The Daily Signal - The Daily Signal Presents “The “Signal Sitdown - Congressman Completely Debunks Democrats’ Government Shutdown Narrative | Rep. Dusty Johnson

Episode Date: October 11, 2025

The Democrats⁠ and their allies in the corporate media have been lying through their teeth about the government shutdown and their ridiculous demands to reopen the government. This week, Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., joins ⁠“The Signal Sitdown”⁠ to debunk the Left’s chosen narratives about the government shutdown. ”They're big mad about Donald Trump,” Johnson tells The Daily Signal. “That's the 'A' answer. The 'B' answer is that [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer has a base problem, and this is a base management exercise for him.” Johnson went on to explain why Schumer’s base pressured him into shutting down the government when the measures that the Senate is currently considering to end the shutdown are essentially appropriations levels set during the Biden administration, levels Congress voted to continue in March. “Chuck Schumer got rolled,” in that March funding battle, Johnson says. Keep Up With The Daily Signal   Sign up for our email newsletters:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.dailysignal.com/email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠     Subscribe to our other shows:    The Tony Kinnett Cast: ⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL2284199939⁠ The Signal Sitdown: ⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL2026390376⁠   Problematic Women:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL7765680741⁠   Victor Davis Hanson: ⁠https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9809784327⁠     Follow The Daily Signal:    X:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://x.com/intent/user?screen_name=DailySignal⁠ Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/thedailysignal/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Facebook:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/TheDailySignalNews/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Truth Social:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://truthsocial.com/@DailySignal⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  YouTube:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and never miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, Bradley Devlin here, politics editor of The Daily Signal, and I'm excited to share this episode of my show with The Daily Signal with you. The Signal Sitdown is one of the Daily Signal's other podcasts, and each show I bring you inside the biggest battles in Washington, D.C., with some of the biggest names in politics. So if you like what you hear today, make sure you subscribe to the Signal Sitdown for weekly episodes.

We'll see you there. I mean, they're big mad about Donald Trump. That's the A answer. The B answer is that Chuck Schumer has a base problem, and this is a base management exercise for him. Those are the answers. I mean, that explains 95% of the dynamics. I suppose you may get a thoughtful Democrat here and there.

I'll say that they want some legitimate tweak, but that's not the real answer. I mean, the real answer is they're upset about Donald Trump. They're upset about recisions. They're upset about, you know, Chicago and L.A. and Memphis and D.C., And they are upset with the fact that they're not in control. Thank you so much for tuning into the Signal Sitdown. But before we get to the interview, we'd love it if you'd hit that like and subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you may be joining us.

And please remember to give us a five-star review because we love your feedback. Remember, it's your government. And together, we'll expose how it really works and how to affect real change. Without further ado, here's the interview. Congressman Dusty Johnson, welcome to the Signal State. I'm super excited. Thanks for having me. Of course. Well, it's a little bit surprising that you're here in Washington, D.C. As you well know, the government has been shut down.

Shuttered. Shutered. Shut it down. First off, let's just, we're going to be talking about the shutdown all day long today. Let's just start off with, for the folks at home who don't know, it sounds scary, but what is a government shutdown? And I would tell you, we're one of the very, very few countries that do it this way. this way. But since about the Nixon administration, we've just decided that if we don't have appropriations, past a certain date, most often September 30 at the end of the fiscal year,

that all non-essential activities of the federal government cease. So yeah, you can still get through TSA, but you can't go get an interview with TSA to get enrolled in some fast track program or something, right? Yes, you may still receive your payments for your crop insurance if you have a claim, but you're not going to be able to go into an FSA office and have a conversation with somebody about, you know, long-term strategies. And it's kind of an irritant for Americans. I mean, it takes a bottle between $11 and $15 billion out of the American economy per week every time we do this. They're always stupid, but this one is probably the dumbest shutdown. Okay, probably the dumbest shutdown. And we've been writing and focusing on this quite a lot. You guys in the house

past what people are calling a clean CR. It's not totally clean because there's additional funding for security in light of the increased number of threats on lawmakers and conservative activists in light of Charlie Kirk and everything like that. But mostly clean, right? Continuing appropriations levels that were not set last year, but we're set a few years back under the administration of one Joe Biden. And why aren't Democrats voting for this in the Senate? This seems like something that you guys have voted on quite a few times in the past few years. I mean, they're big mad about Donald Trump.

That's the A answer. The B answer is that Chuck Schumer has a base problem, and this is a base management exercise for him. And I don't want to, I mean, there are, those are the answers. I mean, that explains 95% of the dynamics. I suppose you may get a thoughtful Democrat here and there will say that they want some legitimate tweak, but that's not the real answer. I mean, the real answer is they're upset about Donald Trump. They're upset about recisions. They're upset about, you know, Chicago and L.A. and Memphis and D.C.

And they are upset with the fact that they're not in control. Okay, you said it was a base problem. Explain that a little bit. In March, we basically the same CR. Chuck Schumer got rolled. Republicans remain unified, and we got just enough Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, to overcome the filibuster in the Senate. His base lost their damn minds. His much younger, much more progressive, much angrier base, wanted him to fight, fight, fight. And Chuck's an old-time D.C. politician, so he knew or he believed that he needed to get to yes, right?

Didn't have a particularly strong hand of cards. He felt like he did the best he could. Then he cut his deal to move on to the next fight. That does not work in today's primary political arenas. And so he lost more capital on that vote than anything else he's ever done, and he needed a make-up call. And he has a lot of new up-and-coming progressive politicians in New York. And so now, if you're thinking electorally, right, oh, now I've got to make sure that I'm saving off AOC to my left or Zorn Morn Mornani to the left. And it's not just political survival from a primary perspective. I have no doubt that that's part of the calculus. But it's also just he can't be effective as a party leader

if he doesn't have capital with the party. And so it was going to be a day-to-day week-to-week power problem for him if the base was in full and open revolt. He needs to win them back. That's really what this is. Now, on the Republican side, it's interesting. We've always been against continuing resolutions. Now conservatives changed.

Even the last two years, now the sense is, wait a second, If we can hold spending flat, that is a win for the conservative movement. And if we can do that two or three years in a row, as this continuing resolution would be a second, I mean, a third year of the same level of funding generally, that that is probably the, that's a better fiscal responsibility win than we would otherwise be able to get if we passed year-long appropriations. I'm not quite in that camp yet. Because there's Republicans and Democrats and then there's appropriators. That's exactly right.

It's often, it's a common refrain amongst people here in Washington. DC. And so one time, you know, even though the party might have its priorities, leadership might have its priorities, well, it goes to the appropriations process. It goes to, you know, relevant committees get involved. Everybody wants their bite of the cake. And you end up with even higher spending levels if the appropriations process has gone through the right way, question mark. It's kind of a strange thing when it rarely happens, right? It's just because were untethered from the costs of these decisions. Like in state governments, municipal governments, you have to balance the budget.

I mean, even if you're a super liberal state, you have to balance. At the federal level, we don't have to balance, which means appropriators who have a deeper understanding sometimes of the legitimate demands for funds. They hear those demands. They look at them. They think they're meritorious. They think they're valid. And they're like, okay, we need to give $50 million to this thing.

But borrowing $50 million more from the Chinese to be able to take care of an admittedly valid need is a fast trip to bankruptcy, which our country can't afford right now. So I try not to pile on the appropriators because it's all of our problem. I mean, it's taken 50 years of bad decisions, really probably 30 years of bad decisions to get us here, but we're in a bad way. Yeah. And some debt's good, right? Sometimes you've got to take out a loan to buy a car or you have to take out a loan to buy a home. And in time, you'll make money on that. But don't get your mortgage from the mafia and don't go $37 trillion into debt.

That seems like the big problem here is, as you said, decades and decades of bad decision-making from policymakers in Washington, D.C. And so, hey, $37 trillion, we don't know when that other shoe's going to drop. anything that can result in fiscal sanity is the right strategy. And if that's a continuing resolution, then so be it. I think that's, you know, as you said, the increasing take amongst conservatives in Washington, D.C. But Chuck Schumer, you said he had a base problem. You're absolutely right about it. I mean, when he did not, you know, sidebar, congressional leadership have terrible net favorability ratings. Always. Terrible. Terrible. He was 12 points underwater. And his net favorability. When he kept the government open in March, you'd think, oh, maybe he'd pick up a few

points. Nope, nope, because Democrats turned on him, and he was negative 30 points. Oh, that's unbelievable. Unfavorable. That's like McConnell-level territory. It's McConnell-level territory. And so it was brutal for him, and I think he had to learn that lesson. But the key to winning a government shutdown is to make it seem like it's a righteous shutdown. And so what line have they taken? They've gone back to the well, And that health care thing kind of worked back in the day, didn't me? But this isn't your father's Democratic Party debate about health care. This is something much different. It is.

And I would say that no matter how righteous you make the argument about a shutdown, it doesn't work. Like there's never been a party that won a policy concession because they forced to shut down. I mean, if it worked, hell, I'd shut the damn thing down every week, right? Like if that's the way to tackle $37 trillion within debt, let's shut it down. The reason I've been opposed to shutdowns as a tactic is that they do not work. We got less border funding after we shut it down in 2018 and 2019 than we had with the deal going into the shutdown. And the same thing's going to happen with the Democrats here. The American people, over time as the shutdown goes on longer, they get irritated with the party that's trying to get something from the shutdown.

And they find themselves drawn to the very clean message that Republicans have now, which is just, Let's just open up the damn government and then we can negotiate these important policy debates. But you're right. The health care tax credit policy debate right now from the Democrats, they've really done a good job of misrepresenting this. People think that Republicans want to kill all the ACA tax credits. And indeed, some Republicans do. They think it's a market distortion. But we're not going to get rid of the ACA tax credits. These are about the COVID-era pandemic plus ups, the enhancements that allow people making 500% of poverty, 600% of poverty, people making $250,000 a year to receive subsidies for their health insurance on the AC exchange.

Let me be clear. When these things are sunset, if you're making 250% of poverty, the federal government is still going to be paying 70% of your premiums. The Democrats are making it sound like working class Americans are just going to have to go without health care because of the mean Republicans. We're still going to be picking up 70% of the premiums for people making $250. Which are astronomically higher than they were before. Absolutely.

Yeah. ACA provide, we had an affordability problem and we still do. The ACA provided a coverage solution to an affordability problem and shock of all shocks because we had the wrong solution and only made things worse. And this is what, in some total, $1.5 trillion. And that's only to keep the government open for six weeks now. That's the absurdity of it. It's like, I mean, maybe if this was a year-long funding deal, we could say, well, okay,

that's sort of the hill they want to die on. You're telling me that you think Republicans are going to give you $1.5 trillion of entitlement for a six week, a seven-week, CR. There's never been that kind of shakedown before. And it simply will not work. And it's a shakedown that. luckily for you guys on the on the right it it is a shakedown that hits on the key issues that helped republicans win in 2024 it touches transgender health care if that's the term that

they're using these days it touches health care taxpayer funded health care for illegal migrants and non-citizens yeah and they've tried to run as fast as they can away from this saying no no no it's about the subsidies you know we don't want to actually provide these subsidies to illegal immigrants or, you know, this is for hardworking American families. You're saying, well, look at the Democrat version of the continuing resolution. It would strip out everything in the one big, beautiful bill that enhances and improves upon preexisting statute that says these types of health of taxpayer dollars cannot go to noncitizens and illegal immigrants. You're exactly right. And because there are a bunch of different factors swirling around,

Sometimes members of Congress have gotten a couple of issues conflated, and that has allowed the media. So, okay, we've got this ACA tax credit issue, and we've got the covering the illegals issue. Some Republican members of the House are talking about those as their one issue, which has allowed the mainstream media to say, not incorrectly, that that's a false claim. Two different claims, we're right on the policy of both. The stuff on the illegal immigrants is twofold. Number one, we know from the CBO there were 1.4 million illegals that were covered, not through the the ACA, but through Medicaid, because we just weren't checking citizenship. So the Working Families Tax Cut Act, the reconciliation package meant that we were now going to go check the citizenship.

So we're going to reduce the number of people who are covered accidentally who should not be covered. That's one half of the illegal analysis. The other is that you've got states like California that are covering illegal immigrants with Medicaid. They don't deny it. That is a part of their program. That is design that is in the rules of their program. Right. The money's all fungible. The money's all fun. Now, they don't use federal funds.

There is, you know, if you're a part of the expansion population, South Dakota, the federal government's paying 90%. And the state government is paying 10%. That's not true in California. It'd be 100% and zero. But all of the infrastructure that runs Medi-Cal, their Medicaid program, of course, is, you know, I mean, those are federal dollars in the mix. And so it is the infrastructure that is covering illegals, to sum up, In the Working Families Tax Code Act, we said you are no longer able to cover illegal immigrants with your state Medicaid program. The Democrats were incensed by that, and they want to roll that back.

And so there is absolutely any illegal immigrants getting government-funded health care as a part of this debate. And the other part of this is potentially taxpayer dollars going to transgender surgery for minors as the Supreme Court just yesterday is hearing a case on Colorado law that, essentially compels speech for therapists and says, you can't be telling kids to accept their biological sex. You need to provide gender affirming care if they feel like they're transgender. And this is where the American left really lost Middle America, wide swath of America. And listen, Americans are not a monolith on this, right? I mean, a lot of people have tremendous empathy, you know, for folks who have, are confused about who they are. and what they need to become.

But most Americans, I bet 80%, feel like, okay, whatever concerns or issues you have, you can deal with those, but not if it hurts somebody else. So when it's about locker rooms, when it's about women's sports, or when it's about minors, the American people do not like the idea

that we are going to do gender-affirming care, surgeries and hormone treatments that in many cases are irreversible to kids. When I was 13, I wanted to be a pirate. And I just think, and I have tremendous empathy for anybody who's struggling with these issues. But we don't let 13-year-olds make these kind of decisions. And we certainly don't let adults force these decisions on them. And as long as the Democrats keep pushing that, they are going to find that 80% of America is going to buck them on that. I think you need to find a new line from being 13 years old and wanting to be a pirate because there was a time in this

country where you could be 13 years old and become a pirate and a darn good one. Yeah. But in seriousness, you mentioned this, the base problems that Schumer faces. It's been surprising to me to see, I don't know if you saw this clip of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez running into each other. walking around the Capitol and they shoot this video about how important these health care subsidies are. It sounds cringe. It is cringe. It is cringe.

But it's well done. And here are two people of the progressive left talking about subsidies as if they go directly to the American people. Oh, that's a great point. They don't. They don't. They're going to these mega corporations that Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been pointing out some of the problems. with kind of before Republicans started diving in a little bit deeper on some of the problems in our medical establishment in our health care system, which we all saw with our plain eyes

during COVID-19. And so what's this progressive flip? It appears, at least in messaging, on mega corporations and trillion-dollar industries. I thought we wanted to eat the rich or tax them at least. Well, and some of your listeners are going to know, but just to connect the dot for the others, I mean, these subsidies go to the insurance companies. Now, because the, again, these aren't the ACA subsidies. These are the plus ups for COVID. COVID's been gone for five years, of course, but try, you know, good luck killing a government program. Anytime you want to do that, of course, you're evil, you're mean, mean-spirited, but they go to the insurance companies because so many people with the ACA plus the plus ups didn't pay any premiums, companies were able to go out,

sign them up, and was automatically renewing. They were getting. giving people $25 gift cards to just sign up for this health insurance product that they didn't have to pay for. It was pretty easy to get somebody coming off, you know, the subway station to take a $25 card, sign this application. And we've been paying the insurance company to cover those people for five years. What we know is that 40% of them have never touched the system. They've never had a claim because many of them don't even remember that they have this insurance product. So that's straight in their pocket. It is straight in the insurance company's pocket. And I'm not.

anti-insurance company. I would say this has been a terribly designed scheme from the left since day one, and it is the only righteous thing to do is to end this scam. And reasonable people can talk about how do we, maybe we want to adjust the ACA level tax credits for working class Americans, because we do know affordability is a big problem. But the idea that we are going to, because Chuck Schumer demands it that we're going to continue this ridiculous system is that's a non-starter. Republicans are not going to go for that. Well, and this is funny that you say Republicans aren't going to go for that. Many of them are saying, we're not negotiating until the government reopens.

And then if you say that same line, but yeah, I see the conversations happening on the floor. I see the conversations happening around Capitol Hill. My reporters see those. My politics team see those conversations happening. that would be probably the biggest fumble of all time if Republicans decided to really start to negotiate before reopening the government. Because if you start to do that and you cave on a win or you give Democrats a win here, why wouldn't they just shut down the government again in November and then again in December? And then we'll probably pass another short term CR in March. So we'll have another one in March.

And then we'll probably have another one at the end of fiscal year. And we'll have four or five shutdowns in the span of a calendar year. and that will continue at infinitum until Democrats take back power. And that's what I've told my Democratic colleagues. When they have gotten upset at me, you know, Dusty, why can't we just cut this big, this big comprehensive deal? Right now, let's do it. We're on the clock.

And I've just said exactly what you said. No, if we teach you and the rest of the political marketplace that shutdowns work, even a six-week CR is a leverage point to secure $1.5 trillion, dollars. We will have 10 times many shutdowns in the next 20 years that we had in the last 20 years. I said we simply cannot have a government that does business that way. And a poll, in terms of the polling, you know, there's this kind of this polling on the last 20 years of shutdowns. There's this narrative right now in the mainstream media, even some alternative media websites. Like I went on News Nation the other day and I love going on News

Nation, but the host said typically the party in power gets blamed for a shutdown. Our contrary, Bill Clinton's shutdown, for example, Republicans got blamed. During the Obama administration, Republicans got blamed. Republicans got blamed every single turn in the last 20 years of government shutdowns, and that will continue at a breakneck pace if Republicans ultimately go along with this. All this is to say, for the first time in my lifetime, though, Republicans seem to have a shot at a winning message, which is twofold. One, Republicans want to keep the government open. It's good for the American people, and it is a core duty of what conservatives are sent to Washington, D.C. to do

is to actually govern. You know, government has been turned into this dirty word on the right, unless you put self in front of it. Self-government good thing, government bad thing. you shouldn't even call government government anymore. It's like entropy, you know, that's what it is. But if we actually, you know, if conservatives actually come to Washington, D.C. and govern the passions, govern and steward the capabilities that this nation has, that's a good thing. So that's the first line of attack. And then the second line of attack is your taxpayer dollars.

They want to take your taxpayer dollars and give them to non-citizens to fund their health. health care. It's been a very effective messaging point. When we, this, like, this is the most prepared I've ever seen the Republican Party. I agree. And shut down. I agree with that. Yeah. And moving forward, there's going to be some critical deadlines. Paychecks are supposed to come out in a week or so. A lot of reports are saying that WIC funding is going to be running out in due course. And that's going to add a lot of pressure not only to Democrats, but also to Republicans. And so in this next week or two, how are you going to be navigating that situation? I think Republicans are holding a much stronger hand of cards right now because of your number one.

It's just easy for us to say that's why we need to open up the government. Let's get it back open. The House has voted to do that. We just need a few more Democrats to agree. And then we can open it up. And then everybody can get paid. then we can cut whatever big deal needs to, you know, generally happens on a year-long funding package. If we deviate from that, though, our leverage is going to evaporate very quickly.

Yeah, there's, you've been here for long enough to know. There's nobody who snatches defeat from the jaws of victory sometimes than the Republican Party. And this, of course, is going to carry electoral consequences in Virginia with the governor's race here, in New Jersey, with the, the governor's race there and into the 2026 midterms. I mean, how do, how do you, how are you thinking about contextualizing this current government shutdown in the long arc of midterm races that are to come? I, I, you're right to bring a Virginia, New Jersey. And, you know, those races are cool, not super close. New Jersey's a little closer than Virginia. So it'll affect that. I'm less convinced that it'll affect the 2026 midterms.

Like, I'm passionate about winning this shutdown, not because of the electoral consequences, but because I think we have to get the policy right. Now, that being said, when Republicans look responsible, when we look like stewards, when we look like we are in control of what's going on, then we do very well.

When we look like the Apple Dumplin gang, then we don't do as well. And so I suppose for people who pay attention, and how we handle this shutdown will affect the Republican Party brand. Dustin Johnson, thank you for coming on, the Signal Setdown. Thanks for at me. I love it. Anytime. Thank you so much for tuning into the Signal Sitdown. Before you go, be sure to hit like and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you may be joining us.

And please remember to give us a five-star review. We not only love your feedback, but it really does help the show. Remember, it's your government, and together we'll expose how it really works. See you next time.