Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the White House Briefing Room for Monday, November three.
I'm John Decker. It's day thirty four of the federal
government shutdown, with pressure building on both parties to end it.
President Trump puts the blame squarely on Democrats.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Shutdown proceeds because the Democrats just don't know what they're doing.
I don't know what's wrong with them. They've never done
a thing like this. They've become praise lunatics. All they
have to do is say, let's go, let's open up
our country, and everything snaps back into shape. So there's
something wrong.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
With It's a pivotal week at the US Supreme Court,
as the High Court takes up a case that will
decide whether most of the President's unilateral tariffs are legally.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's the most important decision, one of the most important
decisions in the history of our country, because without tariffs,
without our being able to use tariffs really openly and
in every way, we are really would suffer tremendously from
the national security.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Still and the President responds to reports that he's considering
military action against Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Notworthy, you are.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Considering strikes within Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
It is not true. No, they need a decision online,
et cetera.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
But we begin this Monday with the government shutdown now
entering its fifth week. Over the weekend, Democratic senators once
again urged President Trump to get involved directly in talks
to end the government shutdown. The impasse has entered a
crucial week, with the lapse set to become the longest
(01:42):
ever on Wednesday. While the pain for so many American
households and travelers is deepening, Lawmakers had indicated late last
week that they are finally making progress on talks to
reopen the government and begin discussions about how to address
expiring Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies they are set to
(02:05):
leave millions of Americans with sharply higher health insurance bills now,
Democrats have repeatedly blocked a Republican measure to reopen the government,
and they have made talks on healthcare a condition of
voting to end the shutdown. As for President Trump, over
(02:25):
the weekend, he was asked about whether he's willing to
meet with Democrats in order to find some sort of compromise.
Let's listen to the President right here.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I'm always going to meet. All they have to do
is open up the country. Let them open up the
country and we'll meet. We'll meet very quickly.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
But they have to open up the country now. The
President in recent days has urged Republicans in the Senate
to change their rules, to change those Senate rules and
bypass Democrats by getting rid of the filibuster. That would
potentially upset all the delicate negotiations that are taking place
(03:04):
right now. The White House on Sunday gave no indication
that the President would actually jump into these talks. In fact,
a White House spokeswoman said on Sunday, we will only
have policy conversations once Democrats stop holding the American people
hostage and reopen the government. The President reiterated his belief
(03:25):
that Democrats are to blame for this impass.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
It's their fault. Everything is their fault. It's so easily solved.
You know, we have a number of Democrats that have
already voted for this. But the Republicans are very unified,
they're very strong, and they want to do what's right
for the country.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
On Fox News Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that
Democrats are playing political games and the easiest path for
getting the government reopened was for the Senate to pass
the bill that the House is all ready approved. The
shutdown is already a month old. The record is thirty
(04:05):
five days. That was set in late twenty eighteen in
President Trump's first term in office, and that was due
to a dispute overfunding his border wall. This is very different.
This is concerning the decision about whether or not to
let Obamacare subsidies expire. They are due to expire at
(04:26):
the end of this year. Now. Since September, Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer has been demanding talks to extend those
expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies before Senate Democrats will provide
the necessary votes for that Republican bill to reopen the government.
Democrats also recognize that any deal with Congressional Republicans would
(04:52):
require the president's approval, given the power that he has
over his party and his power to veto any agreeing
that he doesn't like. As for the President, he says
he is not changing his view in any way of
the Affordable Care Act.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
We have tremendous support, but it's not even support, it's
common sense. Open up the country. Obamacare has turned out
to be a disastrous I've been saying for years it
can be fixed or redone. People don't get good health
care and their premiums go up every single year, so
we should change it. It's a disaster. Obamacare is bad
(05:31):
health care at a very high price.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Now, Republicans have a fifty three to forty seven majority
in the Senate, but they need sixty votes under the
filibuster rule, and so far only three senators who caucus
with Democrats have crossed the aisle in more than a
dozen failed votes to reopen the federal government. Those votes
concerning the continuing Resolution that has already passed the House
(05:57):
of Representatives. Over the weekend, the President repeated his call
to bypass Democrats by ending the Senate's filibuster rule. If
Republicans kill the filibuster, which they could do with a
simple majority of fifty one votes, the President said on
Truth Social we will immediately end the extortionist shutdown and
(06:20):
get all of our agenda passed. Republican senators, including Senator
John Finn, the leader for Republicans in the Senate, have
largely defended the filibuster, so it does not appear that
they're listening to the President on this particular issue as
it relates to ending those Senate rules. Meanwhile, another key
deadline just hit. The open enrollment period for ACA healthcare
(06:44):
plans started on Saturday. More than twenty million people are
on Affordable Care Act plans, with most getting subsidies this
past year, and now they confront much higher monthly bills
due to the decrease in subsidies due to those subsidies
going away. There is pressure on Democrats in particular, large
(07:06):
federal employee unions and airline executives have urged Democrats to
pass that Republican stopgap spending bill and then take up
those talks. And the reason for that, they say, is
because of the increased hardships for people who have been
furloughed or for federal workers who are working without pay.
(07:29):
On the Sunday morning shows, this issue was front and center.
Senator Mark Warner. He was on Face the Nation on CBS.
He said he's hopeful that the shutdown could come to
an end this week. With President Trump now back from
his Asia trip. Warner said any negotiation will require Trump
in the room. As he put it, he said, it's
(07:50):
why the bipartisan conversation so far hasn't been able to
get to yes. It's because he says Republicans cannot move
on anything without a Trump sign off. Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary
Sean Duffy was on This Week on Sunday, and he
said he expects flight delays and cancelations to continue as
(08:14):
the ongoing government shutdown creates more staffing shortages at airports nationwide.
He said on This Week, we don't want crashes. We
want people to go safely, so we will slow and
stop traffic if we don't think we can manage it
in a way that keeps people safe as they go
(08:35):
from point A to point B. He also warned that
airport delays and cancelations could get worse if the shutdown continues.
The FAA issued a groundstop at Newark's Airport on Sunday
morning due to a shortage of air traffic controllers. Those
(08:55):
air traffic controllers have been working without pay during this
ongoinge going shutdown, and the FAA, in his statement that
was released on Friday of last week, said that air
traffic controllers are under immense stress and fatigue after working
for thirty one days without pay. This will be a
(09:16):
pivotal week at the US Supreme Court. A landmark case
is before the Supreme Court on Wednesday that could determine
whether President Trump has the legal authority to impose tariffs
on every one of America's trading partners. The question that
the Supreme Court will have to answer is whether or
(09:36):
not a tariff is a tex and that answer to
that question could impact the President's entire economic agenda. The
stakes are huge for President Trump and his economic agenda.
For President Trump, the decision by the Supreme Court should
be an easy one. The High Court, the administration has
(09:59):
argued in legal briefs, should back the president's tariffs and
overturn rulings by two lower courts. But should the court
strike down the president's tariffs and uphold those lower court rulings,
the Solicitor General said in those legal briefs, there will
be what he called catastrophic consequences for America's national security,
(10:24):
foreign policy, and the economy. The President, on the flight
back from mar A Lago on Air Force one, said
that he will not attend the Supreme Court case this
coming Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Without tariffs, our country would be a great jeopardy.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Attained the moral arguments, No.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I don't think so, because I don't want to call
a lot of attention to be It's not about me,
It's about our country. I'll be going to Miami. I'm
like a speech in front of a large group of
being belove Miami and said I wanted to go so badly.
I just don't want to do anything to deflect the
importance of that decision.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
In imposing so called reciprocal tariffs, the White House is
relying on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That's a
nineteen seventy seven law which allows presidents to impose sanctions
after declaring a national emergency. No previous president, not even
President Trump in his first term, has ever invoked that
(11:24):
law to unilaterally imposed tariffs. The President says that this
particular law and those tariffs are in America's national interest.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
If we don't have tariffs, we don't have national security.
And the rest of the world would laugh at us
because they've used tariffs against us for years and took
advantage of us. And you see what's happened. We've become wealthy,
our stock market hit a record high.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Now the Supreme Court must decide whether a tariff is
essentially attacks on imported goods and whether giving the president.
This tariff power tramples upon Article one, Section eight of
the Constitution, which says it's Congress's job, not the presidents,
to set and collect taxes and duties. Much is at
(12:13):
stake for the president. American businesses have paid more than
one hundred billion dollars to cover the tariffs that are
being challenged at the Supreme Court, and the President has
said that if the Supreme Court rules against him, the
US would have to payback and reimburse thousands of companies
for the billions of dollars in tariffs that they've already paid.
(12:37):
Also in the news as we begin this new workweek,
there's a drum beat, at least as the White House
is concerned for some kind of military action against Venezuela.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the Trump
administration had identified in land targets in Venezuela, and meanwhile,
there have been at least fourteen American strikes on vessels
(13:00):
in the Caribbean, often of Venezuelan origin. The Trump administration
says these boats are smuggling drugs, although lawmakers of both
parties say the evidence of that is scant. There's not
much there, they say to what the administration is claiming.
As for President Trump, any such attack on Venezuela would
obviously be an active war against Venezuela. Venezuela has a
(13:23):
population of about twenty eight million people, its combined armed
forces total around one hundred twenty thousand people, and the
White House has pushed back on reporting that the President
is planning some sort of military action against Venezuela. The President,
on the flight back from Florida on Sunday, was asked
(13:45):
about the possibility of military action against Venezuela. Was not
true that you played a decision on striking inlandon in Venezuela.
But are there actual plans for those strikes.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
In the near future? How can I answer a question
like that, have plans for a strike or Venezuela? Who
would say that supposing there were? Would I say that
to you? Honestly, Yes, we have plans. We have very
secret plans. Who would say that? You know what kind
of a question is.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Meanwhile, President Trump has threatened potential US military action in Nigeria,
that's Africa's most populist nation, citing what he said is
the targeting of Nigeria's Christian population by Islamist terrorists. The President,
in a post on truth Social on Saturday, said that
(14:33):
he had instructed the Department of War to prepare for
possible action in Nigeria, where he said the US could
go in his words, guns a blazing with the goal
of wiping out Islamist militants in the country. The President
also threatened to halt all aid and assistance to the
country if it continues to allow the killing of Christians. Now,
(14:57):
Nigeria has a population of some two hundred and thirty
seven million people. It split roughly between Muslims, who predominate
in the north of the country and Christians, and violence
against Christians has escalated in Northern Nigeria in the past decade.
That's as violent Islamist extremists like Boko Haram wage and
(15:20):
insurgency against the country's government and expand their influence in
the region. The president was asked by reporters on Air
Force one if the US could potentially put boots on
the ground or have air strikes in Nigeria could be I.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Mean a lot of things, I in visage a lot
of things. They're killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria
and they have other countries very bad. Also, you know
that that part of the world very bad. They're killing
the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We're
not going to allow that to now.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
The US has provided military training and sold the Nigerian
government advanced weapons systems in recent years to improve its
capabilities in the fight against Boko Haram. As for Monday,
a quiet day for the president until this evening at
seven pm, the President will participate in a Virginia tel rally.
(16:18):
There's an important governor's race that happens in Virginia on Tuesday.
And then at seven point thirty, the President will participate
in a New Jersey tel a rally. And there's an
important governor's race happening in New Jersey on Tuesday, and
of course Republicans are trying to flip that seat in
New Jersey and hold on to the governor's mansion in Virginia.
(16:41):
That's the White House briefing room for Monday, November three.
I'm John Decker. Have a good one.