Bulwark Takes - Sen. Brian Schatz: When You PUSH BACK, Trump Folds!

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Sam Stein is joined by Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii to discuss the ongoing government shutdown amid Russ Vought's government control, and the situation in Chicago with the Texas National Guard and Trump calling for the mayor and governor’s arrest. Plus, Schatz’s surprising recent retweets of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bullock, and I'm joined by Senator Brian Chats of Hawaii, and he is coming to us from the Senate. The Senate is still doing things. The House is not. The House has just decided to not work. We are now day eight or nine of the government shutdown. I've lost track. There doesn't seem to be a particular end in sight. We keep having these votes. I want to talk to you about this, Senator, because you voted for the first continuing resolution back in the spring. you're one of a handful of Democrats who allowed it to get to 60. You are firmly in the no camp now. What are the fundamental differences between then and now that affected how you thought about this?

Well, for one thing, when they passed their big, beautiful bill, you know, it cuts, it gets us a bunch of horrible things. But the most urgent thing in front of us is that premiums are going to go up by 114% on average for about 22 million Americans. And most of the rest of us who are not. on that ACA exchange are also going to see huge spikes in health care premiums, and this is preventable. The other thing I'll say is that, you know, I told my Republican colleagues specifically in the spring that I was going to swallow this CR, but that if they failed to engage in a bipartisan negotiation, that this was the last time that I would do so. And they basically believed that we

would cave. And I think this was, you know, all around Washington, including the pundit class, they were sort of like, ah, you know, it'll be a couple of days. Democrats are the responsible party. They're going to cave. And I think, you know, part of what changed everything was it for, was an understanding among Republicans that we did not just like invent the health care issue as a context, but that rather this is a quite urgent thing for their constituents. And that it's one thing we're arguing while they're passing a thing about its impact. It's another thing if like insurers are sending out letters saying this is the price. That's like unspinnable. And so they actually kind of want to fix this too. Now they have to figure out how to fix it without looking like they back down

from Hakeem Jeffries. But I think it is in their interest. It is in America's interest to try to fix this. And I'll also just say there are a bunch of people who think that, you know, the sort of bigger issue at play is democracy itself. But for me, first of all, health care is a very urgent issue for millions of Americans. And second of all, making us relevant in the legislative process feeds into reestablishing some checks and balances in the branches of governments and among the political parties. All right. So what I took away from that is that Democrats are not responsible and that you don't care about democracy. Got it. All right. I'm more curious about what you think about the Democratic id at this point in time? Because I was one of the pundits who

would just assume that it would be a couple days and enough of the members would get queasy about it and eventually vote to keep the government open. That has not been the case. What is it about the Democratic psyche in this moment that's different than in the spring? Well, I think the parade of horribles that were possible under a shutdown basically already happened before the shutdown, right? I mean, so, and I also think there's just a little bit of politicians, not all of them, but, you know, politicians don't love to get shoved around. And I remember before the final vote at the end of the federal fiscal year, one of the Republicans came over to me kind of gleefully and saying like, oh, and I saw Mike Lee say the same thing. You know, Russ Vott's been planning this for, you know, his whole life.

Because his puberty. He's so gleeful about it. And I could kind of tell that they wanted to. use this guy as their bad cop, right? And to threaten Democratic states. But my view is like in the middle of all that, they're canceling illegally canceling a bunch of projects from the bipartisan infrastructure bill, canceling projects specifically from Democratic states, you know, mobilizing the National Guard from a Republican state into a Democratic state. And so exactly what bad outcome are we responsibly preventing? And I think, you know, let me push on that. Because

Let me put you on that because Russ Vaught has threatened to fire thousands of federal workers. He's threatened to cancel more projects that Democrats ostensibly care about, or at least they're in blue states. And then he's, or the White House, I should say, has dangled the idea that furloughed workers won't get back by. None of that has actually, I mean, portions of it have transpired, but not to the degree that has been threatened. What's your interpretation here? Are they more bark than bite? Were they bluffing? Like, because there could be more consequences.

I think I push back. I quite hate Taco. Like, I think Trump always chickens out as just a dumb Wall Street formulation. Sure. And it also, like, look, I want him to not do these things, right? So I'm not trying to dare him to do horrible things to my constituents or the country. But I will say, like, on the specific question of, like, back pay, everybody kind of shrug their shoulders and said, no, there's a 2019 statute just so happens that Tim Kane and Ben Cardin authored that

legislation. I was in the cloakroom helping to get it passed, frankly, as a condition of leaving for a weekend during a shutdown in 2019. So I remember, you know, how the statute read. And I was like, it says shall. This is just goofy shit. And it is an indication that they're still sort of running the same playbook and be like, if you don't do this, we're going to do some scary shit. And my view is not that I don't take those threats seriously. I absolutely think they will go through with some of this stuff. It's just that when I see what they did to USAID, right? When I see what they did to the CDC and the NIH and the Department of Education and the Department of Labor, I'm sorry, they're already illegally withholding funds, smashing priorities of mine. And would I like them to

do that a little less? Of course I would. But I'm not going to, you know, beg the monarch for mercy. True. I guess that leads to another question. I know you're, I know you guys are emphasizing this. So I'm just going to, I don't want it to seem like I'm misreading the moment. But the issue of rescissions, it's been kind of confusing to me a little bit at how little this is actually the ask, at least the public ask of Democrats. Obviously, health care politics play better for you and more understandable to voters and recisions, which for the people watching is just the, the white, basically going behind the back of Democrats and saying, actually, we're not going to spend that money. That has not been at the forefront of the ask, even though I would argue that that has basically decimated any possibility of trust in a negotiation. Why are you guys not more publicly leaning into recisions as a demand here?

Or ending decisions, I should say. I mean, I do think it's just to keep our communications clear. I, as a member of the Appropriations Committee, I care pretty deeply about rescissions. And it just so- How can you have a deal if the recisions are on the table? Look, I think it depends whether it's a long-term deal or a short-term deal. If it's just for a CR to reopen the government, that would be one thing.

I think once we pass appropriations bills, I think the question of whether or not the executive can just go ahead and not spend money that was appropriated, I think becomes more front and center. And so as a condition of reopening the government for a three-week or a four-week or a seven-week CR, I think, you know, I'm willing to kind of table the issue of recisions temporarily. But I think if we're talking about doing an appropriations bill, your question is very valid, which is, well, why the hell am I going to, like, then it's just a spending ceiling, right? And that's a lot different than how the Constitution contemplated this thing. The other thing I'm trying to work on is I have had a bunch of people on the Republican side reassure me that they will not vote for another recisions package. Yeah. Well, yeah. I'm with you. I said, be sure.

sweet if you said that publicly i was going to say that there's nothing preventing them from putting in writing out there in the ether is this idea that this could be resolved by a changing of the rules in the senate republicans could just say you know what we're going to get rid of the legislative filibuster we're going to just pass this thing with 50 i know they don't want to do that i know they don't want to do that or at least a portion of them don't want to do that but if they did do that would you bemoan that? I don't know. I mean, I think...

You're not there yet. Let me put it this way. Well, look, I mean, as you know, I want to be the next whip. And so I do think that's a caucus conversation that has to be had. And we don't even know who comprises our caucus. And so I think one thing at a time, I will say in the short run, I would bemoan it because it would mean we didn't successfully fight for health care. Right.

I tend to follow you on Twitter. probably a bit too much. Maybe you're on Twitter too much. Why is he awake? Well, I know you're doing these flights often, so you're just kind of scanning and doom scrolling. You've been retweeting Marjor Taylor Green a fair bit recently. I'm sorry. It's okay. You can do it because she's been out there talking about the need to pass an extension of the expiring subsidies in a way that I think shocked a lot of people. I'm not sure what her motivation is, but perhaps there is something to, like, like this idea that there is a new populist politics on the right? And I'm wondering what you read

into what she's doing. I don't know. I'm not ready to do political science on whether this is a new thing. Right. But I will say, I'll just observe that like most of these tax credits benefit places that voted for Donald Trump. Right. And they benefit farmers and rural communities especially. They also benefit everybody, but I'm just saying that, like, people have their, you know, political, tribal affiliations and all the rest of it. I do, too. But, like, I don't know, a bill is a bill, right? A doubling of a big part of your monthly expenses is, like, unspinnable. And you can think whatever you think about, I don't know, COVID or LGBTQ issues or Israel, Palestine.

But, like, when your price is double, then you're just frigging furious. And I think, by the way, that's one of the lessons of the last election, which is like, we were all talking about these ideals. And a lot of people were just talking about like, well, that sounds nice, but what a luxury it must be to be able to have your needs met. And then you can think about democracy itself. And so we just have to meet people's needs. And we have to be the party that wants to meet people's needs and welcomes back people who voted for Donald Trump, right? Because they were pissed that there was an old president. who couldn't explain himself and prices were too high. And now we have an old president who can't

explain himself and prices are too high. And so it's actually not that surprising that that cohort of people who swung away from the Democrats pretty decisively are kind of like, well, I'm not enthusiastically a Democrat again, but I sure don't like whatever the hell this is. What is the, beyond the restoration of these extended Obamacare subsidies, there's been some talk in Democratic schools that there needs to be more of a proactive platform for a addressing costs and, you know, making at least some sort of contrast with Trump. And I think you properly note there's a real opening here because any look at the polling data empirically shows that people do not think he's focused enough on getting costs under

control. So what should the proactive Democratic platform be on this stuff? So I think there's two ways to look at this. First, like in the electoral sense, a midterm is really about have you had enough of these guys? And so I don't think we need to. to hurry into like here's the new democratic platform on the I mean Gingrich had the contract with America in 94 right isn't that doesn't anybody remember what was in that other than every single item I read it every night yeah my own view is that two things first I do think it's enough to be we're not those guys and we're going to we're going to be a check against those guys who are clearly out of control. But I think you're right that people need to understand, and

Buttigieg said this exactly right, which is if we go around saying we're going to restore everything to the way it was, we're not going to win. And so I think on housing, there's an opportunity to talk and think differently. And, you know, I've become a sort of deregulatory type on the housing piece. I think on energy, we have a real opening because for the first time we can look people square in the eye and say, even if you don't care about the planetary crisis, the cheapest energy that we can put on the grid is wind and solar. And I also think that if we don't have an answer, or at least the beginning of an answer, for what's going to happen with the disintermediation of employment because of AI, then we're going to lose the future. And it doesn't mean we have to

have to have, like, we should tax AI companies, that we should do that. But we just have to recognize that there's a bunch of, I think, white collar jobs that are likely to go away. and we're going to have to have non-incremental responses to that, not like we have to reform the Workforce Development Act, but stuff like, and I don't even know if this is the right idea, but stuff like maybe the work week should be shorter, right? And maybe all of this new productivity should be poured into those things that only humans can do, which are oftentimes child care and elder care.

But the idea is that people are not actually super attached to the precise, you know, 0.7, on your 12-point plan, but they want to know that you're not afraid of the future and that you're thinking about the future. And Democrats became the party of protecting a bunch of institutions and kind of like Atlantic Council vibes where it's like the global order must be preserved. And for a lot of people, it's like, I don't know what the hell that is, but it ain't helping. I didn't take you for a four-week work, four-day work week guy, but I mean, there is some data around it showing that it could be more productive.

Not personally, but yeah. Okay. I want to talk a bit about Chicago. What's happening there is deeply frightening for a lot of people. And, you know, we've been writing about it, JVL for sure, about, you're sort of like the feeling that, you know, Rubicons are always being crossed, obviously. But this one feels fundamentally different, having a red state's governor deputize his National Guard to go to a blue state, all these videos of ICE and confrontations. Does it feel different to you, too? Yes. You know, I gave some floor remarks about this. I've been talking to Duckworth and Durbin a lot about this. I've been talking to Republicans about this, frankly, just to clarify, hey, that would be a red line for you, right? Right. To not, I mean, obviously the mobilization of the guard is, is already underway. I'm talking about when he, when the president specifically threatened to imprison the mayor and the governor and no one, no longer can anyone. and say, well, that's just trolling. That's Trump being Trump because of what happened with Comey. And so do I think he's definitely going to move forward with that? No, I don't. Do I think that we should err on the side of freaking out?

Absolutely. And I guess the thing that I would say is that the thing that gives me some hope and some sort of clarity about what to do next is, you know, when Brendan Carr did his ridiculous thing to try to punish Jimmy Kimmel, Ted Cruz pushed back. and a bunch of other Republicans pushed back. And I think Trump backed off relatively quickly. And then Brendan Carr went and did like a talk where he was like radical Democrats, fake news.

That's not what I meant. But what I have observed is that Trump is very clever. I have long since abandoned the idea that he's bad at politics. He's excellent in politics. And one of the things that this kind of politician is very good at doing is probing the system for weakness. so he finds weakness he keeps probing he keeps digging he keeps burrowing and if he finds strength he may push a little further or if he feels very strongly he may keep pushing because he's stubborn but a lot of times he just moves on and finds a new softer target so what happened i think in dc

was like he didn't get what he wanted out of it what happened in california was he didn't get what he wanted out of it i think um Portland they're starting to look completely goofy i think Chicago is scarier because of the scale. Right. Chicago is scarier because it is a, it's a big urban area. And all it would take is one jackass to do something scary to, you know, sort of justify an overreaction by both the federal agents on the ground, but also the FBI and the DOJ. So I think one of the things, I mean, look, my only point is pushback actually work.

And people like you and people like me have to be super alarmed, but understand that the road to authoritarianism is not some instantaneous switch that gets flipped. It is a question of where we resist, how smart we are in resisting, how disciplined we are in resisting, how determined we are in resisting. And that's sort of my mode of challenging this authoritarian push. Because I think in an effort to get everybody's attention about how fucking crazy all this is, people are now talking like it's already done. Like he's already taken over and this is not a democracy. And I think I'm very scared about people talking like that because that can be a kind of a death spiral for people wanting to even get involved in the process. Yeah, it sounds like what you're saying is it's almost self-fulfilling, right? If you resign to the idea that there's no way to push back on the guy, then he just takes what he wants.

The governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, did say today that he was uncomfortable with Texas sending their troops into Illinois. Maybe that is the type of thing that the White House then says, okay, well, maybe we're, you know, we've pushed to the limits. And I do wonder, you know, when I look back at it, you know, going after the law firms early on, going after the universities and in them acquies. guessing, if that set the sort of stage for this, if that was the original same. 100%. And I think that, you know, impunity was the name of the game in the beginning. And there were a lot of people who said, look, I'm responsible for this very important institution. I serve all these people.

You know, I'm a fiduciary. And look, yeah, I know he's crazy, but I'm cutting the best deal that I can. Right. Right. And I think that there's now a recognition. And they're like, no, fuck that shit. Like there is a first amendment. There are statutory laws.

And like he's powerful and he has to be contended with. And I'm not, you know, even I like in the context of trying to negotiate an appropriations. But there will be a time where I have to interact with the executive branch. So I'm not like abdicating my role of like being in the in the arena. Right. But there are some things that are non-negotiable. The first amendment is among them. The rule of law is among them.

The idea that you don't jail your political opponents is among them. And so I'm still hopeful while being as alarmed as I've ever, ever been. Last question. Because you said, well, I don't discount that he's good at politics. And maybe this isn't politics. Maybe this is just technology and the operation of it. But he did reportedly thought he was DMing Pam Bondi. instructions to prosecute James Comey and accidentally posted it out to True Social.

And I suppose I need to ask, have you ever gotten a stray errant DM from Donald Trump or anyone of that stature before? I have never gotten a stray DM or text from a member of this administration. Well, there's still time. Maybe Stephen Miller can get in your menshees, okay? Senator Brian Schatz, thanks so much. I appreciate it. We'll be in touch going forward.

And thank you guys for watching these interviews.