Catie Edmondson
Appearances
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Yeah, that's right. I mean, look, I think there was behind the scenes for weeks now a lot of quiet agonizing over how to counter the Trump administration. And that sort of quiet agonizing turned into very public anger this week. And it all burst out into the open this week when Senator Chuck Schumer made a judgment call, essentially, about the best way to combat the Trump administration right now.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
What are you going to do to restore this country back to what our founders created according to the Constitution?
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And immediately that decision faced blowback from sort of all corners of the Democratic Party.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
That's right. As of now, there is at least one major liberal activist group off of Capitol Hill, indivisible, that has called for Senator Schumer to step down as the party's leader in the Senate.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And perhaps most interesting, at least to me, was you saw some dissension from his counterpart over in the House.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York was pressed multiple times at a news conference on Capitol Hill on Friday as to whether he still had confidence in Schumer as the Senate minority leader.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And Congressman Jeffrey's response each time was the same, which was to say... Next question. Next question.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
It was a stunning moment, and it was really remarkable to see this very public fissure.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
So it starts with a fairly typical procedure up here on the Hill, which is we're staring down another government funding deadline. Lawmakers need to pass something to ensure the government doesn't shut down.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Yeah, exactly. Although this time the script sort of flips, right? Because normally what you and I are talking about is how these funding decisions pit Republican against Republican. Right. But what happened here is actually the opposite, is that for once House Republicans were able to unite around this spending bill that Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And the reason they were able to unite around this is sort of for two reasons. One is because it was an entirely Republican written bill. Democrats had no input into what this bill looked like at all. But two is because a lot of them were saying, look, it would be bad for President Trump if the government shut down. Let's ensure that he can continue the great work his administration is doing.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And that is actually what happened. House Republicans were able to pass this stopgap spending bill with really minimal drama. on their side, which is, I think, a fact that shocked a lot of Democrats. And in fact, all Democrats except one vote against it because they want to show that they are standing up to President Trump and that they're taking a principled stand.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Yeah, that's absolutely right. And that infuriates a lot of Democrats. They actually fundamentally hate this bill. They say that this is a piece of legislation that doesn't have the sort of narrow spending instructions that Congress normally gives the executive branch.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And so the argument is essentially this bill creates a lot of slush funds for the administration to be able to use however they want.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And at a moment where Democratic members of Congress already feel that the executive branch is running absolute roughshod over sort of congressional spending prerogatives. Yes.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
That's right. In order to get a final vote on the spending bill, Republicans need to be able to break a filibuster, which means if the bill is allowed to proceed, it's going to require Democratic support.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Well, that is the early indication.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Because of that... This is not something Democratic senators can support. Let's try to draft some sort of bipartisan bill that we can all get behind.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
But clearly that's something Republicans don't want to do. And instead, what Democratic senators find themselves faced with is what many of them describe to me as a really agonizing decision.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
So they're faced with this dilemma, which is which path gives Trump the least amount of leverage? A lot of them, I think, viewed this as a moment to be able to use sort of the little remaining power they have left in Congress in the minority to say, we're going to shut the government down. We are not going to vote to allow Trump to continue the status quo.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
We are going to throw sand in the gears here. We will not lend our votes to support what you're doing.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
That's right. Now, the other option that senators are weighing is a lot of them are very concerned that if they do, in fact, vote to filibuster this bill, Democrats will be blamed for shutting the government down, which is something that we know voters hate. But there's a deeper fear, which is that by shutting the government down, you actually empower the Trump administration even more.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Well, in a shutdown, the Trump administration and specifically the Office of Management and Budget, which is run by a real conservative hardliner, gets to decide which federal workers are deemed essential and which are deemed non-essential.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
So there was a real fear by a number of Democratic senators that this could essentially lead to mass furloughs, could accelerate the mass layoffs we've been seeing of federal workers.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Exactly. And there's a second fear, which is if you shut the government down, how can you ever get it back open? And there's a specific fear that under the Trump administration and with this Republican Congress, maybe they end up opening only the parts of government they like and letting the parts of government they don't like remain permanently shut down.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
In fact, Senate Democrats met three days in a row for these luncheons that dragged on. And you could actually hear sort of them debating, right, yelling during these luncheons because this was a truly difficult decision for so many of them. But it seems like the way that the room is leaning increasingly is that it is leaning toward a shutdown.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Well, Leader Schumer, in fact, on Thursday at this luncheon, shocks many of his members when he stands up and makes the announcement that he is, in fact, reversing himself and has made the calculation that it is going to be better for Democrats to vote to support this legislation, to clear the way for this bill, that shutting down the government is a bad option for Democrats.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
For all of the reasons, Michael, that we talked about, it would actually empower the Trump administration. And he also indicates that he has lined up enough support from other Democrats, of which he only needs a handful, to basically clear the way to make sure this bill can pass.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
This is the moment when a lot of democratic heads explode.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
If you remember, all House Democrats except one banded together, stayed united to show that they were opposing this bill.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And then you have one high-profile House Democrat, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who goes on to CNN.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
I believe that's a tremendous mistake. And says essentially that Schumer is making a huge mistake.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And then you have Senate Democrats who essentially hear Schumer's call and say, thank you very much. I will be voting against this bill and post videos on social media saying that.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
That's right. And then you have kind of the cherry on top, which is when Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, comes back to Washington and gives that press conference in which he refuses to say whether or not he has confidence in Schumer's leadership.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
By Friday evening, when Schumer actually has to take this vote out on the floor to allow this spending bill to pass, that in fact only nine other members of the Democratic caucus vote to join him. And so you have a very stark split screen in which a majority of his caucus actually votes to block the spending bill, votes against his decision.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
That's right. And look, I do want to say in the Senate, just based off of some of the private conversations I was having with Democrats, I do think there were a number of them who sort of the old adage is vote no, hope yes, hoping that there would not be a shutdown, but knew that their constituents, their voters wanted to see them putting up a good fight against Trump.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
But I think the bottom line is elsewhere in the Democratic Party, off of the Hill, over in the House, you see some real rage directed here at Senator Schumer. I can't tell you how many Democratic lawmakers I've spoken to who have said that since the vote, they have had calls from their constituents saying, you know, what are you doing?
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
If this is how Trump's government is going to run, we'd really rather you shut it down. Yeah.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
Yeah, that's right. I mean, look, I think this is going to be the defining question for the Democratic Party in the next weeks and months to come. I don't know how it plays out, but what I do know is that there is a very visceral, real level of anger from the Democratic base right now. It's actually, I think, more akin to some of the moments we've seen in the past from the Republican grassroots.
The Daily
The Weekend Democrats Went to War — Against Each Other
And so I think that's in part why this is such a startling moment for Democratic officials. I mean, they're not used to this from their voters, particularly on this issue. And I think they're still trying to figure out exactly how to deal with it.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
I mean, look, over the past seven years I've been up on the Hill, I've written a lot about sort of the two foreign policy wings of the Republican Party, sort of the traditional Mitch McConnell interventionist wing. And sort of the, at the time, ascendant sort of, they call themselves realists, restrainers, people who did not want to send sort of U.S. treasure, U.S. troops abroad.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And I think what we've seen over the past couple of weeks, at least when it comes to Republicans in Congress, is that that's not really a battle anymore. And that it's over. The anti-interventionists have won. They occupy positions of power in Republican leadership on the Hill. They occupy positions of power within the Pentagon. And so I think Zelensky knows that, right?
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
He knows that he's not going to get any more aid from Congress. And so he has to make a deal with President Trump.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Yeah, I mean, the campaign promises that Maggie highlighted are really tax cuts. It is extending the 2017 tax cuts that his administration passed the first time around. And there are a number of other taxes that on the campaign trail he said he wanted to eliminate. But for a lot of House Republicans, they don't want to just... cut taxes. They also want to cut spending, federal spending.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Absolutely. And so a number of these Republicans have said President Trump, we're very happy to extend your tax cuts to cut taxes more, but we also need to be able to cut federal spending. And that is what this budget resolution that they put to a vote on the House floor on Tuesday night laid out the parameters for. Okay.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Well, this is the balancing act that Speaker Johnson has really had to deal with his entire time as Speaker, which is placating basically both the ultra-conservatives in his conference and the more moderate Republicans, many of whom represent sort of swing districts.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And so you heard some concerns from those more centrist Republicans who are saying, look, I know this resolution we're about to vote on doesn't say that we're going to cut programs like Medicaid or Medicare. But we're looking at the way this bill has been written.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And it seems that almost certainly in order to get to the levels of spending cuts we're talking about, we're going to have to cut programs like Medicaid. And so you had some deep concerns from lawmakers who represent districts where a lot of their constituents rely on Medicaid. At the same time, you had these ultra conservatives say, actually, I think this bill doesn't cut spending enough.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And I'm not sure if I can bring myself to vote for this resolution if it, in fact, is going to increase the deficit.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Well, I don't want to get us into the weeds too much, but the way a budget resolution is structured, lawmakers aren't required to lay out the specific policy changes that they want to make in order to hit these spending targets.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
But it does instruct individual committees and say, look, you need to go and find X number of dollars of cuts when we build this legislation that we're ultimately going to put to the floor for a vote. And so in this particular resolution, lawmakers have told the committee that oversees Medicaid and Medicare spending. We need you guys to find, in this case, $880 billion in cuts.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
So this was yet again another vote on the House floor where we really didn't know if Speaker Johnson had the support necessary to push this legislation through. He's working with extraordinarily thin margins. We saw Democratic leaders actually bring back a number of their lawmakers who have been ill, who have not been at the Capitol,
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Yes, a month ago had a baby come back to the Capitol for this vote, trying to ratchet up the pressure. Speaker Johnson, as he walked out onto the House floor, said, I have the votes. Meanwhile, I was texting with a Republican who had said they were going to oppose the resolution because it added to the deficit.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And they said, by my count, there's three of us who are going to oppose it, which would doom it. And it turns out they both were kind of right. Speaker Johnson was able to push this resolution across the finish line in the end, but it took about an hour. We saw him and some of his deputies really working over about three, four Republican lawmakers.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
These were all ultra-conservative lawmakers who said they didn't want to vote for this resolution because it would add to the deficit. It looked for a while like Johnson was not going to be able to get them to flip. But then something sort of notable happened, which is that the Republican leadership spirited some of these defectors off the House floor.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And when that happened, I thought I have seen this movie before because that is what happened when Johnson was reelected back in January. They took the defectors off the floor and they got a call from President Trump.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Right. And it passes 217 to 215 with just one Republican voting against.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
So what House Republicans have given themselves is they've said we are going to cut taxes by four point five trillion dollars and then we are going to cut spending by two trillion dollars. So essentially you are looking at a piece of legislation here that is going to add to the deficit by two point five trillion dollars. And for a lot of lawmakers, that's a big number.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
Can I just add as well, in 2018, Democrats were able to coalesce around a message that was focused on the attempted repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act, right? And that was an incredibly salient issue. And we saw in 2018, Democrats take back the House after campaigning pretty narrowly on that issue.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal
And a lot of Democrats that I've spoken to in the past few days think that they have a real opening to use that playbook again, If they happen. If they happen. And there's a real excitement and I think energy around that message that, as Zolan pointed out, we haven't seen from Democrats in quite some time.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
I can pick it up because I've been through many of these spending fights now, and the last few of them have been fairly anticlimactic. They've made it through the Senate to President Biden's desk really without much drama. And I think we generally had an idea that that was going to happen again this time. Mm-hmm. And of course, that's not what happened.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Instead, when Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, unveiled the spending bill that he negotiated with Democrats, it included a litany of other measures, including $100 billion in disaster aid for the American Southeast. But it also had all of these other provisions that were added to it.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And so when this bill was unveiled, there was a wide swath of Republicans in the House who were furious with it. And then, of course, we had Elon Musk weigh in, and that really began sort of the final death rattle for this bill.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Yeah, I mean, as Maggie said, I think this is what he expected his relationship with Republican leaders on the Hill was going to be like. You have McConnell leaving Senate Republican leadership, who is often a foil for him on the Hill. You have in Mike Johnson someone who has really tied his own political future to Trump's. At the same time, what was his big success this week?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
It was blowing something up. And that is what he has always been successful at doing on the Hill. But when it comes to the dawn of his second term, there's going to be a lot of building that actually has to happen, a lot of consensus building that has to happen if he wants to pass one or two even major tax bills. And that is going to be extraordinarily difficult.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And I am going to be very curious to see if he's able to use his power to actually build put something together as opposed to just tearing it down.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Well, I think it was pretty clear that this particular piece of legislation was on life support once Elon started tweeting, frankly. We heard from Republicans who were whipping votes on this that they knew that they were hemorrhaging votes every time Elon tweeted. So when Trump weighs in, it basically pushes this bill that was sort of on the edge, just over the cliff.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And Republicans realize that that is not going to be a viable option. And Speaker Johnson is trying to figure out what is a package they can put forward that has the votes to paths that is going to be able to placate these, you know, widely divergent factions within his conference that we've talked so much about. Mm-hmm.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
A real problem for him is that Trump added another stipulation, which is he said, also, I need Republicans in this funding package to lift the debt ceiling, to suspend the debt ceiling, because that is a fight I do not want to have on my watch. He actually says in his statement something to the effect of raising the debt ceiling is never great.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
But if we're going to do it, let's do it on Biden's watch.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Well, this is where the math gets really complicated. As you pointed out, there are a number of Republicans who have said they do not want to vote for a debt ceiling increase at all. There are a number of Republicans who have said that they'll vote for a debt ceiling increase, but only if it's paired with
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
sweeping spending cuts, which again is not going to happen on the watch of a Democratic-controlled Senate and White House. And so then it does become a question of, is there a block of those ultra-conservative Republicans who are willing to walk the plank because it is what President-elect Trump has demanded? And I think it's also an open question, is there a small group of Democrats who
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Maybe particularly those in tough districts who just went through a bruising reelection who maybe want to show off their bipartisan bona fides by saying, you know, I will work with Republicans to avert a shutdown before the holidays. I don't know what the answer is yet. We still have to figure that out.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
I don't know. I don't think the promise was 20 days of a shutdown. Right. Agreed. I think that most people would agree that there's probably a lot of inefficiency in our government that would be rooted out that the American people would love to see.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
I don't know that having a shutdown, which, you know, the shutdown in 2018 that Maggie referred to as partial shutdown, this would be a full shutdown unless Congress passed legislation. some sort of interim measure, right? Was the promise having the troops furloughed? Was the promise having government services TSA over the holidays furloughed? I don't really think that was the pledge, right?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
The pledge was we are going to take everything you hate about government and get rid of it, not we're going to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
So Donald Trump is now officially against passing the funding bill that would avoid a government shutdown four days before Christmas.