September 17, 2025 • 35 mins
Nate and Maria share their reactions to last week’s assassination of conservative organizer and activist Charlie Kirk, who died after sustaining a gunshot wound at a speaking event on a Utah campus.
Then, they debate the Democrats’ strategy as a government shutdown looms — and Nate says what he would do if he were Chuck Schumer.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I'm Nate Silver. Today on the show, it's a
politics focused episode. We're going to talk about the story
we think we have to talk about, at least a
little bit, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the conservative influencer,
a tragic and scary event, and we're going to carefully
have a little bit of a heart to heart about it,
(00:51):
and then we're going to talk about more pedestrian politics,
talk about the potential looming government shut down in Washington
and what both parties might be strategizing about for that.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah, I think this is going to be an interesting episode,
a really interesting conversation. And also for our listener, this
is going to be the first week where we are
going to a twice weekly schedule of Risky Business, so
we will now be in your feed twice a week.
And yeah, we hope you enjoy that, and we'd love
to hear your feedback about how you think it's going.
(01:31):
On that note, Nate, let's turn too. You know what
is I think on the I mean on the more
serious side of topics period, but in terms of the
types of things we talk about at Risky Business. It's
definitely on the very serious end of that, which is
the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And you had actually met Charlie, right, Nate.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I never met Charlie.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
No.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I think he sent me a DM once and invited
me on his show when it said something that riled
up Democrats, and I ignore most invites if we're being honest,
it was nothing personal. But yeah, I'm sure. Look, I
wrote a piece at my sub stack about this, which
is kind of how, you know, you don't have to
say anything. Why don't people just kind of be more restrained?
(02:13):
And maybe we're violating that here. I'm not sure. Look,
I do think that there is I called it like
an implicit fraternity, I guess a slightly gendered term, but
an ocur about like people who comment about politics for
a living right and people who are in the public
eye and obviously you go on Twitter or Blue Sky
whatever else. Right, there's a lot of debate about what
(02:34):
type of political citizen Charlie Kirk was. But but still,
when somebody is assassinate and I mean, you know, I
spoke at a in an open public forum in ames Ioweat.
I was at university two days after Kirk was killed,
So I mean, it's not not in my head to
be looking out at the crowd. And you know, when
(02:57):
you get the weird questions later after the show, it's like, Okay,
what's going on here? And you know, I mean, I
don't know. I've certainly gotten death threats before. But but
I mean, Charlie Kirk is also a little bit hard
to characterize, right. I was struggling with whether to call
him an activist or an organizer or a provocateur, or
(03:18):
an intellectual or a media personality, right or what exactly.
I'm not sure it is actually a perfectly comparable figure
on the left, because the left and right are asymmetric,
but like someone who was very influential right, who kind
of like bridged the gap between when he was friends
(03:41):
I think, just not friendly, but I think Trump would
call him a friend with Trump himself right, and had
like a quite large audience.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, I think whatever we call him, Nate. What I
would like to stress is he was someone who exercised
his First Amendment right incredibly well, eloquently and freely, as
he should have been able to do. And I do
want to stress a truly important point, which is that
we can't conflate speech violence right like people love to
(04:11):
say that, oh, speech can be violence. No violence is violence.
Whether or not you agree with Charlie Kirk or you
disagree with him, he was practicing free speech. He was
engaging in debate. And that's something that you know, we
should be doing in a democracy, right. We should be
talking to people we agree with, we should be talking
to people we disagree with, we should be having conversations.
(04:32):
That's the backbone of critical thinking, that's the backbone of progress,
that's a backbone of society. And the fact that someone
can be assassinated for exercising free speech is something that
should absolutely never happen. And as you say, nay, you
were doing an event right afterwards, and it definitely I
(04:52):
think as someone you know we both do public events,
we both do public speaking, I think it changes your
kind of risk calculus, risk framing when you see, oh
my god, have we gotten to the point in a
society where people think that this is okay, that this
is a legitimate response, that if I disagree with someone,
(05:13):
you know, violence is okay.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, And there's also a chilling absolutely right, huge chilling
people with what they say and also whether they get invited.
I mean, one case with some questionable similarities, but Sam
and Reshti was attacked at a big festival in rural
New York a couple of years ago. There was a
flat blaw against him, and I suppose that was of
(05:36):
a chilly partly fulfilled, right, and.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
He almost died. By the way, he was incredibly lucky
to survive. People thought he was going to die. He
has lost vision and what I it was. You know,
it was a very very close call, but that could
have very easily gone the other way.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
But you know, part of the joy, I guess of
doing an event in a community, particularly a smaller community,
is that the doors are open, right, you know, I
have have you been to a political convention like the
Democratic Republican convention before?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I never have, No.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
I mean, the security is incredible, Like it takes an
hour to get in there, it takes twenty minutes to
get out of there, right there is it's very cumbersome
and in some ways it's like not very conducive to
political protests or political speech, right, And of course parties
that want to suppress political protests often use threats of
(06:28):
violence as an excuse to say, Okay, we don't want
you people protesting about Gaza or Bernie Sanders or whatever
else in the convention halls, so we can't let you
in for security reasons. But yeah, I mean, look, in
some ways, there's not that much to say about if
you don't know him, about Charlie Kirk, the you know
(06:52):
what I mean, Like I don't there's this whole game
about like using this as a positioning exercise for where
people fit into the discourse. And I don't know. It's
I was fucking shot like on a university. Get this
in cold blood, right, It's like you know, I mean,
I you know, no one even has the pretense anymore
(07:13):
of Oh, let's quote unquote not politicize this. And by definition,
although there's a little bit of ambiguity still, and like
the shooter's motivations, I wouldn't say that much necessarily, but
some right, by definition, and an assassination is a a
political act, right, And you know, I think this is
(07:34):
becoming more common. There's something to beat about that fact, right,
But like, you know, I don't know. I mean, it
was just last year when when Trump cat shot and
I'm going to be a little joking about it because
he survived, and that was kind of the mood about it, right,
he had that that, you know, I had just busted
out of a tournament poker tournament Balted's poker. I'm like, Maria,
(07:54):
I won't see you for dinner because I busted out,
and I think somebody just shut Trump. But immediately it
was clear that Trump hadn't survived and had this triumphant moment,
and so it was almost you know, I was kind
of out wandering around on the strip getting a sad
little dinner with the other people who busted out, and
people there were kind of excited, right, It's like, oh,
that's cool, he survived, right, And that kind of detracted
(08:15):
from the magnitude of what that event had been and
how scary that could have been. And I think you're
you're seeing now, yeah, what happens when you create somebody
who can be a martyr potentially.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And I'll go a step further, and Nate, I think
that that was a precursor to another moment that people
made light of, which was the December assassination of Brian Thompson,
the CEO of United Healthcare. Right where people actually made
Luigima Joon into kind of this hero, right folk hero, like, yes,
(08:51):
you went after the bad guys, and we talked about
it on the pod back then, where like, holy shit, guys,
this is a horrible reaction, like this is not what
you should be I don't care what you think about
you know, healthcare in America or what you think about
United or all of these things. This is not the answer,
right violence that like, this is not okay, This is
never something to be celebrated, and yet people were celebrating it.
(09:14):
So I think that we've seen kind of this progression
that in some ways has led us to this moment
where you think, oh, you know, first of all, this
is the right way to solve it, and secondly, like
I could even be a hero right for killing someone
who you know, people disagreed with or thought they did
something bad. And it's just so profoundly fucked up to
think in those terms and to think that this is
(09:37):
just something you do. Right. This is why we have society,
This is why we have laws, This is why we
have norms of behavior, This is why we live, you know,
in a civilization and not in the wild West, where
the way that you solve things was to duke it
out with guns.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, look the way I kind of look at civilization.
Like again, it's amazing that you're in New York and
it's a city of eight billion people and everyone has
different objectives on their mind, and there is lots of
petty crime from day to day and other things, and
yet the kind of center holds, right, But the center
holds I think some narrowly right where you have a
lot of I'm going to confuse centrifugal and centripetal. Right,
(10:14):
you have a lot of forces pulling out into chaos.
Then you have forces holding people together, including policing, including
common decency, including common sense, right, and kind of everything
in between, and like it might not take that much
for things to fall out of equilibrium. And maybe and
maybe social media is that. And you know, I don't
(10:36):
think things have calmed down very much on Twitter, right,
I've covered a lot of news stories and like five
days no matter what the story is of things not
calming down, it's a little unusual, right. You know, you
also have people who are getting fired for saying thoughtless
(11:02):
or I was gonna say un pc which is I mean,
I think it is kind of like a political correctness issue,
right if people fired for saying things that in some
cases are I think stupid and tone.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Deaf, but like still a fireable effects, like yeah, look in.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Some of them. You know, Matthew Dowd is my former
ABC News colleague, and I think Matthew Dowd's a lowheart
and an idiot, But I think you should be fired
for being a low heart and an idiot in general
about almost every issue that he weighs in on, and
not on a short preparation TV hit when it wasn't
clear what had happened about saying Okay, well, this guy
(11:40):
was kind of encouraging what I mean. You know, I
don't think his comment is correct, but it's also like
it's within the realm of free speech that I think
Charlie Kirk is relatively not hit theocritical about free speech
and would have wanted right to support absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
And this goes back to what you said at the
beginning night, which I think we should just stress a
little bit more, which is the chilling effect of this right,
the effect that this has on free speech more broadly,
on what both feel like they can and can't say,
and the fact that there are now these like very
strong repercussions for rights that you should have right and
(12:18):
even going a step further. So there was a piece
in New York Times that pointed out that defend Secretary
Pete Hegseth had said that the agency was monitoring and
tracking any military personnel who celebrated or mocked Kirk's death,
and Christopher Landau, the Deputy Secretary of State, said that
the administration would be stripping visas from any individuals who
(12:40):
celebrated Kirk's death. So you know, this is like it's
going further and further right from oh, you might be
fired to you might have your visa taken away, and
I've I mean, that's frightening. Everything about this moment is frightening.
I want to also point out something that you mentioned
about New York and like the fact that New York
functions and sometimes you think, oh, how precarious is that?
(13:03):
There's actually a lot of work in psychology that shows
that it is quite precarious. Right, Social norms are per careus,
that norms of behavior are precarious, that we are often
kind of walking on a razor's edge where it can
go in one direction or another, depending on what prominent
people say, you know, depending on what people think that
(13:24):
these things do shift and can shift very rapidly. So
I think we should just remember that, you know, social
norms that we take for granted, we shouldn't take for
granted they they do need to be protected, or we
might end up devolving, which is what I think we're
witnessing right now speaking about, you know, the increased political
(13:58):
violence security, I think this is a good moment to
shift gears a little bit and talk about the potential
government shut down and funding because one of the things
that is happening is that the White House has requested
fifty eight million dollars in security funding for both the
executive and the judicial branches after Charlie Kirk's assassination. And
(14:22):
this is basically they're trying to insert this as part
of the stop gap bill to prevent a government shutdown,
which is looming on October first. So this is clearly
something that is being used. I don't know if it's
being used as a pretext or if this is actually
(14:43):
something that they should be doing, but it's interesting that
this is making its way from something that happened last
week to something that is a key provision in a
bill that can prevent the shutting down of the government, which,
by the way, night, I feel like we have an
impending government shutdown. So frequently these days.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Should I get a quick background or for I have
a story place down? So like in the spring, was
it March or whatever? In the spring, Republicans had to
pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open. People
thought that bill might get stimied in the House with
the gup he has a very narrow majority, and they
passed it party line vote, I think, with one exception
(15:26):
on each side. It went to the Senate, where for
that type of legislation the filibuster is still under the
rules of the Senate. So ultimately Democrats debated to shut down.
Public commentators debate a shutdown. I actually wrote a post
I guess it was after they didn't, after Schumer had
conceded it was about to concede, saying Democrats should have
had a shutdown. I thought it was good opportunity. I
thought they could highlight dough spending cuts and take advantage
(15:49):
of Elam Musk's on popularity. But Schumer and what was it,
you know, seven or so other Democrats voted for cloture
to and a filibuster, and so therefore the bill passed. However,
that resolution was for six months, and it expires at
the end of this month, September. Say, thirty first, I
think this how many days this is? Had?
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Have?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Thirty September thirtieth.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
I remember night. I think I told you about my
little uh the little thing that you can use.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I know, yeah, you know. September feels like a thirty
one though, right, it's a pretty fucking important month. September
might be the best month.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
It is an important month. It's such a great weather month,
back to school month. I love September. But it's a
thirty day month. Unfortunately, good things never last night, good things.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Never last Okay, uh, sorry I lost Okay, So anyway,
this time though, it's Democrats October one.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
October one is when the government would shut down.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
This time though, it's Democrats who seem to want to
shut down. So Chuck Schumer indicated late last week that
he had canvassed his caucus and they are inclined.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
That sounds really inappropriate. Well, you canvass my caucus. Sorry, sorry, guys,
this is important. Oh all right, So he'd canvassed his caucus.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yes, and there was appetite in the credit caucus to
make demands. I suppose about healthcare, they want to extend
Obamacare subsidies in Medicaid and restore Medicaid cuts that were
made in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act not my
term for it, the official piece they have the legislation.
And meanwhile, lots of center and left of center commentators,
(17:29):
from as Reclined to Robert Wright to everybody else's been saying, yeah,
we need a fight. Democrats can't concede to this, although
they don't really agree on the whys or the what's
exactly right, but there's agreement that something must be done.
That Schumer was so much of a pushover last time
that this is one of the few points Democrats have leverage.
(17:49):
I when you want to cash that in for like
a big media moment or for actual concessions, that you
have to it's time to do something.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, I mean, I think that Schumer learned his lesson
a little too well from the last time, when he
got such horrible coverage, such horrible press for making the
deal right where he said, look, I'm just I'm doing
what needs to be done, and he came off looking terrible.
But I think that the other strategic moment, and I'm
not writing a piece about this night, so please, you know,
feel free to chime in, is I think that Democrats
(18:21):
are seeing this as a moment where they can really
start creating kind of new messaging for mid term elections
and for you know, for presidential elections moving forward, to
say that, you know, we are the true party that's
protecting the people. Right. The reason that we're doing this
is we want you to have your healthcare, your medicare.
(18:43):
We want it not to be cut. You know, we
want all of these benefits that are being lost with
rural communities for the working man of America. We want
to protect this and that's what we're trying to fight for.
And I think that's also part of the messaging and
part of the things that they are trying to make
sure get changed in the reconciliation before the bill moves forward.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I mean, there are different theories, right, I mean, look,
partly it's like are yousing there with like the chest
tern slugs zugs wing. I don't know how to say it,
and yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Have read it, but let's explain it. Because my familiarity
is very passing, to the point where I too, Nate,
do not know how to pronounce it.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
It's a situation where every move you make is worse
than no move, right, that you would prefer that it
was your opponent's turn. And like so, like let's say
Democrats supplied the votes for the Continuing Resolution, I mean,
you know, and try to de escalate this. I mean
(19:44):
you know, I mean they would look like pushovers. Schumer
in particular. I mean, first of all, he is up
for reelection, not next year, but in twenty twenty eight.
You have a lot of people coming after Schumer. Right,
there are lots of you know, to state obvious names,
AOC she doesn't run for president, for example, or Zaren
who knows, right, can't be president because he was born
(20:05):
U gone it, but he could run for Senate, right,
But a lot of talented and all the MSNBC loving Democrats. Right,
But there's gonna be a lot of demand for Chuck
Schumer's seat, right, and as well as if he survives electorally,
then maybe his role as majority leader and so he
kind of I think has to do something right. And
(20:26):
the kind of Ezra Cline argument is that if you
supply votes for this continuing resolution. Are you not tacitly
endorsing this government that you say is authoritarian and acting
in bad faith and corrupt even before you get to
the fact that they are evscerating a lot of priorities
(20:48):
that Democrats hold deer and I kind of buy that.
I kind of buy that as a default in politics,
that doing the thing that you believe in and or
is consistent with your overall messaging. Right. I think that's worthwhile,
and we've seen I think repeatedly that like Democrats, sometimes
the rhetoric exceeds that they're actually willing to do. Right.
(21:09):
I think we've talked about so many times, don't have
to draw on it anymore. I think if they have
really regarded Trump two point zero was an essential threat,
they might have thought more carefully about about how fit
Biden was to run for a second term. They might
have thought more carefully about whe Kamala Harris was the
optimal person to replace him, and so to sound whatever,
might have thought more carefully about We've been through all
(21:29):
that on this program before, Right, But like you know, so,
I support the notion that like put your money where
your mouth is. On the other hand, there's like not
really a good endgame for democrats here. I don't think
it's not clear what endgame they want, right, because on
the one hand, I think that Ezra Calase is more
like we just want to have change the narrative, change
(21:52):
the discords. And by the way, Trumps approval rating is
not really moving very much, right, So like it's like
not like he's in some stings. It's about a net
negative seven negative eight, right, So it's like, you know whatever,
forty three percent approved, fifty one percent disapprove, somewhere in
that range, right, And it's not really moved. It has
not moved because of Jeffrey Epstein. That has not moved
because of of of whatever scandals there are. Right, we
(22:16):
don't have any data yet. We'll be affected by the
Charlie Kirk the first segment, right, But like it did
seem to move for tariffs about three months ago or
excuse me, six months ago during Liberation Day was a
big drop in April, and it's been steady since then.
And so like, you know, there is a notion of
increasing variants for democrats, I think, and kind of changing
(22:37):
the discourse, changing the dialogue. But you know, here's the issue.
I mean, if you offer a deal on healthcare, the
problem is it's kind of a deal that like might
be good for the GOP, you know what I mean,
where like all these swing state representatives might say, yeah, actually,
I'm pretty uncomfortable with these Medicaid cuts, right, and Okay,
(22:59):
I'll take the I'll take the deal, right.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I don't know if Trump would sign it, but.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Like now, I think I think some of the biggest
losses in medical coverage are happening in states like Arizona.
We're somewhere around like three hundred thousand people are set
to lose coverage under the big beautiful bill come October first,
of changes aren't made, and Arizona is obviously a state
that's you know, very important for Republicans, so there are
(23:30):
I think this is a this is an issue that
could be bipartisan in the sense that it's something that
Democrats care about, but it's actually something that can help Republicans.
And I think that if they're thinking about if the
GOP is thinking of midterm elections, right, if they're thinking about, okay,
which seats are up, then they might start realizing, hey,
(23:53):
like if this bill passes as is right. If these
cuts actually pass, if all of my constituents suddenly realize that, oops,
like where's my medical coverage? Like what just happened? Maybe
I'm not going to get reelected, Like maybe I'm not
going to look at as good. And you wonder why
they didn't think about this before when they were passing
(24:14):
the big, beautiful bill, but you'd be I've been shocked
at how many people have been like, oh, well, I
didn't really read that part of it, you know, I
didn't really I didn't really realize that that was in here.
And I'm like, wait, I'm sorry, what, Like, isn't that
your entire job? Or you have aids to do it
and to summarize it for you so that you don't
have to read it, but like, come on, like what
kind of a.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
If we talked about the change to the text treatment
of gambling laws, right, that also.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Was kind of in so we actually we actually haven't
talked about that on the show.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So I think that's that's something that we call Until
gambling conductions are fully restored, I will not be there's authoritarian.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Menace and we'll be back right after this.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
You know what I would do if I were shimmer,
what would you do? I would demand concessions on tariffs,
little little funky interesting more So, there are a couple
of reasons, right. One is that, I mean, look, Republicans people,
congressmen are stupid, right, so like the fact that like
this would be they're fucking stupid, Like why aren't you
(25:35):
going to Congress if you had, like honestly, like why
are you in Congress if you had like real talent
to contribute? I know, I guess I know some Congress
when I take I take that back.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
But like Nate, Nate, Nate, okay, and my co host
has gone on the record that has say that congressmen are.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
If I ever testify, no, but like I mean, okay, yeah,
just take the deal. It's a good deal. It's the
Luca Docich trade. Like, let me just take the deal.
You're gonna get something that like it will actually soft
in Trump's image and help you be re elected. Right,
And Democrats can say, oh, we held up, we were
so tough. Right, It's like, okay, deal, it's done.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
But now talk about tariffs. Why do we think that
they should also be pushing for tariffs?
Speaker 2 (26:21):
So for one thing, like again, I do am a
buyer of the EZRA argument that like, you might want
to pick something that is more abnormal, and the terrorists
are abnormal, both in the sense that we haven't had
these tariffs almost one hundred years and the fact that, like,
you know, you're abrogating Congress's role to regulate taxes and
collection of spending in BacT. The case will be litigated
by the Supreme Court, so it might become a point eventually.
(26:41):
But like, but like you know, I think that is
more of a pain point between Trump and the GOP.
I think highlighting, you know, the economic news is worthwhile
for Democrats. We've had bad jobs reports lately. We also
had a revision that covered Biden's last year and Trump's
(27:02):
first half year, right where like, actually we've been overestimating
the number of jobs that were created. Maybe a little
bit easier to understand now. People were fed up economy
last year. But but like, I think terrorists are a
better pain point. I think I think they're a hard
deal for the GOP to take. They're the one issue
that's improven to hurt Trump's popularity, and they get a
(27:22):
little bit at the lack of at the extra legs,
shall we say, constitutionality, right, not respecting traditional norms where
it's like you could have the healthcare fight with Mitt
Romney or Nikki Haley as you're as your president, right.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
So you're saying that they should pick something that is
that really seems to be out of the ordinary, that
is like something that we're it's I don't know if
out of them, but like that has surpassed all of
the norms and is really.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
It's it's hard because like if you laundry live, I
mean the thing, you know, a lot of things that
are out of the ordinary, are totally non germane to budgeting,
are obscure, or are unpopular, right, I mean, like you.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Know, but Tariff's is something that can be a point
around which you can actually coalesce, and it is something
that is more i wouldn't say popular, but more in
the popular mind because there are these downstream effects that
are starting to be felt by the way. We haven't
really talked about, you know, the FED that much on
(28:30):
the show, but this is all tied up right with
the FED rate cuts, you know what's going to be
happening there, Like this is a much broader conversation.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, And I mean, look if you had things like, Okay, well,
Trump shouldn't fire try to fire Lisa Cook, one of
the chairmen on the board of the Federal Reserve. Sure, women, right,
it seems like this mortgage stuff has been trumped up
in her case, or he shouldn't have fire to the
BLS commissiony like, those things might appeal to someone like me,
but they're pretty freaking esoteric to like the average person.
(29:00):
Whereas terraffs, you have a little bit of everything right.
You have a message about how the economy is not
doing very well, you have a message about like Trump
overstepping his bounds, and that still gives you a legible
cause to find this is one of the most unpopular
things that he's done.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Do you think that they would have a shot if
they actually pushed the tariff stuff? Because I think you're
absolutely right, like, this is genuinely unpopular, and before it
was passed, a lot of Republicans were like, whoa, whoa,
wo he's not actually going to do this, right, we
know that this is terrible. It's terrible economics, terrible policy,
terrible for the country, terrible for all of this. But
then everyone just completely fell in line. As with everything
(29:40):
basically that Trump has done and stood behind him. So
what do we do You actually think that this is
plausible that they could win on this.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Well, I'm not sure you want to win, you know
what I mean. I mean, look, at some point they
shutdown will end, right And by the way, the way
it might end Democrats be prepared for this, right is,
Republicans might say, Okay, we are going to get rid
of the filibuster for passing bugetary leixlation as they've already
gotten rid of it, or Democrats in some cases too,
for almost everything, right, I mean, just this past week,
(30:11):
Republicans plan to change the Senate rules to make it
easier to like nominate Trump appointees in batches, right, And
so if you're not gonna like have it for that stuff,
and I who fucking cares about the nothing the budget
stuff isn't important, but like it's such a thin ree
that like, okay, look, you have a trifecta, you run
the government, pass your fucking bill, right, you got to
change the rules. Don't respect rules in the first place, right,
(30:31):
who cares about the fucking filibuster? And by the way,
we're not gonna use a filibuster, We're happing to win
back a triffecta in Congress in twenty twenty eight. We're
not gonna use aucking filibuster, right, There's gonna be so
much damage that you did that we're gonna have to
have a day one agenda of getting all this stuff undone.
Now it sound like Evin Newsommer something like that, right,
But like, yeah, the endgame is that probably Republicans nuke
the filibuster and then pass their bill and Democrats have
(30:55):
this comprotational moment. Maybe it goes well, maybe it goes
not so well, right, but like it, you know, changes
the vibe at a time when the vibe is I
would argue, not going that great for Democrats.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
So let me ask a very naive question, because I
think it's one that people kind of reflexively don't even
think to ask. Why, you know, why are we always
talking about, like trying to avoid a government shutdown? What
actually happens if this doesn't happen and the government shuts down?
How does that affect us?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Right?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Do we? How bad is it? How bad is it so?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Services that are deemed in essential can get shut down?
I mean examples people point to is national parks can
get shut down that you have less tsa staffing, for example,
government facilities of different types of clothes, certain types of
checks don't go out. I mean, now you also.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Basically the same shits that's already happening.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Why like the doge pinging it to doge, right, because
then they want to turn a bunch of stuff off
and see what happened. I guess kind of opt of
like throw a bunch of shit the well, it's like,
turn a bunch of switches off and see what breaks.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
And so a lot of stuff started breaking.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Any shutdowns would have been disguised in that, you know here.
I mean, look, Trump will have a lot of power
to to determine to both interpret the rules liberally Yen
color outside the lines quite a bit, right, and I
think he will in ways that could be advantageous to him.
I mean, this is kind of one of the you know,
friend of the pod Matt Glassman wrote a post about
(32:24):
how actually this is probably a bad idea of the
shutdown because like, when you're not the party in power,
you don't have a lot of power, right, and like
the advantage of like you need to use the poker tern,
you're kind of always in position if you're right, you
get to see. And also this has been telegraphed, right,
you know, Republicans are aware. They can read the New
York Times too, they can read Ezra's piece, and they
can read what Chuck Schumer says to the Washington Post.
(32:45):
And I'm sure they've prepped messaging and a strategy and
and that makes it harder.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
But like, but yeah, yeah, no, I think I think
these are all all important things to consider. I think
this is an interesting take. Let's see, let's see what
ends up happening, and if we end up using tariffs
as well. I do think that even though it's good
for Republicans, I'm glad that the Democrats are pushing for
healthcare as well, because that's also pretty damn important. But
(33:14):
let's get tariffs in there. I think that's a great
idea and hopefully we can avoid the more serious consequences
of a shutdown. On that note, Nate, are you are
you going to be playing any poker doing anything interesting
in those lines this week? Or are we are we
just all politics now? For now?
Speaker 2 (33:35):
I think I'm coming to the napt in Vegas and November. No,
this is going to be like a I do finely.
The AMPT like a four month break in between poker
tournaments I play. I play Cash Influence twice a month.
But yeah, I'll be I'll be fresh for that, Maria,
I'll put it like that.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, I will also be fresh for the napt in November,
the Poker Stares event that I'll be playing, and we
stay tuned, guys, we might end up doing a risky
business meetup at that point, so we'll we'll let you
know if we have plans of that.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And a reminder, there will be a new episode in
the feed on Saturday. Having two episodes a week now,
and like Saturdays, I feel like Saturday is a good
day to listen to podcasts. No one has fucking episodes
on Saturdays. Right, you're jogging, you're doing a little drive
out in Hudson Valley or what else. You're gardening, Right,
you got a lot of time on your hands. No
fucking new episodes on Saturday. But we're gonna have this
episode on Saturday. It's an interview with Ellie Honig about
(34:27):
his new book, When You Come at the King, which
is all about special counsels and what it takes to
prosecute the president.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yeah, and from here on out, you can expect that
double drop schedule from us every single week. So now
you know what you're going to be doing Saturday morning.
Congratulations everyone, I'm so glad. Congratulations be a part of
your routine. Let us know what you think of the show.
(34:54):
Reach out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot Fm.
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova and.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
By me Nate Silver. The show was a cool production
of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by
I at Carter. Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit Lydia,
Jean Kott and Daphne Chen are our editors, and our
executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruguer.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too, But once again,
only if you like us. We don't want those bad
reviews out there. Thanks for tuning in.
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I'm Nate Silver. Today on the show, it's a
politics focused episode. We're going to talk about the story
we think we have to talk about, at least a
little bit, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the conservative influencer,
a tragic and scary event, and we're going to carefully
have a little bit of a heart to heart about it,
(00:51):
and then we're going to talk about more pedestrian politics,
talk about the potential looming government shut down in Washington
and what both parties might be strategizing about for that.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah, I think this is going to be an interesting episode,
a really interesting conversation. And also for our listener, this
is going to be the first week where we are
going to a twice weekly schedule of Risky Business, so
we will now be in your feed twice a week.
And yeah, we hope you enjoy that, and we'd love
to hear your feedback about how you think it's going.
(01:31):
On that note, Nate, let's turn too. You know what
is I think on the I mean on the more
serious side of topics period, but in terms of the
types of things we talk about at Risky Business. It's
definitely on the very serious end of that, which is
the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And you had actually met Charlie, right, Nate.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I never met Charlie.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
No.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I think he sent me a DM once and invited
me on his show when it said something that riled
up Democrats, and I ignore most invites if we're being honest,
it was nothing personal. But yeah, I'm sure. Look, I
wrote a piece at my sub stack about this, which
is kind of how, you know, you don't have to
say anything. Why don't people just kind of be more restrained?
(02:13):
And maybe we're violating that here. I'm not sure. Look,
I do think that there is I called it like
an implicit fraternity, I guess a slightly gendered term, but
an ocur about like people who comment about politics for
a living right and people who are in the public
eye and obviously you go on Twitter or Blue Sky
whatever else. Right, there's a lot of debate about what
(02:34):
type of political citizen Charlie Kirk was. But but still,
when somebody is assassinate and I mean, you know, I
spoke at a in an open public forum in ames Ioweat.
I was at university two days after Kirk was killed,
So I mean, it's not not in my head to
be looking out at the crowd. And you know, when
(02:57):
you get the weird questions later after the show, it's like, Okay,
what's going on here? And you know, I mean, I
don't know. I've certainly gotten death threats before. But but
I mean, Charlie Kirk is also a little bit hard
to characterize, right. I was struggling with whether to call
him an activist or an organizer or a provocateur, or
(03:18):
an intellectual or a media personality, right or what exactly.
I'm not sure it is actually a perfectly comparable figure
on the left, because the left and right are asymmetric,
but like someone who was very influential right, who kind
of like bridged the gap between when he was friends
(03:41):
I think, just not friendly, but I think Trump would
call him a friend with Trump himself right, and had
like a quite large audience.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, I think whatever we call him, Nate. What I
would like to stress is he was someone who exercised
his First Amendment right incredibly well, eloquently and freely, as
he should have been able to do. And I do
want to stress a truly important point, which is that
we can't conflate speech violence right like people love to
(04:11):
say that, oh, speech can be violence. No violence is violence.
Whether or not you agree with Charlie Kirk or you
disagree with him, he was practicing free speech. He was
engaging in debate. And that's something that you know, we
should be doing in a democracy, right. We should be
talking to people we agree with, we should be talking
to people we disagree with, we should be having conversations.
(04:32):
That's the backbone of critical thinking, that's the backbone of progress,
that's a backbone of society. And the fact that someone
can be assassinated for exercising free speech is something that
should absolutely never happen. And as you say, nay, you
were doing an event right afterwards, and it definitely I
(04:52):
think as someone you know we both do public events,
we both do public speaking, I think it changes your
kind of risk calculus, risk framing when you see, oh
my god, have we gotten to the point in a
society where people think that this is okay, that this
is a legitimate response, that if I disagree with someone,
(05:13):
you know, violence is okay.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, And there's also a chilling absolutely right, huge chilling
people with what they say and also whether they get invited.
I mean, one case with some questionable similarities, but Sam
and Reshti was attacked at a big festival in rural
New York a couple of years ago. There was a
flat blaw against him, and I suppose that was of
(05:36):
a chilly partly fulfilled, right, and.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
He almost died. By the way, he was incredibly lucky
to survive. People thought he was going to die. He
has lost vision and what I it was. You know,
it was a very very close call, but that could
have very easily gone the other way.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
But you know, part of the joy, I guess of
doing an event in a community, particularly a smaller community,
is that the doors are open, right, you know, I
have have you been to a political convention like the
Democratic Republican convention before?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I never have, No.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
I mean, the security is incredible, Like it takes an
hour to get in there, it takes twenty minutes to
get out of there, right there is it's very cumbersome
and in some ways it's like not very conducive to
political protests or political speech, right, And of course parties
that want to suppress political protests often use threats of
(06:28):
violence as an excuse to say, Okay, we don't want
you people protesting about Gaza or Bernie Sanders or whatever
else in the convention halls, so we can't let you
in for security reasons. But yeah, I mean, look, in
some ways, there's not that much to say about if
you don't know him, about Charlie Kirk, the you know
(06:52):
what I mean, Like I don't there's this whole game
about like using this as a positioning exercise for where
people fit into the discourse. And I don't know. It's
I was fucking shot like on a university. Get this
in cold blood, right, It's like you know, I mean,
I you know, no one even has the pretense anymore
(07:13):
of Oh, let's quote unquote not politicize this. And by definition,
although there's a little bit of ambiguity still, and like
the shooter's motivations, I wouldn't say that much necessarily, but
some right, by definition, and an assassination is a a
political act, right, And you know, I think this is
(07:34):
becoming more common. There's something to beat about that fact, right,
But like, you know, I don't know. I mean, it
was just last year when when Trump cat shot and
I'm going to be a little joking about it because
he survived, and that was kind of the mood about it, right,
he had that that, you know, I had just busted
out of a tournament poker tournament Balted's poker. I'm like, Maria,
(07:54):
I won't see you for dinner because I busted out,
and I think somebody just shut Trump. But immediately it
was clear that Trump hadn't survived and had this triumphant moment,
and so it was almost you know, I was kind
of out wandering around on the strip getting a sad
little dinner with the other people who busted out, and
people there were kind of excited, right, It's like, oh,
that's cool, he survived, right, And that kind of detracted
(08:15):
from the magnitude of what that event had been and
how scary that could have been. And I think you're
you're seeing now, yeah, what happens when you create somebody
who can be a martyr potentially.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And I'll go a step further, and Nate, I think
that that was a precursor to another moment that people
made light of, which was the December assassination of Brian Thompson,
the CEO of United Healthcare. Right where people actually made
Luigima Joon into kind of this hero, right folk hero, like, yes,
(08:51):
you went after the bad guys, and we talked about
it on the pod back then, where like, holy shit, guys,
this is a horrible reaction, like this is not what
you should be I don't care what you think about
you know, healthcare in America or what you think about
United or all of these things. This is not the answer,
right violence that like, this is not okay, This is
never something to be celebrated, and yet people were celebrating it.
(09:14):
So I think that we've seen kind of this progression
that in some ways has led us to this moment
where you think, oh, you know, first of all, this
is the right way to solve it, and secondly, like
I could even be a hero right for killing someone
who you know, people disagreed with or thought they did
something bad. And it's just so profoundly fucked up to
think in those terms and to think that this is
(09:37):
just something you do. Right. This is why we have society,
This is why we have laws, This is why we
have norms of behavior, This is why we live, you know,
in a civilization and not in the wild West, where
the way that you solve things was to duke it
out with guns.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, look the way I kind of look at civilization.
Like again, it's amazing that you're in New York and
it's a city of eight billion people and everyone has
different objectives on their mind, and there is lots of
petty crime from day to day and other things, and
yet the kind of center holds, right, But the center
holds I think some narrowly right where you have a
lot of I'm going to confuse centrifugal and centripetal. Right,
(10:14):
you have a lot of forces pulling out into chaos.
Then you have forces holding people together, including policing, including
common decency, including common sense, right, and kind of everything
in between, and like it might not take that much
for things to fall out of equilibrium. And maybe and
maybe social media is that. And you know, I don't
(10:36):
think things have calmed down very much on Twitter, right,
I've covered a lot of news stories and like five
days no matter what the story is of things not
calming down, it's a little unusual, right. You know, you
also have people who are getting fired for saying thoughtless
(11:02):
or I was gonna say un pc which is I mean,
I think it is kind of like a political correctness issue,
right if people fired for saying things that in some
cases are I think stupid and tone.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Deaf, but like still a fireable effects, like yeah, look in.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Some of them. You know, Matthew Dowd is my former
ABC News colleague, and I think Matthew Dowd's a lowheart
and an idiot, But I think you should be fired
for being a low heart and an idiot in general
about almost every issue that he weighs in on, and
not on a short preparation TV hit when it wasn't
clear what had happened about saying Okay, well, this guy
(11:40):
was kind of encouraging what I mean. You know, I
don't think his comment is correct, but it's also like
it's within the realm of free speech that I think
Charlie Kirk is relatively not hit theocritical about free speech
and would have wanted right to support absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
And this goes back to what you said at the
beginning night, which I think we should just stress a
little bit more, which is the chilling effect of this right,
the effect that this has on free speech more broadly,
on what both feel like they can and can't say,
and the fact that there are now these like very
strong repercussions for rights that you should have right and
(12:18):
even going a step further. So there was a piece
in New York Times that pointed out that defend Secretary
Pete Hegseth had said that the agency was monitoring and
tracking any military personnel who celebrated or mocked Kirk's death,
and Christopher Landau, the Deputy Secretary of State, said that
the administration would be stripping visas from any individuals who
(12:40):
celebrated Kirk's death. So you know, this is like it's
going further and further right from oh, you might be
fired to you might have your visa taken away, and
I've I mean, that's frightening. Everything about this moment is frightening.
I want to also point out something that you mentioned
about New York and like the fact that New York
functions and sometimes you think, oh, how precarious is that?
(13:03):
There's actually a lot of work in psychology that shows
that it is quite precarious. Right, Social norms are per careus,
that norms of behavior are precarious, that we are often
kind of walking on a razor's edge where it can
go in one direction or another, depending on what prominent
people say, you know, depending on what people think that
(13:24):
these things do shift and can shift very rapidly. So
I think we should just remember that, you know, social
norms that we take for granted, we shouldn't take for
granted they they do need to be protected, or we
might end up devolving, which is what I think we're
witnessing right now speaking about, you know, the increased political
(13:58):
violence security, I think this is a good moment to
shift gears a little bit and talk about the potential
government shut down and funding because one of the things
that is happening is that the White House has requested
fifty eight million dollars in security funding for both the
executive and the judicial branches after Charlie Kirk's assassination. And
(14:22):
this is basically they're trying to insert this as part
of the stop gap bill to prevent a government shutdown,
which is looming on October first. So this is clearly
something that is being used. I don't know if it's
being used as a pretext or if this is actually
(14:43):
something that they should be doing, but it's interesting that
this is making its way from something that happened last
week to something that is a key provision in a
bill that can prevent the shutting down of the government, which,
by the way, night, I feel like we have an
impending government shutdown. So frequently these days.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Should I get a quick background or for I have
a story place down? So like in the spring, was
it March or whatever? In the spring, Republicans had to
pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open. People
thought that bill might get stimied in the House with
the gup he has a very narrow majority, and they
passed it party line vote, I think, with one exception
(15:26):
on each side. It went to the Senate, where for
that type of legislation the filibuster is still under the
rules of the Senate. So ultimately Democrats debated to shut down.
Public commentators debate a shutdown. I actually wrote a post
I guess it was after they didn't, after Schumer had
conceded it was about to concede, saying Democrats should have
had a shutdown. I thought it was good opportunity. I
thought they could highlight dough spending cuts and take advantage
(15:49):
of Elam Musk's on popularity. But Schumer and what was it,
you know, seven or so other Democrats voted for cloture
to and a filibuster, and so therefore the bill passed. However,
that resolution was for six months, and it expires at
the end of this month, September. Say, thirty first, I
think this how many days this is? Had?
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Have?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Thirty September thirtieth.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
I remember night. I think I told you about my
little uh the little thing that you can use.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I know, yeah, you know. September feels like a thirty
one though, right, it's a pretty fucking important month. September
might be the best month.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
It is an important month. It's such a great weather month,
back to school month. I love September. But it's a
thirty day month. Unfortunately, good things never last night, good things.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Never last Okay, uh, sorry I lost Okay, So anyway,
this time though, it's Democrats October one.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
October one is when the government would shut down.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
This time though, it's Democrats who seem to want to
shut down. So Chuck Schumer indicated late last week that
he had canvassed his caucus and they are inclined.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
That sounds really inappropriate. Well, you canvass my caucus. Sorry, sorry, guys,
this is important. Oh all right, So he'd canvassed his caucus.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yes, and there was appetite in the credit caucus to
make demands. I suppose about healthcare, they want to extend
Obamacare subsidies in Medicaid and restore Medicaid cuts that were
made in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act not my
term for it, the official piece they have the legislation.
And meanwhile, lots of center and left of center commentators,
(17:29):
from as Reclined to Robert Wright to everybody else's been saying, yeah,
we need a fight. Democrats can't concede to this, although
they don't really agree on the whys or the what's
exactly right, but there's agreement that something must be done.
That Schumer was so much of a pushover last time
that this is one of the few points Democrats have leverage.
(17:49):
I when you want to cash that in for like
a big media moment or for actual concessions, that you
have to it's time to do something.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, I mean, I think that Schumer learned his lesson
a little too well from the last time, when he
got such horrible coverage, such horrible press for making the
deal right where he said, look, I'm just I'm doing
what needs to be done, and he came off looking terrible.
But I think that the other strategic moment, and I'm
not writing a piece about this night, so please, you know,
feel free to chime in, is I think that Democrats
(18:21):
are seeing this as a moment where they can really
start creating kind of new messaging for mid term elections
and for you know, for presidential elections moving forward, to
say that, you know, we are the true party that's
protecting the people. Right. The reason that we're doing this
is we want you to have your healthcare, your medicare.
(18:43):
We want it not to be cut. You know, we
want all of these benefits that are being lost with
rural communities for the working man of America. We want
to protect this and that's what we're trying to fight for.
And I think that's also part of the messaging and
part of the things that they are trying to make
sure get changed in the reconciliation before the bill moves forward.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I mean, there are different theories, right, I mean, look,
partly it's like are yousing there with like the chest
tern slugs zugs wing. I don't know how to say it,
and yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Have read it, but let's explain it. Because my familiarity
is very passing, to the point where I too, Nate,
do not know how to pronounce it.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
It's a situation where every move you make is worse
than no move, right, that you would prefer that it
was your opponent's turn. And like so, like let's say
Democrats supplied the votes for the Continuing Resolution, I mean,
you know, and try to de escalate this. I mean
(19:44):
you know, I mean they would look like pushovers. Schumer
in particular. I mean, first of all, he is up
for reelection, not next year, but in twenty twenty eight.
You have a lot of people coming after Schumer. Right,
there are lots of you know, to state obvious names,
AOC she doesn't run for president, for example, or Zaren
who knows, right, can't be president because he was born
(20:05):
U gone it, but he could run for Senate, right,
But a lot of talented and all the MSNBC loving Democrats. Right,
But there's gonna be a lot of demand for Chuck
Schumer's seat, right, and as well as if he survives electorally,
then maybe his role as majority leader and so he
kind of I think has to do something right. And
(20:26):
the kind of Ezra Cline argument is that if you
supply votes for this continuing resolution. Are you not tacitly
endorsing this government that you say is authoritarian and acting
in bad faith and corrupt even before you get to
the fact that they are evscerating a lot of priorities
(20:48):
that Democrats hold deer and I kind of buy that.
I kind of buy that as a default in politics,
that doing the thing that you believe in and or
is consistent with your overall messaging. Right. I think that's worthwhile,
and we've seen I think repeatedly that like Democrats, sometimes
the rhetoric exceeds that they're actually willing to do. Right.
(21:09):
I think we've talked about so many times, don't have
to draw on it anymore. I think if they have
really regarded Trump two point zero was an essential threat,
they might have thought more carefully about about how fit
Biden was to run for a second term. They might
have thought more carefully about whe Kamala Harris was the
optimal person to replace him, and so to sound whatever,
might have thought more carefully about We've been through all
(21:29):
that on this program before, Right, But like you know, so,
I support the notion that like put your money where
your mouth is. On the other hand, there's like not
really a good endgame for democrats here. I don't think
it's not clear what endgame they want, right, because on
the one hand, I think that Ezra Calase is more
like we just want to have change the narrative, change
(21:52):
the discords. And by the way, Trumps approval rating is
not really moving very much, right, So like it's like
not like he's in some stings. It's about a net
negative seven negative eight, right, So it's like, you know whatever,
forty three percent approved, fifty one percent disapprove, somewhere in
that range, right, And it's not really moved. It has
not moved because of Jeffrey Epstein. That has not moved
because of of of whatever scandals there are. Right, we
(22:16):
don't have any data yet. We'll be affected by the
Charlie Kirk the first segment, right, But like it did
seem to move for tariffs about three months ago or
excuse me, six months ago during Liberation Day was a
big drop in April, and it's been steady since then.
And so like, you know, there is a notion of
increasing variants for democrats, I think, and kind of changing
(22:37):
the discourse, changing the dialogue. But you know, here's the issue.
I mean, if you offer a deal on healthcare, the
problem is it's kind of a deal that like might
be good for the GOP, you know what I mean,
where like all these swing state representatives might say, yeah, actually,
I'm pretty uncomfortable with these Medicaid cuts, right, and Okay,
(22:59):
I'll take the I'll take the deal, right.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I don't know if Trump would sign it, but.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Like now, I think I think some of the biggest
losses in medical coverage are happening in states like Arizona.
We're somewhere around like three hundred thousand people are set
to lose coverage under the big beautiful bill come October first,
of changes aren't made, and Arizona is obviously a state
that's you know, very important for Republicans, so there are
(23:30):
I think this is a this is an issue that
could be bipartisan in the sense that it's something that
Democrats care about, but it's actually something that can help Republicans.
And I think that if they're thinking about if the
GOP is thinking of midterm elections, right, if they're thinking about, okay,
which seats are up, then they might start realizing, hey,
(23:53):
like if this bill passes as is right. If these
cuts actually pass, if all of my constituents suddenly realize that, oops,
like where's my medical coverage? Like what just happened? Maybe
I'm not going to get reelected, Like maybe I'm not
going to look at as good. And you wonder why
they didn't think about this before when they were passing
(24:14):
the big, beautiful bill, but you'd be I've been shocked
at how many people have been like, oh, well, I
didn't really read that part of it, you know, I
didn't really I didn't really realize that that was in here.
And I'm like, wait, I'm sorry, what, Like, isn't that
your entire job? Or you have aids to do it
and to summarize it for you so that you don't
have to read it, but like, come on, like what
kind of a.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
If we talked about the change to the text treatment
of gambling laws, right, that also.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Was kind of in so we actually we actually haven't
talked about that on the show.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So I think that's that's something that we call Until
gambling conductions are fully restored, I will not be there's authoritarian.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Menace and we'll be back right after this.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
You know what I would do if I were shimmer,
what would you do? I would demand concessions on tariffs,
little little funky interesting more So, there are a couple
of reasons, right. One is that, I mean, look, Republicans people,
congressmen are stupid, right, so like the fact that like
this would be they're fucking stupid, Like why aren't you
(25:35):
going to Congress if you had, like honestly, like why
are you in Congress if you had like real talent
to contribute? I know, I guess I know some Congress
when I take I take that back.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
But like Nate, Nate, Nate, okay, and my co host
has gone on the record that has say that congressmen are.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
If I ever testify, no, but like I mean, okay, yeah,
just take the deal. It's a good deal. It's the
Luca Docich trade. Like, let me just take the deal.
You're gonna get something that like it will actually soft
in Trump's image and help you be re elected. Right,
And Democrats can say, oh, we held up, we were
so tough. Right, It's like, okay, deal, it's done.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
But now talk about tariffs. Why do we think that
they should also be pushing for tariffs?
Speaker 2 (26:21):
So for one thing, like again, I do am a
buyer of the EZRA argument that like, you might want
to pick something that is more abnormal, and the terrorists
are abnormal, both in the sense that we haven't had
these tariffs almost one hundred years and the fact that, like,
you know, you're abrogating Congress's role to regulate taxes and
collection of spending in BacT. The case will be litigated
by the Supreme Court, so it might become a point eventually.
(26:41):
But like, but like you know, I think that is
more of a pain point between Trump and the GOP.
I think highlighting, you know, the economic news is worthwhile
for Democrats. We've had bad jobs reports lately. We also
had a revision that covered Biden's last year and Trump's
(27:02):
first half year, right where like, actually we've been overestimating
the number of jobs that were created. Maybe a little
bit easier to understand now. People were fed up economy
last year. But but like, I think terrorists are a
better pain point. I think I think they're a hard
deal for the GOP to take. They're the one issue
that's improven to hurt Trump's popularity, and they get a
(27:22):
little bit at the lack of at the extra legs,
shall we say, constitutionality, right, not respecting traditional norms where
it's like you could have the healthcare fight with Mitt
Romney or Nikki Haley as you're as your president, right.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
So you're saying that they should pick something that is
that really seems to be out of the ordinary, that
is like something that we're it's I don't know if
out of them, but like that has surpassed all of
the norms and is really.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
It's it's hard because like if you laundry live, I
mean the thing, you know, a lot of things that
are out of the ordinary, are totally non germane to budgeting,
are obscure, or are unpopular, right, I mean, like you.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Know, but Tariff's is something that can be a point
around which you can actually coalesce, and it is something
that is more i wouldn't say popular, but more in
the popular mind because there are these downstream effects that
are starting to be felt by the way. We haven't
really talked about, you know, the FED that much on
(28:30):
the show, but this is all tied up right with
the FED rate cuts, you know what's going to be
happening there, Like this is a much broader conversation.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, And I mean, look if you had things like, Okay, well,
Trump shouldn't fire try to fire Lisa Cook, one of
the chairmen on the board of the Federal Reserve. Sure, women, right,
it seems like this mortgage stuff has been trumped up
in her case, or he shouldn't have fire to the
BLS commissiony like, those things might appeal to someone like me,
but they're pretty freaking esoteric to like the average person.
(29:00):
Whereas terraffs, you have a little bit of everything right.
You have a message about how the economy is not
doing very well, you have a message about like Trump
overstepping his bounds, and that still gives you a legible
cause to find this is one of the most unpopular
things that he's done.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Do you think that they would have a shot if
they actually pushed the tariff stuff? Because I think you're
absolutely right, like, this is genuinely unpopular, and before it
was passed, a lot of Republicans were like, whoa, whoa,
wo he's not actually going to do this, right, we
know that this is terrible. It's terrible economics, terrible policy,
terrible for the country, terrible for all of this. But
then everyone just completely fell in line. As with everything
(29:40):
basically that Trump has done and stood behind him. So
what do we do You actually think that this is
plausible that they could win on this.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Well, I'm not sure you want to win, you know
what I mean. I mean, look, at some point they
shutdown will end, right And by the way, the way
it might end Democrats be prepared for this, right is,
Republicans might say, Okay, we are going to get rid
of the filibuster for passing bugetary leixlation as they've already
gotten rid of it, or Democrats in some cases too,
for almost everything, right, I mean, just this past week,
(30:11):
Republicans plan to change the Senate rules to make it
easier to like nominate Trump appointees in batches, right, And
so if you're not gonna like have it for that stuff,
and I who fucking cares about the nothing the budget
stuff isn't important, but like it's such a thin ree
that like, okay, look, you have a trifecta, you run
the government, pass your fucking bill, right, you got to
change the rules. Don't respect rules in the first place, right,
(30:31):
who cares about the fucking filibuster? And by the way,
we're not gonna use a filibuster, We're happing to win
back a triffecta in Congress in twenty twenty eight. We're
not gonna use aucking filibuster, right, There's gonna be so
much damage that you did that we're gonna have to
have a day one agenda of getting all this stuff undone.
Now it sound like Evin Newsommer something like that, right,
But like, yeah, the endgame is that probably Republicans nuke
the filibuster and then pass their bill and Democrats have
(30:55):
this comprotational moment. Maybe it goes well, maybe it goes
not so well, right, but like it, you know, changes
the vibe at a time when the vibe is I
would argue, not going that great for Democrats.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
So let me ask a very naive question, because I
think it's one that people kind of reflexively don't even
think to ask. Why, you know, why are we always
talking about, like trying to avoid a government shutdown? What
actually happens if this doesn't happen and the government shuts down?
How does that affect us?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Right?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Do we? How bad is it? How bad is it so?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Services that are deemed in essential can get shut down?
I mean examples people point to is national parks can
get shut down that you have less tsa staffing, for example,
government facilities of different types of clothes, certain types of
checks don't go out. I mean, now you also.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Basically the same shits that's already happening.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Why like the doge pinging it to doge, right, because
then they want to turn a bunch of stuff off
and see what happened. I guess kind of opt of
like throw a bunch of shit the well, it's like,
turn a bunch of switches off and see what breaks.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
And so a lot of stuff started breaking.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Any shutdowns would have been disguised in that, you know here.
I mean, look, Trump will have a lot of power
to to determine to both interpret the rules liberally Yen
color outside the lines quite a bit, right, and I
think he will in ways that could be advantageous to him.
I mean, this is kind of one of the you know,
friend of the pod Matt Glassman wrote a post about
(32:24):
how actually this is probably a bad idea of the
shutdown because like, when you're not the party in power,
you don't have a lot of power, right, and like
the advantage of like you need to use the poker tern,
you're kind of always in position if you're right, you
get to see. And also this has been telegraphed, right,
you know, Republicans are aware. They can read the New
York Times too, they can read Ezra's piece, and they
can read what Chuck Schumer says to the Washington Post.
(32:45):
And I'm sure they've prepped messaging and a strategy and
and that makes it harder.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
But like, but yeah, yeah, no, I think I think
these are all all important things to consider. I think
this is an interesting take. Let's see, let's see what
ends up happening, and if we end up using tariffs
as well. I do think that even though it's good
for Republicans, I'm glad that the Democrats are pushing for
healthcare as well, because that's also pretty damn important. But
(33:14):
let's get tariffs in there. I think that's a great
idea and hopefully we can avoid the more serious consequences
of a shutdown. On that note, Nate, are you are
you going to be playing any poker doing anything interesting
in those lines this week? Or are we are we
just all politics now? For now?
Speaker 2 (33:35):
I think I'm coming to the napt in Vegas and November. No,
this is going to be like a I do finely.
The AMPT like a four month break in between poker
tournaments I play. I play Cash Influence twice a month.
But yeah, I'll be I'll be fresh for that, Maria,
I'll put it like that.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, I will also be fresh for the napt in November,
the Poker Stares event that I'll be playing, and we
stay tuned, guys, we might end up doing a risky
business meetup at that point, so we'll we'll let you
know if we have plans of that.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And a reminder, there will be a new episode in
the feed on Saturday. Having two episodes a week now,
and like Saturdays, I feel like Saturday is a good
day to listen to podcasts. No one has fucking episodes
on Saturdays. Right, you're jogging, you're doing a little drive
out in Hudson Valley or what else. You're gardening, Right,
you got a lot of time on your hands. No
fucking new episodes on Saturday. But we're gonna have this
episode on Saturday. It's an interview with Ellie Honig about
(34:27):
his new book, When You Come at the King, which
is all about special counsels and what it takes to
prosecute the president.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yeah, and from here on out, you can expect that
double drop schedule from us every single week. So now
you know what you're going to be doing Saturday morning.
Congratulations everyone, I'm so glad. Congratulations be a part of
your routine. Let us know what you think of the show.
(34:54):
Reach out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot Fm.
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova and.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
By me Nate Silver. The show was a cool production
of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by
I at Carter. Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit Lydia,
Jean Kott and Daphne Chen are our editors, and our
executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruguer.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too, But once again,
only if you like us. We don't want those bad
reviews out there. Thanks for tuning in.
Hosts And Creators
Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
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