Breaking News from Pod Save America - Top Dem RIPS Trump, Vance and Republicans Over Shutdown and Racist Texts

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) joins Tommy Vietor to talk about the government shutdown — and how Trump and Republicans are quietly freaking out over this weekend’s “No Kings” protest. Get 50% off your new system. Visit https://simplisafe.com/crooked. There’s no safe like SimpliSafe®. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz. Senator, welcome back to the show. Nice to be here. Thanks for having me. It's great to see you. We're about two weeks into this government shutdown. Are there any conversations happening between leadership, kind of rank and file, you know, the gangs we used to always hear about that would solve these problems or talks with the White House

that kind of might give you a sense of the endgame at this point? We're not quite there yet, but I think what's happened in the last maybe five days is the beginning of conversations. I just really believe two things that first Republicans legitimately did not understand the velocity with which this health care issue was about to smack all of our constituents in the face and the severity of it because while we were arguing about the big beautiful bill, I think they made the assumption that we were exaggerating about how much this was going to drive up costs. And now they're learning that we're not exaggerating and we're giving them a lifeline. So they're a little more open-minded to talking. But I think Trump's been overseas, and of course, Mike Johnson won't make a move without Trump. Thune, a little less so. He'll let some people have some conversations.

But I would say the last two days have been the most constructive in terms of, you know, what's our way out of this? That's good news. Can you remind listeners what these horribly named enhanced ACA tax credits actually do and what the impact would be if Republicans let them expanse. at the end of the year? Yeah, it's just a subsidy. I mean, you know, like it just defraise the cost of health care premiums. So for some people, it'll take your premium down from like $150 a month to almost zero.

And for some people, it really defraise the cost in a way that makes it possible versus impossible to stay on health care. So the average premium increase, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, for more than 20 million Americans, is about 140% increase. And so, you know, people just can't swing that. And the cost of electricity is now rising at double the inflation rate. Vegetables up 39 percent coffee, up 20 percent. Lots of things are getting more expensive.

But other than housing, health care is usually, you know, the biggest expense. And so driving the cost of one of your most essential things up is super unpopular. And so I think they want out of this as well. Yeah, they're doing a bunch of very unpopular things. You mentioned the cost of electricity going up. that's happening as Trump is killing off all these clean energy projects just left and right. I mean, it's just this ideological driven sort of attack on the consumer that seems like it's going to harm him. Yeah, I mean, look, I think Trump has a pretty coherent economic philosophy, which is to create shortages and then bail out his friends.

And that's what the tariffs are about. That's what the cuts to food assistance are about. That's what the cuts of Medicaid are about. That's what the elimination of solar projects is about. He likes it if there's less of everything because then everybody has to go and petition the monarch for mercy. That's exactly right. There are some Democrats, I'm sure you've heard this argument, who kind of look around the country. They see the ice raids.

They see troops in the streets. They see the administration defying court orders. They see this rescission's process where no matter what you guys negotiate in good faith, the OMB just claws back that money. And they see that. and they think Democrats shouldn't fund this government for any reason, given all those factors. What's your response to that argument? I think, look, I think on the rescission side, it's really vital.

If we're going to enact a bill, it has to stick, and we have to have some confidence that it's not going to be clawed back. Now, one of the things I've said to my Republican colleagues is, look, if we're going to enact appropriations bills, can you at least senators, House members I have no hope for, but senators, can you at least, say to the extent that we've enacted this on a bipartisan basis, we're not going to come back three weeks later and cut it on a partisan basis. And I think there's some movement on that question, and I think that would be an enormously positive outcome here. Yeah, it seems like the very minimum they should do. So House Republicans are on vacation. They're not in D.C. I don't think. The White House is using the shutdown as a pretext to lay off thousands of federal workers. Trump is tweeting

out videos where he calls his OMB director, The Grim Reaper. There are times where I look at the dynamic on the Republican side, and I wonder if these guys actually really want to reopen the government, but you seem more hopeful than I am. I just think there are enough people who hate this. And I think the assumption that they made about Russ Vaught, I mean, they're saying they're cutting Republican, or excuse me, Democratic priorities, right? They cut special ad. They cut substance use treatment money. They cut CDFIs, which are these local lenders, mostly for rural and tribal communities. And they, in their sort of bubble on Pennsylvania Avenue, think those are like democratic priorities or, as they say, Democrat priorities.

But it's Mike Rounds, it's John Thune, it's Tom Tillis, it's Dan Sullivan, it's Lisa Murkowski, everyone's freaking out saying, I don't know what gave you the idea that this wasn't a bipartisan program. And so I think Russ Vought sort of overplayed his hand. And I think as we see evidence that they've overplayed their hand, they're going to get even more sort of rhetorically nutty. Because I think people want us to fear the thing that has already happened. And I think if the equities were a little different, right, if we were saying, hey, look, if we if we move on, then Russ Vought will like cut it out, right? that's one thing. But Russ Vaught has been doing all of these things all along, and he is not in possession of additional new authorities to lay off workers. He's just in the possession of a Twitter account

where he can say, let the riffs begin. And I don't mean to diminish the severity, the importance, the illegality, the pain of all of this, but it is very hard to negotiate with someone who is threatening a thing that has already occurred. Switching gears a little bit. So the Trump administration recently designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. The administration is now threatening to go after progressive groups, they say, are somehow supporting Antifa. I do think it's worth noting that one of the many ways the United States combats terrorists

is by killing them. So that's the context here. How concerned are you about this kind of rhetoric and this Antifa designation being used as a pretext to just go after Trump's enemies? I'm very concerned. But there's something that we can all do about it. I'm sure your listeners and viewers are planning on attending a rally on October 18th somewhere in their community. And I think what Trump and Pam Bondi and Kash Patel want more than anything is bad behavior, right?

And flags that are not American. And I just think that we have to be a movement that is peaceful, that is joyful, that is mainstream, that is patriotic. This is not time for the, hey, while we're at it, this is the most important issue that I've been, you know, I have a burning desire to surface today. This is about some basic shared humanity and some understanding of what it means to be in the United States of America and to be American. So bring your American flags and bring your open mind, right? This is not a time to poke anybody in the eye. One of the things that I think the Trump campaign did very successfully is those rallies looked

fun to people, right? Maybe not to us. But there was a joy to it. People were dancing. People had American flags. And you know, post-COVID, by the way, a lot of people weren't even doing gatherings. And here was this kind of communal event. And so we're now the party that I think can reclaim this sense of community.

the sense of what it means to be an American. And we have to welcome people who disagree with us about a number of issues to just say, let's fight about that stuff later. This is not what the No King's Rally is about. The No King's event is about exactly that, that we do not elect a monarch, that we have a system of government that we are not just like adherent to or that we ought to comply with, but we are in love with it, right? that's what makes this place great.

And we have to, even though we're frustrated with the leadership of the United States of America, we have to reclaim that flag and fly it very proudly. So are we popping the top and, you know, hanging out the family jewels or is that a no? That's a no. Okay. That is not what I expected you to ask me. Look, I try to keep guessing. No, I did want to ask you about the No Kings protests this Saturday.

I will be attending. but top Republicans like Speaker Johnson, they've called the protests hate America rally. I think Johnson also said attendees will be from the pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party. What do you make of those comments?

And what do you say to listeners who might be a little nervous about going to a big protest when you got the president sending ice goons and, you know, National Guard members to American cities?

Just be peaceful, be fearless, understand what they want is, a precipitating event to invoke martial law or the Insurrection Act or some, you know, bogus conspiracy about some nonprofit that's like pre-printing signs or whatever it is. But I think at its foundation, Tommy, what Mike Johnson wants to do is talk about anything other than the fact that prices are about to go up for health care by 114%, that vegetables are up 39%, that coffee's up 20%,

and that the price of electricity is up more than double the rate of inflation. And so they would love for the conversation to be about anything other than what people are facing, mostly on November 1, when they get that letter from their carrier saying, your prices have doubled. Yeah, that will be a nightmare for basically every family. This video is brought to you by Simply Safe home security. John, do you think Simply Safe proactive protection is good enough that it could have stopped Joe Biden from stealing the 2020 election? That's what Sidney Powell tells me. That's a joke.

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President Trump, he just brokered this ceasefire and hostage release deal. between Israel and Hamas. It's unequivocally a good thing. We're all praying that it holds, but it comes after, you know, a huge cost in two years of brutal war. And politically speaking, Gaza has led to this big dip in support for Israel among Democrats. How do you think, if at all, the Democratic Party should adjust its policy towards Israel in the wake of the war and in the kind of anger at the brutal way the IDF conducted itself in the Gaza Strip? Like, for example, should Democrats vote against providing Israel with billions in a, you know, a 10-year MOU for foreign military financing? So I think we have the little bit of a luxury of time here. I think it is

appropriate for people who are Democrats who consider themselves pro-Israel to essentially say, hey, this isn't what I signed up for. And I was one of those who started to vote on those joint resolutions of disapproval and other actions to restrict those arms because they were not defensive weapons. The security partnership between the United States and Israel is one thing, but to the extent that Netanyahu was using it to brutalize and kill Palestinians and mass, count me out. Now, I think the question going forward is how does the Israeli military behave? How does the Israeli government behave? And I, for one, am willing to readjust in the direction of reestablishing a security partnership if they behave well. Now, I don't really have a lot of hope

with Smotrich and Ben-Gavir there. I don't really have a lot of hope with Netanyahu there. But I think that if we are to reestablish this idea that Israel and the United States are partners, we have to behave like partners. And I don't think this is a never more, we're never going to work with you again. It depends who is in charge of the government of Israel. Right now, It's people who are explicitly talking about ethnic cleansing. Right now it is people who are supporting all of these violent settlers and the kind of commandeering of land and other resources from Palestinians in the West Bank. And so count me out of that.

But if there is a new Israel and if there is a new policy as it relates to Israel, then I'm very interested in what that would look like. But right now, my view is as long as BB, Netanyahu is in charge of Israel, I'm very, very unlikely to change my position. It's Mushrooms with me, Maddie Matheson. You know what's better than thinking about dinner too hard? Not stop that. And just choose mushrooms.

Five minutes. Done. Dinner's that easy and you feel like a genius. It's not magic. It's mushrooms. Stop stressing at mushroom council.com. I'm sure as you've seen too. There's a lot of anger among Democrats at APEC for demanding that Democrats, you know,

sort of take the Netanyahu. line on everything and for intervening in Democratic primaries in particular and going after progressive candidates. Do you think that Democrats should take money from APEC's political action committee? And I phrase it that way because to say take money from APEC could mean not take money from five million people who just happen to be APEC members or supporters. But I think the political action committee is sort of like a direct reflection of the values of the organization. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to get into like whether it's a super PAC or whether it's a, you know, Here's what I would say.

I think that APAC 15 years ago used to be a broadly bipartisan organization. You could disagree with them or agree with them, but they were broadly bipartisan. And I think now they have become an arm substantially of the Netanyahu government. And I try to maintain a dialogue. I haven't raised a penny from APAC affiliated folks since my very first race. and after the JCPOA, I maintain a functional relationship in terms of foreign policy, where I have a dialogue when necessary, but I just said no thank you to the fundraising side. But I just think they have lost the plot.

And I've told them that directly. I have told them that this is not making Israelis safe, this is not making Israel safe, and this is not making Jews in the diaspora safe. And so, you know, that's my view of that as that organization. And I'm hoping, just like any organization, that they see the error in their ways, but I'm not all that hopeful. One more foreign policy question for you. So the president has put in place this policy of having the U.S. military kill suspected members of drug cartels, traveling in boats off the coast of Venezuela.

The U.S. has moved a ton of military hardware to the Caribbean. that includes guided destroyers, F-35s, Reaper drones, thousands of troops. As we were talking, Ben Rhodes just sent me a tweet that says, Breaking News, the Trump administration, secretly authorized the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela, according to U.S. officials. It sure feels like we are barreling towards a regime change war or operation of some sort with Venezuela. How concerned are you? And what do you think the stakes are here or the impact would be?

I'm super concerned. I think we need to be vigilant and we need to recognize a regime change war when we see one. There's a tendency because of history to think regime change wars only happen in the Middle East. And so the fact that this is happening sort of in our hemisphere, I think, it's taking a little longer for people to clock like, wait, what the hell are they doing here? And what evidence do they have and under what authorities? And by the way, what is the strategic purpose of any of that. And if they're doing this on the covert side as well as on the DOD side, then look, there should be bipartisan opposition to any regime change. And it is very, very difficult to argue that this is in our urgent, compelling national interests.

No, it seems crazy. I mean, how was America first regime change wars in Venezuela and a 20 or maybe $40 billion bailout for Argentina? That seems not quite. quite what Trump campaigned on. Yeah. I mean, although I think if you understand America first as whatever Trump says, fair. Then that's exactly what this is. This is people whisper in his ear at Mar-a-Lago and he does it.

Yeah, a lot of buddies of Scott Bessons who work at hedge funds that want to get paid out on those Argentinian peso bets. Final question for you. So Politico had this story earlier this week. It was a leaked group chat with a bunch of young Republican leaders. I'm not going to walk through all the gory details. but like suffice to say the comments were extremely racist, anti-Semitic, often violence, misogynistic.

But my question is about J.D. Vance's response to this story. So Vance tweeted an image of a text from Virginia Attorney General candidate J. Jones where Jones advocated for political violence. And then J.D. included text from himself that said, this is far worse than anything said in a college group chat. And the guy who said it could become the AG Virginia. I refuse to join the pearl clutching when it comes. when powerful people call for political violence.

So, look, I will gladly say that I found Jay Jones's text to be nuts and I condemn them. And I think there's no place in America for political violence, full stop. But I'm curious what you think the impact is of the vice president just refusing to say, yeah, you know what? Those comments were out of line. And I don't support that. And like, I'm not saying that these kids, they're not kids. They're not saying these people should be canceled for life or need to, like, go to prison somewhere. but like I just I don't I wonder what the impact is of the vice president refusing to say you know what I'm not cool with joking about sending your political opponents to the gas chamber for yeah I mean not like how hard is Nazism is bad and I condemn Nazism so I just correct one thing Tommy you know these are not kids right they're grown men 18 through 40 through 40 is another conversation about young Democrats and young Republicans is a little goofy to be

39 and considered a young Republican. But in any case, look, I think, you know, why not both, right? Why not condemn political violence or violent talk on both sides? I do think J.D. is making a, maybe he has no choice here, but he's making a tactical error. I think Trump is the only politician that can get away with this crazy shit. And I think that one of the reasons Ted Cruz broke with the Trump administration on the question of Jimmy Kimmel's suspension cancellation is that Ted understands that Trump is singular and can get away with uniquely unconstitutional things. But when it comes time to like run in a primary, someone's going to need to be able to say,

look, I supported Trump all the way. But when he came after your First Amendment rights, I was there to stand up. And I think JD has just decided, you know, no enemies to my right, even if by by to your right. It means actual young neo-Nazis. And that is, I think, a bet that will not age well, but I think he's got no other play. And I also think he's now in an information bubble where people are feeding him stuff he wants to hear. Yeah. And look, as much as these guys like to point the finger at Democrats and like, you know, lift up videos from protests on college campus and call us extremists, like they have a real and growing right-wing extremism problem.

Like I don't know if you've seen the clips of Nick Fuentes going around and the things he says on his show. But I would argue that this kind of commentary from these non-kids is far more common than it was 10 years ago. And is becoming kind of coin of the realm in a lot of these young mega circles. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that. But I will say that, you know, I kind of suspected that some of these. These kids were, you know, I shouldn't say kids. These young men were shit posters and mildly racist and everything else. But the sort of extent of it, the enthusiasm with which they did it.

And, you know, the fact that someone was like, hey, if this ever got published, we'd be cooked for real, for real. Indicates they know exactly what they're saying and why it's terrible. But there's a sort of culture of showing that you don't give a shit, right? And it's one thing to be, like, irritated by the requirement that you put your pronouns on a Zoom or whatever, you know, or that like you want to watch Andrew Schultz and laugh at all the jokes, even if a third of them are technically inappropriate. That's fine. But we swung a very, very long way from people being irritated by like a DEI panel or, you know, PowerPoint to now it's cool to say racist shit. Yeah. Yeah. And now it's cool for Pete Hegsef to purge the U.S.

military of you know black people and women just because he assumes they were all putting there by DEI like yeah we're the pendulum has flown way too far yep crazy place uh senator shots thank you so much for doing the show best of luck with these negotiations we uh we have a lot of we have hope i'll be hopeful but uh saturday no king's protest we'll all be there thank you