Bulwark Takes - Will the Shutdown Deal Actually Hold?

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

Sam Stein and Joe Perticone discuss the breaking news that it appears the Senate has enough votes to approve a budget and end the government shutdown, moving the pressure over to Mike Johnson and the House of Representatives.

Hey, everyone. It's me, Sam Stein. I'm managing out of the bulwark, and I'm here with Joe Perdicone, who is covering Capitol Hill for us with his press pass newsletter, which you should subscribe to. It's awesome. We are coming here late Sunday night. It's like 8 o'clock on Sunday night. I'm telling you the timestamp, because by the time you watch this, it's likely that this video will feel dated. But we're going to do it anyway, because it appears that there is a deal in the Senate to end this government shutdown. This happened pretty quickly today through the course of the day, but we were getting wind of it throughout the course of the day. And then we are awaiting John Thune, the majority leader, to speak on the matter. But, Joe, tell us what we know. And then I'm going to get into the case for the deal and the case against the deal. But tell us what we know. So I watched the Niners get killed today and I wanted to just go to bed. And the Senate had other plans.

And so anyway, this is a. depending on who you ask, it's a cave or it's a compromise. What it entails, basically, is led by Angus King, Jane Shaheen, Maggie Hassan. Basically, it's a CR, the same old House Pass CR, but it goes through January 30th, so we'll get to do this again in a couple months. Nice. And then they get a promised vote on a Democratic Affordable Care Act extension in December. So, like 40 days from now.

Now, those are the extended subsidies for the affordable car. Okay, gotcha. And that's the thing they've been wanting to get out of this all along, but this is much further away. They originally wanted it to be a part of reopening. And then there's a minibus, which is, you know, a cobbling together of some funding things, which will be reversal of shutdown reduction in forces and back pay and then protections against them, potentially happening in the future plus snap the food assistance program funded through the end of fiscal year 26 okay i just want to set the stage with who's supporting and who's not and then i'm

going to actually get into my the case for and the case against so who we know is supporting is on the democratic side is important but actually who we know who's against is kind of more important but let's go we know angus king maggie hasson jean chiehene cortis mastro tim king and fetterman are the six Democrats as of now that we know are supporting this. The people who are not presumably Chuck Schumer. No. Chuck Schumer has announced he is against it. You got to check slack, buddy. I put it in the slack. This is how fast this thing's moving. Yeah. The minority leader of the Senate is against it. Okay. Brian Schatz, who is widely expected to be the next Senate Minority Whip, or the next whip, I should say, who knows if they regain power, is against this. Okay. The 2028,

Potentials who are out against this are J.B. Pritzker already. Gavin Newsom, Ruben Gallego, all against this. Chris Coons, not exactly a bleeding heart, rageful, progressive, is against this. Mark Kelly is against this. A lot of people are against this. Tammy Baldwin is against this. So it's, they need, how many votes do they need? Seven Democrats? Is that right? Yes. Okay. They need seven votes. It's going to be tight for sure. I mean, yeah, we're already seeing the trickling in, and you mentioned, like, the 2028 contenders. I'm also seeing a lot of the Democrats who are outside of the Senate, but who are running in primaries to get in, are against it. Mallory McMorrow in Michigan, Angie Craig in Minnesota.

So they're all very quickly saying, this is a cave, this is a bad deal. Bernie's basically, and when I spoke to him earlier this week, he was like, any cave like this will be. you know, horrible. Is that your Bernie? Yeah, and he said that it's going to be not just a policy mistake, but a political one. I don't really buy that that shutdowns a year out from an election can impact it, but they seem to be making the case that it could. So, okay, now should I get into my case for and against?

Let me do it. I'm going to do my case against. I'm going to do my case for, but in between, I want you to kind of either counter-rebut me or just, you know, weigh in on them. So the case against doing this deal if you're a Democrat, you went into the shutdown with one objective, or at least one main objective, which was extend the Obamacare subsidies. They're expiring at the end of the year. You're already seeing people who have sticker shock because the premiums are high.

You said you wouldn't even take a year extension. You wanted two or three years. You weren't even going to have a ceremonial vote. That was a no-no. That was your objective and you have failed. You have failed. You're getting like a vote in the Senate, no guarantees of a vote. in the House, no guarantees of it passing the Senate. It is an abject failure. The second

objective you had, if you were Democrats, is you wanted to stop the administration from doing bullshit, like impoundments and recisions, basically unilaterally determining what money Congress got spent. There are no, as far as I can see, there are no limits on that. So on the second objective, you failed. And then the third reason to vote against is that you just won and off your election convincingly by pounding them on this issue and by saying they don't get affordability. And the base finally is like, yes, we have a party that can fight for us. Finally, we have someone who can fight for us. Then to turn around in a week and be like, actually, no, we're going to give in on this

one is absolutely demoralizing. So that's the case against it. Am I wrong? I don't think so, but I would say there are no winners. in a government shutdown, there are only losers and survivors, and this is the survival move. Okay. Okay. Here's the case for it. One, you are rehiring a bunch of people who are fired. You are also, as far as I read this, and I might be wrong, but the RIF protection. So by that, I mean the protections against those people who are fired in reduction of forces. They go into effect

in this CR. And if this CR gets extended in January, it stays into effect. In other words, if they continue at this level, the administration cannot fire federal employees indiscriminately according to the law. So that actually is a win. And it matters. You are funding SNAP benefits. So even if you have another shutdown in January, we're funding this no matter what. And so the administration in January can't take this hostage. And then three is like, look, if your objective heading into this shutdown was we cannot allow for financial pain to be inflicted upon the populace in the form of heightened Obamacare subsidies, you can't then turn around and see, like, we are willing to allow people to endure financial

pain by the reduction of SNAP benefits. It doesn't quite compute. And there is an advantage to being the party that actually does have a semblance of morality. Now, last thing I will say, this is just the case for, I'm just making the case, is you can say we have made healthcare the most salient issue in politics. And now Donald Trump owns the premium increase that's going to happen because he's the one who refused to vote for this or even debate it or even allow a discussion on it. Therefore, when you get those premium increases and you don't have the subsidies in January, only one person is to blame. And it's that guy. Yeah. And I would say that when they have their December vote on the ACA subsidies, if they get it and it either fails or it passes, well, then it's

in the House's court and they got to do something about it. And they don't want to. They're not going to. And so it not just becomes a Trump problem, it becomes every single House race problem for a Republican who's not, you know, pressing Mike Johnson on this. All right. So which one convinced do you mind? Which case? I would say that, look, if you're looking at this from the perspective of a federal employees and like getting something done that's right and taking what you can, I think there's a case to be made there. In terms of, like, you, Democrats emerging with some kind of real tangible victory, they're not getting it here. Well, of course not. I mean, but here's the other thing. You're a student of this stuff. Like, when's the last time

the party demanding a policy concession in a shutdown got the policy concession? Never. Correct. It's never happened. Do you remember what this? Defeated Obamacare in 2013. Okay. So this is a great, this is a great example. 2013, Ted Cruz basically whips up energy on the right, demands a repeal of Obamacare, right? They shut down the government for what? I don't know. A couple weeks? What was it? Do you know? It was a lot less long than this one. Yeah. They opened the government. Everyone says, wow, they really fucked it up. Like, Republicans totally screwed the pooch. That was really dumb. What a waste of time. They look like idiots. They opened it up. What happens the next week or two, everyone assumed that they just screwed themselves for the election.

What happened was the Affordable Health Care Act's website launched, and it was a total disaster. That was launch ofhealthcare.gov. It was a total disaster. The entire conversation shifted away from the shutdown into failures of Obamacare to launch, and the Republicans enjoyed fantastic midterms in 2014. So I'm with you. I don't know how much this actually will impact. anything. Yeah. People just, they under, they don't understand what's happening in Washington. They just go, ah, this Trump's fault. Anything, any, any, any bad thing that stems from this,

whether it's the ACA's tax credit's not getting extended eventually or potentially another shutdown or you name it, it's just going to, it's just going to go back to the president and the majority party. That's how this works. And especially a year, a little less than a year out from the election, it's, I would say that this shutdown has been a victory for Democrats in turning the conversation towards health care. Right. But I. Which is their, that's their number one issue.

Always has been. But don't, okay, now I go back, though. Don't, this is, this is top because there's going to be legit anger at Democrats for doing this from their base. Like, people are going to be apoplectic, right? Right. But the, the anger will be, because especially with like Schumer not supporting it, like, the anger is going to be at Gene Shaheen, a retiring New Hampshire senator.

I don't, you know, the anger's not going to be, if it's directed at like Ken Martin, the DNC chairman, like, yeah, like, if there's anger, it's not, I don't think it actually does much in terms with the base. I think the base is more chill about this, because the people that are going to be disappointed in, they don't like John Fetterman, they don't know or care about Angus King. Right. You know, it's just like, there's not a central figure in this at the moment who they can really put blame on like a Schumer. I'm reading the latest up-to-the-date stuff.

So my follow right now is Andrew Desiderio. Old colleague of mine works for Punchball. He's been on top of this. His whip count as of 815 is 58 senators who all the Republicans, not Rand Paul, because Rand Paul is opposing this. So that's 52 Republicans. Then he's got Federman, Cortez-Mastro, King. That's 55. Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, and Kane.

That's 58. So there's two that they still need. Last question for you. Did you, what was, I mean, did you have an inkling that this was coming? And if so, what gave it away? When John Dune at the end of the week said, we're going to be working through the weekend, I was like, something's going to happen. Nothing makes senators work and get to work like being told they have to stay here for the weekend. That's the biggest sign.

I have one other question, though. Like, let's say they, in theory, they get this done. Could this get fucked up in the house? Like, I mean, yeah. Really? Mike Johnson has shown time and time again, which is part of what's made him such a successful relative term speaker, is that he does not bend to what might be good or popular. He's just doing what Trump wants. What Trump wants him to do.

And the conference is just getting in line behind him. And so if he says, we're not going to vote on these woke tax credits, you know, who's going to make him? Well, I'm not saying that. I'm saying, let's say the Senate passes the CR with the attachments, the riffs restored, the snap money. And, you know, up through January, which are the main components of this thing. It would pass the House, right? I mean, Trump wouldn't, I don't, I'm assuming Trump would be, I don't know, maybe Trump looks at the riffs. and says, no, I don't, I, I, I won't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, that'd be a good

indicator of, like, who is really directing this thing. If it's Russ vote directing this thing, there'll be some opposition on that front. If it's just Trump, like, he's going to take any kind of deal and thing he can turn into his own victory. You have to assume that they've looped in the White House, the Thune's people have looped in the White House, and they're not like freelancing here. All right, well, we'll see. As I'm now, 18. We don't have a full 60 votes, but we're getting there. It looks like they're going to have a deal tonight. We'll have a couple days where this goes through the procedural stuff, but we could be looking at the end of the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

And then we can do it all again in January. I know. That's the other thing. This is the thing. It's like, we're going to do this again in January. I have written before that I'm like, oh, the government is on the verge of shutting down. That's a sentence I've written like, thousand times in my career and i'm going to write a thousand more times just this year can't wait this is why you got subscribed to press pass all right buddy i know it's past your bedtime i'll let you go take care okay