S2 Ep999: Sam Stein: How Do You Negotiate with Nihilists?
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What are the challenges Democrats face with government spending bills?
We are actually between two ferns.
We are. It's nice. I like it.
It's very quaint.
It's very good. We're going to start a little wonky. We're going to do some Capitol Hill machinations talk. And so I promise for the listeners out there in real America, outside the Beltway, who don't care about reconciliation and cloture votes... that I have candy for them coming at the end. But we have to do this. Before we get to the budget, we got Congressman Jimmy Gomez up in segment two.
How are Senate Democrats responding to Republican strategies?
So I hope everybody sticks around for that as well. As I mentioned on yesterday's podcast, there was a kind of a quasi-CR. They're trying to call it a continuing resolution where they're continuing the Biden budget. With some changes. Some serious changes. Yeah. They're going to plus up funding for the military, deeply cut funding to Washington, D.C. They're cutting some other discretionary funding. Elon isn't even listening to the – isn't even responsive to what they actually are passing anyway. This passed the House with one Democrat, Jared Golden, voting for it, but otherwise on a party-line vote. It now goes to the Senate. And it's a pretty complicated situation, actually, for the Senate.
And as the person who's been, like, screaming the loudest, do something, Democrats, stop them, fuck them up, do everything you can, the Senate calculus is, like, not actually that clear.
Are you having a change of heart?
No, no, I think that... We're about to talk about it. But I'm just saying up to top that I think that it's a complicated calculus because... The Republicans do have the votes to pass this if there's no filibuster. So the Democrats have to decide, are we going to filibuster this? Are we going to block this from even coming up for a vote?
Rand Paul, I believe, is a no. So Republicans need eight Democrats to say yes in order for this to pass.
Well, they need eight Democrats to say yes to cloture. This is going to be annoying.
Let's just assume that they're going to treat cloture as the... And I'll be over, right? So they need eight Democrats. And it is a tough one. I feel like I go back and forth on this. Yesterday I was thinking about how if the goal here for Elon and Trump is to quite literally shave the government down to its studs and fire a bunch of people and reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy as much as possible, then this would help them do it, right? Like you would basically furlough all the non-essential employees. Russ Fott would be in charge of figuring out who's essential. And then, you know, if the government were refunded, I'm sure they have some crazy ways of making sure that those furloughed employees don't come back. And if they do that, they don't give them pay. And what kind of outcome is that, right? Is that a good outcome for Democrats? I don't know.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What are the challenges Democrats face with government spending bills?
1:26–1:55
2
How are Senate Democrats responding to Republican strategies?
1:55–11:36
3
What is the controversy surrounding Mahmoud Khalil's detention?
11:36–24:32
4
How are CEOs reacting to Trump's trade policies?
24:32
5
What is the significance of Pete Buttigieg not running for Senate?
18:26
6
How does the podcast discuss free speech issues on college campuses?
12:42–1:16:23
Speakers
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