Today, Explained - Shutshow

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

The US government is open for business at the cost of Ukraine aid. Semafor’s Jordan Weissmann explains how we got here. And White House communications director Ben LaBolt explains how the Biden administration is justifying the compromise. This episode was produced by Jon Ehrens and Miles Bryan with an assist from Siona Peterous, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact checked by Amanda Lewellyn and Laura Bullard, and engineered by Patrick Boyd and Rob Byers. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Honorable Kevin McCarthy of the state of California, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. Since the dawn of his speakership, Kevin McCarthy's position in the House of Representatives has been tenuous at best. It took him 15 votes to win the position, and it's been a tough road ever since. A military cannot defend themselves if you train them in woke. But this past weekend, he faced his toughest challenge yet, avoiding a government shutdown. Nobody wins in a government shutdown. Nobody wins in a government shutdown. I've been here.

And he pulled it off. All he had to do was work with the Democrats. Now, it might cost him his job. Anyway, that's coming up on Today Explained. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM.

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Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Explained. Jordan Weissman is the Washington editor at Semaphore, which means he didn't get out much this weekend.

We asked him why the government was on the precipice of yet another shutdown. He said it came down to the hardliners, the folks who call themselves the Freedom Caucus. There are a few different things that the Freedom Caucus wanted, and I should be specific. Yes, it's the Freedom Caucus, but because Republican politics are infinitely complicated, it's like a fractal. You keep looking and they're just repeated patterns forever. Some of the hardliners in the Freedom Caucus, some are not like Gates, but he's sort of temperamentally aligned with them. He's freedom curious.

He's freedom curious. Some, like Marjorie Taylor Taylor Greene have been booted from the Freedom Caucus because she was too close to leadership at points. She was too close to McCarthy, but then she became a pain for him later on. I mean, this dynamic is especially fascinating because Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the most pro-Trump, pro-MAGA members of the House, and the Freedom Caucus has long been considered one of Trump's top allies in the House. Anyway, let's just talk about what they actually were looking for. They wanted a lot. It's hard to summarize everything because their demands were a little bit sprawling, but I think you can really focus on three things. One, they wanted bigger spending cuts. And this

sort of goes back to the debt ceiling deal, essentially, they had earlier this year. They didn't get the spending cuts they wanted during that in the final agreement. And so this was their second bite at the apple. So they wanted to cut deeper. We will prevent President Biden's executive overreach to spend money outside the normal process, which President Biden has abused to the tune of... Number two, a lot of hardliners, especially the Freedom Caucus, wanted to deal with border security. As they put it, they wanted more spending on the border. They wanted changes on border policy because, as they see it, the flow of migrants coming across the U.S.-Mexico border has just spiraled completely out of control.

The real issue is not the shutdown. The real issue is the two crises we have in this country, economic security crisis and economic crisis. And number three, another huge issue here is Ukraine. There is a large contingent of the Republican Party, though not all of it, that is essentially done with the war in Ukraine. There is a growing rift within the Republican Party over how and if to assist Ukraine as its war against Russia enters its second year.

They will often connect it directly back to the border. They will say we should be spending that money at home, securing our own borders, not defending somebody else's. And that sort of became a sticking point with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance. And so I think those three issues, spending levels, the border and Ukraine, sort of dominated the discussion. But there was all sorts of other stuff swirling around that, that made it kind of hard to summarize what the conservative ask was here. Were Democrats willing to negotiate on any of the key cornerstones of the Freedom Caucus asks, spending cuts, more spending at the border, and no more spending in Ukraine? Dramatic spending cuts, no. I mean, that's sort of a nonstarter. I think that there there were sort of whispers about whether or not you could see a deal with some border funding for Ukraine, some kind of Ukraine aid, some kind of trade there. But no, in general, Democrats have not been in a mood to negotiate. That, I think, is the gist here is that in the House, Democrats were just not even engaging because they saw the

Republican Party kind of disintegrating. It is one of the basic items that Congress has to deal with and it should be done without condition. So there is going to be there's going to be no negotiation over it. This is something that must get done. And in the Senate, there was this interesting dynamic where Democrats and Republicans were actually just kind of working together in a bipartisan fashion to pass their own budget bills that kind of stuck to the deal that Biden and McCarthy had struck during the debt ceiling showdown. They said, we have a deal. We're going to write bills that fund the government at those levels.

And we are going to include Ukraine funding because this is the Senate where most people want Ukraine funding because this is the Senate where most people want Ukraine funding. So there was kind of two totally different dynamics where you had the House in kind of chaos, mostly because the Republican Party was at war with itself over how to pass a completely partisan bill and the Senate where things were kind of just rolling along pretty functionally. And there was a lot of speculation that the Senate might just jam the house as people on capitol hill like to say that they would just send them a bill and make them eat it and that was going to be the end of story and that's not quite how things played out but if you went back a few days that was sort of what a lot of people were expecting so yeah let's talk about how things

actually played out heading into the weekend shutdown was the word. And then what the heck happened? What happened in the end is that Kevin McCarthy swerved. His strategy was to try to make whatever Herculean effort he could to pass a GOP-only bill, which is, you know, the most conservative bill he could, that would then give him some kind of negotiating position with Democrats in the Senate. That was basically his strategy. And in order to both, you know, give himself a good negotiating position, but also to keep his job and keep his conference happy. And he just couldn't do it. He could not pass even a temporary spending bill. He was having trouble passing the individual appropriations

bills that his hardline members had asked for. What ultimately happened was that after trying again and again to get just Republican votes on a short-term spending bill, McCarthy couldn't get the votes, no matter how conservative he made that bill. There was a point where all kind of looked lost, where he brought up a short-term spending bill with I think it was a 30% spending cut baked into it for a short period of time

and also had the border security money. And the hardliners still said no because many of them just did not want any kind of short-term funding. They are kind of philosophically against the idea of short-term spending bills They are kind of philosophically against the idea of short-term spending bills, so-called continuing resolutions. And so it seemed as if nothing could pass the House until finally he said, OK, fine, I'm going to turn and work with the Democrats.

And what you ended up getting was a sort of what they call a clean continuing resolution. And what it was is basically it kept funding where it was, you know, just continued the government's funding at previous levels. And it also included disaster aid. But the concession that Democrats and some Republicans in the Senate had to make in order to get this thing through the House was dropping Ukraine aid from it for temporarily. So it sounds like Ukraine loses. Who else loses? You could say hardline Republicans because they essentially protested their way out of a deal, right? They didn't get any input in the end, for the most part, on what this short term budget resolution looked like. And I think there

are big questions about whether they're going to have much input on what the final budget looks like, because already you're setting up this situation now where McCarthy is working with Democrats and he's been making comments like it's OK to work with Democrats if it's necessary. He's suddenly talking up the virtues of bipartisanship because some of his members refused to take yes for an answer. When are you guys going to get over that it's all right that you put America first? That's all right if Republican and Democrats join together to do what is right. There has to be an adult in the room. And that might mean that they just get the satisfaction of saying no and kind of fighting their good fight, but they may not have much say over what the final budget looks like.

And I guess the winners here are a little less clear. Obviously, if you're an air traffic controller or a United States service member and you're getting a paycheck this week, you're a winner. But in Washington, did everyone kind of lose here? No, I don't think so. I think actually there were there were a bunch of winners. If you are a moderate Republican, guys like Mike Lawler from New York and Don Bacon from Nebraska, who you hear from all the time, basically urging McCarthy to ignore, as they like to put it, the crazies or the lunatics to his right. These people can't define a win. They don't know how to take yes for an answer. It's a clown show. You got what you wanted with this continuing resolution. He finally just said enough is enough and extended an olive branch to Democrats, at least temporarily, and passed something just to keep the government governing. That's what a lot of moderates have wanted.

If you are Kevin McCarthy, you know, it's a question if he's going to end up the winner or the loser. If he manages to keep his job, he may look like a big winner. If he doesn't keep his job after all of this, then, well, you know, history is going to look at him as one of the losers. Because his arch nemesis, Matt Gaetz, is now saying that he's going to come for his job. That is the next chapter of this drama. The thing to understand about the Gaetz and McCarthy fight is that no one fully seems to have wrapped their heads around it and know all the details, but a lot of it appears to be purely personal.

Huh. That's what makes the whole thing so crazy. You know, I've been joking for a while that Gates is sort of, this is going to age me, but is sort of like the Sean Connery to McCarthy's Alex Trebek, that he's just constantly there.

This is the sound a doggy makes. Mr. Connery. Moole. What a reference. Yeah, just constantly there trolling him, ruining McCarthy's life. Well, that's the sound your mother made last night. But everyone says this, and McCarthy has said this many times, that this is actually just a pure personal vitriol.

You know, this is personal with Matt. He's more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something. And McCarthy has suggested at points that it actually has to do with an ethics investigation into Gates that's going on that McCarthy has refused to try and intervene in. Gates is being investigated in Congress over potential sexual impropriety. The House Ethics Committee launching a bipartisan investigation examining allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and whether Gates shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor. The Justice Department looked into this a while ago, essentially whether or not he was involved in what might have technically been sex trafficking. They decided to close that investigation. It gets

very complicated. But the point is, all of this isn't really necessarily related to policy. I mean, there's some of that Gates will talk about how McCarthy made a deal with the hardliners when it came to things like spending levels and the process for the budget, and that McCarthy has now reneged on that deal, especially by working with Democrats. It is going to be difficult for my Republican friends to keep calling President Biden feeble while he continues to take Speaker McCarthy's lunch money in every negotiation. And so now, because McCarthy broke his word, he is now going to bring what's called a motion to vacate to try and oust the speaker. But no one really believes

this is all just about numbers on a page or about parliamentary procedure. A lot of this appears to be real, real interpersonal hatred. That's pretty great. Miles sent a meme from Godzilla with, what's his name again? Oh, the let him fight meme? Yeah. We'll put it in the show. Let them fight. So we actually have to figure out

what next year's budget is going to look like. I wouldn't want to place a bet right now on exactly what that spending bill is going to look like, what that deal is going to look like. My hunch is it's going to be pretty similar to what they agreed upon in the original debt ceiling deal, assuming that you have this coalition of Democrats and Republicans in the House coming together to push something through and working with the Senate where you already have a lot of bipartisan

agreement on what should happen. That is the substantive thing that has to happen now in the next 45 days. And in the course of that, you're also going to have a fight over Ukraine funding. That's going to be, I think, a big showdown over exactly, you know, do we fund Ukraine? How much do we fund Ukraine? What conditions do we attach to that? That's going to be an important thing to keep your eye on. But then there's also just this regular daily kind of juicy house drama about whether or not McCarthy is going to remain speaker. Well, maybe we'll catch you in like mid-November, Jordan. Sure, I can talk to you about the ins and outs of the Commerce Department appropriations. Jordan Weissman, Semaphore.com is where you can read him.

Everyone in Washington just kicked Ukraine funding down the road, even though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was just here in Washington meeting with President Biden, lobbying for more aid. We're going to ask the White House how it's feeling about the cost of this compromise when we're back on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family, and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame.

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with our new favorite and recently played games tabs. And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. Ukraine. Ukraine explains. It's Ukraine explains. Visit ConnexOntario.ca. Does President Biden see this as a win, a loss, something in between? Which? Well, look, it's a win for the American people. This means that 1.3 million active duty troops will continue to get paid.

It means that air traffic controllers will be paid. We won't have an impact on morale and operations. The Border Patrol will be paid and be able to do their jobs. The 7 million women and children that rely on food and nutrition assistance will still have access to that. If you've got a problem with your Social Security check, there will be someone to call. So this was the right vote. This was the right thing to do. But at the same time, the president believes we've got to stop governing by crisis, and House Republicans have to stop holding the American people hostage. You know, earlier this year, the president, the House and the Senate agreed to a bipartisan budget agreement on how to fund the government for the rest of the year. House Republicans need to keep their word and stop careening from one crisis to another. However, one of President Biden's top priorities,

Ukraine, got the short end of the stick here just, I think, 10 days after he had Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House and promised again that the U.S. was in this fight for the long haul. Has the president called Zelensky now to update him on the situation? Well, the president made clear that he believed that Ukraine funding should have been included here. There's a bit of residual funds that can be used to continue to support Ukraine as they take on Putin's aggression. But now the president and the White House will be working closely with Congress to make sure that Ukraine is funded. The speaker needs to keep his word. There's bipartisan support, bipartisan majorities, and both in the House and Senate to continue funding for Ukraine,

which is important for our national security interests as well. And the president believes that the speaker should keep his word. He's made clear publicly, including this weekend, that he supports continued funds for Ukraine. And that's a top priority for this president to see through Congress. And have the two presidents spoken on the current situation? I don't have any news to make on that front. Okay. When President Biden met with President Zelensky in Washington, he said he was counting on the good judgment of the United States Congress. And earlier this week at the UN General Assembly, I made it clear that no nation can be truly secure in the world if in fact we don't stand up and defend the freedom of the Ukraine from the face of this

Russian brutality and aggression. But the outcome here, you know, a lot of Republicans didn't have anything to do with it. It was Democrats who helped pass this measure. Was that under the president's guidance? Well, look, as I said earlier, the president believes that this bill was a win for the American people. It would have been absolutely untenable to see our active duty troops go without pay, to see 7 million women who require food and nutrition assistance, for that to be cut off, which it would have within a matter of days if Congress refused to act and fund the government. You would have seen air traffic control delays. You would have seen disaster relief control delays. You would have seen

disaster relief funds for communities like Florida and Maui that had been impacted by storms this summer dry up. So that would have been an absolutely untenable situation. The president believes that Ukraine should have been part of this bill. It was not ultimately, but that was the choice facing members of Congress, whether to shut down the government due to these extreme ideological demands from Republicans, who, by the way, just days before, were threatening to cut domestic programs, funding for domestic programs by 30 percent across the board and not fund Ukraine. So certainly, you know, the legislation that moved did move with

Democratic support. But now the pressure is really on Speaker McCarthy to keep his word here and make sure that our support for Ukraine continues. Polling suggests that the American public is losing its appetite for Ukraine aid. Do you think we're getting to a place where the United States will move away from providing as much aid as we have to Ukraine? I think that, and the president believes that our support for Ukraine will continue. He's built a coalition of 50 plus countries around the world supporting Ukraine. If Putin thinks he can outlast that support from the United States and our allies, he's wrong. The president has sent a supplemental funding request to Capitol Hill that he believes that Congress should pass. And our support for

Ukraine has had a significant impact in turning back Putin's war of aggression. There is bipartisan support from both majorities in the House and Senate. Leader McConnell and Speaker McCarthy on the Republican side have said that they support continued support for Ukraine. And so the president is counting on them to keep their word and move this package through. However, we have to address, Ben, that it now seems that Speaker McCarthy could lose his job over this spending bill that y'all agreed on this weekend. Does the White House have any favorites in mind for the speakership if that happens? Well, that's a vote that the president doesn't have, and he'll leave that to the House of Representatives.

That was Ben LeBolt. He's the communications director for the White House. You can find the White House on Twitter, at White House. I'm consistently surprised how sassy that account is. My name's Sean Ramos-Verm. The show today was produced by John Ahrens and Miles Bryan with an assist from Siona Petros. We were edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Amanda Llewellyn and Laura Bullard, and engineered by Patrick Boyd and Rob Byers. This is Today Explained. Thank you.