The Dispatch Podcast - Infrastructure Stalemate

Episode Date: October 1, 2021

On today's podcast, Steve is joined by Haley Byrd Wilt, who writes Uphill for The Dispatch, and John McCormack, Washington correspondent for National Review, to discuss what exactly has been happening on Capitol Hill this week. After House Democrats delayed a vote on the infrastructure bill, can both factions find a way to end the stalemate? Show Notes: -Subscribe to Uphill for the latest news from Capitol Hill -Read McCormack at National Review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. Sarah Isker is off this week. Today I'm joined by John McCormick, a reporter writer for National Review magazine, and Haley Bird Will, who covers Capitol Hill for the dispatch. We will talk about the chaos that's unfolded on Capitol Hill this week, particularly on the Democratic side. We'll talk about the spending amounts, and we'll talk about the reporting process, how they go about getting their information. There's a lot to discuss in terms of what's happening on Capitol Hill, or as it happens, we're recording Friday morning, what's not happening on Capitol Hill. I think maybe the best place to start is just with a big picture look, John. At the beginning of this week, this week was teed up

as sort of the make or break week for the Biden administration's domestic policy agenda. You had a package, an infrastructure package on Capitol Hill that some moderate Democrats liked, Progressive Democrats were okay with, but they care a lot more about this, what has been a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, which is a much bigger package. And the question all week has been, how would Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden finesse these gaps to bring Democrats together? Sitting where we're sitting on Friday, how has that worked? Well, the answer so far it hasn't worked, you know, at the beginning of the week, it was just unclear I was going to work out and it still hasn't. We got a bunch of news yesterday with Joe Manchin, seeming to

leak a memo to Politico laying out his ask, which is, you know, or his ask for his limit, it's unclear of a $1.5 trillion deal versus a $3.5 trillion deal. The House Progressive Caucus led by Congresswoman Jaya Paul says, if anything close to the, that is the deal. They're not going to go along with it. She has said consistently that she has at least half of her 96 member caucus to kill the infrastructure bill to sort of shoot the hostage, keep it hostage rather than shoot it. I don't know how you want to describe it, willing to shoot it if it goes to the floor, if they don't get a deal on reconciliation. So Mansion and the moderates, the so-called, you know, the moderates, you know, they want the infrastructure bill to pass first,

And then they're willing to negotiate after that on the scope and size and details of this reconciliation bill on social spending. So the divide, you know, to take a step back, you know, it's really, you know, it's 1.5 trillion versus 3.5 trillion on this reconciliation bill. But it's kind of interesting if you take a step back, you know, this debate is in the context of all the spending that they've already done. So, I mean, Mansion has already agreed to a $1.9 trillion reconciliation bill this March. everybody supports this $500 some billion infrastructure bill. And Congress is actually, as Brian Riedell pointed out yesterday, they're raising baseline spending $1 trillion over the next decade, just in regular spending bills, appropriations bills. So if you had it all up, you know, the debate really isn't between $1.5 trillion and $3.5 trillion.

It's between $5 trillion in new spending and $7 trillion in new spending in 2021. And now this all comes after the 2020. COVID spending of $4 trillion. Now, obviously, the timeframes matter a lot here. That $4 trillion was spent immediately, and we're talking about five-year horizons and 10-year horizons in this new spending. But still, it's an insane amount of money. I mean, it's just, it's just remarkable that this is the, this is where the moderate mainstream divide or the conservative mainstream divide within the Democratic Party, as Manchin was referred to as the conservative leading senator in the New York Times today. Yeah, it really is interesting. I mean,

Manchin put up a statement earlier this week in which he talked about the need to be fiscally responsible to not add to the debt. And Haley, as John points out, we're still talking about massive, massive amounts of spending. We had Brian Riedel on our podcast a week ago and asked him to put this in perspective. And he looked back and said, you look at this relative to the New Deal, the kinds of spending that we're talking about. And we're talking about new deals, plural. Where are Republicans on this, aside from just opposing it, and how much luck have they had making a case for fiscal responsibility given the profligacy we witnessed from Republicans

over the past four or five years? That is a fair point. And I, you know, there's this sort of debate happening over the debt ceiling at the same time as all of this going on. And, you know, you sort of saw this week Republicans are trying to tie these two things together. You know, Democrats need to do this on their own. They need to raise the debt ceiling because of all the spending they want to do is, is what Republicans are saying. Although it is the case that the debt ceiling would be reached. They haven't passed the bill yet, you know, and, you know, much of the debt that they, that they is currently that the Treasury Department needs to pay its bills with is from the Trump

administration. So, you know, you sort of have this side plot going on of how they're trying to spin the debt ceiling mid all of this in political campaigns going on. But I do think it's interesting, you know, in this debate, you see Democrats acting like this bipartisan infrastructure bill is like nothing. And, you know, there was an interesting blog post from Noah Smith, and he sort of laid out his argument of, I do not, he was saying, you know, I do not understand this strategy of holding this bill hostage. And he included, you know, all of the hundreds of billions of dollars for road repair, for passenger trains, for making the power grid more robust, for public transit, for upgrading water infrastructure, including replacing all lead

pipes in the country. And his argument was sort of, the way to approach this is just to pass it and then put the pressure on to do the next thing instead of this sort of really Byzantine debate over timing and in the process. So I'm interested in your, Republicans have sort of landed on different sides of this in the House and the Senate where, you know, you have some Republican senators who helped negotiate this bipartisan deal, who sort of. believe, you know, judging by Manson's comments, by Cinema's comments, if you, if you pass this

bipartisan infrastructure bill, it's less likely that, you know, the larger Biden social investments plan is going to pass, which I think there's merit to that. And so do progressives. That's why they're, you know, sort of holding it hostage. And I talked to Kevin McCarthy about this in the house. They have whipped so hard against this bipartisan bill. And I asked him, like, why have you reached a different conclusion? You know, why do Republicans and progressives, Republican senators, progressives in the House, why do they both think, you know, that if you pass this bipartisan bill, that it's less likely that the larger plan gets passed? Why do you not agree with them? And he just did not answer the question. Yeah, I think it's sort of, you know, for him, he's tying these

two things together because procedurally they're tying them together because of the progressive demands and, you know, just the timing thing has been such a big debate. But, you know, he didn't really have an answer for that because, you know, if both Republican senators and progressives have reached the same conclusion, it's pretty unclear to me why, you know, GOP leadership in the House has not reached the same conclusion. Well, do you think, how much do you think the answer of that might be very simple in two words. Donald Trump. He's opposed this. He's pushed the House to oppose it. Maybe. He's come after them. Is there another, is there another more charitable explanation? I think it's campaign stuff. Like, you know, it helps to have this chaos. It helps

because the chaos is, you know, democratic infighting. They're fighting over this. If they, if they just moved on it and passed it with Republican boats, none of this would be happening right now. So, you know, part of it's just they want Democrats to look as in disarray as possible. And that's what we've seen this week. Yeah, it seems to be pretty effective. I did something this morning that I almost never do, and that is I watched morning television.

You did? Morning news television. Yes. I was listening to C-SPAN. Well, that's better than what I took in. And I was preparing for our conversation today, and I caught a little bit of Morning Joe and a little bit of CNN's New Day. It was interesting there. I mean, both, I think both of those shows typically reflect the kind of left-leaning conventional wisdom on a wide variety of issues and tend to have guests who are more or less supportive of the Biden administration and tend to have, in case of Morning Joe hosts who are more or less.

supportive of the Biden administration. But what struck me about that conversation or those conversations was the sort of assumption that both of these things should pass. CNN had a feature from John Ablon, who's a former editor of Newsweek and a sort of longtime centrist, and had positioned himself as a centrist, really going after Kirsten Cinema and Joe Manchin for slowing this thing down and pointing out that they used to support certain parts of what's in the bigger reconciliation bill and are nonetheless slowing this down. On morning, Joe, you had Joe Scarborough talking to Al Sharpton. And Al Sharpton was, it was very interesting expressing frustration that the debate seems

to be about $3.5 trillion and $1.5 trillion. And he said something I'm paraphrasing, but it's pretty close. Nobody cares about the dollars. I can't even count that high. So this should be about kids and health care and COVID and, you know, good works. Is, are they, well, two questions. First to you, John, are they right that the framing of this debate that has taken place on terms friendly to Republicans? because it really has focused on the dollar amounts more than it's focused on what's in

the bill, number one. And number two, what do you make of the total demonization of Mansion and Cinema? Yeah, so one, it certainly is true that the entire media framing of this has been about dollar months, $1.5 trillion versus $3.5 trillion. And the reason for that is because that is the debate between Mansion and Cinema and the rest of the caucus. It is also because it is such a gargantuan bill, $3.5 trillion. It is hard to get your mind around all the different pieces of it. And it's remarkable to the extent to which I would say progressives haven't been able to make the case for the different specific pieces in here and why they're each important.

And it's remarkable that Republicans haven't been able to focus on particularly objectionable parts. and they're all focusing on the dollar amount. Now, that makes sense. You know, we've been on a spending bidge. If you look at Mansion's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal from a few weeks ago, he talks about how, you know, the concern about this inflation tax, the concern is that, you know, everybody has a limit. I mean, even Bernie Sanders wouldn't say, well, I think Bernie Sanders would say,

we can't spend it. We can't have a $20 trillion, you know, infrastructure bill. As for the, yeah, as for the demonization of Mansion and cinema, it's remarkable. As I said earlier, you know, Manchin and Cinema are ready to go along with $5 trillion in new spending authorized in 2021, new spending. In addition to all the spending, we already had baked in, some of which, a good chunk of which we can pay for. And so it just is remarkable that they have been really kind of smeared, I guess, on MSNBC. That's what prompted, I believe, Mansion and Cinema to release this information that they had conveyed.

to Schumer privately, the dollar amounts that they were willing to spend on reconciliation. It's very interesting to me that this information didn't come out sooner, and I'm curious if that was in part due to an agreement with Schumer, that Schumer didn't want the rest of the caucus to know that they were only going to go to $1.5 trillion, so he could sort of rope in the progressives and say, well, we'll deal with this later. I don't know. I think that's very curious. Schumer was very defensive via a spokesman with his statement yesterday after Manchin released that document signed by Schumer. Yeah, that was what was interesting to me. Signed by Schumer suggesting he agreed and went along with it. What was the impetus to get Mansion to lay that out? Was that was Schumer involved

in earlier dealmaking that got Mansion to do that, Haley? Yeah, yeah. And, and John, you've sort of insinuated that you believe Mansion is the one who leaked this. But I'm not so sure of that. You know, if you read the Politico story, which is Burgess Everett is the one who obtained this document, and he's a great reporter, there's sort of a line in there that caught my eye where it says that Mansion had been sharing this document with people recently with other Democratic senators to sort of prove, because there's been reporting. this week, I think in the Washington Post and places, just like sort of, I think coming from

the White House that's like, oh, mansion and cinema have not, you know, shared any details with us. How dare they, you know, be this like so opaque about what they want? And, you know, I think sort of behind the scenes mansion was, you know, sending this around to people like, look, I told, this is what I told Senator Schumer. And so I'm not sure if it was another senator or him. But what I do know is it sounds like he's not budging for now. You know, There was this late night meeting with him and cinema and some White House officials. And, you know, he comes out of it. And he's like, I think we're going to get a deal.

I just, I just really need them to understand. I'm at the $1.5 trillion. And, you know, going back to what you said, Steve, about numbers. I'm interested in what you two think about this. There's sort of this very quickly spreading talking point among the left on Twitter, the Twitter left, which is sort of, you know, comparing military spending. each year, over 10 years with this 3.5 trillion, you know, saying it's not as much as we would spend on the military. And it's actually $350 billion a year. You know, they're sort of breaking

it down, which when you get into this, we do, you know, do 10-year windows for a lot of these bills or five-year windows, which is different, you know, than we do like the annual defense spending and those kinds of things. But there's a lot of hypocrisy. It's either like a monumental, you know, game-changing once-in-a-generation investment in social needs, or it's, oh, it's just, you know, $350 billion a year. Which to some extent, there's, you know, hardcore leftists who very much view it as this is just the bare minimum, you know. But for congressional Democrats, this, you know, this talking point to me doesn't really hold water, especially, you know, considering Mark Goldween from, I believe, the committee for a responsible federal budget has a tweet this morning saying, you know, I dare you to find one person on this website declaring that build back better is actually just $350 billion a year who described the Republican tax bill as a $150 billion billion. per year bill.

So it is interesting to me how this debate is sort of evolving from, you know, this is a monumental, that once-in-a-generation thing to, you know, this is not as big as you, the media would like you to think. So I'm interested in your thoughts on that. Can you jump at one point first? Yeah. So just one point is that when I see those comparisons to our 10-year spending on the Pentagon on the defense budget.

that to me just underscores how huge this is, the idea that, you know, I guess so what, over 10 years the defense budget would be what in the six trillion dollars, six to seven trillion dollar range. Yeah. That's kind of what we're talking about in these many years. So I mean, imagine telling the American people, we are creating a new, a new Pentagon with a new, a new Marine Corps, a new, a new air force with all the planes and all the missiles and a new army, except it's all on domestic social spending over 10 years. I mean, that is an, that to me, actually, it does the opposite of what the progressives are doing to me. That just underscores how big this is. And it is hard to give perspective. You know, you have, it's very hard for people to comprehend

these big numbers. And so, and one frame of reference I've always used, or lately, is, you know, the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. I mean, back when, back when we were debating about debt and deficits, it was originally projected to be $1 trillion. Obviously, inflation's taken effect since 2010. But originally projected $1 trillion, ended up, I believe, the 10-year cost being closer to $2 trillion. So we're talking about, you know, either. an entire new military and defense budget over 10 years or we're talking about three or four Obamacare's right now. So those are just my two thoughts. Steve, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I would just, I think you're right. I mean, I would just say briefly,

the other difference is where the military component, I mean, what we're talking about spending in the military is relatively the same year over, year over year. So you're not seeing a massive increase. And where you are seeing this massive increase is in. in so-called human infrastructure and social spending. I mean, it is really, you're talking about cradle to the grave government presence. And it's, you know, you go back and you think about it. I think it's, it is useful to put this in the frame of the Obama administration. Barack Obama was a fairly progressive president.

He had big goals. He chased big dreams. He spent big money. And relative to what we saw, In the Obama administration, this is sort of that on steroids. And, you know, think back to, you know, there was a video, The Life of Julia. That was, it made a big splash sort of on the center, right. People spent a lot of time talking about it and its implications that Obama,

I believe it was an Obama campaign video that talked about a young woman named Julia, sort of took us through her life and showed at every stage, you know, the way that they would describe it is showed at every stage the ways in which government helped and made her life better. The way that most conservatives looked at it was showed just how dependent we have become on government because there was government at every stage and everything she did. And that video was in some ways descriptive, but in many other ways, meant to be aspirational. It was meant to show people, hey, this is what government does and does well. We should do more of it.

And what you're seeing with Joe Biden is exactly that. And I think that's what this is about. So I think that explains some of the differences, the way that this has talked about. But I am struck by the fact that this is, we're talking about the bigger of these bills in numerical terms, in 1.5 versus 3.5 of it. I think the reason that the explanation that you gave earlier for that, because that's the delta between the warring sides on the Democratic side of the debate is exactly right. One thing that's struck me that's been absent from this debate, as we've talked about the kind of spending that the federal government is involved in, what the federal government

should and should be doing, how much these things cost, debt and deficits, is the complete absence of serious policy discussion about the things that are really driving our debt. And those are entitlements. You know, there have, we've discussed this on this podcast several times, but we're now in a situation where neither of the two major political parties are on record with any sort of party-wide serious entitlement reform proposals. And yet we know that that's what's driving our debt, even as this discretionary tab will add to it tremendously. And I wonder if either of you has been struck by that same thing. We're just not talking about this, and it is what is truly driving the national debt.

Yeah, I mean, not only are we not talking about it. I mean, a lot of the spending is talking about expanding entitlement programs, you know, should Medicare cover dental program. I mean, in the first COVID relief bill back in March, so-called COVID relief, they expanded Obamacare. They, you know, increased the benefits. They're talking about expanding Medicaid, closing the so-called Medicaid gap. I can't even think of all the different ways in which there are, this would be new entitlement spending in the 3.5 trillion versus the 1.5 trillion. But, yeah, that's where the ground is shifted to, we're no longer talking about reforming existing programs.

We're talking about creating new entitlements. And it's not really been much of a point of concern. contention Haley from Republicans. I mean, Republicans are using sort of talking points to express concerns about the overall size of the package, of either package. But they're not really making specific arguments about entitlement reform, the need to get it under control. Despite the fact that the party from 2011 to 2016 was pretty well unified on the need for major entitlement reform. Now you have a situation where the dollars are bigger. the situation is worse

and it goes unremarked upon. True. And, you know, we've sort of seen this trend with former President Trump leaving office and Republicans rediscovering their interest in the debt and fiscal responsibility. But there's not a lot of, you know, serious legislators trying to solve this problem.

And I, you know, I think Republicans have sort of decided this, you know, this is not our winning issue. This is not the thing that we're going to focus our time and energy on, whereas, you know, Paul Ryan was all about it. And it's sort of just a different era than it was back then. So, you know, I haven't been covering Congress very long. I think this is my fifth year, maybe four and a half years. and never, never has been like a, this is the story this week. This is the big thing that we all need to focus on. Entitlement reform.

No, like nobody spends their time, really, on a day-to-day basis on, you know, something that is hugely important, but it's just not a, it doesn't get a lot of bandwidth, really. It is, to me, I mean, I won't belabor the point because I often do belabor this point. but it is such the sort of the perfect example of the failure of our political class. In my view, this is clearly the biggest issue. And if it's the case that people don't care about it now, there is a time when everybody will care about it because we'll all have to care about it in a debt crisis. And this is so Congress though, Steve.

Can I just on this point, when you say there will be a time when we have to care about it, Congress, all they ever do is have deadlines and then wait until like the week before the deadline to do their job. Even on this infrastructure thing, yeah, I left maternity leave. They had three months to figure this out. They didn't even, Pelosi today is saying, Debbie Dingell is saying that Pelosi did not know Joe Manchin's top line was $1.5 trillion. And it just makes me like, what were they doing while I was gone? Because I left, we were debating these things. I come back, there hasn't been much progress until this week when they have the deadline.

And so, you know, for even bigger things like that, you know, this is their pattern right now, which is to wait right up until the moment when they need to figure it out, you know, extend things, do some procedural tricks. Like, for instance, today that the House is still in September technically because they just kept the legislative day going. it was sort of as an appeal to moderates, you know, they had this agreement. Oh, we'll vote on Thursday. Well, it's still Thursday in the House. But, Haley, can I interrupt you?

Sure. How long, how long can Thursday, when Pelosi says there will be a vote today. It can be today forever. Right? I just want to confirm. So, why not? I like, I had a good Thursday. Let's, it was the one beautiful.

Let's keep a Thursday forever. Does that mean I don't age anymore? Because I could get into that. I could be for that. Yeah, let's dwell on that for a minute because I think that's a really interesting and important point. What we're seeing play out here is, I mean, I just understate it, not the way anyone envisioned the legislative process working. what, Haley, how would this in a functioning Congress where members are held accountable and they more or less legislate the way that they're intended to, how would this be different? What would

this process have looked like? Right. So, so it would be very different. And it would not be a, you know, a conservative outcome. I will say that. It would be a, let's get things that my district would like into this bill. So you would have, what would change all of this is if leadership was not determining the outcome. And, you know, you have Republican leaders whipping so hard in the House against members voting for this. And, you know, there may be a dozen. There may be just a handful who end up supporting it. But if it were just, you know, a package that members could hop on to and get their, you know, pet projects into, which most spending bills, things like that,

sort of turn into these days. But, you know, if Congress were really seriously doing a regular order process on this, there would be amendment votes. That would be, you know, it would be a very different bill, but it would also be not a concern. It would, you know, they wouldn't do entitlement reform in it. Because, again, members, it's not popular. But what's popular is,

let's get money into this road in my state let's let's get money to build this bridge in my state which you know we sort of saw with earmarks and back in the day but um yeah especially for an infrastructure bill like this that's that's sort of how it would end up being um i don't it would again like mansion is doing it would not end up being as large as progressives want and he made the point yesterday if they if they want those things you know they're going to have to elect more liberals. And in an evenly divided Senate in such a close margin in the House, you know, it would not end up as largest Democrats are planning to pass through reconciliation. But that's not to say that, you know, Congress couldn't approve anything interesting or big, you know, which sort of

the bipartisan infrastructure package to people like Mansion reinforces that, hey, compromise is still possible, you know, that it's still possible. And so while you have progressives who are ready to nuke the filibuster to sort of just to throw that kind of thing to the side, Manchin is sort of being reinforced in his opinion that this is possible to do big things to pass large amounts of money for infrastructure and things that I support as long as we can get a vote on it in the house or if progressives would back down. So it is an interesting thing, but I can't tell you exactly how the bill would end up, but it would be very different.

It would be very much. I mean, the process, John, would be much, much more bottom up, right? I mean, committees would work on the process, and it would not be as top down as it is. Are there other differences in how this should work to what we've seen than what we've seen unfolding here? Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting debate here because, I mean, part of the reason we're in this situation is because of the filibuster, which conservatives obviously like and think is keeping even worse things from happening. But by keeping the filibuster intact, Democrats only shot for passing something is in reconciliation, which they only get, you know, once a year or twice a year, whatever it actually is. So that's why they come up with this huge Christmas tree and aren't taking things. one at a time. And if they took things one at a time, I don't know exactly what would pass, what wouldn't pass. I mean, it would be a more normal process. You would be able to perhaps actually debate the specific pieces. Does dental coverage for Medicare makes sense? A lot of

people would say yes. I think that's probably pretty popular, even though a lot of conservatives would say it's actually a boondoggle for various reasons. So I think that's one reason. But as Haley pointed out, you know, Manchin really cares about the filibuster, and he does think that, and Republicans who went along with the bipartisan infrastructure bill, they think they may have already gotten what they really wanted most, which was shoring up the filibuster. And that was the primary motivation for a lot of the Republicans in the Senate who went along. I mean, a lot of them agree they like the roads and bridges. They like it all. They like the substance. So that wasn't the only reason.

But they do feel that the bipartisan bill helped shore up the filibuster. But as I my first point, you know, the filibuster is the. reason why reconciliation is so big and such a Christmas tree because it's their one shot the Democrats to get everything through right now. One point on that, John, which is sort of demonstrated this Congress back in the Trump administration. You know, the margins here are so slim, at least in the past the time that I've been here past five years, that even if they were to get rid of the filibuster, Republicans still didn't have the votes for the Obamacare repeal. Even, you know, through reconciliation.

Democrats still are really struggling with what they're trying to get through right now. There's more support in the Senate right now for a 20-week abortion ban than getting the Hyde Amendment repealed. So, like, this Congress is more conservative than people sort of give it credit for in terms of what would happen if the filibuster went away. And it keeps being demonstrated in these, like, sort of, chaotic reconciliation negotiations. And again, back to what Mansion said, if you want a $3.5 trillion bill, people are going to have to elect more liberals, which just sort of gets lost in all

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week talking about what is it like to try to cover this? I mean, it's so chaotic. There's so much going on in both the House and the Senate. you know, you're trying to get time with, you know, ask questions to the leaders, particularly on the Democratic side in this case, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, but in some ways Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema are what they say is as important or more important. In some ways, what's it like? I mean, how do you, when you go up, Haley, you know, pick any random day this week, do you go up knowing what you want to get?

Do you, how do you think about organizing your day to do the best reporting you can do? Sure. So part of it's when votes are going to happen. So I was there on Wednesday. We had two other of our dispatch staffers there on Wednesday, Ryan and Audrey were there. And which was awesome because I can be like, hey, you go stand outside the house steps and catch members during votes. And Ryan go stand in the Cannon Tunnel. And, you know, during that time, they were talking to members where I sent them.

And then I was standing outside of Pelosi's office, which a lot of Hill reporting, especially on weeks like this, when it really comes down to a few people like Mansion, Democratic leaders, a lot of Hill reporting can just be standing outside of doors and in hallways and just sort of waiting to see when they emerge. And so I was outside of Pelosi's office for maybe an hour or two during votes, waiting for her. And the Hill is an interesting place. And, you know, on a very important week like this week, you expect to see some interesting people. Sometimes the president does meetings with members of Congress. While I was there, Woody Harrelson rolls up and has a meeting with Speaker Pelosi on Wednesday of all days when, you know, they're getting ready to pass government funding, avoid a shutdown, talking about the debt ceiling. And she sort of used him as like a human shield when she came out. She did not want to talk about what was going on with infrastructure.

She just had a meeting with this actor. He's in town filming, I think, a show about the Nixon years. So, I mean, Capital is an interesting place. So you sort of, you organize it around when votes are going to happen. You're able to catch members of Congress during those. You know, there's, for instance, today there's going to be a Democratic caucus meeting at 1030. in the morning. And so you sort of wait, you wait in the hallway before then you catch members on their way in, just sort of take their temperature of what's going on. And then on the way out,

of course, you're like harassing them. You're like, what happened? Did you say anything in the meeting? What stood out to you? And you just sort of ask those questions about what you didn't get to hear as a reporter, you know, what goes on behind closed doors. But of course, I mean, there's other very important parts of this, which is like, like I mentioned Burgess Everett is behind the scenes obtaining this memo. So you sort of, you talk to senators about what's bothering them, what they're hearing. It's funny. I was, which I shouldn't mention this, but you get access to these lactation rooms now that I have a baby and I'm hanging out in there and doing the pumping. And a reporter from Politico comes in because I think she also has a baby.

She was just on the phone. She did not know more than I did, which was reassuring. but she was, you know, making calls and was like, what are you hearing from the White House and what are you hearing from progressives and just confirming things? But on a week like this, you know, when everything is so up in the air, most people don't know more than anyone else at this point. There's, you know, there's not reporters who are like, this is how it's all going to shake out because we do not know how it's going to shake out.

You can make guesses, you can talk to people, but it's very much in the air as of right now, which, of course, this will publish later, but it's sort of chaos this week. And how much in a typical week, I mean, this is not a typical week, but how much, as you think about your reporting process, Haley, how much time is spent doing what you've just described, which is waiting in the hallways, you're hoping, you know, maybe certain members walk by, you position yourself strategically to get lucky in a sense, to talk to the members you want to talk how much of your reporting as you cover Capitol Hill and everything that's going on in

Congress is that and how much of it is you know getting the cup of coffee with the staffer who is playing a key role behind the scenes in keying up his or her boss on issues like this or texting members of Congress to find out what they're saying in an environment where they're not saying it to everybody else too how how what's the balance there And how do you go about that second sort of less public part of your job? So, like, for meetings with staffers, usually I reserve those for like a committee work weeks or weeks when this is not going on. And, you know, when you're here for a couple years or when you have a job that requires

that you sort of have relationships with people who can answer some of the immediate logistical questions. Like when I was at CNN, I was their house producer for a while. So I have people I can text and be like, well, what time is this vote? Like, you know, what is going on with the process here in democratic leadership? And so, you know, on weeks like this, you're sort of doing shorter calls, texts, doing those sorts of things. And then you sort of reserve the relationship building for when you have time for it. But I will say also, like, it also depends on what kind of story you're writing.

So some of my colleagues this week were covering the Afghanistan hearing. You're not really spending as much time in the hallways doing the shoe leather reporting for something like that because you're watching what's going on. You're doing the analysis for that. And yeah, so it does depend on the story because sometimes you need to talk to 20 members of the Democratic Caucus. Sometimes you need really just one person. So when I first started here, actually, I was writing a story and I really wanted to talk to Congresswoman Acacio-Cortez. And I remember hanging out during House votes and she was talking to Max Rose, who is not in the house anymore. And it was afterwards. She was talking him for like 30 minutes. I just sort of stood

there looking at her for that entire time because she was like right in the doorway to the chamber and I was just like waiting right outside and was able after that conversation to talk to her. So I mean, part of it's just strategically if you're looking for a specific member of Congress or specific senator finding their entry and exit points to their respective chambers and sort of of stalking them. And there are, yeah, there are some senators like cinema. I don't even know really how she gets to the chamber. She has sort of a different way of getting there versus more public ways of getting

to the chamber. So, you know, good reporters sort of know, well, this is how Senator Sass gets to the Senate chamber. You know, John Cornyn always comes through the basement. And so I'll just wait here for him. So a lot of it is just that, looking for what you need at a given time. And John, you had a big scoop this week about Senator Manchin and the Hyde Amendment. Can you tell me about what you reported and also then tell us how you got it?

Sure, yeah. I spoke briefly to Senator Mansion on Wednesday night, and I asked him about this issue with the Hyde Amendment. So the Hyde Amendment, it is legislative language that says no federal funding of abortion. should go to, there should be no federal funding of abortion except in rare circumstances, rape, incest when the life of the mother is endangered. That is typically applied to, you know, in the appropriations bills that fund the regular medic, the traditional Medicaid program, but the Democrats in the reconciliation bill are

trying to create this new Medicaid program. It's called Medicaid-like, but it's basically the federal government administering a Medicaid program that's exactly like Medicaid, except it's only. only administered by the federal government in the 12 states that didn't expand Medicaid under Obamacare. And because it's done through reconciliation, this program, one, it doesn't have the Hyde Amendment language on it. Two, I don't think the parliamentarian would let this be passed with 50 votes. So Democrats would have to allow it to happen. Anyway, I'm getting away in the weeds. The big question is, what will Joe Manchin do? Joe Manchin is a 50th vote. He is a pro-live Democrat.

So I was sitting outside the Capitol on Wednesday night, and I saw him as he was going to his car, and I said, Senator, you've been very firm on keeping the Hyde Amendment on appropriations bills. Are you concerned at all about that issue on reconciliation? He said, certainly. And I said, in this new Medicaid program, he said, yeah, we're going to keep the Hyde Amendment. I said, in this new Medicaid program, he said, yeah, it has to be. It has to be. That's dead on arrival if that's not in there.

And so I just included the whole exchange because Manchin, reporting on Manchin in his comment, It's kind of like how people hang in every word of the Pope, and you're trying to, like, interpret, like, what do you really mean here? You know, it's the same way with people talk about, like, well, he said two tracks, but he also said it shouldn't be conditional. So what is he, what is he saying here? And so I don't know, you know, will Mansion A, see all the hide problems that the pro-life groups see, you know, will he really stand firm on that? You know, I don't know. That's up to the Senator Mansion. But I just reported to what he said.

In terms of getting to Haley's point about the whole reporting process, I mean, I've been wanting to ask Manchin this question for several weeks. I reported, you know, back in July, Raphael Warnock, the senator from Georgia, introduced this bill in the Senate on Medicaid, and I said, I saw him in the Senate. I was like, does this fund abortion or not? He says, it funds health care. Next question. I said, well, does it fund abortion or none? It funds health care.

Next question. I saw him again last week, and he just, he was talking to reporters, talking to reporters, and I asked him this question, he just went silent. I was like, well, don't you think the people deserve to know, like what your bill does or doesn't do? And so anyway, I've been wanting to ask me to mention this question for a long time. and I've been missing him. And so I saw that earlier in the day he had been, he was, it's kind of like going fishing.

You know, you have to know, you have to, you take a guess where the fish are going to be. Sometimes they don't bite. Sometimes I don't want to talk. But Mansion had earlier in the day taken a giggle of reporters from the Capitol building to a Senate office building and was in a talkative mood. So I was just sitting outside on the Capitol steps when he was walking to his car. And there were two other reporters around at 6 o'clock in the evening. and I had 45 seconds to chat with him as he was literally getting into his car.

So, you know, as Haley said, it involves luck a lot of the time. And that was a good bit of luck right there. Reporting is fishing. I like that. I'm going to steal that. Let's end with just a moment on the politics of all this. As you watch the debate. unfold, particularly on the Democratic side, that has emerged this chasm, massive gap between

moderates and progressives. As I watch it, it reminds me a bit of the fights that Republicans had over the last decade between the Tea Party and what was derisively called the establishment Republicans. Do you see, John, any similarities there? And if so, what are they? And do you see any differences between the way this. You're saying among the Democrats, the split between progressives and moderates, the same as the Tea Party versus the establishment. Could you, sorry? Right. Yep. I don't think it's going to be that big. I don't think Kirsten Cinema is likely to be successfully primaried over this in three years. I think attention spans are very short and that it will depend, you know, by 2024, people will have forgotten about this. I'm also deeply skeptical

that the entire Biden presidency rides on whether it's a $1.5 trillion bill or a $3.5 billion. $5 trillion bill. I forget the exact polling here, but earlier this year, one of the pollsters asked, has Joe Biden specifically done anything for you? And something like 30-some percent of Americans said yes. And this had happened after they had sent out new rounds of checks, direct checks to people that were in the mail that Biden signed, just as Trump had signed before. People weren't giving him credit for that. I don't see for years to come that people are going to think, oh, well, I'm getting dental care on Medicare because of Joe Biden, the Democrats. I think that, you know, people will take their benefits.

They won't really think too much about who owes them. I don't think Republicans are going to push back about it. We're going to have, you know, the debt's going to grow. And there may be inflation. There may be, you know, a debt crisis eventually that hasn't hit yet. But I don't see this, you know, being some game changer one way or the other in terms of politically within the Democratic Party or just between Republicans and Democrats in 2020. I don't see, I could be wrong.

But there are a lot of pundits out there, especially on the left, you say, you know, the entire Biden presidency is riding on this. And now if what they're really saying is that I think these policies are great and they're important and they're going to do good, that's one thing. But I just don't buy the political argument that, you know, Biden will somehow just, you know, be doing great politically if they pass 3.5 trillion instead of $1.5 trillion. I would guess the politics are slightly better if they pass a smaller bill. There's less of a sense that even though this is, again, a gargantuan amount of money.

I think that the general sense that things are going too far, there is inflation. If they did the mansion, mansion-sized reconciliation, I think they'd be better off marginally. And to Haley's point earlier, I mean, I think that just the fact of this chaos, when you look at how this is unfolding, you know, people look at washing and see the level of crazy, even if it's hard to appreciate the magnitude of the spending we're talking about. can see, but the process here has been pretty crazy and seems to be Congress not functioning very well. We will leave it there. Haley's got to run up to Capitol Hill. Do some reporting. I'm guessing, John, you probably have to do the same. But thanks for taking the time to chat with us today. I think you've shed a lot of light on what is sometimes an inscrutable process. So, very helpful. Thanks a lot.

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