The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Shutdown Likely Because Of GOP Infighting

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

Congress has left town as House Republicans infighting appears doomed to shutdown the government next week. And both Donald Trump and President Biden appear to have turned their attention toward the general election race — even though the first primary vote has yet to be cast.This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, campaign correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, and White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez.The podcast is was produced by Casey Morell and Elena Moore. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. This is Daniel, and I'm relaxing in my hotel room in Kangaloosak, Greenland, and I just finished a day hiking on the ice sheet. This podcast was recorded at 12.02 p.m. on September 22, 2023. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll still be in Greenland working on a personal project for the next two months.

Okay, here's the show. Wow, that's a cold hike. Very. Yeah. What was the Trump era story about Greenland? I can't remember. Wasn't there like, we're gonna buy it, right? I completely forgot about that. No, it's not ours. Hey, there. It's the NPR politics podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. I'm Claudia DeSantis. I also cover Congress. And for today's political roundup, we are heading to Capitol Hill, where September 30th is getting closer every single day, guys. That is the day that this government shutdown, we've been talking about it for weeks, if not months at this point, and it is next week. So, Deirdre, let's just start there. How likely is it that the government shuts down?

Deirdre McCloskey Very likely. I don't, at this point, see how we avoid a shutdown. Never say never when you cover Congress, because things can happen and deadlines do force people to act quickly. But we are in a sort of unprecedented, I would say, sort of level of dysfunction, where, you know, both the House and Senate need to pass something that the president will sign to fund the government for some period of time, because they just don't have the time and the space and the ability to negotiate the 12 annual spending bills. So we're waiting to see whether they can pass some sort of like 30-day stopgap bill. But right now, nothing's moving. And as of today, Friday, the house has gone home for the weekend. They were just yesterday expected

to stick around and work until they figured something out. But I think we're, you know, we're sort of preparing to cover the shutdown and wondering how long it might last and how and how we'll get out of it. Claudia, what are the disagreements here that are holding up all these bills for moving forward? There are many, many more than the bills themselves, for example. It seems like there's different factions of the Republican wing that are just basically breaking down over a series of issues from top line numbers, if they were able to get down to a permanent spending plan and pass all of these annual spending bills in return, and down to optional in terms of additional spending, such as whether to provide aid to areas that have been struck by disasters from Hawaii to Vermont, as well as whether to provide additional aid to Ukraine. And so a lot of Republicans were trying to hammer out some creative ideas this week. They started out the week, for example, with the Main Street Caucus. So these are the more moderate members and members of the House Freedom Caucus. Members in that wing, more the hardliners,

got together to put together a proposed continuing resolution, as it's called, or the stopgap funding measure. And even that was not enough to move through the floor this week. So it just shows you how far apart even Republicans are in the House. Deirdre, you said the phrase unprecedented dysfunction a second ago, and I'm going to press you on that because listeners of this podcast know that there's been a lot of dysfunction in Congress in recent years, and this is not our first government shutdown. Why is this one different? I think this one is different because the last time that the government had a shutdown five years ago, Congress had agreed on a couple

of those individual spending bills that Claudia was talking about. For example, the one that funds the Pentagon, the one that funds VA programs. So while it was a government shutdown, it was a partial government shutdown. I mean, I think there were something like 800,000 federal workers that were affected. But this time around, Congress hasn't done any of the funding bills. So it would be a shutdown of essentially all the federal agencies. Now, the government does prepare and, you know, federal workers at TSA, border security agents, you know, national security interests are protected, and those essential workers will still be going to work. But a lot

of the members of Congress who are serving now weren't in Congress in the last shutdown. And a lot of the hard right members that Claudia was talking about, continue to say, like, no one's going to notice a shutdown that's happening in Washington in my district. And some of the more veteran Republicans who lived through that shutdown and maybe lived through the shutdown 10 years ago in 2013 over Republicans trying to shut down the government to repeal Obamacare, they say, look, we've been there. We're going to get blamed. The people that forced the shutdown get blamed. And they're warning these newer members that people will notice. And a lot of them are just thinking, like, maybe they have to learn the lesson. But they're already predicting, like, we're going to be the ones blamed.

And we're going to be the ones that have to pick up the pieces and figure out how to get out of it. Yeah, that's another tough situation in terms of when we look at the scope of how workers could be affected and even the military, what Deirdre mentioned, how Speaker Kevin McCarthy touched on this earlier in the week. And we could say maybe when he was more optimistic, they were going to get some traction on their Republican proposal. And he talked about the weakening of the national security posture that the U.S. would present if its own military is not getting their regular pay and are essentially expected to work for free during this period of indefinite shutdown if we were to see something like that happen. Well, I've seen a lot of reporting kind of indicating this impending shutdown really spells trouble for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Can you all detail a little bit why that is and what a potential shutdown would mean for his future as Speaker? Well, I think part of it is we're seeing echoes here of his initial fight,

even to get the Speaker's gavel. As we all remember, it was 15 brutal rounds before he was able to do that. A lot of infighting within his own party to get there. And then this summer, it was a revisiting with the debt limit fight. And of course, now he is seeing the fallout when it comes to these threats of facing a government shutdown because he's seeing members of his own party, members of the House Freedom Caucus, complain that he gave too much during that debt limit fight, that he helped get that legislation through to lift the debt ceiling with the help of Democrats. They don't want to see that again.

And so now, third time, he's going around with a lot of strong critics in his own wing. So that's why he's facing a lot more trouble this time around. And we're hearing more of these vocal threats to move by Republicans, such as Matt Gaetz of Florida, to try and remove McCarthy from his post. Right. Remember, he only has a four-seat majority. And a lot of Republicans say, like, look, there's like 200 House Republicans who solidly support Speaker McCarthy. There's not really anyone else in the House Republican Conference who could get the job. And we saw that play out in January, right? It took him 15 rounds, but all these other names that were floated, they didn't have more than like nine votes or eight votes or something. And I think that's still the case. I think he broadly still has support among most House Republicans. But because he agreed to these demands during that January fight to be elected speaker, only one member needs to stand up and file this motion to essentially oust him.

And now you have Matt Gaetz, who negotiated that deal, openly talking about it and threatening it and saying the minute he starts working with Democrats, you know, the Capitol moving truck should just roll up to his office and start moving him out. I mean, we're in divided government. I think a lot of House Republicans continue to say, like, look, there's a Democrat in the White House and Democrats run the Senate. We're going to eventually have to pass something with bipartisan support. So that's sort of the reality we live in. Yet there is still this group of hardliners that Claudia was talking about who really just are mad that they can't affect the kind of change that they were demanding in January It's just sort of unclear sort of like when it will happen,

who would even be in the running to replace him right now. There's really no one. But I do think the shutdown is the trigger point. I always think it's important whenever we talk about the government shutdown to talk about the real world impacts, right? I mean, the federal government is the nation's largest employer. This thing that's a political football in Congress is going to have real world effects all over the country. Do you get a sense that lawmakers on the Hill understand or are taking that into account as they're deciding what to do about this? I think some of them are. I mean, I think the newer ones haven't lived through it before. I talked to Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski last week about this idea that some conservatives were downplaying that we haven't impacted at all. And she's like, have them come to Alaska. October 1st is the day that crab fishermen in Alaska need federal permits to start their harvest. And that was a problem

in the last shutdown. So I can tell you that is a problem. And we had to work out a whole situation last time to address it. Idaho Republican Mike Simpson says there are federal firefighters who are running out of pay and we're in the middle of a devastating season where they're already overworked and what if they just stop getting paid? So there are a lot of federal workers who work in states around the country. Obviously, Washington is sort of the foil that a lot of conservatives put out there as like, no one cares, all these workers in Washington are not that productive. But there are a lot of agencies that affect and touch people's lives across the country.

Yeah, some would argue that maybe seeing those real world impacts is what could move some of these members, as Deirdre mentioned, who haven't lived through this before. And to carry your analogy of the political football, there is a chance of a Hail Mary in the next week where something could work out. Perhaps the Senate could send a bill over to the House and maybe the House will reconsider their posture. But that all said, it's one argument I've heard from a few folks is that maybe a shutdown is what's going to be needed to put pressure on House members to move on this. All right. We can leave it there for now. This is obviously going to be the story we're talking about, at least for the next week, but potentially

for the next few weeks. Deirdre and Claudia, get up, stretch your legs. We'll have you back for Can't Let It Go. Thank you. Thank you. Sounds good. And we're back. And joining us now is Franco Ordonez. Hi, Franco. Hey, Miles. And also joining us, Danielle Kurtzleben. Hi, Danielle. Hi.

It's been forever. I was out on parental leave, but I missed you all very much. We missed you, too. We missed you. Oh. And you've been out on the trail, which I'm sure you missed as well. I really did, yes. Yeah, well, it's going to be a lot of that the next year and a half, I think, to make up for lost time.

So you've noticed specifically something about how the candidates in the Republican primary are talking about abortion. Tell us more. Yeah. And let me start by just giving a big picture context in terms of where Republicans are on abortion right now politically, right? Because the general consensus is that abortion cost Republicans in the midterms in 2022. And furthermore, we've seen evidence that that kind of thing is true in the ballot measures on abortion. We've seen in state after state that have had ballot measures on abortion since then, including quite red states, is that voters want more abortion rights than fewer. So Republicans, you would think, would want to be pretty careful in how they're talking about abortion. But the thing is, Republicans also want to differentiate themselves from in how they're talking about abortion. But the thing is, Republicans also want to differentiate themselves from each other within this field. So this is

where they all are right now, is trying to walk this line of talking about abortion, but not wanting to say something that could, down the road, alienate general election voters, or even primary voters who feel a little more moderate on abortion, right? So Trump in particular has been doing something really interesting. Trump has, first of all, been very much taking a victory lap or his second, third, fourth victory lap when it comes to Dobbs, when it comes to overturning Roe, because the three Supreme Court justices that he got onto the court very much set the stage for the overturn of Roe to happen. So in his speeches, he celebrates that. At the same time, he will chastise other Republicans saying, you don't know how to talk about abortion and win elections. I do. But he won't come down anywhere firmly on where his position is on abortion.

He flat out refuses to. He has been noncommittal on a national 15-week abortion ban, which many of his opponents are in favor of. And he has, for example, criticized other candidates' abortion positions, like Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. He signed a six week bill in Florida. Trump has said, I don't like that. But when he has been pressed, like by NBC's Kristen Welker on Meet the Press last weekend, he would not come down to how many weeks he will support. People are starting to think of 15 weeks. That seems to be a number that people are

talking about right now. Would you sign that? I would sit down with both sides and negotiate something and we'll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years. I'm not going to say I would or I wouldn't. Yeah, I mean, I think he recognizes the political danger there. I mean, he is definitely, as he often does, is trying to have it both ways. I mean, it was after the midterms, as you were kind of pointing out, where many pointed to abortion as the reason why, one of the big reasons why Republicans did poorly in those elections. And Trump very clearly, very soon after, blamed it on Republicans and so many legislatures positions on abortion. So it's not, shouldn't necessarily

be a surprise that he's trying to find some wiggle room in making these cases that he knows how to talk about abortion, whereas some of his Republican opponents do not. But I'm also not surprised that he's not being very decisive and definitive and purposeful in the ways that he's saying he will be and exact, because I think he recognizes that could put him in some danger, too, if he's too specific. One thing to add to that, the line he seems to have settled on is, I set the stage for our party to be able to negotiate on this. Before Roe fell, you all didn't even get to have any room to decide where we want this. Well, now I have opened this up. Now we can have a conversation with Democrats about where we want the line to be in terms of number of weeks.

So he's turning to his old standby of I'm the negotiator. But on a topic like abortion, where people have very firm, often pretty black and white views, at the very least, quite firm views, and a lot of people don't know how much they want to compromise on it. I'm very curious how much, how well that line sells him to voters, particularly conservative Christian voters like there are in places like Iowa. Well, it's so interesting because I feel like what we're kind of seeing is Trump almost looking ahead past the primary toward the general election and being a little worried about wading too much into this issue that very clearly could come back to bite him later in the year. Franco, you've done some reporting on this that it seems like as a candidate, he is almost looking past the primary field, right?

Yeah, there's no question about that. I mean, I think, you know, he's barely spending any money. His campaign and his super PACs have completely kind of pulled back on the money that they're spending on attack ads. I think in August, it was like some of the last money that was spent on DeSantis. And now he's really boosted the numbers against Biden in more than a million dollars. He's also putting his thumb on the scale on the shutdown, you know, clearly using that as another reason to attack Biden. He's, you know, skipping next week's Republican debate. I know you guys talked about that earlier in the week. He's going to skip the debate and, you know, really, you know, go at an area that is a favorite of Biden. You know, Biden often calls

himself the most pro-union president. And now Trump is actually going to visit with Detroit autoworkers and kind of try to curry favor with them. So I think it's very clear to Trump and the Trump campaign that they are looking ahead and, you know, really seeing, looking now at his opponents, his Republican opponents in the rearview mirror. Have we gotten any sense from the president, from President Biden on how he's going to respond to some of these attacks from former President Trump? Yeah, you know, so it's been really interesting, you know, for months and months, Biden would rarely even utter Trump's name. And, you know, there's a lot of political reasons for that. You know, he wants to focus for as long as he can on being the president and being presidential and having, you know, kind of a rose garden campaign is kind of how it's often described. By attacking Trump, it really gets into the, you know, the campaign season. And there's concern that that's all you're going to talk about. But Biden's starting to do that.

But he's doing it in more private fundraising events. He was just in New York this week where he attacked Trump with some of the sharpest language to date. He actually told a group of supporters at a New York theater that Trump and his supporters, his quote unquote MAGA supporters, are, quote, determined to destroy American democracy. So that's pretty direct. And he also said that he thought it was clear that Trump is destined to be the nominee and that defending democracy was going to be a key theme in his reelection campaign. That, of course, was a theme in his 2020 campaign and his 2022 message during the midterms. It is very interesting to watch the evolution of Biden's language toward Trump, because you can't necessarily turn back once you start

attacking. That said, he is still trying to be careful in doing it in private events. It'll be interesting to watch. Will he start to do that more publicly as well when the cameras and the microphones are in front of him? And turning back to abortion, I would add that there has also been some not private, but some indirect jabs from the Biden Harris campaign towards Republicans. I say indirect because it's not directly from the horse's mouth here. Rather, ahead of Trump's speeches in South Dakota and Iowa recently, the Biden camp bought some digital ads highlighting Republican positions on abortion so that people would, people in those states would hear this message ahead of and around the time that Trump was

speaking in the state as well. And really, this kind of highlights also that Democrats are very, very ready to make reproductive rights a big part of 2024. And one place you can see this, I would add, is the Virginia state house races that are underway right now. In Virginia, we have this off-off-year election, and we often see this as a preview of the presidential campaign. The Republicans are very much focusing on parental rights, quote unquote, in that state. Things like how race and gender and sex are taught in schools. Democrats are focusing very heavily on reproductive rights. So Democrats and Republicans are watching that state and they're already primed to focus on those two things, parental rights and abortion in the 2024 general election. All right. Time for a quick break. Franco and Danielle, thank you guys so much. Thank you. When we get back, time for Can't Let It Go. And we are back with our Capitol Hill team, Deirdre Walsh and Claudia Grisales. Hi, guys.

Hey, Miles. Hey there. And it is now time for my personal favorite part of the show, Can't Let It Go, the part where we talk about the things during the week that we just can't let go of, politics or otherwise. Claudia, do you want to get us started? I can get us started. So I just want to note, I have a different Can't Let It Go this week versus last week, but I will never let go of Taylor Swift from last week.

I'm just noting. That's permanent. Noted. All right. We've got it noted. Claudia cannot let go of Taylor Swift. All week. I'm just noting. That's permanent. Noted. All right, we've got it noted. Claudia cannot let go of Taylor Swift. All right, you can move on now. So the latest obsession, however, is good TV, this drought of a writer's actor strike that never seems to end. And so that's holding me over. For example, The Morning Show is back. And so thank goodness I'm binging the heck out of that every time an episode pops up, like last night, I'm

running to go see it. And so and it's a really good cast. And it sometimes it veers into the very, very fictional idea of what it's like to be in broadcast journalism. But hey, I will roll with that for these desperate times. And then meanwhile, I'm looking forward to a lot more shows that are coming the Kardashians. It's the family I love to hate. And so I have to watch that show. I'm counting I keep refreshing. I'm like, Are you sure you're not back yet? So I have to wait about one more week, but I'm counting down. And I'm also refreshing updates on Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm. He's supposed to be back this year. So I am counting down to him as well. So thank goodness for these times in terms of these strike times that can hold us

over with still some great shows out there. That is mine. I'm a fan of The Morning Show too. Oh, you are? You're watching it? Yeah. I watched the first episode this season, but I think I haven't caught up on the newest ones. I think it's a little off the mark. Someone who used to work in cable news. Yeah. But I love a good soap opera, and you're right. It has an awesome cast. So you guys are cool with watching TV about broadcast journalism, being in broadcast. You don't't get off work and you're like, I want to go watch, you know, Ted Lasso or whatever.

You know, I want to live in like soccer world. You're like cool just diving right back into broadcast world. I think it's an escape either way. It's drama. Yeah. It's like, what does Jennifer Aniston have to say about broadcast journalism in this character? I have to know. I'm sold.

Fair enough. fair enough. So Miles, what can you not let go of? The thing I cannot let go of is I'm going to go back to my theater kid roots here. We had a Tiny Desk concert published this week with the Broadway cast of Wicked, which I was listening to the Tiny Desk concert on my walk to work today

and just like completely transported me back to being age 12 when my mom took me. It was my first time in New York City. And it was like a week or two before Christmas. And we went and saw Wicked. And like it is one of like my core most magical memories with my mom is seeing Wicked with her. And so I was just like, I don't know, it was a really beautiful thing to remember. And I don't know if you guys, have you guys taken your kids to New York City before? I have. And we actually took my family and my brother's family, we took all our kids to Wicked

probably like the Christmas before the pandemic. Oh, nice. Yeah. And it was really cold and it was a great show. Yeah. It's always a great show. I mean, Defying Gravity. Great show. Yeah, it's always a great show. I mean, Defying Gravity. Great show, great song. I got chills walking to work today listening to it. So shout out to my mom. Thank you very much for doing that. Deirdre, what can't you let go of?

Well, it's shutdown related, but not related to politics. But there was actually a partial shutdown at Disney World this week because a black bear a black bear wandered into the magic kingdom in orlando as all kinds of people were trying to get on rides and evidently they started to shut down and people are like what's going on conservation officials ended up having to rescue the bear bring it back to its natural habitat of it only 90 miles away from Orlando. I always think of them as having to rescue, you know, people from being exposed to alligators. I was going to say, it's nice to hear a Florida story that's not about a gator. I was surprised that they had to rescue people being exposed from a bear in Orlando. It probably watched a Disney movie and was inspired to make the pilgrimage to the Magic

Kingdom. I don't see what the issue is here. They're bears. They're just like us. That is a wrap for this week. Our executive producer is Mathoni Maturi. Eric McDaniel is our editor. Our producers are Elena Moore and Casey Murrell. Thanks to Krishna Dev Kalimer and Lexi Schapittle.

I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And I'm Claudia Grisales. I also cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.