Ezra Klein: What Were Democrats Thinking?

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Affordable Care Act, Senate, Charlie Angus, Great Gatsby
2. 3:00 – 5:34: Senate, federal workers, Thanksgiving

Notable quotes from "Ezra Klein: What Were Democrats Thinking?"

• Part because of the shutdown. And then over the weekend, a group of more moderate Senate Democrats led by Angus King, an independent who caucuses the Democrats, they cut this…

  about Senate · at 0:47

• Weren't enough of them. And so the idea of shutting down over these expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies emerged and it was the one demand that could hold the entire Senate…

  about Affordable Care Act · at 1:43

• Causing their constituents and in their view the country. You had hundreds of thousands of federal workers who were furoughed or fired. Some of them were facing eviction. They…

  about federal workers · at 3:17

• Getting out of it for nothing. And I think if Donald Trump wants to cancel flights across Thanksgiving in order to refuse to lower healthare prices for Americans, he wants to…

  about Thanksgiving · at 4:03

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Charlie Angus — Person · 1 mention · first at 0:52
  Part because of the shutdown. And then over the weekend, a group of more moderate Senate Democrats led by Angus King, an independent who caucuses the Democrats, they cut this…

Books & papers

• Great Gatsby — Book · 1 mention · first at 0:24
  Subsidies, he was demolishing the east wing of the White House to build a ballroom. He was throwing Great Gatsby parties at Mara Lago. If you looked at his poll numbers, they were going down.

Companies & orgs

• Senate — Company · 5 mentions · first at 0:52
• Senate Democratic caucus — Company · 1 mention · first at 1:53
  Affordable Care Act subsidies emerged and it was the one demand that could hold the entire Senate Democratic caucus together. But it had a couple of problems. One is that even…
• CNN — Company · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

• Affordable Care Act — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 1:48
• federal workers — Concept · 1 mention · first at 3:22
• Thanksgiving — Concept · 1 mention · first at 4:07
• health care subsidies — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

• White House — Place · 1 mention · first at 0:23
  Negotiating with them over healthcare subsidies, he was demolishing the east wing of the White House to build a ballroom. He was throwing Great Gatsby parties at Mara Lago. If you looked at his poll numbers, they were going down.
• Mara Lago — Place · 1 mention · first at 0:26
  Wing of the White House to build a ballroom. He was throwing Great Gatsby parties at Mara Lago. If you looked at his poll numbers, they were going down.
• United States (states) — Place · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 What the hell did Democrats just do? They were winning this shutdown. They were. And that's not a small thing. The opposition party almost never wins a shutdown. And yet, Democrats were actually winning this one. And they're winning it because Trump was acting crazy. Instead of negotiating with them over healthcare subsidies, he was demolishing the east wing of the White House to build a ballroom. He was throwing Great Gatsby parties at Mara Lago. If you looked at his poll numbers, they were going down. In the CNN poll, he was in the 30s for the first time in his second term. If you looked at the election, Democrats romped to victory. And would I say they romped to victory because of the shutdown? Probably not. But you know who thought it was part of the shutdown was Trump. He kept saying Democrats won in part because of the shutdown. And then over the weekend, a group of more moderate Senate Democrats led by Angus

0:55 King, an independent who caucuses the Democrats, they cut this deal. And the truth is there's just not much in this deal. They're ending the shutdown here for very little. But the real key of all this, the place where you see Democrats kind of got nothing was there's nothing on the healthcare subsidies that were supposedly the core of this whole fight. So what happened? Why did they fold? I think to understand what happened here you have to know that the ACA subsidies were a kind of weird part of this whole shutdown. The energy for the shutdown did not come from healthcare subsidies.

1:30 It came from the many, many congressional Democrats who feel Trump is forcing the country towards authoritarianism, who felt they could not morally keep funding a government that was being run this way. Like they're right about that, but there weren't enough of them. And so the idea of shutting down over these expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies emerged and it was the one demand that could hold the entire Senate Democratic caucus together. But it had a couple of problems. One is that even if Democrats won on the healthcare subsidies, for many of them, it wasn't going to solve the problem they were most worried about, which was the authoritarianism.

2:07 Two, you had a bunch of Senate Democrats who really didn't want to do this at all. They were just going along with their colleagues. And then three, and this was the hardest thing for Democrats to talk about, even though they talked about it internally. Of course Democrats wanted to extend health insurance subsidies. They care about the Affordable Care Act. They passed those subsidies in the first place. But weren't they handing Donald Trump? Weren't they fighting to hand Donald Trump a huge political gift? Premiums are going to more than double for millions of Americans, 20 millionish Americans. And Donald Trump and Republicans are going to be blamed for that. It is going to be another way in which they let prices go up. And to this strange inverted political logic, if Democrats won the fight, they would be neutralizing what might be their best issue against Republicans in 2026. If Republicans won the fight, they would be

2:56 handing Democrats a cudel to beat them with in 2026. So what happened here? Why then, having started this fight, did Democrats give it up for very little? The basic answer was Trump wasn't negotiating with them and the Senate moderates who never really wanted to shut down to begin with could not take the pain that it was causing their constituents and in their view the country. You had hundreds of thousands of federal workers who were furoughed or fired. Some of them were facing eviction. They were not able to pay their rent. You had hungry families that were cut off from food assistance.

3:32 You now had the the threat the growing reality of flights being canceled at at airports all across the country. And you had all these other things happening too. There's a lot the government does that does not make the headlines that we don't pay that much attention to. But they were seeing it. They were getting calls from their constituents. And I want to give them their due because they feel they were making the moral choice. They do not feel that holding out longer would have made Trump cave. So they looked at this and they thought we've caused enough pain. We're not going to get what we want here. Let's get out of it.

4:01 I would not, if I were in the Senate vote for this deal. I think they're getting out of it for nothing. And I think if Donald Trump wants to cancel flights across Thanksgiving in order to refuse to lower healthare prices for Americans, he wants to make his priorities so exquisitly clear to people. Why not let him do that? This is the difference, I think, between Democrats who understand that they're in an intentional fight for power right now, right? They need to win the attention wars against Trump. They need to make clear who he is to the American people. And then Senate Democrats are still treating this like it's normal like it's just back and forth on policy like we're just in a normal political moment. I don't think we're in a normal political moment. But what I do think is that this was a skirmish not the war. This was about positioning for next year, not about winning policy concessions this year. And so, did

4:52 Democrats win the shutdown? They definitely did not win the shutdown. The shutdown is ending. and they got relatively little. But in the fight for positioning in politics, which is what this really was, they ended up a bit better than they started. People know the healthcare subsidies are expiring. They know Republicans want to let the healthcare subsidies expire. If they do expire, the American people are now set up to blame Republicans for that, which is correct. It will be Republicans fault if that happens. So, did Democrats win the shutdown? No. But they didn't lose it either. They ended up a little bit better than they started. And given how badly opposition parties usually do in shutdowns, that's not

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Ezra Klein: What Were Democrats Thinking?"?

In order: 0:00 Affordable Care Act, Senate, Charlie Angus, Great Gatsby; 3:00 Senate, federal workers, Thanksgiving.

What is mentioned in this The Ezra Klein Show episode?

12 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Senate, Affordable Care Act, White House, Great Gatsby, Mara Lago, Charlie Angus. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Ezra Klein: What Were Democrats Thinking?"?

The episode runs 6 min; the transcript is about 1,061 words in 8 timestamped sections.

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