The NPR Politics Podcast - Another government shutdown looms -- what you need to know

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

After immigration officials killed two people in Minneapolis this month, congressional Democrats demanded funding for immigration action be separated from other government funding. That's leading to a potential, partial, government shutdown. We unpack the latest from Capitol Hill.Then, why did the FBI raid Fulton County, Ga.'s election center this week, and what does it have to do with President Trump's continued false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen?And, we bid a fond farewell to one of our podcast stalwarts.This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional reporter Sam Gringlas, immigration policy correspondent Ximena Bustillo, political reporter Stephen Fowler, senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and political correspondent Sarah McCammon.This podcast was produced and edited by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Micah. And Mark. We're playing hooky today and are currently snowshoeing through the backcountry in the Rocky Mountains. We're celebrating our 47th birthdays together and more than 41 years of friendship when we met the day before kindergarten. Oh my gosh. The current time is 12.35 p.m. on Friday, January 30th. Things might have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll hopefully be warming up by the fire. Enjoy the show.

That is just like the sweetest thing. Like a long-time friendship is a moment. I would rather be snowshoeing with my best friend right now, but we might need snow shoes still in D.C. if they can sink into the ice. I did see people snowshoeing in my neighborhood this weekend, and it was, I was jealous, I will say, as I slid around. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Sam Greenglass. I cover Congress. I'm Jimenez-Bustillo, and I cover immigration policy. And if there is a theme for this week, it might just be deja vu all over again. and the president are once again staring down a government shutdown, partial this time. Sam, the country had its longest shutdown in history just a few months ago. That was largely over health

care. How is this time different? So the short answer is that this debate hinges on the tactics of federal immigration officers. What we're talking about now is about $1.3 trillion in spending that's on the line. That covers not all of the government, but a lot of it. And this was all on track to pass by tonight, but then a federal immigration officer killed a second Minneapolis resident, 37-year-old Alex Preti. Democrats saw this as kind of their only chance to extract some changes to rein in immigration tactics. And what they've convinced Republicans to do here is separate funding for much of the government from money for the Department of Homeland Security, which is going to get extended for just about two weeks. But the House still needs to

sign off on this change. And so that is not going to happen in time to a shut down at least a short one. And presumably during that two-week period, they would be negotiating policy changes. Hemanah, what are these changes that Democrats are trying to extract? So there's kind of three buckets of asks that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has outlined. The first has to do with kind of how they're going out into communities and the way. that they're conducting arrests, particularly with warrants. So there's two types of warrants, administrative and judicial. Judicial have to be signed by a judge. Administrative are basically the agency giving itself permission to enter your home. And so Democrats want to get rid of that.

They also want to change the way that the agency works with local law enforcement on investigations, particularly its own internal oversight. And this is something that Democrats have raised concern about even before the latest two killings of two U.S. citizens. You know, when does immigration officer go on leave? How is that investigated? You know, there's kind of like not a lot of internal checks and balances, considering that a lot of the oversight bodies within DHS were completely gutted during the broader effort to reduce the size of the federal workforce. And so Democrats are interested in looking into that.

And then the third thing is, you know, mandating clear identification, banning homemade masks on faces and mandating that officers wear body cameras. Sam, as you said, these asks are not necessarily new. But is there a sense that Republicans are more willing to engage on some of this? Yeah, a little bit. You know, after this second fatal shooting, you know, even some Republicans. Republicans were expressing alarm about what was happening in Minnesota, and this was coming not just from your typical critics within the party, the people we hear from a lot on some of these issues. There were calls for investigations and hearings. You know, even Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Democrats are probably right about needing some reforms here.

And we have seen this before, like with the administration's actions in Venezuela, where we had Republicans expressing concern in the first hour. hours and days after some action by President Trump and his administration. But we also pretty quickly saw some willingness this time from Republican leadership to actually take action around some of these Democratic demands. And what they did is they agreed to split these bills apart to cleave off Department of Homeland Security funding from everything else, which is what Democrats were requesting as their path forward. And as to why this is happening, and I think Republican Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina summed up why pretty well. It's terrible. It's making the president look bad on policies that he won on. He won on a strong message about immigration. And now nobody's

talking about that. They're not talking about securing the border. They're talking about the incompetence of the leader of the homeland security and the other people. But these people are amateurs. They got to de-escalate there and treat these communities with some respect. And we should remind everyone that Tom Tillis is now a Republican retiring. I, I, think that is like a different category of Republican senator, the R retiring and more free to speak their mind. And he is empowered by being on the way out. So him and I, we've got a Republican senator here, a Republican senator there, a little bit of movement. Does this mean that this is all going to come together easily? I feel like we've seen this show before. It's not even together

right now. I mean, to be clear, at the time we are taping this podcast, you know, the Senate has not even voted on the deal that they have brokered with the president. So we aren't together right now to be clear. Are you telling me everything's blowing upon? But, you know, I think that, like let's speak in hypotheticals. Senate passes it, House passes it, and then clock starts on DHS only. And they have two weeks to renegotiate DHS. I mean, they're going to take those two weeks to fully talk through what's going to be included and what's not going to be included. And of course, if Democrats get some wins, Republicans might want to add some things to that pile as well. And there is the risk of a legislative slippery slope where this suddenly becomes immigration reform, you know, all of a sudden immigration enforcement reform.

However, the other thing that is interesting in the timing here is, as Sam mentioned, right after that second shooting, there was suddenly the scheduling of a slew of congressional oversight hearings. And two of those hearings out of House, Homeland and Senate Homeland will take place on the Tuesday and Thursday that the DHS funding bill would expire. And so, you know, part of me is wondering if the impact of the Preti shooting will lose its salience over the course of the next two weeks. You know, the further we've gotten away from it, the less Republicans have like spoken out. You know, people have kind of toned down their language. You know, it's a little bit more of a wait and see what the White House does on the ground in Minneapolis. But it might all come back into the headlines when you have the head

of ICE, you have the head of Border Patrol, you have the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service back to back testifying and facing what I do anticipate to be some hard questions also from Republicans, seeing as the funding and there is broader criticism than ever before. So, you know, we could see this suddenly spur up again in about two weeks. All right. So there's a lot for us to be watching. And, you know, I'm just thinking back to the last shutdown, you know, eventually Democrats caved, or at least enough Democrats caved on the health care subsidy fight to reopen the government. They agreed to the promise of a vote on subsidies without the guarantee of passage. So, could this two weeks come close and then, you know, some version of that happens where they're promised to vote somewhere off in the distance, Sam? Yeah, I mean, this is kind of a question that I have had all week, namely why these members who backed down last time were willing to risk another shutdown fight again now. And so I put that question to Senator Jackie Rosen, Democrat of Nevada. She was one of these five who broke with her party last fall to reopen the government.

But this time she said she was willing to risk a shutdown over ICE tactics. ICE is out of control. Donald Trump is out of control. His tyrannical government, his cruel cabinet. Who the hell do they think they are? We have a bill of rights. So Democrats here think the public is on their side and that this moment is really spurring anger and passion on both sides of the aisle

and that this maybe strikes at something more fundamental about the direction of the country in a way that the health subsidies debate did not. But Tam, I think you're right that this could all amount to nothing at the end because we have seen time and time again where there's these glimmers of bipartisan talks and maybe there's something that everyone can get together and pass into law and then it doesn't happen in the end. There's a House of Representatives where Republicans have an incredibly narrow majority and there has been a fair bit of rumbling that they don't like this. they come back Monday night. What happens next? Is there a risk that this short-term weekend government shutdown becomes something else? Yeah. So like we've been saying, the House still needs to sign off on this plan to split DHS funding from everything else. And the House is not until next week. So that's kind of what's causing this potential for at least a short shutdown. Now, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said the House will do its job. They will get this done. But, you know, that is still not. a totally settled question, especially with these narrow margins. And then, of course, there's this bigger task that Jimenez has been talking about looking at reforms and could additional

ask from different members be inserted into this process and gum up the works here. And so there are a lot of unknowns headed into next week. The one thing that might weigh in favor of the House moving this deal forward is the president himself. He is very influential. And last night, he put his stamp of approval on this deal to separate out the Homeland Security funding. He wrote on truth social. Hopefully, both Republicans and Democrats will give a very much needed bipartisan yes vote. Typically, he has been able to get House Republicans to take votes they don't want to take. He has had incredible influence over them. So he clearly does not want an extended government shutdown, certainly not over this issue. And I think this is something that makes a lot of

this fight potentially different from the fight last fall over the health subsidies, Democrats were constantly asking President Trump to weigh in to get involved in cutting a deal to extend the subsidies, and that never happened. So what will both of you be watching for in the coming days? You know, in the coming days and weeks, you know, I'll be really looking at how Republicans are reacting to Democrats' demands because, you know, a week ago, there were no talks of these demands. And these are not new demands. They're not new ideas that have come from immigration advocates or Democrats. But they were not at all being considered for immediate passage. And so the next two weeks will really be about how are Republicans, you know, taking this moment as a salient moment

to pass legislation? Are they thinking that everything is fixed good and dandy? You know, what is going to be their posture going through the next two weeks? Yeah. And as Hemenna, I think, nodded at earlier, what else happens in the next two weeks? Just in the last couple of months, we've seen so many quick news cycles from talking every day about health subsidies to talking every day about Venezuela, to talking about Greenland, to now we're talking about immigration. But is that going to stay the case for the next two weeks? Or is some other issue going to pop up on the national radar? And then just in the short term, if we do have a short term shutdown here, you know, it's not going to be exactly like the last one because Congress has already funded a bunch of agencies

through September. So, for example, the Department of Agriculture is already funded. So we're not going to see food stamps running out. But there are still some pretty big agencies that are unfunded after tonight, you know, the Pentagon, health and human services, housing and of course, Homeland Security. And so will we see some little short-term effects, even if, you know, we're not going to see federal workers missing paychecks if this is just a short shutdown? All right, well, we will keep watching and we will keep updating here on the NPR Politics Podcast. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, relitigating the 2020 election again.

And we're back. Be sure to join us on Monday when we'll have a conversation about Kevin Warsh, the president's pick to be the new chairman of the Federal Reserve. And now NPR's political reporter Stephen Fowler is here, along with NPR's senior political editor and correspondent, Domenica Montanaro. Hello. Hey. Hello. We're going to turn now to Georgia.

where the FBI raided the election center in Fulton County. That's where Atlanta is. It's in connection with the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden won lawfully. President Trump continues to claim falsely that it was stolen from him. Here he was earlier this month in Davos, Switzerland. And it wouldn't have started if the 2020 U.S. presidential election weren't rigged. It was a rigged election.

Everybody now knows that. They found out people will soon be processing. for what they did. It's probably breaking news, but it should be. So, Stephen, you have been covering the 2020 election for, I guess, we're going on six years now. Is this raid what he was talking about? It is what he has been talking about for the past five plus years. In fact, when I look at my calendar, I don't see the year 2026. I see 2020, 6, because that's how long it has been dealing with the claims of election. election fraud and the presidential election. And Georgia has been one of the places where Trump has focused on his loss and the effort to overturn the loss and the effort to hold people accountable for not overturning it for him. And this is the culmination of that, or the latest culmination, I should say. Earlier this week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation rolled up to the Fulton County

elections warehouse just outside of Atlanta. They had a search warrant and they took about 650-ish boxes of balance of tabulation tapes, of other documents related to the 2020 election that were sitting in a warehouse. Do you have any idea what the rationale is or what they're looking for specifically? It is a search warrant that has an FBI affidavit attached to it. That affidavit is under seal. The FBI, when we ask them for comment and confirmation, declined to answer any questions, but if you look at the search warrant, there are two different federal statutes mentioned. One deals with the destruction of public records related to elections after a two-ish year period, and the other deals with

a counting and tabulating fraudulent balance that you allegedly know are fraudulent. So those are some clues. It's important to zoom back five plus years to the 2020 election, there were a number of claims about how Fulton County ran its election that were based in conspiracies, based in false claims. There was everything from allegations of suitcases of ballots being brought out from under the table to a fake water main break to claims that any vote that wasn't cast in person on election day was probably fake and not tied to a person. None of those things are true.

and the nebulous nature of this raid and the silence afterwards, it's kind of part of the point because there has been this mystique around the 2020 election. And, you know, like Trump said, people will soon be prosecuted for what they did. What people, who knows? Before people jump to any belief that there's merit to a lot of this, one of those conspiracies that you brought up, Rudy Giuliani, the president's then lawyer, was ordered to pay $148 million. to two elections workers because he accused them of bringing ballots in on suitcases. So people have been, you know, looking to put something on Fulton County, to put something on Georgia because Trump wants legitimacy. He lost the state. It has been litigated. There have been dozens of court cases across the country. All that the Trump campaign lost as far as whether or not there

are any ballots that were determined to be unlawful. And this is just something that he has still not been able to get a win for. And he's continued to be irritated by the fact that he lost the state and that he lost the 2020 election. I also think it's important to point out that state officials were Republicans who were running this election. It's been audited. It's been looked at. And they have taken a lot of hits for standing up to Trump. I guess we should point out that Fulton County is a Democratic county. Fulton County is the state's most populous county. It is a heavily Democratic county. It is a place where there is not a lot of support for Donald Trump and his policies on a good day. But with the case of this election, there were people who just could not fathom the idea that a Democratic city and a Democratic county voted for a Democratic presidential candidate. I want to go back a step to something that Domenico said, which is that states administer their own elections. The federal government does. doesn't play a role in that process. So what is the implication here of the feds now getting involved in this way? It's an election year. And part of what people are concerned about who are good election watchers is that Trump is trying to, you know, say that the elections are biased. He's been already pushing this line that the polls are wrong, that pollsters should be sued because.

he's at a vulnerable political point, which I would say, by the way, he and the White House recognize the position that he's in because you saw him back down on two major things in the last couple of weeks related to Greenland and the government, the partial government shutdown. So I think his team is well aware of the difficult position that he and Republicans are in. And it feels like being able, you know, him being able to say, oh, see, these elections are still bad stuff going on. you can't trust the results is a way to undermine the election integrity in the country. And it's fascinating because he is also personally saying, well, you know, presidents, their party does bad in the midterms.

It's just history. And yet he is doing everything he can, including pushing states to do partisan gerrymandering and then punishing them if they don't. All of that is about trying to fight against the very real possibility that. Republicans will lose power in these midterms. Yeah, which, you know, he has even said, look, it's not a partisan thing. Republicans and Democratic presidents have it happened to them. It's true that that's the case. But clearly this is something that still bothers him. It sticks in his craw.

It's not like he won re-election in 2024 and was able to say, I won people back over. He instead wants to continue to say, no, no, no, no, I won that election, even though he didn't. That's the big lie of Trump's existence. on the political scene. And he's looking for a way to save face, to have his legacy. And you know that it's important to him because he has his director of national intelligence who was there in Tulsi Gabbard. And people are asking, why is she there? Yeah. So let's just be clear. She was there in Georgia as the FBI was executing the search warrant. She's the director of national intelligence. Like, what does that have to do with election integrity? Right. And national intelligence is.

is not supposed to cross over with domestic issues. In general, they are looking at foreign intelligence nexus. And that's usually their job. In fact, Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, Democratic Senator, who's on the Intelligence Committee, ranking member, said in a statement that either Director Gabber believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus, in which case she's in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the Intelligence Committee fully and currently informed of relevant national security concerns. Or she's once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for the office that she holds by injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community. She's supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy.

And as worked up, as Senator Warner is about how this is a really big problem, the MAGA right is like so excited, Stephen. that she's there because that means they're really going to get to the bottom of it. In the last five years, I have tracked so many different storylines and claims and allegations about what happened in Fulton County. There have been more than 60 court cases in states like Georgia and across the country that found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. There were claims made, claims investigated, claims put to rest that have festered, and continue to grow. And now, in the midterm election year, a major priority of the administration is fanning the

flames of those conspiracies, telling people that they shouldn't trust the election results from before. And the last time that happened in 2022 in the midterms, a lot of his supporters stayed home. I don't know if that's going to be the case this time, but it is notable with everything else going on. You know, Trump into Iowa earlier this week to talk about the economy. Now we're talking about ballots. And for the Director of National Intelligence Office's part, their reasoning sounds a little bit like trying to fit a square peg in a circular hole.

But they say that Director Gabbard recognizes that election security is essential for the integrity of our Republic and our nation security, which is why she's there trying to identify vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure and protecting against exploitation. All right. Well, Stephen, we've got to let you go. but thank you so much for coming on the pod. Okay, talk soon. And we're going to take one more break, and then it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back, and our co-host Sarah McCammon is here. Hey, Sarah.

Hi, Tam. And it's time for Can't Let It Go, the part of the pod where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop thinking about politics or otherwise. And once again, I have a political can't let it go, which means I get to go first. You apparently can't let go of politics. You need other hobbies, Tam. I do. And I would really like to. to have the time for other hobbies.

But instead, I get my comedy from the president of the United States. And here is an example of this. You might remember that he has been caught nodding off at White House events and during a cabinet meeting. And there was quite a news cycle about, oh, geez. The 79-year-old president is sleeping. Yeah. That's not very funny. So this week, he had another cabinet meeting.

And he said, you know what? going to make this one shorter. He said this 25 minutes into a monologue. Here we go. We're not going to go through the whole table because the last time we had a press conference, it lasted for three hours. And some people said, he closed his eyes. Look, it got pretty boring. I love these people. But there's a lot of people. It was a little bit at the boring side. Well, he certainly recognizes the optics. I'm sure that somebody showed him a video of it. And, you know, what are you going to do?

He fell asleep. It's hot in those rooms. He's always pushing back against the idea that he's getting older. When you're a little defensive about something, sometimes you sort of over-explain it. And that is what happened. But I didn't sleep. I just closed them because I wanted to get the hell out of here. Some of them, I didn't sleep either way.

I don't sleep much. But, you know, it's funny. some of them got me in a blink, you know, when you go like, and they took me as at the close segment of my cycle. He said, he's sleeping. Domenico, what can't you let go of? Oh, what I think most of the country can't let go of, which is ice and snow. Oh, yeah.

I mean, ugh, I, you know, I was out there this week with a sledgehammer. Thank you, by the way, because no one else. There were, there were, there were, uh, luckily for me, the people next door had had their kitchen renovated and one of the workers left behind a sledgehammer and they said, just put this on your side of the fence. And I was like, okay. So I had it there for a couple months and haven't looked at it. And then when I was looking at the ice wall that was around my car. Yeah. And I just thought, what am I going to use? And it reminded me of being a kid where I grew up in Flushing in New York. we lived on a pretty busy street.

Okay. And when the plow would come through, our driveway would get like a Game of Thrones level ice wall, you know, six to eight feet high. What? Okay. It's not Game of Thrones level, exactly. But six to eight feet of ice is pretty tough. Luckily, my grandfather was a brick mason. And he had a massive old Ford LTT trunk full of construction shovels.

All the tools you need. 100%. So when I was 10 years old, he was. He was like shoving shovel in my face. And he said, and I just have advice from my grandfather that he gave to me to everybody else out there who is still shoveling their cars out. And he used to do it with the Italian accent. Domen, no kill yourself. Take your time.

Pace yourself. Otherwise, you're going to be inside and not helping anymore. So I will just say, pace yourself, have the right tools. I read somewhere that people over 45 shouldn't shovel snow. You know what? That was another thing I started thinking about because. I was like a snow shoveling machine in my earlier days. And I was out there this week.

And I was like, ooh, my shoulder hurts. And how my finger has a weird spasm. Like, that's getting weird. Yeah, welcome to middle age, right? Sarah, what can't you like about? Well, my can't let it go is actually about letting go because I am saying goodbye to this podcast and to NPR. This has been in the works for a while, but I will miss you all, but it's time for a change for me. So I will not be able to let go of many, many memories of working with both of you and so many wonderful people on this desk and meeting many listeners all over the country and lots and lots of voters and lots of meaningful interviews.

I won't take the time now to go through all of them. But, you know, I think back to the very beginning of my career as a reporter in Nebraska talking with people who, I mean, this is going way back, but lost children in the Iraq war. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And couples who were going through the recession and, you know, fast forward to, you know, so many memories from the 2016 campaign. It has been a very meaningful more than two decades in public radio. I will miss you all. But I am looking forward to what's next. and I'll have more to say about that soon.

I will be on All Things Considered this weekend, hosting one last time before I go. You know, I remember when you first came on the desk and, you know, you'd report it on politics locally, but doing it nationally, you know, I think you had some anxiety over, you know, going in and talking and putting together the right story, even though you always did. But, you know, you talk about Iraq and, you know, war zones and people recover from that. I think, though, one of your more difficult assignments that I had to coach you through was going to Staten Island. Oh, my gosh. A kid from Kansas City. That's right. I was like, what do I expect?

I think it was like maybe what my second or third time in New York City ever. That's amazing. It was a very memorable Trump rally on Staten Island. I can't let you go. Well, I will stay in touch. I will not be too far. And no, and I just, most of all, want to say thanks to all. the listeners who support our work and who've been, you know, just incredible, incredible supporters

of public radio from my early member station days to today. So grateful for that. Well, we bid you ado, done great work. Love you and our fans. Yes. There we go. Well, I'll be listening and cheering you on. Thank you. All right, that's all for today. Our executive producer is Mathani Maturi. Our producers are Casey Morel and Brea Suggs. Our editor is Rachel Bay. Special thanks to Lexi Shepiddle and Dana Farrington. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Sarah McCammon, political correspondent for now. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.