Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Will there be a government shutdown come next Wednesday, October 1st? What should the fight be about? You probably know the basic fact by now. Unless Democrats and Republicans in Congress can agree to pass some version of a spending bill, parts of the federal government will shut down. Top Democratic lawmakers are making healthcare their red line for the shutdown negotiations. Democrats want to keep Obamacare tax credits flowing. They say without them, millions of Americans will see their premiums jump dramatically. Democrats want the recent cuts to Medicaid eligibility that were part of President Trump's One Big bill to be reversed. Without either, no deal. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries: So our position as Democrats is clear. Cancel the cuts, lower the costs, save healthcare.

Brian Lehrer: Jeffries, the Brooklyn Democrat, on MSNBC. Interestingly, some commentators say the shutdown should really focus on other things, demanding cuts to tariffs, or the resignation of RFK Jr., or democracy as a whole, but the Democrats in charge are saying healthcare. On the other side, the top Senate Republican, Majority Leader John Thune, who said he'd be willing to talk healthcare subsidies down the road, also says a shutdown is the wrong way to go about this. Here's what he said on CNN yesterday to Dana Bash.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune: I think everybody is willing to sit down and talk about how to make that happen in a context where it should be discussed, not as a hostage to keep the government open.

Brian Lehrer: President Trump is echoing that sentiment; no negotiations, at least not with him, if a shutdown threat remains on the table. In fact, raising the stakes, news broke yesterday in Politico about a White House Budget Office memo telling federal agencies to prepare to mass fire employees unless Congress can avert a government shutdown.

In that context, the Senate Democrats face the same dilemma they did earlier in the year when they declined to force a shutdown. You remember that. The base was furious at Chuck Schumer, but Schumer's position was that President Trump would use the shutdown to make things even worse, in the Democrats' view, than he was already doing without one. Here we are in September; dilemma unresolved.

We'll talk about all of this now with NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh who joins us from the Capitol. Hi, Deirdre. Thanks for giving us some time today. Welcome back to WNYC.

Deirdre Walsh: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Can you remind us first of what's actually shut down during a government shutdown? It's not all of the government, right?

Deirdre Walsh: Right. Over the last couple of decades, while the government has had several partial shutdowns, there have been changes to how it would work. Some agencies and functions of the federal government are deemed essential, things like the Social Security program. That's mandatory spending that will keep coming into the government, aside from the debate over the annual spending bills, so Social Security checks will continue to go out. National security functions, things like the Defense Department, troops overseas, folks doing border security operations would continue. Those are deemed essential.

Then you get into security at airports. TSA is deemed an essential operation, but federal employees are essentially not getting paid during a shutdown. A lot of TSA agents during the last shutdown didn't show up, and so you saw delays at airports. That's a big question going forward, if this happens, could that happen again? National parks are run by the federal government. Those shut down during a government shutdown. Government departments, agencies, offices in Washington and other satellite offices around the country are essentially shut down and workers are furloughed. Meaning, they are not allowed to come into the office or do any work during a shutdown. They do not get paid during a shutdown.

In the last government shutdown, during Trump's first term in office, there was a law signed that ensured back pay to federal workers in the event of a shutdown, but the memo that you mentioned earlier, this directive from the Office of Management and Budget, is taking things up a notch. It's saying there will be layoffs. Not only could government workers be furloughed and not get paid; they could be laid off. That is taking the threat up to a level that we haven't seen before.

This is the kind of thing that Chuck Schumer worried about back in March. You mentioned that he and other Democrats helped avoid a shutdown back in March and came under immense pressure from the base, and the base was really angry at Chuck Schumer for helping avoid the shutdown, but back then, he was citing something like this happening. The Trump administration does have some discretion in terms of how they decide to make plans for a shutdown, and Russ Vought, the head of the OMB, is showing how he's going to use it.

Brian Lehrer: Well, get even more specific on that if you can. Because I'm reading that the memo specifically targets employees who work for programs where not only the money runs out next week, but where they don't do work that aligns with President Trump's priorities. Can you get more specific about who would be laid off, or what programs would face these more, potentially, permanent cuts?

Deirdre Walsh: I don't know that I can give you specific examples, but I think I could give some examples of places that we know the administration has wanted to make cuts. We've seen it through the DOGE effort, the Department of Education. Headquarters for other agencies in Washington that they're trying to move out of Washington, like the Department of Agriculture. Programs in some agencies that promote environmental protections that the agencies are talking about rolling back anyway. They could use this as an example to go ahead and lay those people off and essentially defund or cancel the programs through canceling the federal workers who run them.

I think it's unclear how far they would take this. We saw Schumer's response to this last night, calling it an attempt at intimidation. He predicted that if there were firings, they would be overturned in court and the administration would be forced to hire people back, which we have seen in the wake of the DOGE cuts that started at the beginning of the year that went through the courts, but the courts have been split, and there have been sort of rolling decisions on that. This could take months. It could be very disruptive.

As someone who lives in the region where there are a lot of federal workers, neighbors I know who have gone through uncertain times about whether or not their cuts were going to be held up by the courts, whether they had to go back to work, whether they were going to be RIF'd, as they call it, reduction in force. It's a very disruptive environment, and it could be a lot more disruptive if there's a shutdown and the OMB follows through with what they're saying they're going to do.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your calls are welcome, for NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh at the Capitol, on shutting the government down, potentially. Democrats, Republicans, anyone else, welcome to call in. Are you in a job or a recipient of services where you think you might be affected? 212-433-WNYC. Is this the right time, from a Democrat's perspective, for this fight, or in this way, are they picking the right fight?

Republicans, should party leaders undo the filibuster – we'll get into this question – to avoid the possibility of a shutdown? Republicans who are cautious on that say it'll come back to haunt the next time the Democrats have a 51-vote majority and can't get to 60 on something, which is what's required at the moment. Or anyone else on any aspect of the shutdown, politics or policy, with the midnight Tuesday deadline looming. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Questions or comments. Call or text.

Deirdre, I said in the intro what Democrats are basically asking for. Can you flesh that out for us a little more? Are there certain healthcare numbers or constituencies? What's the list of demands as specifically as you know them?

Deirdre Walsh: Right. Well, the Democrats did propose their own alternative bill. That actually failed to advance in the Senate last Friday. Just like the Republican bill that was a straight extension of current funding through November 21st that failed. The Democrats proposal would, as you noted in the intro, roll back the Medicaid changes that were part of the President's big tax bill that he signed in July. It also would extend, for 10 years, the subsidies that are in place as part of the Affordable Care Act that help middle-class and working-class people buy health insurance plans. Those ACA subsidies are going to expire at the end of December, and Democrats want them extended.

There's other money in there for public media, but the heart of this debate for Democrats, as we heard from Leader Jeffries, and we've heard from Chuck Schumer in the run up to this is their argument that this is all about protecting healthcare and rising costs for healthcare, and what would happen to costs for healthcare if those ACA subsidies go away. They say that the costs of premiums would rise, in some cases, hundreds of dollars a month. They argue that there would also be a cost to the broader healthcare system, that healthcare would be expensive even for people that aren't relying on federal subsidies.

I think the issue-- Let's just say that the Medicaid changes that they want repealed, that is a nonstarter. The President and Republicans on Capitol Hill are never going to agree to roll back the core part of a bill that they signed in July. There are Republicans who do have concerns about the impact to healthcare costs for these federal subsidies going away. There is a place where you could see the two sides potentially coming to an agreement, and maybe you see an off-ramp for Democrats, but as we heard from Leader Thune, and we've also heard from the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, they believe that is a December policy debate, not a September funding bill debate. They're not saying no; they're saying no for now, and they're certainly not agreeing to the Democrats' proposal of a longer-term extension.

There are some Republicans who are saying, could we extend them for a year? Could we reform how they work? Could we put an income cap on people who get them? You could see that there's some place to have that debate, but we are days away from a shutdown deadline, and there are no bipartisan talks.

Brian Lehrer: I mentioned in the intro that other commentators are suggesting other things that this fight should really be about, in their opinion. Nate Silver in a New York Times column said, go for the tariffs. Dr. Jeremy Faust, in his Substack newsletter about public health, says, go for RFK Jr.'s resignation. Part of both of their thinking, it looks like to me, is that those are hotter-button issues for more Americans and would generate more support. Some other people even say, do it just to oppose authoritarianism, and you won't win in the budget fight with a shutdown, but you could win by losing and continuing to build an anti-authoritarian movement, as those critics see it, by shining that light.

Are party leaders having conversations like these?

Deirdre Walsh: I haven't heard party leaders talk about making those demands as part of the shutdown. There are some lawmakers who have made similar statements about things that Democrats should be pushing for. Some just say very broadly. Chris Murphy from Connecticut, a Democratic Senator, has said, look at what the Trump administration has done already. They've claw backed money that the Congress has approved. They've cut programs, laid off federal workers, done things without consulting Congress. Why should I fund what he says is like-- I don't know if he calls it authoritarian. I can't talk this morning, but he says like, why should I give any money to an anti-Democratic administration that's destroying American democracy? He's just a hard no for giving any money to the Trump administration to keep doing what he says they're doing that is in defiance of Congress's role. That's the broader argument against cooperating at all with Republicans or the President to avoid a shutdown.

In terms of these other asks, Congress hasn't asserted its role in the tariff debate in decades. This is a power that belongs to Congress, and over Democratic administrations, Republican administrations, they have given up that power to the Executive. It seems very unlikely that they're going to try to wage that fight. I also think it may be harder for voters to understand how changing tariffs would impact them directly. I think that's why Democrats are very laser-focused on rising costs of healthcare, which they believe most people can relate to or are already dealing with themselves.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to read one text and take one call on the argument for the Democrats letting the government shut down. Listener writes in a text, "The Dems should let a shutdown happen and encourage a national general strike. Everyone who is unhappy with this administration needs to speak up together." Let's see if Marie in Brooklyn is going to build on that texter's thought. Marie, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Marie: Hi. Yes, 100%. Everything you just said, everything the texter just said, shut it down. It can be a very simple press conference from Schumer. We're shutting it down. All the points you just made. Sure, throw healthcare in there, but honestly, it's like it's not really the driving thing. This president is dismantling the Constitution. He's got an insane person running the Department of Health and Human Services, not to mention all the other departments. The misogyny. Everything. We're shutting it down. It's his responsibility. He won't negotiate with us. He's the president. By the way, release the Epstein files, and then he can have a mic drop moment and walk away. It doesn't have to be that hard.

Brian Lehrer: Are you concerned, to push back on that, from what some Democrats are saying that Trump is going to follow through with this threat to fire so many more federal employees, further dismantle agencies that aren't focused on his priorities, and there would be more harm than good done?

Marie: Well, it's like negotiating with terrorists at this point. You know what? He's done it before. The greater damage is already happening. He's going to do it anyway. He's going to do something else. He's going to blame it on the Democrats. Let the Democrats push back for once and say, it's his problem. He's the president. Let him figure it out. He won't talk to us, so everything that happens is on him.

Brian Lehrer: Marie, thank you.

Marie: Figure out how to get these talking points. It's not that hard. I feel like they overthink it, and then we end up where we are.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call. We still have some open lines if anybody else wants to get in on this. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Of course, the text messages are flowing, and that line doesn't fill up. Same number, 212-433-9692, with NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh. Five days and a few hours before a potential government shutdown.

Deirdre, I want to get your thought on the suggestion in the text. I'll read it again, "The Dems should let a shutdown happen and encourage a national general strike. Everyone who is unhappy with this administration needs to speak up together." We get comments like this from listeners from time to time. Like, the Democratic politicians may do what they do in the context of Congress, for example, but what they should really be doing is fostering more of a mass movement. Of course, that would take private sector activists as well.

Do you hear any of this among congressional Democrats as you cover your beat, trying to not just hold the shutdown and have the publicity around the issue of healthcare and business as usual, but trying to use it to launch something like, in the listener's words, a national general strike?

Deirdre Walsh: I hear this sentiment, certainly from lawmakers, that they feel like they really need to push back harder. A lot of progressive lawmakers were very frustrated that there was a segment of their party that, back in March, did not fight, and they feel like given what has happened in the last few months with all these other activities where the Trump administration has clawed back money that Congress approved, that they need to do more.

I think there is a big frustration that they're in the minority. What they can do in terms of legislation or pushing back effectively at the national level is very limited. It's essentially, deny Senate Republicans the seven votes they need to let these funding bills go through. Only one Democrat, John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, voted for the bill that passed the House narrowly on Friday.

I think that there is some frustration about the divisions inside the Democratic Party, and the fact there really isn't a national leader right now. There was a split between Schumer and Jeffries in March. They're trying really hard now to show that they are in lockstep, pushing back at the President, putting out joint statements, putting out joint letters pretty much every single day.

I do think that lawmakers are hearing from their constituents, like we heard Marie earlier, essentially say that the Democratic lawmakers have to really do everything to push back. They're hearing that from voters back home, like, "You guys aren't doing enough." I think there's a real frustration with their inability to get on the same page the last time and how deflated the Democratic base became after that, and they really don't want that to happen again.

There are going to be real-world consequences of a shutdown, and lawmakers who represent districts with a lot of federal workers, or programs that are going to be shut down that they care about going away, that's a big dilemma that a lot of people are going to have to wrestle with in the next five days.

Brian Lehrer: Some texters are a little more cautious. One writes, "Which pain is worse, the pain caused by a government shutdown or the pain already being inflicted?" That caller seems ambivalent. Another one writes, "Just because Chuck Schumer is uninspiring doesn't mean he's wrong." That comes from the cautious, you-might-do-more-harm-than-good side from a Democratic perspective.

Douglas in Union City is calling with a question. Douglas, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Douglas: Good morning, Brian. Longtime listener, first time I called in. It's not a question. I just wanted to remind listeners, it bugs me that even if there's a government shutdown, the elected representatives to Senate and the House get their salaries because their salaries, as it states in the Constitution, cannot be lowered during their term in office. Thank you very much.

Brian Lehrer: Well, are you implying something with that? That, that could be used as leverage by one side or another because people would resent, I think you're saying, that members of Congress continue to get paid while the furloughed or laid off federal workers don't?

Douglas: Judge-- I'm sorry. [chuckles] Brian, I don't really have an opinion as to what other people are going to think. I just think it's entirely unfair that they can shut down the government and still get paid and prevent other people from being paid.

Brian Lehrer: Douglas, thank you very much. That's funny that you call me judge. Are you a lawyer?

Douglas: Tough to guess. Yes.

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Well, I haven't been nominated to the bench quite yet, nor did I ever go to law school, nor am I the home run champion of the New York Yankees. Deirdre, what about the politics of that? Just the fact that the members of Congress would be getting paid, I guess that would adhere to the disadvantage of whichever party is blamed for the shutdown, and whichever party is in Congress is doing it or is blamed for it as opposed to the President.

Deirdre Walsh: Right. What Douglas raises has come up in previous shutdowns. Several lawmakers from both parties have proposed legislation to bar lawmakers from getting paid in the event of a shutdown, but then it gets into this issue – and Douglas is the lawyer, not me – about whether that's unconstitutional. In the past, during a shutdown, lawmakers have donated their salaries to like a food bank in their district or something else, a fund for furloughed federal workers.

This issue comes up regularly when we face the threat of a shutdown or are in a shutdown. Also, it gets to this issue about who would be to blame. I think we can look at in the past, how that's played out, but I'm not sure the politics of the blame game are the same now as they were in previous shutdowns. We can talk more about that if you want.

Brian Lehrer: Deirdre, Your Honor, we're going to take a break. We'll take more phone calls and texts, and we'll get into the actual state of the negotiations because that's evolving too, as we preview a possible government shutdown Tuesday night at midnight, and talk about the demands and the counter proposals and the counter threats and the actual negotiations that could lead to averting it. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we continue to talk about government shutdown politics with Deirdre Walsh, NPR congressional correspondent. Let's talk about the negotiation process to avoid a shutdown. Top Democratic lawmakers Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries had been asking to meet with President Trump. After putting a meeting on the books, the President pulled out of it on Tuesday and, in a social media post, called the Democrats' demands "unserious and ridiculous."

What does Trump pulling out of the meeting mean for the prospect of a shutdown? Is it anything, or are talks going on behind the scenes because they have to and Trump is just posturing for public consumption?

Deirdre Walsh: I think canceling that meeting definitely increased the prospects of a shutdown. I'm not aware of any backchannel talks, and we've been pressing leaders about that very issue. Are your staffs talking to the White House staff? They have said really no contact at all. There have been some talks between Republican staffers and Democratic staffers, and Hakeem Jeffries indicated that he had talked to the Speaker, not necessarily on the substance, but had some conversations with him, but there are no real negotiations at all about averting this shutdown. I think the rhetoric has just ratcheted up, and I think the release of that OMB memo last night increases the chances of a shutdown even more. It just raises the stakes and puts people- hardens their positions so far, from what we've seen, the reaction from leaders.

Brian Lehrer: It's not just Democrats negotiating with Trump. Maybe even more salient is the negotiations between the party leaders in the Senate. Politico reported yesterday that John Thune, the Republican leader, and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, have all but stopped speaking to each other "with each saying the other bears the burden of actually starting any conversation." Does your reporting indicate that too?

Deirdre Walsh: Yes. They don't have a close relationship. They get along, but they haven't really negotiated on much. Thune has pushed through a very aggressive Republican agenda, obviously the tax bill that he passed without Democrats, the rescissions package clawing back money. He hasn't needed to really deal with Schumer on anything other than the spending bill back in March, which Schumer, with his back up against the wall, ultimately helped pass, and that got him endless amounts of grief with the Democratic base.

I don't think Thune thinks it really helps him to be very close to Thune, and the same thing with Thune. I think their relationship is very transactional. I think the Thune signaling that he is fine talking about healthcare later, but not on this bill is an opening for Democrats to figure out whether they want to take that or if they need something else to agree to a funding bill.

Brian Lehrer: The calls and texts are continuing to come in. We'll take another pair, I think, one on each side, on whether this is a good idea for Democrats. Tina in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tina.

Tina: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. As I listen to the sides, I think- I believe there should definitely be a shutdown. I think that like your guest was saying, that memo makes the stakes higher and really throws it back in their lap because they changed that in order to make it harder, supposedly, and more painful and try to demonize the Democrats for not passing the budget.

I do think it should be limited to healthcare for this particular year's discussions. Assuming that it's about another year until this comes around again, then we can make it the big giant issue of the authoritarianism in the next negotiation because that's for the midterm elections. I think by then people will have experienced so much strife that even people on the other side of the aisle are likely to be disgusted with this authoritarian plan, and it would make a huge rallying cry for the midterms next year. This year should be used as a trial and proof to the Democratic- from the Democratic leadership to its constituency that they have grown a spine. That's what I think.

Brian Lehrer: The devil's advocate question would be, why wouldn't voters in congressional swing districts next year take it out on the Democrats just as likely if they caused a shutdown?

Tina: Right, and in addressing that question, I think that first of all, we'd have a lot more power behind us, especially if we lose this one and people are starting to pay through the nose for healthcare and so on. It's a question of why aren't Democrats doing something. The response to your query is really that the leadership, the Democratic leadership says, you guys asked us to a grow a spine, and this is us doing that and we're proving it to you. If we fail in this, it isn't because we didn't fight like hell.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much for your call. I think we're going to get a different point of view from Mike in Woodbine, New Jersey. Mike, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Mike: Hello, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Okay. What you got?

Mike: Great. I think what the Democrats really have to do is come up with a Contract with America, like Newt Gingrich did in '94, and have actual proposals of what they want to do. Just stonewalling and fighting and shutting down the government without anything to offer the people is really not going to do anything. It's going to be back at square one. It's just yelling and screaming and doing that. Trump knows how to do that much better. The way to defeat Trump is to offer something better in a calmer way, and they just are not doing it. They have nothing to offer. I see no proposals. They put a very weak candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, who offered really nothing, and they were defeated.

Brian Lehrer: Mike, thank you very much. Of course, people have been arguing since November whether it was Harris as a weak candidate or other structural things, how late Biden waited until dropping out, and a number of other things, but on his thought about going forward, Deirdre, he references 1994. For people who don't know that history, it was Bill Clinton's first term as president. He had a Democratic-majority Congress. He lost that majority in the 1994 midterms.

Newt Gingrich, as kind of the leader of the Republicans – I'm not sure he was the minority leader, but he was certainly the publicity leader – did develop this so-called Contract with America, which was some conservative but poll-tested to be generally popular policy proposals, number one, number two, number three, number four, that people could cite and debate. The caller, Mike, says the Democrats aren't doing that and they should do that.

What would any Democratic leader say to that comment?

Deirdre Walsh: I would think they-- what they have said recently is they are doing that, that they are planning to do that for the 2026 midterms. Jeffries has said that they are working on something and that they plan to roll it out. When I was a baby Hill reporter back in 2006, there was something called Six for '06 that then Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi put together, that was essentially their stab at a Contract with America. They won back control of the House, and she became the first female Speaker based on that policy platform, here's what we'll do if you give us the majority. I think that she and other Democrats are saying Democrats need to do that again in a 2026 version of it. Wow. It's 20 years later, but I think that we will see that. I think we'll see it closer to the midterms.

There is a lot of frustration from the base, like, no one's in charge. Who are the leaders? Where are ideas? I think the issue the Democrats have is getting to an agreement about what should be in something like that is pretty hard to get to because of the splits in the Democratic base about what economic proposals should be in there. I do think there will be a strong anti-corruption message policy plank in whatever platform the Democrats put out because they believe that message helped get them the majority back in 2006 because that was a big-- they called it the culture of corruption that they were running against, and they're saying that a lot about the Trump administration. If you look at some of the recent news developments about business dealings of key cabinet members, the Trump family, they view that as something that voters want to push back at.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a clip of Chuck Schumer in a press conference on Tuesday, getting ready for the argument around asserting blame if the government does shut down.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: By refusing to even sit down with Democrats, Donald Trump is causing the shutdown. This is a Trump shutdown, and he's barreling right towards it right now.

Brian Lehrer: Now as a point of recent history, Deirdre, in 2018, during Trump one, there was a long government shutdown largely over Trump's demands to fund the border wall. I think that most, though not all, polls afterwards showed Americans largely blamed Trump. Are the President and the Democrats calculating likely blame differently this time?

Deirdre Walsh: I think they are. I think Democrats argue the Republicans have control of the House, the Senate, the White House. They're the ones in charge. They would be blamed if there's a shutdown. I think that Trump scheduling a meeting and then canceling the meeting plays into that argument. I think that Republicans privately were not thrilled that the President agreed to meet with Democrats because their strategy was like, just pass the funding bill through November. We'll have these healthcare talks after that.

When the President agreed to meet with Democrats about these healthcare demands now, that really undercut Republican leaders in Congress. I think they were not pleased that that happened, but the canceling, I think, does help Democrats' arguments say that they won't even talk to us. They're the ones in charge. In the past, though, the party that's put demands on a funding bill gets blamed for the shutdown. We saw Republicans in 2013 demand that Obamacare be repealed. President Obama was in the White House at that time. That wasn't going to happen. They ultimately gave up after a shutdown.

I don't know that the politics are the same in 2025 that they were in 2018 or 2013. Also, you think about the Republican base, they don't like government. They might not be worried if the government shuts down. Some of them may applaud it. There isn't as much blowback on Republicans. I think Republicans in swing districts, Republicans in districts with important federal programs that would go away would have a big problem with it.

Brian Lehrer: One listener texted a few minutes ago, "Party leaders on both sides are chicken, totally afraid, and each just covering their asses and saving their own political skins, all to the horrifying detriment of America and American democracy." Then that same listener heard you say that the Democrats are developing a Contract with America type of policy proposal list for next year, and that same listener wrote again, this time more exasperated, and wrote, "The Democrats are planning to do this next year? By now it's too little, too late."

Why wouldn't they do that in the context of this? If this is the big-- This is when the annual fiscal year starts for the federal government, October 1st. That's why we're doing this now. Why wouldn't the Democrats, even though they're in the minority, put out a list of policy proposals, Contract with America-like, Six for '06-like, to use that other example you cited, and say, here's our list of essential proposals, not just restore healthcare funding for the next fiscal year, and have the debate that way?

Deirdre Walsh: I think the reason they're not doing that now is because they want to center this fight on healthcare, and they think that's a cleaner message to fight about the costs, like costs of healthcare, rising costs. I think whatever policy platform that they put out has to address the economic pain that people are feeling and rising costs, not just of healthcare, but housing, groceries, et cetera, along with any sort of anti-corruption message. I think that they're trying to center this as, we're fighting for your healthcare; they're fighting for billionaires' tax breaks that helped pay for their tax cuts.

I think that maybe they think people aren't paying attention and will pay attention closer to an election, which is why maybe they wouldn't put out details of something like that. Plus, they haven't agreed to that, anything in terms of that big agenda yet, and that's going to take some time. I think what you're hearing from that listener is the frustration that a lot of the base has is like, what are these guys doing in Washington? Why aren't they fighting more? Why aren't they getting something done for us? I think that is going to be a constant issue in the days leading up to the shutdown, and if we get into one, how we get out of it.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. By the way, I'm surprised that the Obamacare subsidy cuts do take effect as soon as the end of this year. I think some of the other healthcare cuts, a lot of the Medicaid stuff, correct me if I'm wrong, was purposely scheduled by the Republicans not to kick in until after the next election, so people wouldn't be feeling the pain when they decide who to vote for next November in the midterms. Why this?

Deirdre Walsh: That was a deliberate move by Republican leaders to get swing-district Republicans to vote for this big tax bill because they didn't want to have to see the real-world impact of some of those cuts going into the November 2026 midterms. There were some Republicans who were warning, hey, we should probably deal with this ACA issue too because that's coming at us, but Republicans didn't want to spend the money. It's expensive to extend those.

Just as a reminder, those subsidies were expanded and increased under the Biden administration during COVID. The reason that these higher subsidies for more people more broadly were put into place is because of a bill that Democrats passed in the Biden administration.

Brian Lehrer: Before you go, just for a little civics lesson, because I think it's really relevant. Why can't Republicans just force the bill through the Senate? They have the majority.

Deirdre Walsh: Right, because there's a filibuster rule, and for legislation, you need 60 votes to advance legislation. Republicans have a 53-seat majority. They can approve the president's nominees with a simple majority, and they've done that for many, many nominees. For legislation, unless it's this special tax bill that's called reconciliation, that's done once every budget cycle, and that's how they pass the tax bill with a simple majority, but for all other legislation, they need 60 votes. There's been a big debate over the years about whether they should change the filibuster rules, but then people say then the Senate just becomes the House.

Brian Lehrer: Ironically, they can kill the 60-vote rule with a simple 51-vote majority. Why don't they do it right now? What's the argument within Republican circles about why not to kill the filibuster the rest of the way? Because as you say, they already did kill it for a lot of nominees. Why not do it now?

Deirdre Walsh: I think that Senate Majority Leader John Thune remains an institutionalist, and has said that he believes that that should be the way the Senate operates. That's just the way the Senate was created by the founders to be a different body than the House, and that changing that would radically change the political dynamic in the Senate. In the past, in President Trump's first term, he often told Mitch McConnell, who was then the majority leader, you need to get rid of the filibuster, and McConnell, very much an institutionalist, refused to.

I think that there are some Senate Republicans who back Trump and would be fine changing it, but it's the be-careful-what-you-wish-for dynamic because Democrats were the ones who changed the nomination threshold when President Obama was president, but then when Trump was elected, it allowed him to install his Supreme Court justices, which we've seen the impact of the Court with a new conservative majority.

Brian Lehrer: NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, thanks for giving us so much time on just one little NPR member station, and thanks for being so informative. We really, really appreciate it.

Deirdre Walsh: Well, my family is from the area, so shout-out to the Walsh clan up there.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come. Stay with us.

 

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