The NPR Politics Podcast - Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Congress is trying to come up with a new budget, while also attempting to extend tax cuts put in place during President Trump's first term. But with a very small majority in both houses, Republicans have little margin for error. Then, we look at the first cabinet meeting of the Trump administration, the upcoming presidential address to a joint session of Congress, and changes to the White House press pool. And, we can't let go of television — a lot of it. This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt, and senior political editor and 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

This is Greg and I am in beautiful Snow Call Me Washington at a healthcare conference. And I just finished listening to a keynote address given by one. It's a medical monsoon. That's me. It's not recording. And it was great. This podcast was recorded at. 11 37 a.m. on Friday, February 28th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Oh, wow. Well, how cool is that? As soon as he started saying Snoqualmie, I was like, I've been there. It's a really nice place. I totally forgot that.

It was a while back. We recently had a McCammon stamp with McCammon hosting and now a Domenico stamp with Domenico on the pod. What a treat. So meta. Yeah. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis.

I cover politics. I am Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, Senior Political Editor and correspondent. And it's time for the weekly roundup. And we're going to start on Capitol Hill where lawmakers are trying to figure out how to get a budget through Congress that will allow them to extend President Trump's 2017 tax cuts, most of which will expire at the end of the year.

Barbara, this is going to be a long journey for Republicans. But look, Speaker Mike Johnson, he's had a lot of defeats on the floor. He enjoyed a rare unified win. How did it go down? That's right. Yeah, big win for the speaker. There were plenty of holdouts in his conference on this budget resolution, which as we've talked about before on the podcast, is an early step in using the reconciliation process to pass a lot of what President Trump wants to see happen. Tax cuts, sending more money and resources to the southern border. On Tuesday, pretty dramatic, Johnson and House Republican leaders held the floor open for an hour or so while trying to get all of the votes needed to pass this resolution. At one point, it looked like they weren't going to quite make it. They

sent members home for the night, but wait, but wait. They quickly changed course, ordered the house back in session and voted on the proposal right away. You know, essentially some of the GOP members who had said that they would not support it, changed their minds and ended up supporting it. What I think that's really interesting to me about this is this time around Trump seems much more involved in the process here. And there was this great anecdote that he could be heard yelling over the phone in the Republican cloakroom getting lawmakers in line to vote for the bill. That tells you something about how much

he wants this done. Danielle Pletka Yeah, I think there's two big things, you know, that are different between now and when Republicans used reconciliation in 2017. And one of those is exactly what you're saying, the difference of Trump himself. He was fairly content to leave a lot of the procedural elements in 2017 to Paul Ryan, who was speaker. And now it's not even, you know, a full two months into his presidency. He's already put his thumb on the scale when it comes to a lot of the decision-making between

the House and the Senate, talking to members, doing some whipping of support. And then, you know, the second thing that I think is different, of course, is the margin, you know, that Johnson enjoys or does not enjoy, rather, some of the time. You know, in 2017, Republicans can lose, I don't know, 20-some votes. Now, you know, Johnson can afford to lose just one vote. That's pretty tight. But, Domenico, I think, you know, look, I think when Americans think about Washington right now, Republican unified control of government, Trump exerting a lot of power in the White House, Republicans have both the House and Senate. Why should it be that hard? But it's going to be pretty hard.

Domenico Grigori Yeah, it's not that easy when you have such a small majority in the House. And you have, you know, varying factions within the Republican Party. They have some moderates and you also have some pretty hardline people on the right who don't want to see much increased spending at all. And there's a lot of division here among those factions about how much to cut entitlements, for example, if at all. We know Medicaid has been a huge sticking point. Right. And I think it's important to note the president this week sort of took things

like Social Security and Medicare off the table. But there is this Medicaid question because in the House budget resolution, they don't name check Medicaid, but they instruct the Energy and Commerce Committee to find $800 billion in spending cuts. And the biggest thing that that committee has oversight of is Medicaid. Yeah. And I mean, we've already seen some Republican senators say, you know, we're not cutting Medicaid. You know, there's conversations around, well, maybe it's not really cutting Medicaid if you're cutting waste, fraud, and abuse within the program. But there's not $880 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse. I don't think anyone is arguing that.

And of course, like to Domenico's point about, just unified control does not a smooth journey make. Senate Republicans, as we've talked about, are in complete tension with their House counterparts when it comes to the best way to implement Trump's agenda. Senate Republicans passed their own budget resolution last week. And it doesn't matter that they both passed their own. This doesn't really work unless they all get on the same page eventually.

And there's a lot of misconceptions about a program like Medicaid. And KFF, which does a lot of polling on healthcare issues, things like Medicare, Medicaid, and all the rest, has done some polling on this and found three quarters of people have a favorable opinion of it. So really tough to cut programs that are popular. And Domenico, I think this budget fight is gonna be another lesson in how committed the Republican party is to deficit reduction because the old cliche that they're more deficit hawks

when there's the Democrat in the White House and not as many when there's a Republican. And look, Trump historically hasn't actually cared all that much about the deficit while many members of the Hill actually do. Definitely. And I think that it's a really tough thing for them to try and say that they're going to cut all of these programs and take a chainsaw in the way that Elon Musk and his advisory group DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency, is trying to cut discretionary

spending and firing all these federal workers when it really won't make much of a dent in the federal budget at all. And not only that, but Trump says he wants to expand the tax cuts to include things like no tax on tips, which is something that he campaigned on, which would make the cost of the package even more. Absolutely. And Barbara, we should also note separately, Republicans also have to confront another budget headache in about two weeks. Stop me if you've heard

it before. If they don't pass a stopgap spending bill, the government's going to shut down. What's the status of that? Yeah, I think one thing that is easily conflated, and I totally get why, you know, people have questions about this. Like appropriations and the continuing resolution, which is being debated now about, you know, how to avoid a shutdown of the federal government mid-March, is different than reconciliation, right? They are different tracks. On the reconciliation side, you know, there has been a lot of focus on the competing budget resolutions between the chambers.

But that is a very early step and we're just now entering another tricky season of negotiations. The Senate Republicans are going to want to do things with the House's plan. Senate Majority Leader Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson need to find that compromise resolution. And I think that that is unlikely to happen until April. And look like every time Republicans have needed to pass either appropriations or stopgap spending bills, they've needed Democrats.

And I'm not sure Democrats are super inclined to help Republicans at this moment in time. No. And I think this is a big question that Democrats are chattering about on Capitol Hill and being asked a lot about. There is sometimes the framing of, will Democrats step in to prevent a government shutdown? And the messaging so far from Democrats has

been very much like, we do not have the power to shut down the government. Don't put that framing on us. Remember, it is our friends in the Republican Party who control the House and the Senate and the White House. So please don't put that label on us. All right, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back in a minute. And we're back and let's talk about some of the other things that happened in Washington this week. There was a lot we can't cover at all, but we can talk about a couple things.

The first is President Trump will give an address to Congress on Tuesday night. We'll of course have live coverage on your NPR station and analysis on the podcast after it. But as is tradition, the opposition party has a planned rebuttal and Barbara, the Democratic party has selected freshmen Senator Alyssa Slotkin to give that rebuttal. What's the thinking there? That's right. Well, I mean, who the minority party picks to give the response to the joint

address says a lot. As we've talked about on the podcast, it's not always a guarantee that that person goes on to become the heir apparent in the party, but it is a high profile platform. And the messaging, I think, with Slotkin says that Democrats are trying to focus on economic kitchen table issues. Before coming to Capitol Hill, she had a career at the CIA and in national security roles at the Pentagon. She brings a lot of that experience to the table. She flipped a red district in 2018 and then launched this competitive bid for the Senate after Debbie Savino announced her retirement. In November, she won that seat by like a fraction of a percentage points, but she did outperform Kamala Harris in the state. And so it was seen as a really big win for Democrats. I think it's a choice

that makes a lot of sense for what they're trying to achieve in this moment. And Domenico, we should also note that President Trump held his first cabinet meeting this week. And we've talked extensively on the podcast about the role Elon Musk is playing in the government, but he had a seat at the table and had his own speaking direct to the camera moments. And I think it was just this reminder of like what a force this person is going to be in

government. Yeah. And he didn't quite have a seat at the table. He had a seat off the table, but he was able to stand and preside over everybody, kind of in the shadows, wearing a black Make America Great Again hat, a black, you know, coat that he had on this long coat. And he thought he was funny. He opened his jacket and it said tech support because he felt like he was tech support for the government.

But I thought that the imagery was interesting there because Trump did give him the floor. He let him take a lot of questions about what Doge is doing, but it does set up this, what I think a lot of us thought would be the case, which is Trump sort of making Elon Musk, the lot of us thought would be the case, which is Trump sort of making Elon Musk the sort of the bad cop, you know, and be able to absorb all the

bad press. And when he gets to be too much, you could see Trump cutting the rope, you know, to send the Musk boat out to sea. But you know, he won't necessarily need to do that until Musk makes all of the cuts he wants to make. Because, you know, polling has shown Musk to be pretty unpopular, but Trump above him. So I think that he thinks that it's working at this point. There was also the moment in the cabinet meeting where I think Musk was trying to do a good

thing and say, like, look, when Doge messes up, we'll fix it, but kind of like flippantly referred to the fact that they halted Ebola prevention. Like, ha ha, we halted Ebola prevention. And it was one of those like awkward moments in the room where no one laughed. Like it was, it looked like he was trying to like make light of it. And it was just like, it fell flat for a second. And then he was like, no, but then we reinstated it. And I'm like, those are the moments in politics where you can't have too many ha haha moments about life-saving services. Yeah. And look, there's something else I want to talk about, which I do try to avoid navel gazey.

Let's talk about the media stuff in our podcast, because it's not really what our podcast is about. But something did happen this week that I think we should talk about, because I think it does speak to how this White House operates. And it's something that I think people should consider in the years going forward. Because you know, Barbara, when we're up on the Hill, we run wild. Like the Capitol Hill Press Corps has a lot of freedom to roam and it isn't as tightly organized and orchestrated as the White House Press Corps. And Domenico, this week, the White

House decided to weigh in and change the way the White House press pool governs itself and to take a stronger role in governing who gets to cover the president. Yeah, and you know, a lot of people might think, well, so what? You know, the White House gets to determine who's there, no big deal. But what has gone on for a long time is a sort of democratic process where the news organizations that have covered the White House for a long time get together, vote on somebody who's in charge of the White House Correspondence Association, and then they try to have a rotation for what's known as a pool where people are reporting on the president and often in tight spaces where you can't

fit a lot of media, but you want somebody there who's fast and sharp and who's giving you unbiased information and giving you all of that relevant information. And that is now called into question because the White House Press Secretary came out and chided the media and said essentially that this group is no longer gonna control that, the White House is gonna control it, and that raises eyebrows because who are they gonna select for that? They want to be able to control their message more tightly. Every president wants to try to control the message, but this is a bigger step than other presidents have done before. And, you know, I do think it's worth reminding people that being a member of the press is the only protected job by the Constitution in the First Amendment.

I mean, freedom of the press is right there. And it's one of the things that around the world people are concerned when they see the freedom of the press reduced because that also tends to track with a lot of autocracies around the world. I think, you know, with the press pool also, I mean, it requires a lot of resources for organizations to be part of the pool. You know, you have to be able to sort of spring into action on a moment's notice, you have to have appropriate staffing. So there are also like logistical reasons that the White House Correspondents Association has made decisions around who's in the pool, you know, for decades. And one thing that I thought was interesting is a correspondent for Fox, Jackie Heinrich, did kind of weigh in on this and saying, you know, the association has not

opposed the White House historically adding members to the pool, but that's different than sort of choosing it outright. And for people that are thinking that this benefits somehow, you know, the MAGA movement, she pointed out, like, this opens the door for a democratic administration to pick its own pool. And, you know, that doesn't necessarily roll over well with folks either. Yeah, I think that's always been the point of the pool, and why previous presidents always were hands off about it is the recognition that your party is not always going to be

in the White House. And maybe you don't want the next president picking and choosing who gets to have seats in there. And there's so much partisan coverage to be done, right? But the pool is really not the place for that. All right, we're going to leave it there. But let's take another break. And when we come back, time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back. And it's time once again for Can't Let

It Go, the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just cannot stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Barbara, I'm gonna give you the honors. What could you let go of this week? Thank you. Okay, so I feel like there are seasons in life where you watch a little less television and that's okay. I don't feel like I'm in that time of my life. I don't know if I've ever experienced that time. I'm okay with it.

And so I just want to say, like, you know, my Can't Let It Go is sort of a thank you note to the content creators out there because I feel like television is in a good moment. I'm sorry, can you just not like, oh, television? Just shows, just all of it, the whole thing? So I will say, I feel like there's a lot of great content out there that I am appreciating frequently. White Lotus is back.

There's a great show on Netflix called Apple Cider Vinegar, which it's very good and features excellent Australian accents and sort of like a take on what happens when when well the wellness industry kind of like sinks its teeth in a bit too much. Oh that's good. Paradise on Hulu, shout out to Paradise. It's a little soapy but it's very very fun and Real Housewives of Potomac, The Reunion has been very spicy. And then I'll just throw forward to a show that I'm expecting not to be able to let go,

which is Meghan Markle's Netflix lifestyle show. And I just can't wait to find out what kind of $300 dinner plate I'm missing. And I'm just can't wait. I'm fairly certain that that Meghan Markle show is a can't let it go of the future. Trendon on Netflix right now is this political show called Zero Day, where Robert De Niro is president, former president, I should say. There's some Biden vibes that kind of go on. But you find out some other sort of big crises things that that that happened. It's actually

pretty good. I would say it's entertaining. There's a lot of that though. I feel like beach read TV on Netflix right now where everything is just kind of like, you know, fine. You know, thriller fine. Like it's like fine. Danielle Pletka Sue, television or otherwise, do you have something you can't let go? Sue Glaser Mine's related to podcasts. So we'll stick with media for the week. But the thing I can't let go this week, you know, I try to stay hip. I try to stay on top of what the kids are listening to. And this week, I listened to an episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast. I feel like Barbara, you in particular probably know what this is,

but as the young represented here, but it's a woman named Alex Cooper, and she's like the Howard Stern of women for Gen Z. She has one of the most popular podcasts in the world right now. And she had on the podcast this week, Monica Lewinsky. And it was like a fascinating, I was listening to it in the car. And Domenico, you might appreciate this because I think we're about the same age

and like Monica Lewinsky for us at that age, like when we were youth was like one of the most sort of maligned and shamed women in America, right? Like just kind of a joke for so long. And it's so interesting as someone who lived through the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal to then see women who were like barely alive when the scandal happened, who have no living memory of it. She's become this sort of feminist icon that like she's adored by and to go on a platform like Alex Cooper, who I think is like a huge influencer of women under 30 and how like celebrated they see Monica Lewinsky now. I just had this moment of like how different

like living that history and people who are learning about it now is and what an arc this woman's life has had. I was gonna say, I think that her adult life is sort of the arc of how differently women who have been in power situations with men who, you know, have harassed women or sexually assaulted them, how differently they've been viewed through the years. I mean, it's very different now than it was in the late 90s. I think that her adult life is sort of a great representation of that change. Also, this is not the point. It's not the point. It's not the point.

But I will say this girl looks good. She's 51. I was like, Monica, girl, who's your dermatologist? Like, I think that the time has done her justice. I feel like that is maybe the karmic universe being like, you know what, Monica gets to age like a fine wine. Domenico, what about you? What can't you look of? Well, we got the Oscars coming up on Sunday and it also kind of made me think about the life of Gene Hackman, the great actor who tragically died. He was 95 years old. But, you know, I just started thinking about reflecting on some of the movies that he made. And it's amazing. He's made more than 70 movies in his lifetime. You know, just a couple of movies I always stuck with me were Hoosiers because I played basketball growing up. And, you know, I probably knew

every word to that when I was in high school and his personality is just such a, such a force of life. It was interesting to me. I was reading this week him saying, talking about his father had abandoned the family as a kid. And Gene Hackman is so well known for these little eye movements or forehead crinkles or a little laugh or gesture. And he said that when his father walked out on them, he just gave a little wave. And he said that there was so much to interpret in that wave that actually, as know, is as difficult as it all was. He drew on that as an actor to say a little gesture can really mean a lot. And it was really interesting if you look back through his films, you know, how he really just sort of is able to do that and capture somebody else. And that sort of,

I love the description that we had on NPR. Someone said that he was a coiled snake of an actor, you know, sort of rage that was inside, but you didn't quite always see it. I will always think of Gene Hackman, especially because I associate him with like movies of my youth as Lex Luthor in the Superman movies. And it made me think that like, I need those are movies I need to go rewatch with my kids. Because I also feel like 80s superhero movies are pretty kid friendly and in 2025 standards. So maybe that's our movie recommendation for the audience. Go watch Superman. And that is a wrap for us this week.

Our executive producer is Mathony Mottori, Casey Murrell edits the podcast. Our producers are Bria Suggs and Kelly Wessinger. Special thanks to Christian F. Callimer and Kelsey Snell. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thanks for listening to the MPR Politics Podcast.