Democrats Have Shown Their Hand in Caving to GOP Bill. What Happens Next?

We speak to The American Prospect’s David Dayen about what could be the end to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, after seven Democratic Senators and one independent struck a deal with Republicans to pass a short-term government funding bill. “Why would you end this?” asks Dayen, echoing many in the Democratic coalition who believe the deal was a poor strategic move for the anti-Trump opposition. Calls are now growing for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down. “Donald Trump and the Republicans were being blamed for all of this chaos … and yet, days later this this group of Democrats with the tacit support of Chuck Schumer decide that they’re going to end this and cave.”

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now!’s Juan González in Chicago. Hi, Juan.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: The longest government shutdown in U.S. history has entered its 42nd day, but it could soon end after seven Democratic senators and one Independent joined Republicans to pass a short-term government funding bill that now goes to the House. The measure was passed by a 60-40 vote in the Senate. The bill does not include an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which had been a key demand for Democratic lawmakers. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has agreed to a separate vote on extending the subsidies.

Joining Republicans to approve the funding bill were Democrats Tim Kaine of Virginia, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Dick Durbin of Illinois, as well as Maine’s Independent senator, Angus King.

Some Democratic lawmakers and progressive groups are now calling for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to resign his position as minority leader. While Schumer voted against the bill, he’s facing mounting criticism.

Democratic Congressman Ro Kanna said, quote, “Senator Schumer’s no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?” Kanna asked.

Meanwhile, Congressmember Delia Ramirez said, quote, “Eight Democrats caving to empty promises is an indefensible leadership failure. For the sake of our country, Schumer needs to resign,” the Chicago congressmember said.

We’re joined now by David Dayen, Executive Editor of The American Prospect. Can you talk, David, about what exactly the senators who have agreed to avoiding getting rid of a filibuster — getting rid of the filibuster by getting that 60-40 vote, what they’ve agreed to, and what they haven’t agreed to, and what happens next?

DAVID DAYEN: Well, they didn’t agree to too much. They get this promised vote on extending the ACA subsidies, but there was actually a vote on that yesterday as an amendment to the bill, and all the Democrats voted for it, and all the Republicans voted against it. And there’s no reason to believe that that won’t happen again during this promised vote down the road.

There is three of the 12 appropriations bills that were negotiated in a bipartisan fashion. They will pass for a full year in this bill, along with a continuing resolution to fund the other programs of the government through January 30, and there is a prohibition on the administration firing federal employees. And to me, that shows that the Democrats had the ability and the knowledge to stop the power grab by the Trump administration, but only chose to do it in this one area of reductions in force, rather than extend that to the withholding of funds, the dismantling of agencies, the rescinding of funds.

And so, Trump is going to get a bill and sign it for appropriations to fund the government, but he still could very easily not fund whatever he so chooses under this agreement.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, David, you’ve pointed in particular in a recent piece to section 120. What does that call for, and why is that concerning?

DAVID DAYEN: Yeah, it’s actually not concerning, it’s what I referred to before. Section 120 of the continuing resolution says that no money appropriated during this continuing resolution can be used to fire federal workers. And indeed, the federal workers who were let go during the shutdown must be reinstated with full back pay.

So, that’s an example that we have the ability, as Congress, to reassert itself as an institution and use the power of the purse to say, “Trump, you can’t continue to unilaterally put forward your prerogatives.” The problem is, they just didn’t do it for anything else and therefore were making an agreement — Democrats are making an agreement with someone who has shown an ability and an eagerness not to honor that agreement. And I think that is one of the fundamental problems with this deal.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what do you think in terms of the pressure of the Trump administration, especially around the issue of air travel every day in the headlines on national news, the emphasis on the disruptions being caused in air travel across the United States, sometimes even more than the issue of the cuts in SNAP benefits to the neediest Americans?

DAVID DAYEN: Yeah, I think what frustrates a lot of Democrats is that Donald Trump and the Republicans were being blamed for all of this chaos. The shutdown happened during a time of the off-year elections, and those elections produced huge wins for pretty much all Democrats who were on the ballot. And yet, days later, this group of Democrats, with the tacit support of Chuck Schumer, decide that they’re going to end this and cave in to this pressure.

People don’t really understand when, in a situation where the Democrats seemed to be winning the politics of the shutdown, when Donald Trump was kind of flailing and asking for an end to the filibuster, which, I think, long-term, would’ve been good for the country, why would you end this now? Especially when if this is what you get after 42 days, it calls into question why you even put the shutdown forward to begin with.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to President Trump praising the Senate deal Monday.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: The deal is very good. We want a healthcare system where we pay the money to the people instead of to the insurance companies. And I tell you, we’re going to be working on that very hard over the next short period of time, where the people get the money. We’re talking about trillions and trillions of dollars, where the people get the money.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you could talk about that, what he means by the people getting the money. But on the issue of extending health insurance benefits, while Thune says he’s going to take that as a separate vote – of course, they can vote it down — the House speaker, Johnson, has not said necessarily that he would do that. He hasn’t said either way. So, what do you expect would happen — if that vote were taken in the House, if in fact, this deal gets approved by the House, what do you think would happen? And then, talk about the money Trump wants to disburse.

DAVID DAYEN: Right. Well, the fact that Speaker Johnson hasn’t committed to holding a vote whatsoever just shows you how worthless the ask of a vote in the Senate really was. And again, Republicans already voted down a one-year extension of the healthcare subsidies yesterday. So, I don’t know what that really gets you.

As far as what Trump wants to do, his idea is that these enhanced subsidies, which are about $35 billion annually, they’re not trillions of dollars, that that money would go directly to individuals to then have to purchase health insurance. So, tell me exactly how this is any different than the subsidies lowering the cost of a premium? What I believe Trump wants to do is allow individuals to buy essentially junk insurance that doesn’t really work. It takes us back to a time before the Affordable Care Act, when your insurance was something, when you tried to use it, you had to basically cross your fingers whether or not it would provide any benefit to you or not.

AMY GOODMAN: David Dayen, if you could talk about this call for Schumer to step down as Senate Minority Leader. Now, he voted against the deal, but some are alleging he actually, behind the scenes, was supporting those, like Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and the other senators, in voting for it. And then, if you could comment on Jeanne Shaheen, who seems to be the leader of the group of eight, seven Dems and an Independent. Jeanne Shaheen’s daughter, running for the House this year in New Hampshire, was opposed to the deal.

DAVID DAYEN: Yeah. We’ve reported that Minority Leader Schumer was in constant contact with these eight Democrats who were negotiating an end to the shutdown. He was getting daily updates. And he was very involved, even if he ends up voting against the bill. I think it’s kind of an insult to our intelligence for him to say, “Oh, I had no idea what was going on.”

Only one of two things are true in that instance. Either you’re misleading people, and you were more involved than you say, or you just can’t control your caucus, of which you are the leader. And so, I don’t think either scenario looks very good for Chuck Schumer, and I think that’s why a number of Democratic groups as well as members of the House have said that he should step down. There is actually a mechanism by senators to call a vote on Chuck Schumer’s leadership. And we will see if they end up taking that step. So far, no senator has come out and said they want Schumer to go.

As far as Jeanne Shaheen, she is retiring next year. She is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. One of the facets of this deal is that some bipartisan appropriation bills will then pass. And she seems more interested in her parochial work product to have these appropriations bills pass into law than the signature policy that Democrats have advanced over the last 20 years, which is the Affordable Care Act.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what’s your sense of a bunch of these appropriations bills being postponed now until January? What will be the battle in January, and will the Democrats be able to get any kind of concessions from the Republicans at that point?

DAVID DAYEN: Yeah, we’re here all over again on January 30, and there are still nine appropriations bills that will need to be passed at that time. And now that Democrats have kind of shown their hand, that they are a divided caucus on this matter, and that they have a number of members who are all too happy to just move on, I think it’s going to be difficult to hold together the caucus to get any other concessions in that timeframe.

So, I think it will hinge on what happens as far as the Affordable Care Act subsidies. But one thing I would like to see in that final deal is some more guardrails and safeguards against Donald Trump doing what he’s done all year, which is withhold funds, rescind funds, dismantle agencies.

All of this violates the principle of the power of the purse, the Constitutional requirement that the legislature actually controls the funding of the government, and if Congress won’t stand up for itself, then we have a fundamentally different government than we thought we did.

AMY GOODMAN: Last question, David Dayen. Adelita Grijalva, the Congressmember Elect who represents more than 800,000 people in the greater Tucson area has not been seated yet, to the shock of many, even Republicans, not to mention Democrats. If the House reconvenes, so he could’ve done it anyway, will Johnson have to seat her?

DAVID DAYEN: Speaker Johnson has said he will seat Adelita Grijalva. It doesn’t change the math as far as passing this bill to reopen the government. So, what that means is that there will then be 218 votes on a discharge petition to release the Epstein Files. There is every indication that Grijalva will sign that and become the 218th vote. That means it gets an automatic vote on the House floor, and I would expect that to happen rather quickly after she is sworn in.

AMY GOODMAN: And that comes as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin says, in speaking to a whistleblower, Ghislaine Maxwell, the Epstein co-conspirator jailed for 20 years, is seeking a commutation from Trump, and in the meantime, is getting concierge treatment at a minimum-security prison that she’s been moved to after meeting with Trump’s former personal attorney. David Dayen, I want to thank you for being with us, Executive Editor of The American Prospect.

Coming up, we go to Chicago, where Juan is, but also where protestors are, who’ve denounced federal immigration agents for dragging a daycare teacher out of a Spanish immersion school in front of the pre-K students and parents. We’ll speak to a mother of one of the kids. Stay with us.