Monday Morning Politics: Talks of a Trump Third Term, 'Signalgate' and More

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Matt Katz: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Matt Katz, former reporter here at WNYC and Gothamist. I'm now running a news podcast in Philadelphia called City Cast Philly, and I'm filling in for Brian for the next few days. First, Eid Mubarak to all of our listeners who celebrated the end of the holy month of Ramadan yesterday. Coming up on today's show, we'll talk about the city's plans to enforce the new composting rules, which went into effect last year.

Starting tomorrow, the city will issue fines to landlords and homeowners who are not complying. As a reminder, everyone is supposed to be separating their food waste from their trash, but it turns out only a tiny fraction of people are actually doing this so far. Plus, today's 100 Years of a 100 Things conversation will be about the history of the Village. It has long been a center of bohemian and artistic life. We'll talk about Greenwich Village from the 1920s through today.

With the baseball season now underway and the Yankees' bats hopping curiously, perhaps, we'll chat about what's happened so far with our local teams and what might be in store for the Yanks and Mets in the season ahead. Let's start this Monday with national politics. Last week, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he had been inadvertently added to a signal channel in which top members of the Trump administration discussed plans to bomb Yemen.

Over the weekend, fallout continued over the scandal dubbed 'Signalgate'. A new YouGov poll shows three out of four Americans, including 60% of Republicans, say the Trump administration's use of a signal group chat to discuss military strikes is a "serious problem". Yesterday, during a phone interview with NBC's Kristen Welker, President Donald Trump said, "I don't fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts." He said he still has confidence in Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz. Waltz was the senior official who actually added Goldberg to the chat.

The president also told Welker that he would not rule out a third term in office. GOP lawmakers have been stoking that idea for several weeks now. Separately, the Trump administration's battle for Greenland escalated this weekend after Vice President JD Vance and his wife visited the island. That trip was largely scaled back due to the uproar among Greenlanders and Danes. Republicans will find out this week just how much they'll hold on to their slim majority in the House with their eyes on two special elections in Florida this week. Joining us now to recap all of this news this weekend and look ahead in the week coming up is Jim Newell, Slate's senior politics writer. Hey, Jim, welcome to WNYC.

Jim Newell: Hey, thanks for having me.

Matt Katz: Jim, we'll get to Singlegate in just a second. First, a lot of news came out of this phone interview that NBC's Kristen Welker did with President Trump yesterday, and phone interview, by the way, very retro. One of the pieces of news, the president did not dismiss the idea of pursuing a third term in the White House. That's despite the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution clearly prohibiting it. The President said there are "methods to a third term," and he was not joking. Can you just talk about what Trump has said about this idea in the past and how some Republicans are apparently actively pursuing this right now? How should we be looking at all of this?

Jim Newell: Yes. This was the first time he said, "I'm not joking." The ways he's talked about it in the past was as a joke. Earlier this year, he met with House Republicans, and there was some media in the room, and he said, "I don't know, maybe we'll do another term." He self consciously looked at the press and said, "Oh, that's going to get them all riled up." It was in that terrain of joking before. This is the first time where he said, "We're looking into it, we're looking into it."

Now, of course, we know President Trump pretty well at this point. He may not actually be looking into it. He likes to also, when he has some bad headlines around, like with Signalgate, he likes to throw out provocations, and he likes to leave things open ended. I don't think this needs to be-- people who are concerned, the top thing to be concerned about right now. I view it as something that he's going to keep throwing out there from time to time, this catnip to get people into a frenzy. In another year or so, we'll look at it and see whether he or his allies have tried to make any actual moves. It's pretty tough to do that. It is obviously explicitly barred by the 22nd Amendment.

One method that you could come up with would be JD Vance runs as president, Trump is vice president, and then JD Vance resigns. That is blocked by the 12th Amendment, which says no one who's ineligible to serve as president can be vice president. It's pretty ironclad there. I don't want to ever say, don't ever take anything he says with a grain of salt. Things could change. I don't know. He has a way of working public opinion to get people's minds to change, but I think right now it's just a provocation out there.

Matt Katz: You said we know President Trump pretty well at this point, but we still don't know what to take most seriously about what he says. We still have-- It's like the same dilemma and hand-wringing over his comments. Again, I'm finding myself vacillating between whether to just ignore this clear threat to the Constitution or take it extremely seriously. It feels familiar, this dilemma.

Jim Newell: Yes, I understand. That's why I say you don't want to rule it out entirely because, just given the strength he has among the Republican base, he is capable of getting people to believe any idea that could be as far-fetched as this. Then it could become something that gathers its own momentum on the right. I don't know necessarily that-- I think with everything that's going on, I don't know if people need to send themselves in a panic about this right now.

Matt Katz: Sure. Then let's talk about the big political Trump administration news from last week that is spilling over into this week. Over the weekend, you wrote, "No story since Trump's second inauguration has cut through the noise quite like that of the signal chat known as Houthi PC Small Group. The response has been durable enough that someone in the administration may actually go down. In your newsletter, you weigh the fates of two members of the group chat, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, and Michael Waltz, the National Security Advisor. Remind us again of each of their roles in this group chat and why one of their jobs potentially could be on the line.

Jim Newell: Sure. Michael Waltz, the national Security Advisor, he is the one who organized the group chat. He set up Houthi's PC Small Group, and he invited everyone to it. He was the one who had the unfortunate slip of the thumb where Jeffrey Goldberg got added instead of someone else who we're not quite sure who that would be right now. That's why his job would be in trouble, in that he was the one who made the flub of setting up this group chat in the first place.

Pete Hegseth, his would be more in trouble to the extent anyone's in trouble right now, because he was the one who posted the most information that should have been done through a classified channel. That was operational details about the attack that they were about to carry out. Those are the two most aired here. You could say that any of the dozen-plus people on this chat had an obligation to say we shouldn't really be doing this. Those are the two who really garnered the most scrutiny so far.

Matt Katz: Why do you think this is breaking out and becoming such a significant issue for Americans? I talked about this YouGov poll from last week where most Americans say this is a serious problem, including 60% of Republicans who are troubled by the leak. Why do you think this is resonating with people?

Jim Newell: I think it was particularly just vivid in the detail that we saw. It wasn't just a report about they were having a conversation where they shouldn't have been having one. They had the actual conversation. The Atlantic published the conversation. It's not just colorful to see the way that these characters interact with each other. Goodness, you have JD Vance saying behind the president's back that he disagrees with him, isn't sure this is the right move. It's been such a clear look into how they're operating. I think that's why it's resonated so much.

Also, the Atlantic's ability to publish a subsequent follow-up, that kept it in the news for a little while. I think also there are these little side details about not just the conversation itself, but why did-- This is why Michael Waltz would be in the most trouble. Why did he have Jeffrey Goldberg, a journalist whom Trump hates, whom a lot of MAGA would not trust? Why was he in Michael Waltz's phone?

There's been a lot of potential for follow-up here. It could just peter out entirely in these next couple of days. It definitely, to me, I don't know if you feel the same way, has been the one thing that's-- in terms of an individual story, that's broken through the noise the most. It reminds me of the first term a little bit more where there's these slapstick plots happening all the time, a lot of leaks. Whereas, they've been much more aggressive, certainly, in their policies, but buttoned up in terms of their operations so far.

Matt Katz: Would you call it slapstick plots, slapstick sideshows that seem to-- [crosstalk]

Jim Newell: It's always a mix of-- Some of these stories, it would be funny if it weren't so serious. You have Michael Waltz throwing out emojis after bombs are dropping, and you don't quite know how to react to it. There's objectively funny details in it, but they're talking about the most serious of possible stuff. There's a lot to work with here is what I'm getting at.

Matt Katz: I think that's part of maybe what the public has been so interested in. It is a peek into how these things work. The way it was carried out in terms of being on signal and whatnot was not normal necessarily. We got an insight into how these people communicate when they're bombing other countries. That's pretty compelling. I think that might be part of the reason why it's broken through.

Listeners, where do you weigh in on Signalgate? We can take some of your reactions on what has stood out to you, or maybe you have a question for our guest, Slate's senior politics writer, Jim Newell. Give us a call. Send us a text. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. We got a text saying, "I think the third term run is a red herring to distract from Signalgate, which is certainly an interesting theory. Let's go to the phones. Marvin in Brooklyn. Hi, Marvin. Thanks for calling in.

Marvin: Hi, thank you for taking my call. With all due respect, I strongly disagree with your guest on how to look at the question of Trump looking for a third term. This is another indication of his total disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law. It also ties into Signalgate in that if you look at the national security leaders that he's appointed, none of them were picked for their competence, their experience, their skill. They were chosen as almost all of his major appointments based on their loyalty to him, loyalty to would-be dictator, and not on competence.

This is a direct threat to national security and to the security of the world and undermines other countries' confidence in sharing information with the United States. We saw that in that long New York Times article yesterday about American involvement in Ukraine. It wasn't just America, it was America and its NATO allies. These are all of a whole and again underscore how terribly dangerous Trump is despite things that might be red herrings, et cetera, but they go to a state of mind and that it's accepted by the Republicans. It's not just one power-hungry narcissist, but it's an entire party willing to overthrow hundreds of years of American history.

Matt Katz: Thank you, Marvin. Yes, appreciate it. Thanks for calling in. That is certainly the concern, a legitimate concern by a large swath of the American population that he is on a steady push toward overturning everything we knew about the constitutional basis of the United States. It's hard, Jim, not to say to Marvin, you're exaggerating. Right?

Jim Newell: I think his fears are realistic. I just know there's this generalized sense of anxiety and dread among a lot of people about what Trump is trying to do. There is still a part of me, and maybe it's the naive part that likes to think if there is absolutely no way for him to get a third term legally, I'm not going to make that my number one priority now. People, maybe we are a little too inured to the way he's talking that we let this go with a pass that, "Oh, he's talking about directly violating the Constitution to try and get a third term."

I do think it, one, is used as a distraction, but two, maybe there should be more pushback from members of his own party when he starts talking about things like this, like going after a third term. I don't think that's likely to happen. I think it's all part of the, "We shouldn't let this become normal thing." It's another Monday morning of difficult ways to think about the Trump administration again is how I put it.

Matt Katz: You wrote that Waltz's central crime in the administration's eyes is less the slip of the finger in exposing national security secrets to a journalist and the fact that he had Jeffrey Goldberg, journalist loathed by MAGA and Donald Trump, in his phone contacts. Here's how Waltz himself explained on a Tuesday evening appearance on Fox News's The Ingraham Angle, that situation.

Michael Waltz: I take full responsibility. I built the group. My job is to make sure everything's coordinated. I’m sure everybody out there has had a contact where it was-- said one person, and then a different phone number.

Laura Ingraham: You've never talked to him before, so how's the number on your phone? I'm not an expert in any of this, but it's just-- How's the number on your phone if you--

Michael Waltz: If you have somebody else's contact, and then somehow it gets sucked in--

Laura Ingraham: Oh, someone sent you that contact.

Michael Waltz: It gets sucked in.

Matt Katz: I don't know about that explanation, but what I do like about this is it felt a little normal, the fact that political actors in public go after each other, go after journalists, but behind the scenes, off the record, there's actually at DC parties and whatnot, there's actually a lot more communication and camaraderie. The fact that Jeffrey Goldberg was on this signal chat indicated to me some sense of actual normalcy in Washington. I saw it as reassuring. He's, of course, now saying he didn't know Goldberg at all. What's your take on that?

Jim Newell: That explanation with Laura Ingraham is-- It's the most absurd thing I've heard. This number magically appeared. This slimy journalist somehow got his number put into my phone, and then that number got put into the signal chat. He clearly recognizes his priority is to convince President Trump that he doesn't have any connection with Jeffrey Goldberg. There's no realistic way to explain that. He has to come up with these absurd things that he can't even describe. "His number got sucked in." No one even knows what that means.

Watching someone-- He goes on Laura Ingraham expecting a softball interview, and she's like, "Wait, could you actually--" she's asking follow-up questions here. He doesn't have anything. There's a very simple answer here, which is that he either is an acquaintance of Goldberg's, did an interview with Goldberg once, knows him socially. They have before Trump and before Waltz had become a little less hawkish or internationalist in his foreign policy, he and Jeffrey Goldberg probably overlapped a lot in their foreign policy thinking.

They just know each other. Maybe he's just a straight-up source. That is something that Trump definitely couldn't tolerate. Waltz, he just doesn't really have a way to describe it that could keep him his job.

Matt Katz: This is the Brian Lehrer Show. I'm Matt Katz filling in for Brian today. If you're just joining us, we're breaking down national politics with Slate's senior politics writer, Jim Newell. Let's talk about JD Vance for a moment. He was also part of this group chat. He's taken some heat for his remarks in the chat, and I was trying to make sense of this. He wrote that the strongest reason to do this, meaning bombing Yemen, is to send a message. "I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now." That's what Vance had written. How do you read that? It seemed like the VP is maybe disagreeing with Trump after the decision was made. What's happening there?

Jim Newell: I think one serious question to look at, given that this conversation even had where they're still discussing what to do, is that they didn't get a clear directive from the president on whatever meeting they had before this. They're trying to almost parse his words. "Are we doing this? Are we not doing this or anything?" Then eventually, Stephen Miller comes in and clarifies it like, "Yes, we're doing it, but we're also going to seek repayment from Europe."

I think that's a good question to look into and to-- How clear are the orders coming from President Trump here? As for JD Vance, and I think this was something that other countries noticed quite a bit. He is the same person that you see on TV in these private chats. It would appear he's someone who's long been an opponent of the US sending additional funding to Ukraine to help defend itself. He spoke in Munich at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, where he lambasted Europe for what he views as restrictions on free speech.

He's definitely someone who thinks it's time to take care of European freeloading off of America's security protection. That's the same JD Vance that we see in this signal chat. I guess it's like, "Okay, he's authentic about his beliefs here." Yes, he is so authentic, apparently. He's willing to second-guess his boss behind closed doors.

Matt Katz: Let's go back to the phones. Dominic in the Bronx. Hi, Dominic. Thanks for calling into the Brian Lehrer Show.

Dominic: Hi, Matt. Welcome aboard. It's great to hear you.

Matt Katz: Thank you.

Dominic: Initially, I wanted to say how much I think we need to take Trump's push to become president again very seriously, because he's always joked and he is a joke, but then it becomes something he convinces himself of, and he's got a lot of people backing him, a lot of dangerous neo-fascists backing him. More to the point, this whole thing about the Signalgate or whatever you want to call it, I think what's lost in this is that Goldberg was very supportive of the invasion of Iraq. Goldberg has never found a war that he doesn't like.

What he could have done as a journalist is he could have stopped them from this illegal, unconstitutional action, this Nixonian illegal bombing of mostly innocent people. 53 people died in that bombing. 52 of them were probably-- had nothing to do with it. This is the real outrage. That's the real outrage. That they allowed a journalist who's already embedded is not really an outrage. Goldberg, I think, failed us. He failed the people of Yemen for sure. That's what I think the real outrage is.

Matt Katz: That's interesting. Thanks very much. Appreciate that. Jim, few things on that. First of all, if you can able to fact-check some of the fatality numbers there. Also, it is lost that this is a military operation-

Jim Newell: Yes.

Matt Katz: -against the people in a country that is not in the news in the US every day. That a journalist did make a decision that for the sake of what he thought was national security, he would withhold this information until after the operation. Those are all fair points to be raised, right?

Jim Newell: Yes. I don't really know, as the caller suggested, that he should have done more to stop this from happening. I don't know if that was necessarily something that was in the cards, but I do think it's important. I'm glad the caller brought up that being lost on this is the very real dramatic military action that was taken. I think the key text in the chain there, when they're talking about once the bombs start flying, he says, "The first target, their top missile guy, we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend's building, and now it's collapsed."

This is a pretty good look at how US foreign policy about how US bombing campaigns in Yemen work. A guy walks into his girlfriend's building, a large building, and we just blow up the whole thing. I think when you sometimes read news accounts about, "Oh, a top terrorist leader or enemy target was taken out today in a strike," this is a pretty vivid look at how they're talking about it. Someone walked into a building and we blew up the building. I think there's-- This really is a rich text here with a lot to go through, which explains again why we're talking about a week later.

Matt Katz: We need to take a short break. When we're back, more of your calls. Stay with us.

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Matt Katz: It's the Brian Lehr Show on WNYC. I'm Matt Katz filling in for Brian today. My guest is Slate's senior politics writer Jim Newell. Jim, we've gone through Signalgate. I want to get to some of the other topics you covered in your newsletter this past weekend. Last Thursday, the White House withdrew New York Representative Elise Stefanik's nomination to serve as UN Ambassador. What's interesting, as you write is, "The decision is also a Republican acknowledgment of its majority's precarity." Can you break down what that means and what the numbers in Congress are right now?

Jim Newell: Sure. Trump picks originally for his Cabinet from the House. He picked Matt Gaetz, who we know that didn't work out, but Matt Gates didn't go back to the House. He picked Michael Waltz, our good friend here, and he picked Elise Stefanik to be ambassador to the United Nations. Assuming full attendance that time, the Republicans would have been working with a 217 to 215 vote majority until some of those special elections happen to fill in the seats. That means they could not lose any votes.

Democrats since then they've had a couple members who've passed away, and Republicans are about to, so they think, replenish a couple of seats, the Gaetz seat and the Mike Waltz seat. They will have a seat or two cushion in some of these difficult votes. I think they thought that the Stefanik seat, even though she won it by 20 points last time, given how angry Democrats are and given how the Democratic coalition is uniquely suited to show up well in special elections, they thought they could have lost that seat.

They asked her while they're trying to get their agenda through to stay back instead. It's a tough break for Elise Stefanik, who had really dedicated herself to the Trump movement the last five or so years, had already been through confirmation hearings, had already done her goodbye tour in her district, had been posting on Instagram goodbye stories. Now she has to go back. She'll be okay.

Matt Katz: Maybe she can find a job in the third Trump administration. I joke a little bit. You say Democrats are uniquely suited to do well in special elections. Why is that? Then there's a couple of, as you indicated, a couple of other special elections happening in Florida.

Jim Newell: Sure. If you look at what's happened to the Democratic coalition, especially in 2024, but it's been growing a little bit throughout the Trump years. They've been shedding to Republicans a lot of low propensity voters. They've been doing worse among young voters, among Hispanic voters, among Black voters who do not relative to some of the voters who Dems have picked up with, which is a lot of college-educated white voters, do not necessarily vote in every single special election.

The Democratic coalition now, for all its problems, losing a lot of widespread appeal, picking up a lot of these college-educated voters who are just news-obsessed, they will vote in every single election. That's the change you see. Yes. Then do you want to look ahead at the Florida races coming up?

Matt Katz: Yes, please. Yes.

Jim Newell: Sure. There's two, there's the-- on Tuesday, April 1st, there is the race to replace Matt Gaetz's seat in the first district, which is along the panhandle of Florida, and then there is the race to succeed Michael Waltz. Both of these are in no way competitive districts in a normal election. I think the Matt Gaetz seat, that's probably a plus 40 Republican seat. The one that Michael Waltz left behind, he had won by the mid-30s when he left office. No one really thought that this would be particularly competitive.

Then Josh Weil, who is a Democratic candidate in the 6th district, Michael Waltz's still district, he raised $10 million, and his opponent raised about a million dollars, and his opponent has about $90,000 cash on hand. That got a lot of people looking at it. Then there have been a couple polls, one public, one private, that showed this within a few points. This is something that is-- I have my theory that Republicans are sounding the alarm here to build expectations.

Even if they have a five-point win or something, they can call it a great victory when that's really a horrendous underperformance. I don't want to rule anything out right now. You never really know what can happen. If they thought the seat would have been competitive, they would not have picked Michael Waltz to be National Security Advisor.

Matt Katz: Even if the Democrats are somehow to win these two elections and then get the Stefanic seat, they still do not-- They still are the minority party in the House. It could be within one or two seats.

Jim Newell: Yes. They would have to-- If Democrats won all three of these special elections-- I guess there's just two now. There's the two Florida seats and there would have been the New York seat.

Matt Katz: Oh, that's for Elise Stefanik. Got it. My apologies.

Jim Newell: Yes. If Stefanik had stayed with her nomination, and Democrats had won all three, and Democrats were able to replace their vacancies ever risen, they would have had a one vote majority. That's not going to happen. Stefanik ices that from happening by staying in her seat. It's still unlikely the Democrats are going to win either of these two Florida seats. Although now it's become more of an interesting question. In terms of the two vacancies that Democrats have, there's one in Arizona, I don't think that special election is going to be until September, and then there's another one in Texas, and that one hasn't even been scheduled yet.

It could be that Governor Abbott is slow-walking that one. We're not sure when that's going to happen. I think there are some people out there questioning whether Democrats could take back the majority mid-session through special elections. I would tell those people not to get their hopes up if that's what they want.

Matt Katz: Sure, sure. It is still though so close. I mean the fact that the House is just really split basically down the middle is such a reflection of where the country is when it comes to this president and politics. Really unbelievable. I wanted to ask about maybe the most unexpected international issue of this Trump administration, and that's Greenland. Vice President Vance made a trip there this past weekend. You called it one of the administration's most unnecessary international incidents turned into--

Jim Newell: Of the week. Just of the week.

Matt Katz: Of the week. Got it. What happened?

Jim Newell: There was a delegation announced where second lady Usha Vance was going to go to Greenland, meet and greet people. She was going to go to a dog sled race. That freaked everyone out on the international side, Denmark and Greenland, who obviously are repulsed with this sabre-rattling from the Trump administration about acquiring Greenland, put out some pretty vicious statements. I don't necessarily know if the Trump administration would have cared about Denmark being upset, but I think the problem became that they were having trouble organizing events there where Usha Vance could meet enough people or not be surrounded by protesters the entire time.

I think they thought it would be a ugly PR for them to go through that plan. They changed it entirely. Instead, Usha and JD Vance would go to the existing American military base in the north of Greenland and do an event there.

Matt Katz: How did that turn out?

Jim Newell: I guess they balance what they're doing to look like they were not just completely retreating from their initial itinerary. Vance still gave a pretty aggressive, belligerent speech about the US plans for Greenland. He said, "This needs to happen. We need to, at the very least, have more military bases or a better cooperation with Greenland, if not to take over the entire thing." I thought it was interesting. The one thing he said was it's all about competition in the Arctic between great powers. He said we need this to stem off aggression from China, other countries, and Russia, which is we're right now cutting a deal with Russia. It's like between this and Ukraine, there's different interpretations of what the threat level is for Russian aggression.

Matt Katz: What do you think the motivation is? From my vantage point, I've wondered if it's about acquiring territory. Trump would see that from a legacy standpoint as a success that pursued the American mission of Manifest Destiny. That's what this is fundamentally about.

Jim Newell: Yes, I think that's basically it. I think Trump-- I wrote a jokey thing earlier this year that Trump just wants Greenland because it looks bigger than actually is in the Mercator projection map. It looks like it's the absolute biggest landmass in the world. Then I found out that Peter Baker, the New York Times reporter, actually reported that was why he was interested originally in his book. I think the reason Vance is doing this and why you have all these foreign policy officials retrofitting explanations to it is that it's just Trump wants it. He wants to be a conqueror.

He wants, as you said, his legacy. He wants to expand. That's why he's talking about the Panama Canal in Canada. It's another-- When we talked about the third term and how things start as jokes, these things start as jokes, too. Governor Trudeau, and how we're going to take Canada, and how we absolutely need Greenland. I think Greenland, of all these things, is definitely the one he's quite serious about.

If you feel like you should have a better relationship with Denmark to have more access to Greenland because there's real national security threats or because there's rare earth mineral deposits there that you like to have access to, since World War II, we have a way of resolving those things. You cut a deal with the other country, you don't take over the other country. That's why it's so jarring to hear him talk about this. I think he thinks visually, he's like, "Wouldn't it be great if that great landmass was part of our realm?"

Matt Katz: Jim, before I let you go, I want to go back to Congress for a minute. GOP lawmakers are finalizing a budget framework for the planned megabill, trying to do this before the upcoming Easter recess. It appears Speaker Mike Johnson and over in the Senate, the majority leader, John Thune, are signaling that they will move forward on the fiscal blueprint, "Without resolving major disputes over the offsets, including potentially huge cuts to Medicaid." This is from Politico. Can you break down the disagreement here and what's at stake and what we should be looking at in the coming couple weeks?

Jim Newell: Yes. I'll try to do the not weedsy version of this, but basically between among Republicans in both the House and the Senate, there's a question of-- I would say the biggest contention is how much deficit reduction, how much spending cuts, especially to mandatory spending like Medicaid, how big should that be? There are fiscal conservatives who want to be pretty expansive. There are moderates and vulnerable members who don't, because that's a recipe for midterm disaster. In order to give tax cuts, we cut Medicaid.

It looked like through this budget framework process, they'd have to resolve, to a certain extent, those differences now. They'd have to come up with numbers that they would set their targets as they put the final details on the bill. They're not doing that. They're doing everything they can to delay that difficult decision until the end. I think that's just, one, that's the only way necessarily to move things right now, but it's also strategic because you just keep stringing people along. Don't worry about it, just advance this part of it right now, and then we'll figure everything out later.

Then only in the very end will you get the deal is cut, the numbers will be settled, and then you just have to tell everyone you have to vote for this now because if it doesn't, then Donald Trump's agenda will crumble. It could be months before we really know how deep these Medicaid cuts are, if these Medicaid cuts are taken out entirely just because they don't think it's politically palatable. For now, it's another punt down the line.

Matt Katz: We will be watching, and you will be watching. Jim Newell is Slate's senior politics writer. Jim, thanks for making sense of all this for us today and for joining us on the Brian Lehrer Show.

Jim Newell: Yes, I appreciate it. Thank you.

 

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