The Chris Cuomo Project - Why the Shutdown Isn’t Ending Anytime Soon

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Chris Cuomo explains why the partial government shutdown is no longer a partisan stalemate but a political strategy — and why Trump now owns the outcome. From a rejected deal to the role of the SAVE Act, Cuomo walks through how both sides are calculating advantage while the real-world impact builds, from strained systems like TSA to broader government breakdown. He also looks at what this moment says about how Washington operates when winning matters more than governing. Join The Chris Cuomo Project on YouTube for ad-free episodes, early releases, exclusive access to Chris, and more: https://www.youtube.com/@chriscuomo/join Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Help protect your family with life insurance through Ethos. Get your instant, free quote at https://ethos.com/cuomo. Application times and rates may vary. Get 20% off your first order of Lucy nicotine pouches at https://lucy.co with code CUOMO, or find a store near you at https://lucy.co/stores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Good for Delta. More businesses need to smack these politicians right in the face. I'm glad they turn down Congress for special treatment until the shutdown is done. And by the way, Donald Trump now officially owns the shutdown. This is opportunity. And let me tell you, the Save Act is Opportunity, too. I know it could disenfranchise. Oh, but could also do a lot more than that if you tweak it. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project.

Thank you for subscribing and following on YouTube. Now we have all these different subscription levels where you can get different things. We have the merch. We have everything. I'll talk to you about it. But what matters most is the brain food that I can give you food for thought right now. Donald Trump now owns this partial shutdown. Why?

The Democrats did it. Yes. And the Democrats did it about ICE, even though ICE was funded so the shutdown doesn't even even affect ICE at all. This is wrong for the Democrats. Maybe. Yeah, and then the Iran war. So now you have a national security concern and the Democrats shut down the Department of Homeland Security just when we actually need them. Maybe. Well, then how does the president own the shutdown? Oh, I'm glad you asked, self. Because Senator John Kennedy just let it out of the bag. Senator John Kennedy just said what we had been hearing from our background sources.

Now he came into the front ground. There was a deal on the table. The Republicans wanted to take it to reopen the government. And the president said no. Why would President Trump say no? Was it a bad deal? It's not what the Republicans thought. It's not what John Thune thought.

It's not what Senator John Kennedy thought. Why? because he believes the problem works better for him than the solution. Because he believes the shutdown is hurting the Democrats. Because perversely, somewhere in the dark confines and recesses of those that this president foolishly puts trust in, someone has told him, you know, if something bad happens right now, it's on them. And the shutdown is making them look weak.

so they want to keep it going, despite the pain, despite the pressure it puts on the system that protects us. Why? Because all that matters is advantage over the other side. And in that, while you can complain, as I do, I think shutdown should be illegal. I got more on that in a second. I don't like that the Democrats did this. I didn't think it made any sense then. I think it certainly makes no sense now. But the president bailed him out because now he owns it. Now they look like the reasonable. ones. Could it shift again? Sure. But you play the ball where it lies and right now it lies right in front of the Democrats club face. How hard are they going to hit it and in what direction? So, how do we see it? Well, the deal on the table was to do standalone bills. Look, it's not about the amount of funding. That's not what this fight is. It's about ICE doing its job like first world, civilized democracy-fearing law enforcement, as opposed to what the president clearly sees them as, which is a brute squad. Why would you say that? Why would you say the president sees them as a brute

squad? Well, did you hear how he threatened to use them and now is using them at the airports? Look, if you create a strike and I have people who can do the job while you're striking, What do I do? I say, look, I don't want to strike, but I have people that I'll put in there so that we can keep everything open and going. There's nothing really menacing about that, right? It's, I got other people who can do the job.

I'm not even saying I'm going to fire you. I'm going to because you didn't do anything wrong. It's not really a strike here, right? You were forced. You were on furlough. You're not getting paid. That's what's happening with the shutdown. So there is no animus.

There is no accountability on the part of the workers. They're not striking. It's actually not the best metaphor. So we don't punish them, well, we don't blame them for the fact that they are being punished, which they are. But now that you look at it this way, ICE is not about money. It's about the rules and that they have to obey the rules. The masks is a stupid issue. They're not enough people being docks to justify something so menacing unless you counter it with big, fat badges that have their numbers

bigger than any other police do because otherwise the masks don't work it's menacing now if the president didn't want them to be menacing when he said i'm sending in these other workers to my earlier example that would have been it but that's not what he did he said if you don't give me a deal on dhs i'm sending in ice as if he was going to release the hounds that's the way he said it i'm not twisting it i'm not perverting it he went out of his way why because he sees that as a threat. Why does he see it as a threat? Because he sees ICE as a brute squad. And that's why I was arguing to you, this is about how they're being used. This isn't about bad men and women who are joining ICE. That's part of it. Who they're recruiting, how they're recruiting,

how they're vetting or not vetting, how they're training or not training, all part of it. But what they're being given as orders, what they're being told is okay. What they're being told is legal, matters every but as much to me, if not more. And that's where I see the real problem, as did Tom Holman, by the way, which is why he changed the leadership, change the rules of engagement, and all of a sudden, what do we see?

We're not having raids this same way. It's still popping up. They're still going after people in ways and targeting in ways that I don't think makes sense. But that's a political opinion. The president sees him as a brute squad, and that's how he used them that way, and that's what he wants to see from them.

He owns that. And similarly, by killing this deal, he owns the shutdown. Now, why is he doing this with the shutdown other than what I already offered that he thinks the shutdown works for him better than it works for Democrats, which is a sad commentary on the state of our politics? Because it doesn't work well for either of them. It's about whom you blame more. Again, it's about which side is worse. It's a battle to the bottom. That's where this two-party system has gotten us, which is straight in the shape.

Okay. Now, the next part of the analysis is he says no deal to be fair to the president, right? I'm suggesting why he said no deal. The reason he says he did no deal is because he wants the Save Act to get past because he said it's so important. Why? Because our elections are so unsafe. This is a solution in search of a problem. Okay. Let's start there. We do not have a voter fraud issue. And the best argument they have is, well, we don't know that we don't. We don't know what we don't know. But we're very suspicious. It's not how logic works. It's not how good policy works. Okay. And it's not how the law works. Okay. And, you know, it's literally like they're arguing not just the non-existence of a fact. It's, well, I don't know

that there aren't 30 people in my backyard right now with pitchforks. I know it's highly unlikely. and everybody who's ever looked has never seen a crowd of 30 people with pitchforks, maybe two, and they don't have pitchforks. They have like plastic forks. But I guess it's true. That's the strength of their voter fraud argument. Okay? That's how specious and spurious, how weak it is.

So this is a solution in search of a problem, but there is a common sense notion to it. You have ID everywhere else. Here's the problem with that argument. The ID you have everywhere else is much easier to get than the ID that they want you to have to vote. Because the idea they want you to have to vote is one that includes you proving your citizenship through a very limited number of documents that they find acceptable in that regard. That is not like getting a driver's license. And I must mention that people say it's unfair for me.

to accuse this suggestion and other suggestions for being about disenfranchising people and making sure fewer people vote. But I will point out that there was a bill called motor voter, which is when you register to vote, you should be able to register for a driver's license, you should be able to register to vote. Republicans have always been against it.

Why? Because it's not safe? No, because it would have more people vote. And for whatever reason, they don't believe that that is in their interest. And certainly the president seems to agree with that, with these moves that are in there. So this is not like getting a driver's license. This is not something that everybody has already.

It is about procuring new things that will have a higher standard that will be onerous for you too, by the way. Because you're going to have to do this. Do you have a passport? Do you have your birth certificate? You're ready to go down and stand in line? Because we don't know that they're going to have a system where you can do it online.

So you're ready? You're psyched to do that? you psych to do that? Or, you know, how many of you won't do it? How many of us will be like, fine, I'm not doing that. Or you'll wait too long, right? I mean, what's the chance that it leads to more people voting, right? Well, we want fewer illegal people voting.

What illegal people voting? What are you talking about? It's not a thing, okay? Now, you want to have IDs, fine. But I say you've got to flip the onus. Don't compromise married women, college kids, other minorities, and disaffirms. affected groups that are not big drivers in metropolitan areas and minor, you know, all these non-Maga voter groups, don't put it on them. The burden is on the government. You contact every rightly

registered voter, every registered voter, and you do the vetting, and you set it up and you administer it. And when you have gotten to a certain level of compliance that, you know, they negotiate within the bill, then the IDs become a thing. It's on you. You make it happen. You don't make them make it happen. That is a burden for them. The burden should be on the state. Not on the, well, it's going to take longer.

It's fine. It takes longer. Make it, make better ways to do it. That's change number one. Support comes from ethos life insurance. Look, if you want to be in the family game, if you want to have responsibility, you've got to take care of those responsibilities. And I know when I say life insurance, a lot of you are going to say, oh, it's a scam. it's expensive, it's too complicated. I get it. That's why you need ethos.com. I wish I had done it sooner.

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one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Change number two. The Save Act isn't just about voter ID.

It is also about reducing how long you have to vote and the ways you have to vote. Now, I'm going to tell you something very interesting about that. Early voting, they say creates more opportunities for fraud, mail-in voting, absentee ballots, more opportunity for fraud. Do you know who just voted early and by mail? Who apparently must therefore not feel

that it is a malignant, toxic opportunity? The President of the United States, Donald John Trump. He just voted early and by mail in Florida elections. So the guy who's saying you got to get rid of it just used it. You see what I'm saying? You see what I'm saying about what this is really about. This isn't about better. It's about fewer. Okay?

That's what it's about. And we need early voting. We need mail-in voting. We want more participation. Oh, but you can have more fraud. Yeah, it hasn't happened. It's not a thing. And you got your people studying it all the time.

You got heritage. You got Cato. It's not a thing. Okay? So, well, one is too many. Oh, bullshit. Now you replace those two covenants with other covenants, with other provisions. What?

Shutdowns are illegal. If we cannot agree by a certain date, the spending is at the level that was most recently authorized. One. Two, any changes in the Senate require 67. votes save the filibuster protect the filibuster i didn't always feel this way i didn't i used to feel you know what it just it's too tedious they hold up everything each minority does it and we can't get anything done make it a simple majority let the election have its consequences and that agenda gets through and other things get rolled back and then look if people don't like it then the other

it'll come in and then they can do it now while that could be fairly chaotic it could also be more active than it is right now but what was i doing there i was forgetting the purpose of the u.s senate within our bicameral system why is it bicameral why are there two houses two rooms because that's camera latin word anyway because the senate is not supposed to be the house and it wasn't as simple the house of lords they're the fancy ones and that's a feudal thing and a cast thing and we should get rid of it anyway it's not what it was it was deliberative because remember in the beginning they had this state legislatures picking the senators you know that uh you should the uh senators were picked by the legislature why to ensure that they were people who were respected by that elected body like oh yeah

guys these are big deals who didn't go into politics themselves why because they were better than politics so they were the philosophers they were the deliberators the the elders of state that's what the senate was supposed to be and it is known as the most deliberative body in democracy why because it ensures a place for the minority so you have to have something approaching consensus and we see what do we see it gets eroded, which it has been, it was 67 votes, then it was 60 votes. I remember, it's not in the Constitution. It was developed in the 1800s, and it kind of was a mistake, but now it's like a necessity. And it's not just about endless conversation, because that's why they eventually went

to the silent villabuster, where you don't have to just do that Citizen Kane thing and be up there forever you it just allows the minority to have a hard stop to get you to was 67 now 60 votes and they reduced that what did it do it didn't help anything it didn't make it more efficient okay so then they got rid of it the nuclear option for obama's appointees harry reed democrat did it why because the right was being too obstructionist people were disgusted said they were racist and got rid of it how'd that work out now all appointments get jammed up any way you can figure out how to do it so then what do they do now the republicans come in and what do they do oh you fucked with the filibuster now we'll fuck with it and they made simple majority for supreme

court justices how did that work out now if you're a conservative you can say oh yeah it's great for us you know seven to two yeah Okay, but is that better or is that just political advantage? Because now let's be honest. I mean, they might as well be running for office most of these judges on there. It's purely political. They're lockstep with the people who put them in. And when they're not, it's so shocking you know them by name.

So I can't see it as better. Balance is better. Competition on the court is better. this rubber stamp thing, I mean, the fact that they had to take this long as long as they did to say that the tariff plan or whatever you want to call, what Trump did was obvious overreach within the plain reading of the statute was a no-brainer. A first-year law student would have nailed that. Why'd they take so long? Because they're worried about ruling against this guy. And I get it. He's a pretty savage and active opponent. But it didn't work out so well. I think we got to protect it. I think we need consensus more than ever. I think if you get rid of it, we're going to have a mobocracy.

I really do. I mean, we're at a place now where as long as it's not the other side, your side can do basically anything. You have no standards for it. I mean, that's what MAGA is. I'm not going to mess with the acronym, but I mean, it's like make anything good again. It's like anything he does is good.

Anything. The corruption is right in your. your face minutes before he announces the change to what's happening in Iran. These guys make these huge bets in the markets. Minutes before. Again, they did it before the bombing originally in Iran. They did it before Venezuela. You're okay with that.

You're okay with his sons buying drone companies right now that do business with the state. Really? You're okay with them getting their crypto company and their token or whatever it is set up by the Chinese guy that their father just pardoned? with money that comes from the UAE, you're okay with that? I thought you would drain the swamp. Look, I'm not going to just say you're hypocrites of this. Why? Because one, that's not helpful,

but also because it's not that simple. You were desperate for disruption. You hate the norms. You hate the culture, political culture. You wanted it to change by any means necessary, and that was Trump. He was your disruptor. He knew the game. He knew how to play it,

and they couldn't play him. Now, at the time, I criticized your choice of change agent, but I got the rationale for why you wanted it to change and why you were rejecting the status quo and why you saw Hillary Clinton as embodying that status quo. I got it. I was not surprised by the president's victory. I didn't think it was the right kind of change agent. I think I've been proven right. But that's, again, a political opinion. You can feel other ways, clearly most of you guys do because you support everything he does. which I see is this continuing act of desperation, that you're not going to let the people who you know you don't want and don't like tell you that you were wrong and you would have to accept their opinion. You're not going to do it. You're not going to allow it.

Why? Because let's be honest, it's not just ideology. It's identity. And you see it as literally, these people see it literally as being destroyed if they were to acknowledge that. We're not just disagreeing about things. It's more fundamental than that.

And it's a real problem, which is, again, why this binary system is so dangerous, so dangerous. Why independence, people becoming independent is so important, so important. The best sign we have, I am different, okay? I am different. I am not a pack animal with fealty to a party. I'm a patriot and I'm a critical thinker, okay, and I'm a free agent. and I believe in being active and getting after it, okay? Wear your independence.

Buy the swag, show it off, let people know why. Explain it. Bring them aboard, okay? We need more independence. Support comes from Lucy. Vaping will kill you, okay? Cigarettes will kill you. So, how do you get nicotine?

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forward slash today. Visit Ixl.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. So there's opportunity for the Democrats, one, to make a lot of noise about wanting to reopen the government. One. Two, there's a lot of noise and opportunity for the Democrats to say, look, the regime is going to stay in place in Iran. You cannot win. Okay. They're going to stay in place. All right. This is not a win. So get out of it. Give Trump the motivation to get out. Tell him, get out. Get out. It's over. You did what you could. You degraded them. The regime is still there. We're not going to get rid of them. We're not going to get that level of win. You did enough. Come back home. Own fix America first. Own it. Own it to get away from this to get back. Own it. Come up with ideas. Say you're open on everything. You'll make a deal on anything. Own that because that's where the country's heads and hearts are.

Nobody gets this. Nobody wants to get it. Nobody is excited by it. It doesn't make sense. The regime is still going to be in place. How? How? I thought they were all dead.

I thought their capabilities were obliterated. But now we're excited that they're given us a gift of allowing ships to move through the Strait of Hormuz. Are you kidding? We're celebrating that they say they won't make a nuclear weapon. Really? And then pushing that agenda, vote for the SAVE Act with those tweets. Shift the burden to the government, having to make it happen for the voter ID so people don't get disenfranchised.

Get rid of early in mail and voter. You can't have those. We'll give you the SAVE Act with that tweak of shifting the onus. And you get rid of those. Put in the shutdown. Put in save the filibuster. Get people on record on those two provisions. is against that. That's the opportunity. The president now owns the shutdown because he denied the deal because of the SAVE Act. The SAVE Act has one fundamental virtue, which is that everybody is very comfortable with the idea of voter ID because they think they use an idea everywhere else. They

don't understand that this ID is going to get a lot harder to get for them, let alone for other people who don't have access to documents or the money or the inclination to do this. So it has, huge approval. Now, interestingly, the bill itself does not. Why? Because the suspicions kick in for the critical thinkers who read it and see what else is in there. And there is a little bit of a motivation that the way they're doing this is unfair to people, the process, because again, it's much harder than getting a driver's license. So there's opportunity in that. Flip the mechanism of who has to do the work of processing it. And you could do that. You do the census. You do a of things that are hard you could do this because for you it's like a ham and eggs situation

uh it being hard for the government is about a chicken giving eggs okay having these people have to do this is like asking a pig for ham it's going to kill people it's going to make them not vote anymore make them not able to vote anymore it's going to have a chilling effect that's what it's going to do and this is uh this is a myth this well it's going to get rid of rid of those illegals who are voting all over the way that's bullshit it's bullshit um this nonsense is how rudy juliani got destroyed by the way destroyed he doesn't even have a legal license anymore destroyed by chasing bullshit rigged illegal voting stuff in georgia destroyed them destroyed other attorneys other people around trump also it's a complete farce okay the only thing that's real about it

was the lengths the president went to to try to manipulate the outcome. That's the truth. So the SAVE Act has that virtue of people thinking this would make it safer. And if you're against it, you're somehow against making it safer. All right, that's a little naive because of the process of the ID being onerous and being targeting of certain communities. But fine, just shift the onus onto the government to do it and make it happen with a bureaucracy. and then get rid of the early voting and mail-in voting restrictions because that's preposterous

and put in no shutdown 67 vote rule to change things in the Senate because here's what that will do you've got to get members of the minority right now signed on that they won't get rid of the filbuster if they get back in because that's why the Republicans will get rid of it because they're going to say well we now know the Democrats are going to do a consumer one to do it last time And you don't hear Schumer saying to save, you know, to get rid of the filibuster now, right? But he was when he was in power, right? That's what the Republicans are trying to sell themselves to do this. And I hope they don't buy it.

I really hope they don't buy it. At Desjardin, our business is helping yours. We are here to support your business through every stage of growth, from your first pitch to your first acquisition. Whether it's improving cash flow or exploring investment banking solutions with Desjardin business, It's all under one roof. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk.

Business. President owns the shutdown. There's opportunity in that for the Democrats. The president wants this to be about the Save Act. There's opportunity in that for Democrats and for the country. Let them have the ID. Doesn't hurt anything if the mechanism works the right way. otherwise it could hurt things but we need to save the democracy and the idea is the least of it

getting rid of shutdowns ensuring that people can vote early like the president just did in florida hello and save the filibuster so we can have some chance at getting to a better place where there's consensus we're unique we should hold on to that it makes us special and i know that it's hard all the things that matter in life are hard right right What's easy? Mediocrity. But then, guess what? It gets hard again to deal with being mediocre.

America can't be mediocre. We've got to keep fighting to get better. And I know right now, we just want to avoid it getting worse. I'm with you. Let's stay together. Let's stay focused. Let's keep being critical thinkers. And let's get after it.

I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for subscribing and following. Thank you for checking me out. Sirius XM in the morning, 7 to 9. 114, the POTIS channel, at Night on News Nation, 8P. Eastern and Midnight. Thank you. And the Chris Cuomo Project, of course, twice a week, every week, I hear for you. And go to YouTube. I got these different subscriptions now that you can sign up for and get more access to me, ask me questions, have me in groups, have me alone, whatever you want, whatever you're willing to put in for.

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