Tangle - Congress passes temporary funding bill, averting shutdown.

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

The government funding bill. On Thursday, President Biden signed a stopgap funding bill to keep the federal government open until early 2024. The bill was signed a day before a potential government shutdown and did not include wartime funding for Ukraine or Israel.You can read today's podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story here, and today’s “Have a nice day” story here. You can also check out our latest video, last Friday’s paywalled piece about how Israel has no good options here and the controversial debate we posted on YouTube here.Today’s clickables: Reminder (0:42), Quick hits (1:30), Today’s story (3:58), Right’s take (6:19), Left’s take (10:13), Isaac’s take (13:54), Listener question (18:00), Under the Radar (21:48), Numbers (22:43), Have a nice day (23:43)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the poll. What do you think of Speaker Johnson's strategy of splitting the full-year appropriations bill? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly.

Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to

your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Dangle Podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and today is Monday, November 20th.

Today, we are going to be talking about the government funding bill, the continuing resolution, a stopgap funding bill that was signed by President Biden late last week. Hope you guys all had a great weekend. Before we jump in, one quick note, we've got a fresh video up on our YouTube channel, a sort of free version of the paywalled Israel has no good options piece we published a couple of weeks ago, if you want to go check that out. And yeah, we encourage you generally to go subscribe to our YouTube channel. It is a new platform for us. It is a place where we are pushing all sorts of different content and will continue to. And we're also introducing some new faces, some different members of the Tangle team who are putting some stuff out on that page in the coming weeks. So it would be awesome if you went and subscribed, liked the channel, etc. All right, with that out of the coming weeks. So it would be awesome if you went and subscribed,

like the channel, et cetera. All right, with that out of the way, we're going to kick things off with some quick hits. First up, special counsel Robert Herr is unlikely to file charges related to the investigation into President Biden's handling of classified documents as vice president and senator, though his report is expected to be very critical of Biden. Separately, special counsel David Weiss has subpoenaed Biden's brother, James, as part of a grand jury investigation into Hunter Biden's finances. Number two, Israel and Hamas are nearing a deal for the release of

over 200 hostages in exchange for the release of roughly the same number of Palestinian women and children in Israeli prisons. Separately, Yemen's Houthi rebels have seized an Israeli cargo ship and taken 25 crew members hostage. Number three, Microsoft hired Sam Altman, the former CEO of OpenAI, who was forced out this weekend. Altman's shocked departure from the company behind ChatGPT has been shrouded in mystery. Number four, Rosalind Carter, the former U.S. First Lady, died at the age of 96 due to complications from dementia. Her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, is 99 years old and in hospice care. Number five, House Republicans

are releasing around 95 percent of the 44,000 hours of security footage from January 6, 2021 over Democratic objections that doing so would create a security risk. We'll begin with some good news. The federal government will stay open, at least through the end of the year. That's because late last night, President Joe Biden signed the stopgap funding bill that was passed by the House and Senate a few days earlier. The move avoids a government shutdown that would have taken effect tonight. Well, there's some breaking news from Capitol Hill. The House, in a rare display of bipartisanship, approved a short-term spending

bill tonight, clearing a big hurdle toward avoiding a government shutdown. I have good news for the American people. This Friday night, there will be no government shutdown. Thank you. Because of bipartisan cooperation, we are keeping the government open without any poison pills or harmful cuts to vital programs. A great outcome for the American people. On Thursday, President Biden signed a short-term stopgap funding bill to keep the federal government open until early 2024. The bill was signed a day before a potential government shutdown and did not include wartime funding for Ukraine or Israel. The bill contains an unusual laddered structure that splits the full-year appropriations bills in two. That sets up two different deadlines, January 19, 2024, and February 2, 2024, which could each

trigger government shutdowns if not met. However, it also buys time for the House and Senate to agree on longer-term spending packages. The January 19 deadline will be for agencies covered by the Agriculture, Energy, and Water, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Transportation and Housing appropriations bills. The other eight appropriations bills are being extended until February 2nd. The measure was passed through the House by newly-minted House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Republican from Louisiana, with a 336-95 vote, earning more Democratic than Republican votes. That was 209 Democratic votes and 127 Republican votes. Many conservatives in the House opposed the plan because it did not include the deep spending cuts they had asked for, instead extending funding at the current levels.

The measure then passed the Senate 87-11, with only one Democrat and 10 Republicans voting against the bill. Many senators who voted for the bill also opposed the measure but said they wanted to avoid a government shutdown. Johnson vowed that he will not support another stopgap funding measure, also known as a continuing resolution, and said the plan is to set the stage for a spending fight with the Democrat-controlled Senate in early 2024. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was just ousted from the position after passing a similar continuing resolution in September just before a potential government shutdown. The bill contains no spending reductions, no border security, and not a single meaningful win for the American people, the Freedom Caucus

said in a statement. Most notably, the measure did not include the $106 billion in wartime funding for Israel and Ukraine requested by the White House, border security funding desired by many Republicans, nor any humanitarian funding for Palestinians. Today, we're going to break down some reactions to the measure from the left and the right, and then my take. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. First up, we'll start with what the right is saying. The right is frustrated by the lackluster outcome after months of intra-party turmoil for Republicans. Some argue it was a mistake for the House GOP to go ahead with a short-term compromise to keep the government

open, while others say Speaker Johnson did what he could with limited options. The fiercest critics of the bill say the GOP has again shown it will never truly fight for the will of its voters. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said that, like Kevin McCarthy, Mike Johnson had no choice other than to rely on Democrats to keep the government open. What's the difference between the bipartisan stopgap funding bill that passed the House Tuesday under new Speaker Mike Johnson and the September equivalent passed under former leader Kevin McCarthy? Answer, nothing but the self-defeating Republican drama, the board wrote. Note that the GOP backbenchers aren't threatening to depose Mr. Johnson for relying on the minority

for passage, which was their excuse for ousting Mr. McCarthy in three weeks of leaderless pandemonium. The decision to maintain current funding levels made the bill acceptable to Democrats and likely guarantees Senate passage. Such political compromises are the price of governance with a narrow House majority and Democratic control of the Senate and White House. The lack of a rebellion this week from the Republican rump is welcome, and apparently deposing two speakers in a few weeks was too much for even them. But it further exposes the hollow claims the McCarthy Eight made for their October

exhibitionism. In USA Today, Ingrid Jacques criticized the bill for failing to curtail government spending as our national debt explodes. Democrats remain in denial that they'll ever need to slow the spending spigot, and the GOP isn't much better. In recent discussions over sending aid to Israel, for example, some Republicans suggested tying that to cuts to the IRS, which budget experts say would increase the deficit even more because the agency is responsible for bringing in revenue, Jack has said. Our gross national debt surpassed $33 trillion in September, and it's rising at an ever-faster clip. In the last fiscal year, the deficit doubled to about $2 trillion. Rather than waste time with infighting, Republicans should make clear the dangers

of the skyrocketing debt, she wrote. Polls continuously show voters' trust in the GOP on the economy at record rates, for now. And if Republicans are serious about reining in the debt, then what they should focus on is winning more seats in Congress and winning back the White House. To do that, however, they'll have to show they can actually govern and act like adults. Is that too much to ask? In the Federalist, Sean Fleetwood called the GOP a fake opposition party with no vision for the country. It didn't take long to discover that Johnson is just as weak-kneed as his Republican predecessors, Fleetwood said. Here's a little tip for Republicans. If Representative Pramila Jayapal, the Democrat from Washington, one of the House's most radical leftists, is praising

your bill and claiming it includes two of the big things Democrats wanted, then chances are your bill sucks. Of course, none of this appears to matter to Johnson. It's avoiding a government shutdown that is the real problem, not record high federal spending or the invasion at the U.S.-Mexico border or the politically weaponized Justice Department or COVID fascism or DEI in the military or Biden's federal election interference or anything else Republican voters care about. Johnson and the House GOP's leadership betrayal is neither new nor surprising. It's just another example of the fecklessness that's infected the GOP for years. Recall last year, when Senate Republicans helped Democrats pass legislation that declared war on the institution

of marriage and religious liberty, targeted Second Amendment rights, and increased federal spending, Fleetwood said. Outside of a few elected Republicans, the majority of the GOP is a fake opposition party. They never fight on issues that matter when they matter and routinely cave on the major political fights of our time. All right, that is it for the rightist saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left is glad a shutdown was averted, but concerned about upcoming spending fights. Some say Johnson and the House GOP lack legislative skill and will continue to lose on spending issues. Others give Johnson credit for managing to pass a spending bill in his first week as Speaker. In the New York Times, David Firestone wrote about the fights that

many House Republicans really want. For a moment, there was a feeling of bipartisan warmth on the House side of the Capitol, but it's almost certainly a false spring because within a day, Republicans were fighting one another over extremist demands, the far-right was raging about the swamp and failure theater, and veiled threats were made that Mr. Johnson had better get with the spending cut program fast. The extremists are eager to start demanding their favorite policy provisions in the full-year spending bills for each agency that will be necessary after the stop gap. Take the bill that pays for the Agricultural Department and the Food and Drug Administration, for example. The far right has been trying for weeks to insert it in a provision that would

prohibit abortion pills from being distributed by mail. Another example is the bill to pay for the Justice State and Commerce Departments. The extremists want huge spending cuts there and have demanded to slash the budget for the FBI in servitude to Donald Trump's vilification of the agency, Fiersten wrote. These are the kinds of fights many House Republicans really want, and this week's interim bill just kicks them down the road for a couple of months. In Newsweek, David Farris said, get used to House Speaker Mike Johnson capitulating. Johnson and his fellow radicals are like the political equivalent of pre-parenthood adults who look on in horror at the compromises and concessions that parents make to their small kids to get through the day. To the Freedom Caucus,

McCarthy caving again and again on budgets was like watching bone-tired parents defrost macaroni and cheese for dinner and still have to bribe their way through a brutalizing experience, Ferris wrote. All of which is a way of saying it's been highly entertaining watching Republican ideologues come to terms with reality, like someone who keeps ordering Muppet sandwiches at a restaurant and harrumphing when told it's not possible. The grand delusion of the House radicals is that the only thing standing between them and implementing policy via extended tantrums and extortion is the wrong leadership, Farah said. Anyone who disagreed with that assessment was a cuck, a squish, a rhino, a deep stater, a globalist, a member of the hated uniparty, or any number of other derogatory terms that the far right has concocted to describe anyone who is remotely serious about

governing the country. The faster money and data move, the further your business can go to a seamless digital future for Canadians. Let's go faster forward together. In life, Interac. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens.

Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. In the Washington Post, Karen Tumulty suggested Mike Johnson might be a more skillful speaker than expected. Johnson deserves credit for finding a path to keeping the government open, at least for now, Tumulty wrote. You can argue that what the speaker has put forward to avoid a Saturday shutdown is transparently gimmicky, but anyone who has been paying attention to the

disintegration of the federal budget process has seen far worse. Democrats in the White House and the Senate who first mocked the idea are sounding open to it, probably because they haven't been able to come up with anything better that could pass. Looked at another way, Johnson's adoption of a laddered plan is a challenge to Congress to get back to working in the more orderly fashion it was designed to operate in, Tumulty said. What Johnson is trying to do, and it's an admirable goal, is nudge the appropriations committees of both houses to get back to doing their job, she added. The big thing to watch now is what lawmakers do with the additional time that Congress has been given to pass regular appropriations bills. Will the two houses actually engage, or will they continue avoiding one another and their responsibility to the

taxpayers whose money they spend. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So when Mike Johnson was chosen as speaker, I want to read a little part of what I wrote about his inexperience. I said, I suppose there is a world where this works to his advantage. Maybe the novelty of his speakership and his lack of enemies cracks open some advantage for Republicans to get their agenda through that I'm not thinking of. Maybe Biden and Democrats struggled and navigated Johnson's speakership because so much about him is unknown. But I doubt it. I think it is far more likely Johnson feels the entire weight of the world on his shoulders in short order, and it becomes clear to everyone that he was thrown into the deep end of the pool

before learning to swim. So I wrote that a few weeks ago, and it wouldn't be fair to pass judgment on Johnson as speaker based only on this laddered stopgap funding bill, so I'm not going to. His solution is one to an impossibly difficult situation that he was dropped into with very little time to negotiate. Based on the circumstances, punting is an understandable thing to do. In fact, Johnson probably deserves more credit than criticism for trying a novel approach, splitting the deadlines in hopes of separate and more focused negotiations. We'll see if it works, but I think it's a clever way to buy more time and put more pressure on his colleagues to try and get what he wants. As I've

said repeatedly, I very much support Johnson's stated goal of voting on individual appropriations bills and avoiding stopgap funding and massive omnibus bills to keep the government running. It's also true that talking the talk is a lot different than walking the walk. Johnson and other fiscal conservatives can talk a big game about how we need to stop spending, make huge cuts to the budget, and refuse to keep extending short-term spending bills. But actually negotiating with the other party, agreeing on places to cut the budget, and passing something even for the Speaker of the House is a whole different ballgame. To reiterate, Johnson was thrown into some of the most high-stakes negotiations with some of the most powerful people on the planet as a relatively green U.S. representative. Here is the reality of the

situation. Republicans have a very slim majority in the House with plenty of divisions and a wide range of views about spending. Democrats have a very slim majority in the House with plenty of divisions and a wide range of views about spending. Democrats have a very slim majority in the Senate and a Democratic president sitting in the White House. Our government, much like our people, is deadlocked in division. It is hard for me to imagine a scenario where Republicans can make the kind of spending cuts they want to make while also securing the funding they want for the military, border security, and other conservative priorities they are pushing. If you don't believe me, just look at what has already happened this month. Republicans had to pull two funding bills just last week because their own intra-party disagreements didn't garner them the votes to pass them. If Johnson can't even

get his caucus in the Republican-majority House to align on a transportation bill, how is he ever going to pass 12 individual appropriations bills with a Democratic-controlled Senate and Joe Biden in the White House? Anyone surprised that Johnson ended up doing almost exactly what McCarthy did is either lying or hasn't been paying attention. I'm not entirely sure what the House Republicans who ousted McCarthy had expected. The fact conservatives won't move to oust them is proof that their vendetta against McCarthy was as much personal as it was political, or it's proof that they know Johnson is the best they're going to get. What does this mean for the future? Odds are that continuing to send money to

Ukraine is going to be one of the biggest fights of the future spending bills. Senate and House Republicans appear deeply divided on the issue, which means Johnson won't just have to overcome Democratic objections to cutting or lessening funding, he's going to have to go to battle with the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, too. All the while, the most obvious solutions to cutting spending, reforming Social Security, or raising taxes are two things both parties continue to avoid. Johnson's days as Speaker have just begun, but the reality of the hand he's been dealt is starting to settle in. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Kim in Utah. Kim said, I've heard people say if Donald Trump was still in office, the war in

Ukraine never would have started. Putin would have been too afraid of Trump. They say similar things about the ramping up of other communist activities around the world recently, too, such as Chinese activity in Cuba. How true or false do you think that statement is? Chinese activity in Cuba. How true or false do you think that statement is? Okay, so first of all, I think it's impossible to really say, but I'm happy to share the arguments for and against the best way I see it and then briefly give my own view. The best argument that this wouldn't have happened under Trump is first and foremost that it didn't happen under Trump. He was president for four years, and Putin did not invade Ukraine in that time. Trump was often criticized for his praise of the authoritarian leader, but their relationship seemed to give him

an open line to Putin. It's plausible that Trump, receiving intel that an invasion might be imminent, could have used straightforward diplomacy to talk Putin off the ledge. It's also true that Trump's foreign policy was pretty unpredictable, at least in his rhetoric. Nobody was ever totally sure what he would do. Notable decisions like the assassination of Qasem Soleimani left a lot of mystique around Trump's positions, and it's possible that Putin feared an invasion would have provoked a response he was unprepared for. It's also possible that Trump would have wanted to preempt any such invasion given the war's impact on increasing food and gas prices, something Trump would have wanted to prevent. This is likely why some 62% of Americans believe Putin would not have invaded under Trump. On the other hand, the most important thing to remember

about Putin's invasion is that it was long planned. Put simply, Putin views the fall of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. He has long sought to bring Ukraine back under Russian control, and no president was likely to be able to dissuade him of that vision. Trump also took a deeply adversarial stance with Ukraine. He threatened to withhold its military funding, which led to his first impeachment, and suggested that Ukraine should accept the annexation of Crimea. In that context, the idea that he would have been capable of or even willing to stop a Putin invasion is hard to believe. Some think his should accept the annexation of Crimea. In that context, the idea that he would have been capable of or even willing to stop a Putin invasion is hard to believe. Some think his posture towards

NATO and Ukraine is actually what convinced Putin that he could invade without fear of a military response from the U.S. and the rest of Europe. And then there's this reality. When Trump was in office, Putin was mostly getting what he wanted. When Trump lost to Biden, Putin was staring down a president who was much more openly defensive of. When Trump lost to Biden, Putin was staring down a president who was much more openly defensive of Ukraine and adversarial to Russian interests. So there is an odd dynamic here where Putin's invasion could have become more necessary in his eyes because under Biden, Russia's influence was waning and Russia's standing was diminished. That argument says basically that Trump did prevent an invasion, but only by ceding diplomatic

ground to Putin over and over. It's also true that key to Russia's justification for the war is the security dilemma, the idea that NATO's bolstered security is an inherent threat to Russia. In other words, building up NATO's defenses around Russia was a provocation, and Russia responded to that provocation. Here's the thing, though. Trump both oversaw that expansion and undermined it. In other words, NATO continued building up its defenses under Trump, and at the same time, Trump also regularly threatened to defund or withdraw from NATO, which could have emboldened Russia. So, what do I think? It's simple. Putin always wanted to retake Ukraine, always planned

to, and was always going to find a way to. It just so happened that he thought the clearest path forward to do so was through an all-out invasion in 2022. I don't think Trump would have changed anything but the US and NATO response, and I don't think he could have talked Putin out of a belief he has held publicly for decades. It's impossible to know for sure, of course, but that is my instinct. It's impossible to know for sure, of course, but that is my instinct. All right, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to our under the radar section. President Biden's campaign is considering launching a TikTok account to connect with young voters, even as his administration has banned its use on government devices and continues

to try to regulate the app. The decision comes at a time when a bipartisan coalition of politicians and think tanks have raised concerns about TikTok's security and in the wake of a wave of negative stories about the app. Just last week, Osama bin Laden's letter to America went viral with young TikTok influencers, many of whom expressed shock at how the former al-Qaeda leader's criticism of the U.S. resonated with them. And yet those same young voters are crucial to Biden's 2024 chances, which is why he's considering using the app for voter outreach. Axios has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description.

All right, next up is our numbers section. The percentage of no votes on the House's stopgap funding bill that came from Republicans was 98%. The U.S. national debt as of November 16th was $34 trillion. The U.S. national deficit for 2023 as of October was $67 billion. The U.S. deficit through the same period in 2022 was $88 billion. The number of days the last U.S. government shutdown lasted was 35. That was from December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019. The average length in days of government shutdown since 1981 was 7, and the total number of U.S. government shutdowns since 1981 was 14. The number of shutdowns since 1981 that occurred while the House and Senate were controlled by different parties

is nine, and the number of shutdowns that occurred while Republicans controlled the House and Senate is three. The number of shutdowns that occurred while Democrats controlled the House and Senate is two. All right, that is it for our numbers section, which brings us last but not least to our Have a Nice Day story. Four times a year, up to 150 people in Minneapolis, Minnesota, gather around big white cloth tables, eat a chef-prepared multi-course dinner, and talk to the guests next to them. The event isn't a fancy gala or political fundraiser, but rather an effort by a program called Stories Behind the Menu,

a nonprofit which hosts a quarterly series of dinner events designed to get people from different backgrounds and cultures to learn about one another over a meal. Conversation and food. If we start there, we can have a great, courageous conversation, said Chaz Sandifer, the founder of Stories Behind the Menu. Sandifer got the idea after talking to Sean Sherman, aka the Sioux Chef, that's spelled Sioux like the Native American tribe, the founder of O'Homni, a James Beard award-winning restaurant that serves food from indigenous cultures. Sandifer said the event draws people from different racial, ethnic, and political backgrounds, and has seen how having a friendly and civil event can build bridges and break down divides. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode

description. All right, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work, please go to readtangle.com forward slash membership and consider becoming a member. We'll be right back here same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Law. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond

Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province.

Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed.