The NPR Politics Podcast - Dems Face Pressure To Fight Trump

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Democrats lost the Senate and the White House in November's elections. Now as a minority party, their representatives — and their voters — are trying to figure out what to do next, and how to provide a roadblock to President Trump's ambitions. This episode: political correspondent Sarah McCammon, congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. 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

Hi, this is Caleb in Tucker, Georgia. And I'm currently in the shed working on a crib for my wife and I's first baby. This podcast was recorded at 1 06 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, February 19th, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I'll still be sawing, chiseling, and sanding away. Okay, here's the show. I love that.

That's so sweet. Good for you, man. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I am Barbara Sprensch. I'm a political journalist. I'm a political journalist. I'm a political sweet. Good for you, man. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I am Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanara, Senior Political

Editor and Correspondent. Today on the show, Democrats find themselves in the minority after last fall's elections, and their constituents aren't happy about what they see as the party's lack of action in response to policies they disagree with from President Trump? The Democrats' leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, put it this way recently. I'm trying to figure out what leverage we actually have. What leverage do we have? Republicans have repeatedly lectured America. They control the House, the Senate, and the presidency.

It's their government. Barbara, you've been reporting on this. How is that attitude going down with many Democratic voters? Barbara Bolling I mean, it may not be going over well, but it is the reality that Democrats face. Elections do have consequences. And the American public voted for a Republican trifecta in government. They control the House, the Senate, and the White House. And that stark political reality is, I think, sort of like dawning on many grassroots supporters

of Democrats sort of for the first time, and they're navigating this sort of next chapter as Democrats have lost a lever of power. And there certainly is tension here. I mean, Democrats say that their phones are ringing off the hook with people calling their offices, why can't you do XYZ? There was a rally recently in response to the furlough of a lot of employees of USAID.

A lot of Democratic lawmakers were there sort of talking how terrible this is, and they were interrupted by chants of the people in the crowd saying, like, what are you going to do about it? Do your job. And the reality is there's a huge disconnect because their job is very limited. There's very few things that they can do to thwart the will of the majority. So certainly Democrats are up against these limitations you just described. But there are some Democrats, even some of Jeffrey's colleagues, who would like to see a different

tone here. I mean, what are they saying that they are doing? There's definitely like debate about the messaging strategy going forward. And the tape that we heard of Leader Jeffries is from earlier this month. I think House Democrats have tried to sort of sharpen their strategy. They have a new task force out that's sort of aimed at a new messaging strategy, particularly around the sort of legal efforts that are being fronted in various spaces. But yeah, I mean, like some Democrats say, there's not a big upside to talking about what you can't do.

There's like Vermont Congresswoman Becca Ballant, who I spoke with, she's a member of the Progressive Caucus, and she told me like, you know, we should probably educate the public a little bit. It's clear from talking to my constituents and people who interact with my office, it hasn't really totally sunk in that Republicans are in charge of the House, the Senate, and the White House. So we don't get to control what bills come up on the floor. Yeah. I mean, the minority party can sometimes, particularly in the Senate, slow things down

procedurally, but it can't, like, change the math and the makeup of the structure of power that is faced right now by Democrats on Capitol Hill. I mean, that said, the Republican majority in the House, though, is very narrow, just three seats. Domenico, we've reported before about how disunified the Republican conference tends to be. Isn't there some room here for Democrats to maneuver?

Well, life in the minority stinks. I mean, no other way to really put it. I mean, it's hard to really have a lot that you can do, especially procedurally. You know, there is the Senate filibuster for legislation, you know, where they'll need 60 votes to get something passed. And Democrats can certainly stand on that, as Mitch McConnell did when he was Republican leader. But there's going to be a lot of things like those Trump tax cuts that Republicans are probably going to be able to pass by tying it to the budget.

They'll only need 51 votes. And they certainly have that. So there's not a lot that Democrats can do procedurally. Even when it comes to these nominees, Democrats actually changed the rules some years ago during President Obama's term because Republicans are standing in the way of a lot of Obama's nominees. They got rid of the filibuster for those cabinet appointees. So now you only need 51 votes. So beyond, you know, talkathons or trying to sort of slow things down a little bit with

some procedural maneuvers, there's not a lot they can do to really stand in the way. This is really going to be about messaging. This is going to be about how Democrats are able to take what Trump has been doing, what Elon Musk has been doing, and trying to sell that to the American people as a problem. One of the things we've started to hear from some Democrats, like Hakeem Jeffries there, after he mentioned that, what leverage do we have point, is about the cost of living and saying that Trump's not focused on the cost of living because Democrats are trying to reach out more beyond just

their base because certainly a lot of the people in their base are upset about what they see as a breaking of democratic norms about things like constitutional crises it didn't work as a message during the election and it's really difficult because most people don't know or care what the federal government really does it certainly affects the Washington, DC area very directly. But the consequences across the country may take longer to be felt or if at all.

There's also something to be said for like, there's a lot of opposition to what the Trump administration is doing, obviously among Democrats and grassroots supporters in and outside of the Beltway. But it is exactly what the president talked about doing in his campaign. And so Democrats navigating that space in their messaging is going to be really interesting to watch. And I think part of that comes to Elon Musk, who you mentioned earlier. Like,

you know, their Democrats have already tried to sort of play with some messaging, you know, calling him President Musk and sort of saying things like, you know, people voted for Trump's policies. They didn't vote for this guy to do a remaking slash and burn kind of style of the federal government. Yeah, I think a lot of this is really going to land in the courts, right? I mean, I think that this is the one area that can actually stop what the executive branch is doing and is going to be the sort of final say on the limits that Trump is testing to see whether or not what he does in how he's firing people in the federal workforce or, you know, not wanting

to continue congressionally approved funding. If any of that is constitutional or legal, it's going to be settled in the courts. And we know that there's a six, three conservative majority at the Supreme Court. So Trump is happy to test as much of this as possible. and we'll see where the court decides to actually stop him. But politically, it's going to be decided at the ballot box and whether or not a lot of the things that Trump winds up doing seems to go too far with people or if people like what he's doing. Okay, it's time for a quick break. We'll have more in just a moment. There is a lot happening right now in the world of economics.

You may have heard about the president's desire for a sovereign wealth fund. If your country is small, well governed and has a surplus, it is probably a good idea. We are not any of those. We're here to cover federal buyouts, the cost of deportation and so much more. Tune in to MPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. much more. Tune in to MPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. And we're back. You know, one thing that I find interesting when thinking about all of this is Republicans, when they're in the minority, they've gotten really good at holding things up.

You might say being a bit more obstructionist. They're willing to use the powers of the minority in ways that Democrats don't seem to be willing to do. Domenico, do you get the sense that Democrats might be thinking about that differently now? I don't think that's wholly accurate, to be fair to Democrats here, because I don't think that Democrats have the same powers that Republicans did have. And I think that Democrats tried to go through the Congress way more than Trump is trying to go through Congress. Trump has done everything so far by executive order, by executive actions. A lot of this is reshaping the federal government. He certainly is in charge of the executive branch.

Some of that, like we said, is going to be determined by the courts and whether or not it's legal. Like we said earlier, they've sort of been a bit more hobbled about the kind of legislative maneuvers that they can use, you know, especially when it comes to cabinet appointees or judges, you know, Democrats got rid of that because of how much obstructionism that Republicans used in trying to get judges or cabinet appointees through. So I do think that there needs to be a little bit of education that goes on about what actually Democrats are able to do. They certainly could do more in being unified on their message or protesting or gathering people to understand how to fight back. That's hard to do when you don't have

one particular person who everyone looks at as the leader of the party. But do they have a different philosophy to some extent about that? I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think that if they could do it, they would do it. I think that they're generally, I mean, it's very broad strokes, but a bit more opposed to some of those procedural maneuvers. But Republicans would say that's not the case when you look back on somebody like Harry Reid, the former, you know, Senate Democratic leader who was able to procedurally spar pretty well and hold his own with Mitch McConnell. There isn't Harry Reid anymore, really. I mean, Chuck Schumer is more

of a messaging guy, and Reid was much more of a procedural guy. And, you know, there's a lot of Democrats trying to figure out who is going to be the person that can really lead them beyond this Trump administration? Yeah, there's this big question mark about who is the resistance figure here. And as you were saying, Domenico, so far, it doesn't necessarily seem like it's Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, leader of the House Democrats,

is still sort of, I think, finding footing on best messaging practices going forward. I think an interesting thing that we can all look for in March is when the joint address, when the president addresses a joint session of Congress, there's always a democratic response to that. And who they pick to give that response, I think, is going to be really telling about the type of messaging that they're looking to sort of sharpen going forward. Who the messenger is going to be there, I think, is going to be really telling. So looking at it a bit more broadly, I mean, Trump won the election, Republicans took the Senate, they kept the House, and yet a lot of people don't vote in elections. Trump

has never had an approval rating above 50%. One would think there's some room for Democrats to make inroads here, but, Domenico, is that the case given the way the country's political structures work? Sure. I don't know that the structures have anything to do with whether or not Democrats can take back the House in 2026. I think that maybe a little bit of the issue Democrats have had certainly has been redistricting and gerrymandering where the country sort of tips a little bit more toward Republicans because of how gerrymandered so many Republican seats are. Democrats do it too, but not as much as Republicans have in multiple states.

Well, and the advantage in the Senate. Right. And the thing is, Republicans are unlikely to lose the Senate because of the majority that they have now. The real ballgame is going to lose the Senate because of the majority that they have now. The real ballgame is going to be the House, and it's only a three-seat majority, as you pointed out earlier, and a president generally does lose seats in their midterm elections. So I think that's where Democrats are probably going to be most focused and likely to have the best ability to win based on the issues in those districts and seeing what the Trump administration does.

I mean, it's hard to believe this is only the first, we're still within the first month of the administration. So there's going to be a whole lot more that winds up happening, whether it's popular or not, is going to be a huge reason why Democrats win or don't win. Yeah, and I think for all this conversation about what is the messaging and who is the messenger from Democrats, a couple members I spoke with were like,

we could get a little grace. It has been a couple weeks, and there is a firehose of information and action coming from Pennsylvania Avenue. I think it is going to take time for Democrats to sort of solidify a message. And a lot of that depends on what happens with the courts and also like what continued actions Trump takes by executive order. What happens with this

budget reconciliation, which is a topic for another day, but that is also underway this week. And yeah, it's a long road ahead for Democrats. All right, we're going to leave it there for today. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.