Government Shutdown Winners & Losers

We break down the key winners and losers of the government shutdown and how the final deal is shaping both parties’ strategy moving forward. We also examine the political impact of the latest Epstein developments and how they’re resonating in Washington. Senior Writer for The Dispatch David Drucker joins us with analysis on both major stories.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go to the hotline and bring in senior writer
for The Dispatch, David Drucker. You can find all of
us working a whole lot more at the Dispatch dot
com and you can follow him on x for the
latest at David M. Drucker. David, it's really great to
talk to you this morning, and let me start here.
Shutdown now over, does either party experience any long term

(00:22):
negative effects from it?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, never say never, but usually with shut well, the
recent experience of shutdowns is that no party, for better
or worse, really experience he experiences a long term experience
of long term after shocks, if you will, right, I mean,
you know, Republicans forced the shutdown in twenty thirteen in

(00:49):
a you know, misguided attempted just to defund Obamacare misguide
because it was never going to work. They exited the
shutdown about sixteen days later with historically for historically bad
approval ratings. They went on to enjoy a red wave
in the twenty fourteen midterm elections, one nine Senate seats,
one and more House seats. So that's been the experience.

(01:13):
Now in the mid nineties, when a United Republican Congress
had a shutdown, war that they instigated with President Bill Clinton.
It revived his approval ratings. He ended up doing quite
well in nineteen ninety six. So you know, these things
can go either way, and I don't think we should
cast judgment now. But my thinking is that people are
so consumed by top of mind issues like inflation, affordability,

(01:37):
housing costs, groceries. But these are the kinds of things
that just are going to They're so important to people's
everyday lives. It's just going to matter a lot more
to something that happened months ago, you know that's now
in the rear mirror.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
And on that note, talking about affordability, I've wondered if look,
Democrats went into this trying to I think part of
the reason was because they had the show that they
were willing to push back against Trump. It was being
demanded of them from their supporters. But also part of
it was because of these enhanced Obamacare subsidies coming to

(02:14):
an end at the end of the year. And while
they didn't get that, they got a vote in the Senate.
I do think that is something that is going to
continue to be an issue. And while Democrats or maybe
a bit in disarray in terms of where the party's
at and how they view leadership and all of that.

(02:35):
At the moment, that can pretty easily shift over to
Republicans as the healthcare cost debate really starts to ramp up.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, look, I think this is an issue that'll continue
to work for Democrats just because of the way the
shutdown site was framed for no other reason, and because
Republicans are on wrecords not wanting to extend the subsidies.
Democrats want to extend the subsidies. There are plenty of
arguments that Obamacare isn't working, it needs to be fixed.
But you know what voters always say is great, great,
do that, but like, what are you going to do
for me today? I have a problem today. The other

(03:10):
thing I'd say, and again this is what we've seen historically,
it really doesn't matter if Democratic voters are upset with
Democrats were not continuing the shutdown, because at the end
of the day, they're going to have a chance to
vote for all sorts of Democratic candidates who weren't involved
in the shutdown because they're not in Congress yet, And
even for those that were or are convers I should say,

(03:31):
and we're involved in this the desire to place a
check on Trump by Democratic voters and by other voters
who just feel like the president isn't getting the job
done is going to be paramount. And by the way,
there are going to be a whole mess of swing
voters and independent voters that would have soured on this

(03:53):
shutdown if the Democrats would have allowed it to continue indefinitely.
They tend not to like chaos ten nights, like governments
that isn't working, and so there are many ways to
look at this.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
We're joined by senior writer for The Dispatch, David Drucker.
You can find all of us working a whole lot
more at the Dispatch dot com. That's what I don't
get from those who are arguing that Democrats shouldn't have
caved here. I don't know how they thought this was
going to end. If this continued into next week, then
even if there were a resolution, you're still looking at

(04:29):
a disruption of the Thanksgiving travel week, which are going
to impact many more people than the disruptions day or
travel have already impacted. Plus you're going to have more
air traffic controllers calling out, more of them needing assistance
from you know, food banks. I mean it was only
going to get worse.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, I think that. I think for the people that
are upset that the shutdown, that Democrats stopped the shutdown
and the ones that did in any event, I think
the way they're looking at it is we were winning
in the court of public opinion, and that actually is
pretty rare. When you instigate the shutdown, usually it doesn't

(05:11):
matter why you're doing it. Voters don't like it. But
because of how Trump and the Republicans handle it, I
think it gave Democrats a chance to do well in
this fight, and they did. But I think that the
thinking here that we're winning in the court of public opinion,
therefore we can win ultimately are two different things, and
I don't think is the case. Republicans were never ever

(05:36):
and I mean it's the only thing I'm sure of
ever going to cave on the issue of Okay, here
is an extension of Obamacare subsidies. Now give us the votes.
If they weren't going to do that, if for no
other reason, and no self respecting majority allows a minority
party to dictate policy, but non principle, because then once

(05:59):
you do that works for everything, or that's the assumption.
Donald Trump also was never going to cave and go
over Republicans' heads and give the Democrats what they want
because he doesn't like to negotiate with Congress. He's a bulldozer.
He is actually not a negotiator at all, except in

(06:22):
foreign policy. Domestically, he bulldozes, and so if he had
any inclination, he wouldn't have been doing all the things
he was doing. So I think Democrats, you know, have
to ask the question, were they willing to shut the
government down indefinitely? And I mean literally indefinitely because Republicans
were not going to cave in this manner, And that's
a political live wire. It's easy to say, oh, we're

(06:46):
winning today. We would have kept winning. But when people
couldn't fly to see their family on Thanksgiving, when they
couldn't fly to have meetings, that meant money in their
pockets so they could feed their families. You know, I'm
in the airports a lot for campaign travel, lot of
middle class people in sales and marketing traveling all over
the country constantly. These aren't wealthy private jetgoers. They need

(07:06):
to get places, and then you have all of the
other fallout. I just even if you know, presume Republicans
weren't going to eliminate the filibuster, and I'm skeptical they
would have ever done that. The government would have just
remained shut down, like indefinitely. And it's the kind of
thing I used to explain to Republicans in twenty thirteen.

(07:30):
You can shut the government down indefinitely, but you're never
going to get Obama to cave on his signature generational
you know, legislation that he sacrificed one hundred Democratic seats
in Congress for. Like, he's just not going to do it. Yeah,
And I think, you know, people that get caught up

(07:52):
in this, they just they don't they don't understand that
their opponent is as dogmatic and willing to fight for
things as they are.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Senior writer for The Dispatch David Drucker. You can find
all of his work, including his reporting on last week's
elections A Report from New Jersey, at The Dispatch dot com,
and you can follow him on X for lots more
as well at David M. Drucker. David, you know, we
always appreciate the time and insight. Thanks so much for
coming back on You Got

Speaker 2 (08:20):
It's a Ryan Gorman Show five to nine every weekday
morning on news RADIOWFLA