Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily Net. Later tonight, the U.S. government will find itself in yet another shutdown, this time of only one agency, the Department of Homeland Security. Today, congressional reporter Michael Gold on why Democrats are once again picking a fight over funding with the president. It's Friday, February 13th.
Michael, thank you for making time for us on a busy day where I know we just grabbed you inside the U.S. Capitol. Yeah, a lot happening here on the Hill today, I would say. Well, appreciate you making time for us. As of this moment, at around 3.45 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, it sure looks like we are headed for another government shutdown. But this one has a very unique twist to it.
That's right, Michael. At this point, it looks like at 12.01 a.m. on Saturday morning, the Department of Homeland Security is going to shut down. And it's the only government department that we expect will shut down this time. A single agency shutdown. A one agency shutdown. And that department is about 4% of U.S. government spending.
So if you think about the shutdown we had last year as a full government shutdown and the brief one we had earlier this month as a partial government shutdown, this is a very fractional government shutdown.
A fractional government shutdown, right. And as you're hinting at, government shutdowns have become the norm. But even within that weird new norm, this one is quite unique. So tell us the story of how we get to a single agency fractional shutdown.
So for the last few months, Congress has really been working hard to pass all of its funding bills. And this is something that Republicans, when they took control of both the House and Senate, set as a major priority. They wanted to pass funding bills.
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Chapter 2: What is the unique aspect of the upcoming government shutdown?
They wanted to pass individual funding bills, not one big package, and really hash out policy details for every government department.
Right, and the argument was that that creates more transparency if you have multiple bills funding the government versus one vast, impenetrable bill.
That's right. And a lot of members of Congress had complained that they had constantly been stuck voting for these big packages, but they never really got to haggle on the specifics of what went into those bills.
And so they've been working for months to find agreements, Republicans and Democrats, occasionally the White House, coming together to try to find a way that they could fund the government one department at a time. I mean, they were putting together bills that cleared the House and Senate. They were really working together to try to find compromises on things.
And it seemed like everything was on track until last month when Rene Good was shot and killed by an immigration agent in Minneapolis. And that's when Democrats realized that they're on the verge of passing a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and the Border Patrol.
And so Democrats start to talk about how they can get serious changes to that bill that would impose some restrictions on the federal immigration operations and the deportation crackdown. And they go back to the negotiating table.
with the White House and with Republicans, and they come up with a kind of compromise bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security that includes things like $20 million for body cameras and requirements that officers get enhanced training about use of force and de-escalation techniques.
Got it. So Democrats extract some changes to the way that immigration officials are going to be operating in places like Minneapolis. They seem modest, but they're there.
Yeah.
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Chapter 3: Why are Democrats challenging funding for the Department of Homeland Security?
What ICE is doing outside the law is state-sanctioned thuggery, and it must stop.
— And you see Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, come out and say that he believes that this bill doesn't go far enough. — I don't like shutdowns, but obviously this is important. — And you see a lot of Democrats who usually oppose shutdowns start to demand new conditions.
It's not like we can't pass 96% of those budgets right now and then just work on the Homeland Security one, which we need to address.
Who say that they can't support a bill, even at the risk of a shutdown, if it doesn't impose serious new restrictions on ICE.
And what are the new restrictions that these Democrats start to demand in order to ever agree to fund the Department of Homeland Security?
So Democrats have a number of demands that they're making, but chief among them is a requirement that federal immigration officers visibly show their identification and that they can't be allowed to use masks to hide their identities from the public.
And both of those efforts would seem to very much be pointed at accountability, transparency. An agent's face is visible. An agent's name is visible. So that's what they're really pushing for.
That's right. They're arguing that if you make officers be more public about their identities, it might have an impact on their conduct and make them think about how they're interacting with members of the public. And this is something that Democrats have wanted throughout Trump's second term. They have been complaining about this.
They've argued that it makes ICE equivalent to a secret police force. And now they see this as an opportunity to really demand some changes here. And how does the administration respond to that demand? Republicans and the White House have pretty roundly rejected that as a non-starter. Why?
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Chapter 4: How did recent incidents influence Democrats' stance on immigration funding?
But one thing I would point out is that Democrats are being very careful to make it clear that this is a conversation about the tactics being used by border patrol agents and the way they're interacting with American citizens. And that's an area where they think they can win an advantage, even if immigration has traditionally been a difficult issue for them.
But the question is whether voters will fully embrace the nuance that Democrats are trying to present. And it's an election year, so we will find out by November whether this worked in Democrats' favor.
Michael, thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
We'll be right back.
Here's what else you need to know today.
This is a big one if you're into Environment. This is about as big as it gets, they tell me.
On Thursday, President Trump rescinded the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment. In doing so, he gave up the government's authority to regulate greenhouse gases that cause climate change.
Under the process just completed by the EPA, we are officially terminating the so-called endangerment finding.
The historic move, the subject of yesterday's show, represents a remarkable victory for a small group of conservative activists who have spent years trying to stop America's government-led transition away from fossil fuels toward cleaner forms of energy like solar and wind.
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Chapter 5: What compromises were made in the funding discussions for DHS?
Finally, a programming note. Tomorrow on the interview, my colleague Lulo Garcia Navarro sits down with Giselle Pellico. In 2024, Pellico's ex-husband was convicted of both drugging her and arranging for her rape by dozens of men during a trial in France that shocked the world.
The first time I walked into that courtroom when I discovered their faces, ages 22 to 70, it was really unbelievable to think those people came into my bedroom. They came in there to rape me.
Today's episode was produced by Claire Tennis-Getter and Ricky Nowetzki. It was edited by Rob Zipko and Rachel Quester, contains music by Marion Lozano and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Chris Wood. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bilboro. See you on Sunday.