This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Why Democrats can’t get their act together’
Marc Filippino
Most budget battles on Capitol Hill that happen are partisan. Democrats and Republicans usually fight each other to get a little bit more of what they want. But the budget tussle last week took place within a party — Democrats. It turned pretty ugly. Some members of Congress are even calling on their Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, to step down.
Glenn Ivey voice clip
I’m afraid that it may be time for the Senate Democrats to pick new leadership as we move forward.
Marc Filippino
And this infighting could cost Democrats big. How can you take on President Donald Trump if you can’t even get on the same page?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Swamp Notes, the weekly podcast from the FT News Briefing, where we talk about all the things happening in US politics. I’m Marc Filippino, and this week we’re asking: why can’t Democrats get their act together? Here with me to discuss is Rana Foroohar. She’s the FT’s global business columnist and writes the Swamp Notes newsletter. Hi, Rana.
Rana Foroohar
Hey, how are you?
Marc Filippino
Doing well. We’ve also got Steff Chávez, the FT’s Washington reporter, and she writes the White House Watch newsletter. Hey, Steff.
Steff Chávez
Hi, Marc.
Marc Filippino
All right, so this debate among Democrats about how to respond to Trump is . . . I mean, it’s nothing new, right? I mean, it’s been going on since his first term. But Steph, why was this budget battle so significant?
Steff Chávez
So this was really the first major legislative victory for the Trump administration. The Republicans in Congress and in the White House, you know, really were able to display their party unity and flex the political muscle that they get from controlling both Congress and, of course, the presidency. But as you said, it was able to go through because Democrats abandoned their resistance to the bill. Republicans needed eight Democrats to help them, because while they control the Senate, they don’t have a supermajority, which is sometimes needed to get things done in Congress. And in the end, nine Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, allowed the final vote to proceed. And the whole situation really, really divided Democrats. It exposed the party’s political weakness because, even in a situation where they had a little bit of leverage, it didn’t really amount to much. And so Schumer and the other Democrats who helped the process along said they, in the end, feared a shutdown would give Trump and Musk the opportunity for an executive power grab. And that would be worse than just swallowing the bitter pill that was this Republican bill.
Marc Filippino
So Steff, it seems like this exposed a pretty big rift in the party. So Democrats who wanna fight Republicans on everything, especially in this, in this budget scenario that we’re talking about, and other Democrats who want to choose their battles. Rana, are there clear camps we can talk about who’s on the two sides and what are the dynamics there?
Rana Foroohar
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that a lot of this fight reflects a larger fight, actually, within the Democratic party that’s been going on for some years and really hasn’t been resolved yet. And that’s between the centrists, the sort of, you know, status quo part of the party, party leadership. Chuck Schumer, most Democrats kind of falling somewhere in that middle. And the economic populists Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, and more recently, Chris Murphy, the Connecticut senator. And you can see folks really getting out there in these town halls and being like, come on, you know, we cannot adopt the rollover and play-dead through the midterm strategy. We’ve got to get out there. But it is a fight that is not done yet. And a big part of the problem is money politics, and the fact that the Democrats, like Republicans, need donors. And a lot of Democratic donors find themselves further to the right on economic issues than I think many Democratic voters would like them to be.
Marc Filippino
Like tax cuts?
Rana Foroohar
Indeed, indeed. I mean, I have to say, I’ve just been shocked. Honestly, the Democrats have not been united in a full-throated cry against Trump’s tax cuts. Here’s the argument, and it’s such an easy argument, laissez faire trickle down economics would tell you — has told you for 40 years — that tax cuts actually create investment and jobs growth. And if you remember, last time, more back to 2017, when Trump sold his plan that way, and in particular, allowing American companies this sort of one time get out of jail free clause to bring back all their overseas profits and supposedly put them into factories and jobs in America. Well, guess where they went? They went into the stock market buybacks, dividend payments, bigger corporate payouts for executives. So Democrats could easily just look back and say, guess what? 80 per cent of these tax cuts went back into the stock market and made the rich richer. They didn’t create jobs. We’re not gonna let that happen again. And if they could derail Trump’s tax cuts, they could really roadblock a lot of the Trump agenda, ‘coz I think if he doesn’t have tax cuts, all the disgruntlement and his low poll numbers, he’s really sunk, and you could see a much better midterm result for Democrats.
Marc Filippino
So guys, what are some of the arguments Democrats are making for and against radical action? We’ve already touched on a few of them, but Steff, does anything come to mind?
Steff Chávez
Yeah. So I think, we know, one of the arguments that you’re hearing a lot against radical action is that some Democrats think it’s worth letting the Republicans self-implode. Opinion polls have started to show dissatisfaction with Elon Musk’s Doge cost-cutting efforts. You know, a lot of federal workers have been fired, and federal workers don’t just live in DC. Republican members of Congress started to have a lot of outrage at town halls when they went home to their districts, with people not happy with how all of the mass lay-offs have gone. But then on the flip side, there are people who think it is worth trying to put up a fight at every possible moment, and that it’s important to slow Trump and the Republicans down and to, you know, get every little bit that they can.
Rana Foroohar
I completely agree with that. I think that they’re . . . Democrats, I mean, the narcissism of small differences is just killing Democrats. Protocol is killing Democrats, you know. We live in an attention economy, right? I mean, there’s only so much of screaming and politics that our brains can take in. And if Democrats just roll over and wait, essentially let them have all the airtime. Well, if I’m a voter in the Midwest, OK, maybe I’m not so happy about what’s happened with Doge, but I still wanna know. And this was the problem with Kamala. What are the Democrats gonna do for me? What is the policy? Who are these people? I just don’t think that you can go into the midterms with zero message and zero real policy stance.
Steff Chávez
Yeah, and then there are some people who want to see action beyond Democrats actually crafting a message and getting on the same page. You know, there is now among the Democratic base, particularly, you know, people who are more progressive really want to see their lawmakers putting themselves basically on the front lines and being willing to take bigger risks with themselves (Steff laughs). Like not just politically.
Marc Filippino
We saw that. We saw that a little bit during Trump’s congressional address, right? But, you know, not a ton.
Steff Chávez
Yeah so, Representative Al Green heckled President Trump during his joint address, and was expelled from the chamber. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, had him removed.
Mike Johnson voice clip
Finding that members continue to engage in wilful and concerted disruption of proper decorum, the chair now directs the sergeant-at-arms to restore order. Remove this gentleman from the chamber.
Steff Chávez
But it was basically the closest thing that we’ve seen to, kind of, hard action from the Democrats. And even in an instance where the overall Democratic response and strategy during the joint address was not unified, and was a bit messy.
Rana Foroohar
I think that there’s something, like it or not, Trump does bring the language and the Republicans around him, bring the language of a battle cry of a fight. And I think Democrats wanna see their leaders fighting for them. And I think if politicians really stepped up and made the economic case for why they’re doing what they’re doing, these tax cuts are fundamentally against Republican values. They’re gonna put us in a far worse debt and deficit position.
Marc Filippino
I think it was Bill Clinton who said that Democrats wanna fall in love, and Republicans just fall in line. I wonder who is that person to get Democrats to fall in line, because it seems the ship seems a little captainless right now.
Steff Chávez
You know, a way to figure that out is for maybe Democrats to take advantage of this moment and really get out there, and get on screens, get into TikTok feed, be on the ground in their districts and in other parts of the country. Because even though, you know, Republicans are in control and getting a lot done, they’ve kind of pulled back a little bit on their town hall appearances after all of the pushback that some were getting. So it’s kind of an opportunity for Democrats to really, really get out there, and maybe someone, at least for the short or medium term, can kind of emerge as a unifying voice.
Rana Foroohar
You know, I think that’s a really smart idea. And you’re making me think of one of the things that was tricky about the tail-end of the presidential election was the fact that, OK, yeah, I think it was right that the Democrats just said, we’re going to organise around Kamala. We only got 100 days. But by missing that kind of robust primary, that sort of dating game where voters are allowed to just like look at all the candidates and hear them speak and let people get up on the platform. We didn’t get that show. We didn’t get that sense of engagement, grassroots engagement, you know, not just what pollsters say, but who . . . what do people really think? And I think that is a strong argument for flooding the zone and just, you know, letting Democrats take up a lot of airtime with a lot of messages to see what resonates in the public.
Marc Filippino
So guys, Democrats have talked a lot on the campaign trail and, you know, since Trump’s inauguration about democracy, that Trump is undermining it. Is that enough? Or I guess maybe a better question is, is it useful at all to be talking about that?
Steff Chávez
I think it can be useful, especially as we watch what’s happening with the judiciary. You know, the judiciary branch and the executive branch. So basically, federal judges, including the Supreme Court and Trump, have a lot of tension right now. US Chief Justice John Roberts even went so far as to rebuke President Trump, after Trump called for the impeachment of federal judges. That’s extremely unusual for a chief justice of the Supreme Court to do. So I think if this kind of tension really continues, and the Trump administration does continue to, you know, ignore orders or tries to sideline the judiciary even more, it could be very unpalatable to the American people. And maybe it can become something that Democrats can take advantage of with messaging.
Rana Foroohar
Yeah. You know, I take the point about Roberts, and I do think it’s important that the courts are standing up. But I think for average people, I’m not so sure democracy. I don’t think it rings their bells. I mean, if you look back, Joe Biden was talking a lot before he had to drop out about democracy. It just didn’t resonate. I hate that people aren’t more worried, but I think linking everything that’s happening around the Constitutional crisis to the economy is maybe the way to go. I mean, there is actually strong research to show that when rule of law erodes in the ways that we’re seeing, investment goes away, jobs go away, the economy tends to dip, volatility comes back, and all that is playing with what’s actually happening in the economy right now. So I think there’s tremendous low hanging fruit for Democrats to be like, hey, this is the Trump recession. This is Trump’s market crash as he erodes our rights, investors are gonna flee, and countries are gonna realign, and China is gonna be laughing all the way to the bank. I think that’s the way to go.
Marc Filippino
It’s interesting Rana, because just this week, we heard from the Federal Reserve who put out its outlook for the rest of the year. And in it they cut economic growth forecasts, and they said that inflation was going to be higher than expected, and I haven’t seen any Democratic reaction to that.
Rana Foroohar
I mean, part of the problem is that the market went up a little bit, but there’s, you know, and so Democrats probably thinking, how do we message that there’s an easy way to message it. Look, people, the market where 85 per cent of it is owned by the top 10 per cent of the population, the market thinks Trump’s fine. But look at how the Fed’s thinking. Look at what growth looks like. Inflation’s going up. We’re back in stagflation. Use the word stagflation. It terrifies people, and that’s very possibly where we’re headed. Surely there’s got to be some kind of, you know, pointed message there.
Marc Filippino
This is a great conversation guys I wanna thank both of our guests. Rana Foroohar is the FT’s global business columnist. She’s also the co-author of our Swamp Notes newsletter. Thanks, Rana.
Rana Foroohar
Thank you.
Marc Filippino
And Steff Chávez, she’s our Washington reporter and the author of the FT’s White House Watch newsletter. We’ll have a link to that in the show. notes. Thanks, Steff.
Steff Chávez
Thanks, Marc.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Marc Filippino
This is Swamp Notes, the US politics show from the FT News Briefing. If you wanna sign up for the Swamp Notes newsletter, we’ve got a link to that in the show notes. Our show is mixed by Sam Giovinco and produced by Katya Kumkova. Sonja Hutson and Ethan Plotkin helped produce this episode. Special thanks to Pierre Nicholson. I’m your host, Marc Filippino. Our executive producer is Topher Forhecz. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio. Original music by Hannis Brown. Check back next week for more US political analysis from the Financial Times.
