November 4, 2025 • 8 mins
Reporter for The Hill, Mike Lillis, describes how Democrats and the GOP could end the shutdown and save face.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go to the hotline and bring in Mike Lillis
from the Hill to talk about how Democrats and Republicans
could end the shutdown and save face his new piece,
which you can find online at the Hill dot com. So, Mike,
obviously this is something that both sides are looking for,
an off ramp, a way to try to get out
of this without experiencing too much blowback from voters, especially
(00:24):
their voters, the base. So what have you been learning
through your reporting on how this could work.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, yeah, it's exactly right. You know, they're both out
so far on a lamb. You know, Republicans don't want
to negotiate healthcare and until the Democrats reopened the government.
Democrats don't want to reopen the government until the Republicans
negotiate healthcare. And they have broke darka in thirty four
days into this thing. You wonder if there's an out
on off ramp could be found. But in our reporting
(00:50):
talking to strategies on both sides of the aisle, they
say yes, and dude, everybody wants an off ramp. The
economic damage is getting too tough. But they have to
say and they have to make it appear that they
are not caving. So you know, the key to this
thing really is Donald Trump. He's been on the sidelines.
He's been overseas. You know, he's been working on tariffs,
on peace deals in Israel, et cetera, et cetera. He
(01:12):
has not been on the front lines of the shutdown debate.
And that is going to have to pain because this
is go need to be reservable and that that's for
two reasons. You know, Republicans don't want to get out
in front of the president. They don't want to negotiate anything,
and they have Trump come in and say no way
I can support that. You know, they would be humiliated
and it would make it look like they just don't
(01:33):
have any power. Democrats, for a similar reason, don't want
don't really want to negotiate with the congressional leaders up
the here because Trump might swoop in and just tank
the whole thing. So everybody wants Trump to get more involved.
They need another meeting at the White House. The last
one was September twenty ninth, two days before the shutdown.
Of course, it didn't yield anything, and Trump is saying,
(01:53):
we don't want to negotiate at all. But you know,
if the economic damage continues to get worse, then it
doesn't look good on him either. So you know he's
gonna want He's going to be among those who want
the off ramp. So uh. The second piece beyond Trump,
of course, is these healthcare subsidies, these Obamacare subsidies, which
expire at the end of the year. Democrats are really
(02:14):
out on a limb saying we need, we need something
done on them. But nobody thinks that that's going to
happen overnight. That's going to be a negotiation that's going
to take days, maybe even weeks. And so what we're
hearing as here's how you here's the strategy for saving
faith is have Trump say I'm going to meet you
guys on Thursday. Make it make it a hard date.
(02:37):
Say who you're gonna meet with. Is it gonna be
Chuck Chumer, Hakem Jeffries, Is it going to be some
gang of rank and file senators who are you know,
who are the moderates who can reopen the government. You've
got to have a set date. You got to have
a commitment from Trump, and you've got to say we
are going to address the healthcare subsidies that allows Democrats
to say, hey, we've protected your health care. But it
(02:58):
also allows the republic things to say, hey, we didn't
reopen the government until, you know, by by giving away
anything on healthcare. This still allows us to vote against
the Obamacare subsidies, with which all the Conservatives really disliked.
So both sides can claim victory. And again that's the key.
You just got to make sure that everybody can go
back to their base and say we didn't give an inch.
(03:21):
That seems to be the scenario where both sides could
do that.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
We're joined by Mike Lillis from the Hill. You can
read his new report how Democrats and the GOP could
end the shutdown and say face at the Hill dot com.
Do you get the sense that both sides realize that,
you know, coming up against the Thanksgiving holiday, this isn't
going to be a situation that can continue to go
on for much longer that they have to find this
(03:48):
off ramp sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yes, absolutely, And I think it'll happen much even well
before Thanksgiving, just because of the flight delays that you're
seeing now, you know, talking even the Senators as they
were leaving Washington last week had delays out of Washington
National Airport. If they've got delays, that means everybody's got delays.
And that's where, you know, kind of the real world
impact of the shutdown really starts to git home. You know,
(04:14):
up until now, it's affected obviously the you know, the
furlough workers and the federal federal workers who are not
getting paid were not going to work. That's a large number,
but it's a small percentage of the country. So you
know a lot of the countries for the weeks of
this shutdown had not been impacted personally. When it starts
hitting you personally, that's when you start to get you
to get angry. That's when you start picking up the
(04:35):
phone and calling your lawmaker. That's when you start going
to the town halls and giving your you know, your
house and representative and earful and that's what they're going
to start here, and that's when it becomes kind of untenable.
And that's that's the pressure that we saw during the
shoot down in twenty thirteen. That resulted very quickly, you know,
after I shouldn't say quickly, after a couple of weeks
(04:58):
when the flight delays really came to ahead. Then the
pressure became too much for the congressman, and they and
they and they cave. Same thing in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen,
there was a long delay. You know, flight attendants are
central workers. They have to go to work, but they're
not getting paid. And if you miss a couple of
pitch checks, then then you start calling in sick. And
(05:19):
that's what we're seeing. And of course the aircraft controllers
are already understaffed, so kind of a perfect storm of
events that's going to happen here, and you know, everybody's
just guessing. Everybody's just speculating. Trump is very unpredictable, obviously,
but the thinking is that it would happen even well
before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
The faces so far have been House Speaker Mike Johnson,
House Minordia Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader John Dune,
and Senate Minorda Leader Chuck Schumer. Are there players behind
the scenes who are maybe playing an even more significant
role in the direction of this shutdown and that that
(06:00):
work towards finding an off ramp?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yes, the answer is yes, And it's a great question.
And you know, the four leaders that you just mentioned,
their role so far has just been to dig in further. Right,
they're the ones who are talking to the base every day.
They're having these dueling press conferences and these doing four
speeches from the center perspective, just saying, you know, the
other side is to blame. They're even highlighting the economic
(06:25):
damage because they think the other side is going to
take the hit. But behind the scenes, what you're not
seeing is more rank and file members. And this is
this is senator specifically, because the House has been out
for the entirety of the shutdown. The Senate is on
the floor. They're they're staging boats almost every day that
they're in and so they're having these conversations on the
(06:46):
floor and a lot of times what happens in the
case of these constants, and not just on government shutdowns,
not just on government spending, but kind of really complicated
issues like immigration or gun reform. Some of the real
toxic stuff is that you get these you know, Gang
of six, Gang of eight, Gang of ten. You get
some of the more centrist lawmakers on both sides of
(07:07):
the aisle. They're talking on the floor. They say, listen,
we got to get a solution to this thing. We
can go, we can meet privately we can, you know,
then we can get some kind of deal that we
can support. Then we go to our leaders and say, hey, listen,
we we got to get we got to end this thing.
We need to open up the government, and here's how
(07:28):
we can do it where both sides can claim of victory.
That's how this thing is going to happen. I think
it's going to be organic, kind of from the rank
and file, from the ground up, from the backbenchers who
want to be seen. You know. This helps them also
politically because they want to be seen as you know,
kind of reaching across the aisle. They want to be
seen as moderates and the voice of reason up here
(07:50):
in a Congress that's not very popular. So they can
go back home and say we kind of saved the day,
and it kind of bolsters their image and their prominence
and their national stature.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Mike lilis from the Hill with some really great reporting
on the government shutdown. You can find his latest piece,
how Democrats and the GOP could end the shutdown and
save face at the Hill dot com. Mike really appreciate
the time and insight.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Thanks so much, wonderful, Thank you, appreciate you anytimes the
Ryan Gorman Show five to nine every weekday morning on
news RADIOWFLA
Let's go to the hotline and bring in Mike Lillis
from the Hill to talk about how Democrats and Republicans
could end the shutdown and save face his new piece,
which you can find online at the Hill dot com. So, Mike,
obviously this is something that both sides are looking for,
an off ramp, a way to try to get out
of this without experiencing too much blowback from voters, especially
(00:24):
their voters, the base. So what have you been learning
through your reporting on how this could work.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, yeah, it's exactly right. You know, they're both out
so far on a lamb. You know, Republicans don't want
to negotiate healthcare and until the Democrats reopened the government.
Democrats don't want to reopen the government until the Republicans
negotiate healthcare. And they have broke darka in thirty four
days into this thing. You wonder if there's an out
on off ramp could be found. But in our reporting
(00:50):
talking to strategies on both sides of the aisle, they
say yes, and dude, everybody wants an off ramp. The
economic damage is getting too tough. But they have to
say and they have to make it appear that they
are not caving. So you know, the key to this
thing really is Donald Trump. He's been on the sidelines.
He's been overseas. You know, he's been working on tariffs,
on peace deals in Israel, et cetera, et cetera. He
(01:12):
has not been on the front lines of the shutdown debate.
And that is going to have to pain because this
is go need to be reservable and that that's for
two reasons. You know, Republicans don't want to get out
in front of the president. They don't want to negotiate anything,
and they have Trump come in and say no way
I can support that. You know, they would be humiliated
and it would make it look like they just don't
(01:33):
have any power. Democrats, for a similar reason, don't want
don't really want to negotiate with the congressional leaders up
the here because Trump might swoop in and just tank
the whole thing. So everybody wants Trump to get more involved.
They need another meeting at the White House. The last
one was September twenty ninth, two days before the shutdown.
Of course, it didn't yield anything, and Trump is saying,
(01:53):
we don't want to negotiate at all. But you know,
if the economic damage continues to get worse, then it
doesn't look good on him either. So you know he's
gonna want He's going to be among those who want
the off ramp. So uh. The second piece beyond Trump,
of course, is these healthcare subsidies, these Obamacare subsidies, which
expire at the end of the year. Democrats are really
(02:14):
out on a limb saying we need, we need something
done on them. But nobody thinks that that's going to
happen overnight. That's going to be a negotiation that's going
to take days, maybe even weeks. And so what we're
hearing as here's how you here's the strategy for saving
faith is have Trump say I'm going to meet you
guys on Thursday. Make it make it a hard date.
(02:37):
Say who you're gonna meet with. Is it gonna be
Chuck Chumer, Hakem Jeffries, Is it going to be some
gang of rank and file senators who are you know,
who are the moderates who can reopen the government. You've
got to have a set date. You got to have
a commitment from Trump, and you've got to say we
are going to address the healthcare subsidies that allows Democrats
to say, hey, we've protected your health care. But it
(02:58):
also allows the republic things to say, hey, we didn't
reopen the government until, you know, by by giving away
anything on healthcare. This still allows us to vote against
the Obamacare subsidies, with which all the Conservatives really disliked.
So both sides can claim victory. And again that's the key.
You just got to make sure that everybody can go
back to their base and say we didn't give an inch.
(03:21):
That seems to be the scenario where both sides could
do that.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
We're joined by Mike Lillis from the Hill. You can
read his new report how Democrats and the GOP could
end the shutdown and say face at the Hill dot com.
Do you get the sense that both sides realize that,
you know, coming up against the Thanksgiving holiday, this isn't
going to be a situation that can continue to go
on for much longer that they have to find this
(03:48):
off ramp sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yes, absolutely, And I think it'll happen much even well
before Thanksgiving, just because of the flight delays that you're
seeing now, you know, talking even the Senators as they
were leaving Washington last week had delays out of Washington
National Airport. If they've got delays, that means everybody's got delays.
And that's where, you know, kind of the real world
impact of the shutdown really starts to git home. You know,
(04:14):
up until now, it's affected obviously the you know, the
furlough workers and the federal federal workers who are not
getting paid were not going to work. That's a large number,
but it's a small percentage of the country. So you
know a lot of the countries for the weeks of
this shutdown had not been impacted personally. When it starts
hitting you personally, that's when you start to get you
to get angry. That's when you start picking up the
(04:35):
phone and calling your lawmaker. That's when you start going
to the town halls and giving your you know, your
house and representative and earful and that's what they're going
to start here, and that's when it becomes kind of untenable.
And that's that's the pressure that we saw during the
shoot down in twenty thirteen. That resulted very quickly, you know,
after I shouldn't say quickly, after a couple of weeks
(04:58):
when the flight delays really came to ahead. Then the
pressure became too much for the congressman, and they and
they and they cave. Same thing in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen,
there was a long delay. You know, flight attendants are
central workers. They have to go to work, but they're
not getting paid. And if you miss a couple of
pitch checks, then then you start calling in sick. And
(05:19):
that's what we're seeing. And of course the aircraft controllers
are already understaffed, so kind of a perfect storm of
events that's going to happen here, and you know, everybody's
just guessing. Everybody's just speculating. Trump is very unpredictable, obviously,
but the thinking is that it would happen even well
before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
The faces so far have been House Speaker Mike Johnson,
House Minordia Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader John Dune,
and Senate Minorda Leader Chuck Schumer. Are there players behind
the scenes who are maybe playing an even more significant
role in the direction of this shutdown and that that
(06:00):
work towards finding an off ramp?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yes, the answer is yes, And it's a great question.
And you know, the four leaders that you just mentioned,
their role so far has just been to dig in further. Right,
they're the ones who are talking to the base every day.
They're having these dueling press conferences and these doing four
speeches from the center perspective, just saying, you know, the
other side is to blame. They're even highlighting the economic
(06:25):
damage because they think the other side is going to
take the hit. But behind the scenes, what you're not
seeing is more rank and file members. And this is
this is senator specifically, because the House has been out
for the entirety of the shutdown. The Senate is on
the floor. They're they're staging boats almost every day that
they're in and so they're having these conversations on the
(06:46):
floor and a lot of times what happens in the
case of these constants, and not just on government shutdowns,
not just on government spending, but kind of really complicated
issues like immigration or gun reform. Some of the real
toxic stuff is that you get these you know, Gang
of six, Gang of eight, Gang of ten. You get
some of the more centrist lawmakers on both sides of
(07:07):
the aisle. They're talking on the floor. They say, listen,
we got to get a solution to this thing. We
can go, we can meet privately we can, you know,
then we can get some kind of deal that we
can support. Then we go to our leaders and say, hey, listen,
we we got to get we got to end this thing.
We need to open up the government, and here's how
(07:28):
we can do it where both sides can claim of victory.
That's how this thing is going to happen. I think
it's going to be organic, kind of from the rank
and file, from the ground up, from the backbenchers who
want to be seen. You know. This helps them also
politically because they want to be seen as you know,
kind of reaching across the aisle. They want to be
seen as moderates and the voice of reason up here
(07:50):
in a Congress that's not very popular. So they can
go back home and say we kind of saved the day,
and it kind of bolsters their image and their prominence
and their national stature.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Mike lilis from the Hill with some really great reporting
on the government shutdown. You can find his latest piece,
how Democrats and the GOP could end the shutdown and
save face at the Hill dot com. Mike really appreciate
the time and insight.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Thanks so much, wonderful, Thank you, appreciate you anytimes the
Ryan Gorman Show five to nine every weekday morning on
news RADIOWFLA
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