blaming the president for the shutdown. They seem to think will come. But is this a politically wise strategy?

What should Democrats be asking for? What counts as a win? And what is the end game? To help us work through these questions, we've got two very sharp thinkers on different sides of the issue. Matt Glassman, a political scientist at Georgetown, who believes that forcing a shutdown is a terrible idea for Democrats, and Fas Shakur, former Bernie Sanders campaign manager and Harry Reid advisor,

now executive director at More Perfect Union, who believes that Democrats should have this fight. Gentlemen, thanks for joining us. Thank you, John. Thank you. Matt, let's start with you. You called a strategic shutdown, quote, a terrible idea. What's the big mistake you think Democrats would be making if they go down this road? Mostly that, it just doesn't work.

We've seen this in past shutdowns. First off, it's bad policy. And every Democrat knows this, right? You would be hurting federal workers and contractors, blowing up agency, budgeting, and planning, and worsening the quality of government services for people, right? We all know that, right? Democrats agree on that. And so to do that as a strategic tool, you better be getting something for it.

But the problem is shutdowns don't typically achieve their substantive goals or their political goals, right? It's sort of a pipe dream to think Trump is going to sign a bill. restricting all his own power, just as it was a pipe dream for Republicans to think Obama was going to sign a bill repealing Obamacare. And so in most cases, you get nothing sort of substantive out of a shutdown. And in the previous shutdowns of any length, we've seen that you lose sort of politically. Public opinion quickly turns against you. And going forward, you've achieved almost nothing. I mean, the 2013 shutdown made Ted Cruz look ridiculous and the Republicans came sort of crawling back.

And Trump's sort of temper tantrum in 2018, 2019, also had the same result. where he just in the end had to give in. And I sort of see that that's what would happen to the Democrats here. Fas, you've worked in Congress. You've been through a shutdown or two. I can't recall one to Matt's point that's actually achieved the goals of the party precipitating it. Why do you think this time might be different and why do you think Democrats should go for it here? Yeah.

So having heard what Matt said, my response would be the following is that the words were used typically. and in most cases, to discuss the past. And the question for all of us as Democrats is, is this typical times and, like, in most cases, in the past? And I think what we, a lot of us feel is that Trump is operating in a very different way that is asymmetrical warfare against the Democratic Party, that it's unlike anything in the past. And then, therefore, do we have a response that might be unlike anything that we have done

in the past? If you look at Gavin Newsom, for instance, I think in ordinary circumstances, I don't think he's going to be redistricting California. He's saying at this moment in time, we require a different kind of response to what Trump has put before us, or Texas in this case, too. So my view would be we have to solve for a couple of problems as Democrats. Number one problem is what do we stand for? What do people know and understand about us? In order to change how people would view the Democratic Party right now, which I think is a struggle and is a challenge for all of us to have to reconcile, that the modern approval of the Democratic Party seems to be lower even than Trump in some polls right now.

So to solve for that, you say, hey, we are going to have some governing demands. We are going to make the case that in this very difficult period of time with Donald Trump where he is doing many, many things that we disagree with, we are going to come to you not only with the mere disagreement that we don't like what he's doing, we're going to offer you an alternative division of the kind of society we want to live in. And we're going to posit those one, two, or three issues right up front and fight for them like we actually give a damn about them. So would we want to shut down the government? Would we want to get to this place? No. But we have governing demands upon which we want to force on Donald Trump. And that's the

terms of this conversation. So the argument the Democrats are making right now, as we're recording this on Wednesday afternoon, is that actually Trump and Republicans are causing the shutdown because they won't even meet with Democrats or consider a bipartisan negotiation. Matt, what do you make of that argument? I think it's not unreasonable to think that Republicans would love to see a shutdown here

because I think they probably correctly believe they would win it politically. But I think the problem for Democrats is that they don't control any of the source of power and government. I mean, it's very difficult. I don't disagree with House at all, that this is unusual times. And Trump is blowing up the entire appropriations process with his spending encroachments and recisions and impoundments. And he squarely takes the blame for this.

But the question is, how do you strategically respond to that when you don't have any power? If the Democrats control the House or the Senate or the whole Congress, it would be much easier argument to say, we have some Democratic legitimacy here. There's a chamber of Congress disagreeing with you. But when the president, the House, and the majority of the Senate want to do something and you're stuck using the filibuster, it's not a great look. And I don't think the public is going to buy the idea that it's the Republicans standing in the way of this. And I feel bad about that because I wish it wasn't true. But I don't think there's an argument you're going to make here that the Republicans are shutting down the government. And I think the problem is once you get to the shutdown,

having no power is really going to come full view. This isn't going to be a case where you're going to have the House and Senate and disagreement. Instead, it's going to be a case where the Republicans are going to be able to force continual votes whenever they want. again, because they have all the levers of power. And so this goes back to sort of judicious exercise of the tools you do have. And the tool the Democrats have right now is, well, they can filibuster stuff. But you have to say, well, is that going to be a judicious exercise of the power we have? And in my view right now, despite the fact that I agree, this is sort of unusual times that may demand strong action.

It wouldn't be a judicious use of that power. Fas, what do you make of the argument about we want a meeting? They're not giving us the meeting. and so Republicans are causing the shutdown because one thought I had about it is like if you're going to go for it and do the shutdown, then you craft an argument sort of like what you said in your last answer.

That's one option. There's plenty of options. I wonder if the process argument in trying to get people to believe that Republicans are actually the ones being intransigent and the Democrats just want to sit down and cooperate and negotiate is the best foot forward.

But what do you think? I think it's right to demand the meeting. And I'd say one of the things is that this is the challenge in the learning lesson of the failure of the last shutdown. This didn't even occur during that period of time. I don't remember a Schumer-Jeffry's demand for a meeting with Donald Trump, which should have obviously occurred last time. And so I think they're correcting for that problem this time.

And I think they're right to say, we need a meeting with Trump. You should have, of course. you're in any kind of governing, uh, demand situation, you should have a meeting with the power brokers. And if they believe that they have some degree of power and I believe the Senate, Senator Schumer does in your and you're, uh, you know, as you set up this segment, you're indicating that they need Democratic votes to pass us, right? So then you are a powerful actor. So let's sit down and talk about it. Now when you sit down and talk about it, what is your demand? Do you want anything? Like, like, or do you just want to shut down? Then that, those conversations,

is you remember well from President Obama's period of time. What are we negotiating over? You just want to shut down, and I can't give you what you want. You want to repeal all of Obamacare. You're not going to get it. The question for a Democratic Party right now is, do you have a governing demand that you find to be very popular with the American public, such that they are your core constituency here?

You want to be talking to independent, centrist, Trump voters, and progressives about this is something that I care deeply about and prepared to fight for and to posit this. I'm going to be honest, I'm talking in political terms. If you're going to go in the next midterm election cycle, you want to know that the people are voting in that midterm election cycle, are not just merely voting on a Trump referendum. They're not just saying, hey, up or down on Donald Trump. Certainly that's at play. What we're trying to solve for is, do you want to people to affirmatively vote for the Democrats? And if you're going to want to vote for a Democrat, you want to know, well, what would you do if you had the House or the Senate? Do we know? Right now, if we sat in this conversation

and I said to you, John or Matt, hey, Democrats now have the House under Schumer and Jeffries, what would they be doing any differently right now, right? What would they be asking for? That's the question of this shutdown, actually, because this is the time to posit what that would be. In 2005, you might remember this period of time, John, because I think we were living it together. I think President George W. Bush was president, and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were minority leaders of the House in the Senate. And Bush was trying to privatize Social Security. And they could have easily said, listen, going into the midterm elections, we don't want to make a case of just saying, we want to play dead here. You know, we're just going to say George W. Bush is sinking in

his own ship, and we are not going to say or do anything. Instead, they said, no, no, no, we've got to come up with an affirmative agenda, 6 for 06. And if you look back at that period of time, and that 6 for 06, it laid the foundations for a Democratic agenda in that was affordable health care, which you might remember and ended up becoming a thing in 2008, and raising the minimum wage. So they said, if you put us in power, we'll raise the minimum wage. It was 515 at the time. They come into power. You get Speaker Pelosi, a Speaker of the House, and Harry Reid, a Senate Majority Leader in 2007. The minimum wage is raised that year, from 515 an hour to 725 an hour. last time we have ever raised the minimum wage in modern history. How did that happen? Because

Democrats had a governing demand even before they came into power. And that is what I am hunting for. That is why I want the government shutdown to be a cause of catalyzing this kind of a thinking because right now Democrats don't have any governing demands. So, Matt, what do you think about that, that the shutdown is basically putting, it's an intentional event. It's putting a marker in the ground. This is what Democrats stand for. This is, it's setting up the midterms. This is what we're fighting for and we're going to the mat for it right now. I agree that a positive governing agenda is something that you probably want to have going into a midterm, even if the president is horribly unpopular as he is.

And I expect Democrats do well, whether they have an agenda or not. I think an agenda is a good thing. And I think it's helpful. I don't think a shutdown is the way to produce that agenda. I keep hearing people say, well, we need an attentional moment. But I don't know how much more attention you can bring to sort of Trump's excesses, for instance. Most people don't like Trump. They know enough about them to know they don't like them.

And I fear that the attention and a shutdown will not be on any issues you might bring up. It will be whether the government should be open or not. And that issue is going to unify Republicans and divide Democrats. I just don't think that's the grounds you want to be playing on. We can hypothesize that we could talk about any issue we wanted from Trump's spending nonsense to actual substantive health care issues or tariff issues all the way. to things that aren't, you know, typically on the plate right now in Congress, like minimum wage. But I think it's unrealistic that thing during a shutdown, it would be able to be framed that way in the

public sphere. I think the public sphere debate would be should the government be open or shut. And it would very much look like the Democrats are trying to keep it shut to try and achieve goals that have nothing to do with the appropriations process. And I worry that both in Congress where it would unify the Republicans in a way, they're not really unified right now. And certainly in the executive branch, you would see sort of the Republicans be able to manipulate the shutdown in a way that would be very harmful, both substantively and politically. I think sort of the unusual nature of Trump sometimes calls for unusual responses, but boy, I worry about what the unusual nature of Trump would be like in a shutdown. All presidents have strategically behaved when

the government was shut down. You know, Obama was, you know, if you're not, if you don't like the shutdown, you can do things in the executive branch like quickly closed the Washington Monument, like President Obama did, sort of leverage it politically. And if you do like the shutdown, like Trump did in 18, you can sort of leave the parks open and continue oil permits flowing, right? And so giving the executive branch that sort of control right now, I think would exacerbate sort of the unusualness of Trump while also unifying congressional Republicans. One thing the Democrats have going for them right now is that Republicans are kind of divided

on a lot of this spending stuff and they're divided on the ACA subsidies. And all of those things, if you worked with them sort of quietly or at a lower stakes level, I think it could probably be one in basic bargaining without having a resort to sort of high-stakes shut down politics. Can I just really quickly respond to that? I think, you know, Matt and making solid points about this is not without risk to go into this. And he outlines risks as well. I think I'm just operating off a different assumption that one of the challenges that I see Democrats currently suffering from is a lack of conviction, integrity of governing demands. What do you want to do in the sense that do you really give a damn about it enough that

you would change the situation in this country? So you're trying to solve for both a feel of what people perceive of a Democratic Party and couple that with a strategic action. To their credit, heading into this shutdown moment, leader Jeffries and Senator Schumer actually have indicated a governing demand. They've said, most people don't know it, but because there's a challenge, right? This is the question, right? The governing demand is to say, you know, we don't want 20 million people finding their health premiums are going to go through the roof as a result of tax subsidies being cut in the one big beautiful bill for health care premium reductions for many working class families. And that's a worthy demand. That's a worthy governing demand. It impacts tens of millions of people.

And I sit here, and I wonder if any of you disagree, that most people don't know that Democrats are prepared to go the mat to fight to make sure that their health care costs go lower or not higher and that Trump is about to make them go higher. That, I think, is what I'm after, is to advance, once again, a health care debate such that with conviction integrity, you own the issue, that you're willing to go to the map for it, even so much so, that you posit the opportunity for Trump to solve this problem with you, or, yeah, we're going to have to go into a resolution of how to solve for this problem because it matters to too many millions of people. And if we have to shut down the government for a few days or weeks, in order to solve it, I want to get it done. That

that credibility of that issue mattering and the conviction and integrity with which we fight this, to my mind is resolving a major thing that I'm trying to get the Democratic Party weakness to be addressed. Yeah, I do want to just press on the choice of health care as the demand, which it is right now. So like you said, if Democrats get any kind of concessions on health care, it would help millions of people on one of the top issues for voters. and one issue, one of the few issues where Democrats probably have the biggest advantage over Republicans. So politically exactly right. I do feel like there's just two challenges. One is, does it feel off or dissonant in any way for Democrats to say that, like,

their answer to Trump turning America into Hungary is to shut down the government over health care, especially because, two, they will be fairly criticized for, using a shutdown to fight for unrelated policy concessions, which Democrats have criticized in the past? What do you say to that? I, you know, yes, unusual times call for unusual measures. But I like, so I don't mind that, yes, we are going to have to turn an argument that we have generally said, hey, clean CRs. This is not a time for fighting for other things on debt ceilings and government shutdowns. Well, I guess, you know, Trump through a lot of rules out of the window. and we're fighting like this moment actually matters.

And so we're going to fight in a way that is asymmetrical different. And in the way what we're going to fight is obviously one is to help build it, reestablish, let's say our brand as Democratic Party works for expanding health care for Americans. That happens to be a core thing. We have long believed. And once again, are going to show you that that's one of the reason why you'll want to vote for us in 2026 because health care tends to matter a great deal to this party.

When we're in power, we expand it. And so that would help. If your question back to me is, could there be other governing demands? Could you say, are there other wedges on Donald Trump? I mean, let me just for the purpose of this exercise, I'm not going to advocate for it. But let's say I said to the point I said earlier, a wage and a minimum wage. I said, okay, Democrats right now, we're going to shut the government down. We're going to raise the minimum wage.

Could that have powerful effect? It could, right? Because you have tens of millions of people who benefit from a raise in minimum wage, presumably a lot of Trump's supporters. Trump would have to make an argument against it, which be wildly unpopular. People would obviously still criticize you why you seeing the government shutdown. Nevertheless, they'd say, hey, a Democratic Party, man, they seem to care about wages for working class people. That is what I think would come across, however you resolved or didn't. There could also be other demands. I know Nase Silver, I think, has posited a couple on tariffs and a whole bunch of issues. These are issues,

I think, for leaders to resolve. I think, yes, you want a sets of three, four, five governing demands with which you want to sit down Donald Trump and discuss, but ultimately if you're going to pull the move, and it doesn't come without friction, Matt's laid them out well, it's going to be a big one. Then I think one thing's going to break through, right? What is the one governing demand? Do you want to let people know, I need to have some movement from Donald Trump on if we're going to resolve this? And that's a, that's a strategic calculation. Do you think Trump would give? Do you think Republicans would give on something? And I think in this case, Schumer and Jeffries have the right target that, yes, many Republican senators and House members would ultimately

feel like they'd have to give on ACA tax credits. Matt, I wanted to ask you about Nate Silver's proposal on this, because this is, this has sort of been the first thing that I had thought about when I first heard that there was maybe going to be a shutdown, is that tariffs are the example of an issue where both politically, they're, you know, they're the issue that probably has dragged down Trump's popularity the most. Everyone in the country is aware that prices are still. high and getting higher and they know about the tariffs and and it's an issue where Trump has actually abused power that Congress is supposed to have. So when you're talking about this is not

a normal moment, we have to use tools that we don't usually use. And yes, we're causing a shutdown, but the reason we're causing a shutdown is because he's taking the Congress's power to tax people. He's unilaterally levied a tax on the country and people are suffering and the economy's hurting. And so unless he gives us back the power to tax, then we're going to. keep the government shut down. Yeah. I mean, I think you can rank sort of different issues you could shut the government down over and how well they would fare. At least we can do that because I don't think they're all the same. It seems to me the worst way to shut the government down would be over sort of general Trump lawlessness, right? Just be like, we are shutting the government down because this guy is

out of control. And there's not even a demand there, right? There's nothing to negotiate. It's like, you are the worst person ever to be president of the United States and we are shutting the government down. I don't think that works at all. And then after that, you get to sort of specific demands. And some of them the benefit of being related to the appropriations process, right? Like a very specific demand that is a core congressional power that has sort of bipartisan support will be some sort of language that updates the Empowerment Control Act so that pocket recisions are gone, right? And that would be very narrowly tailored to the appropriations bills. And you can imagine that sort of winning in just the brinksmanship, right, where the Republicans are like, you know, Chair Collins wants these

things going anyway, right? And maybe you cut that deal. And maybe that's possible. On their hand, you do have issues that, I mean, but no one in the public has any clue about that, right? Pocket recitions aren't sort of a sexy topic when you go out and stump, right? On their hand, things like ACA subsidies and tariffs really are. And I agree with you that tariffs have the sort of benefit of being sort of wildly unpopular and also a core congressional power. And so it is two birds with one stone. There are a lot of Republicans who I think privately would love to see these things gone, would love to see the power return to Congress. And so I think if you're going to do it over a specific substantive issue, that would be the one. The ACCA subsidies are good too simply because of

their popularity, but none of this sort of requires the government to be shut down next Tuesday. It's not like they're proposing an omnibus right now, and this is the brinksmanship where you either give in and you don't get an chance for a year. I think it would be very easy to say right now, look, here's what we want. We want either the tariff power, you know, fixed or we want these ACA subsidies extended, pick one, and then say, we're willing to keep the government over for another seven weeks, but we're going to spend the next seven weeks talking about this issue. And in November, if you're still backs up against the wall, well, then we may have to take direct action. Fas, let's say the shutdown happens.

Let's say that at least at first, Democrats are successful at framing the fight as Trump refusing to even sit down and negotiate over ACA subsidies, Medicaid cuts, tariffs, whatever it may be. Federal workers get furloughed, parks and museum shutdown. Maybe you get some airport delays, other services interrupted. Economy's already in a fragile place. and every day the guy with the biggest megaphone in the world Donald Trump is out there saying all he wants to do is open the government. All the Democrats want to do is give a trillion dollars to health care to illegal immigrants, right? He's already been saying this. One thing that has sort of made me waiver on the shutdown is this requires compelling discipline messaging from Democrats in Congress, especially Democratic leaders.

I was going to raise the ropes felt you go to war with the army you got. That's the big problem for sure. How long do Democrats let it drag on? And what counts as a win? I mean, like exactly. I think we see this the same way that I would want to do this. And I believe it's the right tactic. It's the right move.

And then you say, you know, your field generals are going to be, you know, Senator Schumer trying to lead the messaging on a daily basis. that's Donald Trump, and I don't like, I don't like the odds of that. And so I think the challenges of trying to figure out how best the Democratic side is advancing an argument on health care in the midst of a shutdown while terrible, you know, challenges are being faced to federal workers, not that they haven't had some terrible challenges, quite frankly, for the past nine months. So I think that's the part that I, that's the only part that I struggle with, like is, who, you know, if I've got Bernie Sanders out there making the case that, hey, we're, you know, we're going to sit, we're going to demand health care.

And he's my, he's my Senate Majority Leader. I'd feel a hell of a lot different. Hell yes, let's, let's do this. And also the sense that he's going to negotiate with Donald Trump and they're going to have it one to one at some point. That's one I feel comfortable with. The challenge that we have perception-wise, while I'm making the case for everything I am, I feel it, I feel like I have more integrity of conviction around this cause than I worry. our democratic leaders will and it will be perceived as such that, hey, you didn't really care about health care. You really just wanted a tactic. You were playing behind the eight ball, the things that, you know, Matt was mentioning before, you're just kind of, you needed an outlet,

a vent and you were dealing with left criticism and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-des, so you engaged in this tactic. Well, that isn't solving the problem that I just indicated that Democrats are grappling with, conviction and integrity, that you're fighting for something that, it matters to you and you mean it. So if you're prepared to, if they're going to go into this, they've got to solve a communications problem, who are your messengers on a daily basis, and explain the demand that they are honestly and sincerely prepared

to fight for and feel that they can resolve with Donald Trump. So there is that. And then I just wanted to ask you as like someone who's been in the Senate, like say we did have that, right? Say we have a clear ask. We have some good messengers out there. but Donald Trump and the Republicans pretty early on are like, no way, we're just going to keep this government shut down until you guys come to the table. We don't care until you open the government, right?

Like, it's your fault. You're the ones who caused it. As you're sort of orchestrating a messaging political strategy here, how are you thinking about how long you let it drag on, how you get out of it, what you can count as a win? Like, what's the end game? Well, remember, it's not, in these cases, it's not just the president. You've got Republican senators and Republican House members, and those play out, obviously, in geographies across America. And I have not looked at, you know, the breakdown, and I'm sure we all could, of ACA impacts, essentially. Where are, you know, demographics and constituents most impacted by rising health care premiums?

where will they see the pain the most? And you start matching them up with who are those members of Congress and those states and those senators who are going to feel this most acutely. And you're running kind of specific, hopefully targeted messaging, as well as national, obviously we have to have a national fight here, but as well as a state and local campaign to have those out where you find the weak spots in essentially the Republican armor. Who's kind of sympathetic to, well, I would personally, I'm a Republican.

And I would personally love to resolve this ACA issue because, you know, my constituents are going to feel the harm. And you know, you know, I know already, since Speaker Johnson is already feeling this within his caucus, that there are people saying, hey, can we get this off our plate, actually? Is there a possibility? Well, guess what? Now this is high stakes. So you're, I'm going to demand all, every one of you members of Congress on the Republican side is going to have to stake a claim on this one. So you're going to have to say on a daily basis, what is it? And sure, you might say, oh, well, I don't like.

the tactic of the government. Yeah, okay, well, but what about ACA subsidies? What about the demand that the Democrats are saying that they want to solve for ACA? What about that, Mr. Congressman? That's what you got to run on a daily basis. I mean, that plan sounds much more suitable to the Democrats having control of the House, where they could sort of even force that vote continually. But the vote that's going to be forced every day or every other day is going to be the vote in the Senate on the clean CR with the security funding to reopen the government. And it's going to be the Democrats filibustering that every 40. hours that is going to be sort of the congressional side of this from a voting point of view.

It would be great if you could force Republicans to vote on a CR with ACA subsidies continually during a shutdown, but you're not going to be able to. Matt, you couldn't force the vote, but you certainly have a Democratic alternative, right? But I mean, you couldn't force the vote, but you'd have a specific language saying this is this. Right, but the Republicans are, the Republicans are literally going to force the vote to reopen the government. You know, he'll have closed petitions lined up out the door. And I think that that's a problem. I mean, hiding behind this is a more, you know, I think the proximate issue from my point

of view is not just how do you create sort of a messaging platform nationally, but how do you win the 26th election maximally effectively, right? That is the goal here. Because until that power is gained, at least in the House, the Democrats are going to have limited options and it's going to be sort of a messaging story. And in my mind, the shutdown could backfire tremendously on you. I mean, there's not a lot of evidence that shutdowns have had a huge impact electorally. I mean, that's the saving grace here.

But I do think that, like, we don't know how Trump is going to handle this, right? There's all sort of the tactics the executive branch of views. But like, if this thing goes two weeks, Trump might just say, you know what? We're reinterpreting the Anti-Deficiency Act. I'm reopening the government, right? Then what are you going to do? You're going to start, you know, start filing lawsuits that the government has to stay shut. I mean, the last thing you want to do is make Trump a hero here.

And I worry that, you know, the shutdowns as we know them, are really only based on Justice Department interpretations of the Anti-Deficiency Act. Prior to 1980, they didn't have these style shutdowns. And if Trump reverts to that, I'm not sure what you've accomplished here, except turning him into the person who ended the squabbling in Congress and reopened the government. Because so much of my thinking is political, and John, I'm going to drag you into this to see what you think about this, your moderator. I know that a lot of people will say and have said that Ted Cruz's shutdowns didn't do anything.

And that's the kind of common that you hear this a lot. And I say, you know, it was 2013. I remember well, you know, that it really set the stage for Republican wins in the 2014, 2014 elections. That, you know, they started to make a case to the National Republic. It's not that Cruz was terribly popular. But he started setting the stage both. If you remember, if there were two shutdowns, one was around, oh, you know, we're going to do ACA, which obviously is a thing.

And then the DHS funding on immigration later, right? And I would argue that politically what the Republicans got out of that was a sense of a message and helped get some seats. But I wonder if you felt different. You were, you know, you're there at the time and you saw how Republicans ended up winning there. Yeah, I remember, it's funny because this was going to be my next question to Matt about how, you know, Republicans were pretty. squarely blamed in 2013 for the shutdown, lost that one when the government opened back up, and then went on to do quite well in the midterms. Now, I think there's so many factors here, and all the shutdowns we're talking about

happened so far ahead of the midterm election, right? Like, the 2013 one was around now in this cycle, right? So it was October of 2013. And then you have to go back. And like the 2018 one with the Democrats shut down the government for a week over DACA for Dreamer stuff. And that was like a weird one week shutdown. It seemed embarrassing for the Democrats the time they lost. And then, of course, in the 2018 midterms, did quite well, right?

And so I don't know that I don't know that we can draw either positive or negative, you know, results from the shutdown on or at least the correlation to the midterms. results. But I do wonder, I mean, just to get to your point about politics, FAS, and this is more for Matt, like, you know, we're heading into midterm election. Midterm elections are lower turnout than presidenials, and the Democratic Party now very much relies on highly engaged, highly educated voters to turn out in a midterm election. Fas mentioned earlier that the rating, the approval rating for the Democratic Party is at its all-time low, at least in our lives. That's true. among Democratic voters themselves. And so, yes, the shutdown is a risk, but if you're doing risk calculations, is there a greater risk that if Democrats don't try to fight anything between now

and the election and don't put up a stand and don't let it be known, just not in a press release, but in an actual action that they're taking what they stand for, that there's a risk of voters in the midterm staying home? This is sort of the one argument for a shutdown that I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think it makes logical sense, which is that there's a faction of Democratic Party that no matter how much I explained to them, really want to shut down and really want to fight with Trump. And that's totally reasonable. And if I can't convince them not to shut down the government, and then we don't shut down the government and they become disillusioned and walk away. And you hear this, you know, from a lot of progressives that really just want to fight with Trump,

that they are just going to be like, well, what is this party doing for me if they won't shut the government down last March and they won't shut it down now? Who even are they, right? And sort of that argument that this is really coalitional management, I think has some merit, that even if a shutdown is negative for your party, it might be more negative. You rupture your party by not having the shutdown that 40% of the party wants or 50% or whatever percentage of the party it is that wants the shutdown. And so I think there's something real there. And where I know it's real is sort of specifically with like Senator Schumer, right,

who doesn't have to just deal with sort of national Democrats, but has to deal with his caucus. You know, if enough of his caucus wants a shutdown and his job is on the line, And he's in the John Boehner spot, right, where he can stand there in the caucus meeting and say, you guys are crazy. But if this is where we're going, I'm going to lead the charge. And so I do think that those concerns of coalition management are sort of going to be a factor here. And it wouldn't surprise me if even if Schumer is personally against this feels compelled to do it simply because this caucus wants it and Democrats nationally want it. And so, you know, part of how I feel is that that's a mistake. But if I can't convince people and their answer is going to be, well, we won't vote in 2030.

26, then I don't know what to say to them, except I hope you do. Now, I kind of think that's wrong between ICE raids and Medicare cuts and ACA subsidies gone and tariffs and everything else. I think Democrats have lots of reasons that turn out in 2026 and we wouldn't expect, you know, we shut down or not. I expect the Democrats to do well in 26. But, you know, I think there's a, there's a faction of Democrats, certainly, who will be very disillusioned with the party if they don't shut it down. You know, if you're going at the dinner and you take a vote in your family and a restaurant wins that you think is the best restaurant family, but someone who doesn't want to go. to that restaurant says, I'm going to ruin dinner.

If we go there, well, you got to take that into account. And I'm not saying sort of like the progressives are ruining dinner, but you have to take an account how other people, their preferences, whether you think they're legitimate or not. And so I do think that that coalition management is an important feature here. Fas, in the, these are not normal times category, what do you think about Matt's point that in a shutdown and this kind of a shutdown, Trump could, you know, further dismantle the government while it shut down?

or just, you know, probably take even more power, abuse even more power. Like, how much concern do you have about what Trump might do in a shutdown like this? Not that I don't want to act with callous disregard to it, because obviously, you know, he takes every opportunity to try to grandize power and also enact pain on people he deems to be his opponents. So would he seek this as yet another of his opportunity? Sure. but then you'd be making the political case for why you know 2026 could be decently well for the democrats because once again you would show that this is Donald Trump acting and doing things out way off kilter way out of bounds way heinous and outrageously out of the norm right

if he does it he does it and as we've seen past nine months there aren't you know he tends to do things that he feels like he wants to do regardless of how people feel about it. So I worry less about that. I worry more about the Democrats. I worry about how do we send the message of what we are for, what we want to do. I think Matt makes good points about the shutdown, but I don't think people are demanding a tactic of a shutdown. That's not my sense, is that the desire for a shutdown. The desire is for a Democratic Party who has a sense of a spine and conviction that if we are talking about funding the government, right? That's the fundamental question. This is a fund the government to do things. Do you not have a very different vision of society right now while we are operating

under the most, you know, a cannonball and a wrecking ball to the government that we have seen in the modern history of this country? Can you not come to me and say that you would demand a very different kind of a government? And what would those specific demands be? In the absence of that it just seems too much. You know, to quote James Garville, a fine person who's a smart individual, that you are comfortable playing dead, that you don't really want to exert

and give a sense that you as a governing party want to hold power to govern. Right? Otherwise, you are just the other. You're like, well, while Donald Trump is doing this, here's the other. Would you like to vote for the other? Yeah, we could go into the campaign

with that kind of the other, check the other. But it would be better that if you want stand for government, you want to stand for the House or the Senate, that you stand on a place of doing something with an agenda. And now is a time to posit that, is my argument. Yeah. This is why, in some ways, the ACA subsidies argument is, it's a great ask. And I think that Democrats should make that ask. But the way that it's framed, I almost think it needs to be bigger. And that, like, yes, it is our job to fund the government. And yes, we do not control. Congress right now. But about half the country sent us to Washington. And every time we funded the

government since you've been president again, you've decided to do with the money whatever you want and not spend some of it and spend it on other priorities. You are also deciding to take our power away to tax people. You've taxed the, put a giant sales tax on the whole country. You are violating all kinds of laws and, you know, and just like, you need our votes, but like you don't even ask for them. So like you go figure this out yourself because we are not funding this government so that you can go act like a king and do whatever you want because this is a violation of the Constitution. And by the way, there's people out there who are really hurting and this is what we do if we're in power. Right. Just don't lose that populace sense. So yes, it's a lot of what you

said sounded like I hate Donald Trump and he can act like a king. I just don't want you to lose the sense that for sure. And real person's costs, you are going to make them go up unnecessarily. Mr. President. And on behalf of them, those people who are going to see their health care premiums go up, lose health care, we fight for them. So unfortunately, yes, this is a tactic we're going to employ because those people need us as a champion because God knows you ain't doing shit for that. This was a great conversation, guys. And it sounds like we're going to find out how this all ends pretty soon because it doesn't seem like there's a resolution in sight anytime soon. Matt Glassman, Faschkear, thank you so much for, for joining. This is a great conversation and gave everyone lots to think about. Thank you. Thanks for having me.