Look what happened this is crazy. We stand on the verge of the four greatest years in the history of make America great victory. How can you be against it? Okay, stop us if you've heard this before. The government is up against a deadline to pass a new spending bill before a shutdown that could happen at the end of this week. Welcome to Cyber from the Washington Post. I'm Rhonda Colvin, here with my colleagues, columnist and editorial writer James Holman, and J.M. Rieger, senior video journalist. Thanks, guys. On today's show, we're going to break down the looming government shutdown and how the scenario of a race against the clock is becoming commonplace, the politics behind it, and what are the ins and outs that we know of so far. We're also going to chat a little bit about J.D. Vance. He is actually on the Hill right now as we're taping this, or he may have just left, but we're trying to figure out what type of...
vice president is he becoming and what we know about him so far. So we will dive into that later. But first, let's start talking about the shutdown and what we know right now. I think a lot of people are wondering, why do we keep, as reporters, keep saying there's a looming government shutdown? And I will fill in right now as a Capitol Hill reporter that there is a government funding deadline every September 30th. So this is an annual thing. But in the years past, we've seen it come down to the wire where they keep passing continuing resolutions or CRs that are just those kick the can down the road type of measures that just keep government funding at their current levels and just push back the deadline. So Jay, I'm starting with you. Why, you know, from your reporting, why are we seeing these shutdowns come, you know, to the last minute?
I mean, a shutdown in a nutshell is really just a failure to govern by Congress, right? Their first duty is to fund the government and keep the government open. So when they can't do that, that's really a breakdown of that process. But it's really a sign also of... both the partisan nature of kind of the times that we're in and how divided the country is, and also how top-down this process has become in Congress over especially the last couple of decades here. And what I mean by that is traditionally Congress, it would be very kind of sussed out to the committees. The committees would go through and allocate funding for their sort of expertise areas that they had oversight. And over the years, that's increasingly become a leadership top-down process where rank-and-file members do not have as much of a say in the process. So a shutdown becomes one of their few leverage points to really get any sort of say in the process or lobby for any sort of specific issues they might want in the bill. Yeah. As a journalist, deadlines focus me.
I think it's something akin to that for lawmakers where you can have a lot of negotiations, but it's really hard to sort of have movement until the last minute. It's just the way a lot of negotiations work, where both sides have staked out positions and they're sort of hoping the other blinks first. But Congress has been so evenly divided. And polarized. In the old days, when they had earmarks and stuff, it was easier to pass funding bills because you could do some good old-fashioned log rolling where you kind of give everyone what they want. And for a long time, the way they've gotten out of this jam is to just give Republicans what they want, which is more defense spending and border enforcement, and give Democrats what they want, which is more social services, food stamps, education, programs like that. And so you just end up having a situation where then the bills become gargantuan because to get everyone to vote for it.
everyone gets their priorities. And then you had in this post Tea Party era, a bunch of people who came in as Republicans sort of promising to make government smaller, and said they would never vote for one of these big spending bills. And so what that actually did in practice was it forced Republicans when they were in control to make concessions to Democrats to get their votes. But now you're seeing the dynamic sort of shift where a large group of people, the Congressional Freedom Caucus, sort of the most hardcore, now MAGA, but originally Tea Party people. They always voted no. And so they were sort of irrelevant in some ways, because Republican leaders from John Boehner to Paul Ryan to Mike Johnson, Kevin McCarthy would have to go find some moderate Democrats or give stuff to Democrats to get them on board. Now, all of a sudden, if you can get the Republicans on board, you don't need the Democrats as much. And so we're seeing...
Similar dynamics play out why we have this sort of crisis, this governing by crisis, but the underlying dynamics have actually shifted a fair amount over the last couple of years. I do want to point out something you said at the top is that, you know, deadlines as reporters, we can understand deadlines. And that's very true of Congress as well, because we were saying this off camera a little bit ago. Next week, there is a recess plan for Congress. And the last time we were in this position of a looming shutdown, it was a few days before Christmas. So to our listeners, that is sometimes by design, because it is the carrot at the end of the stick that the staff want to go home, lawmakers want to go home, they already have their schedules booked.
in their district. So they, they usually want to get out of town when they said they were going to get out of town. And that is likely an indicator that they could come to a deal. Although we have seen it before where they have decided to stay in over the weekend at night to get this, the government funding deals done. Or, you know, punt for a week, right? Just by time of what it's done. And it is worth reminding because everyone, when we are, I think it's such a good question to tee up, but like we were here in late December going into Christmas and people are, you're right that we are operating on fiscal year, September 30th, but we just literally did this like.
three months ago. And the reason we're in the situation is because Mike Johnson needed the votes to get reelected as speaker. And so he wanted to do a full year extension, but he couldn't get the votes to do it. Elon Musk, remember, blew it up by like talking about what a terrible deal it was. So they ended up just extending it to March 15th, which is now why we're in this situation again, you know, and like, and it's funny because you have Democrats on the Hill or like, let's do a one month extension, which would mean that we're back in the same position in a month. And for Democrats, that's fine, because they want to just run down the clock and get Republicans to be focused on just trying to basically fund the government. But it is it.
you know, these really short term CRs have become totally crazy. Well, and this is a situation here where they need they being Republicans, they need some Democratic votes, because only 53 votes in the Senate, you need 60 votes to get this through. So that's also created some issues here. I do just want to briefly piggyback onto something you mentioned earlier, James, which is how partisan things are, because you do have a sizable faction, especially the House Republican caucus, that will not vote traditionally for any of these spending bills if it does not have substantial cuts in them. And that does really get back to kind of the breakdown of the appropriations process. The stat that gets thrown out there all the time is we have not passed all 12 appropriations bills on time since 1996, which is a wild stat to think about, right? So we've gone almost three decades now without doing that. On top of that, that would normally go through these appropriations committees where these rank and file members are. But not only has that process broken down, but the amendment process is broken down.
It's a huge gripe, especially of far right Republicans in the House. But when the House brings a bill to the floor, there's a rule process for how many amendments can be offered. And I think something that really encapsulates this whole thing is when Paul Ryan became Speaker in 2015, he said, we're going to open up the process. The process has been closed for too long. We've got to get rank and file members to offer amendments.
When Paul Ryan left the speakership at the end of 2018, he had one open rule his entire speakership. That means that there was only one time where members could go down to the floor in those three or four years there and offer an unlimited number of amendments to bills. Every other time, that's a controlled process. And this gets back to the shutdown and the appropriations because, again, members view this as a leverage point, and then leadership tries to throw these deadlines, whether it's Christmas or whether it's a retreat or whatnot, kind of what we call jet fumes here in D.C., right? Folks want to get out of town, and that becomes the carrot at the end of the stick.
When it comes to the big questions, who you ask matters. From breaking news to politics that impact your life to advice you can trust. Get answers you don't have to question with Ask the Post AI. Trained exclusively on post-journalism with clear sourcing. And if we don't know the answer, we'll tell you.
Ask the Post AI. Find it on WashingtonPost.com or in the app. Yeah, I want to get into quickly about what Republicans are gaining from this, what this looks like for them. And is it on them as one party to pass this bill? Because as it stands right now, and we don't yet know because they will be voting later today after we're recording this, but they can only lose one vote on this. Republicans can. So is it the role of just one party to pass the bill? Is that where we are at right now?
Well, I will say, you know, when Democrats have controlled the House, they have been able to pass it on party line vote. They've been able to get it through. But Republicans have not because of all these people that Jam's talking about. And I appreciate you're taking a pretty wonky in the weed subject and really explaining it in a very accessible way because it can get confusing when you hear terms like regular order and amendment tree and all that. And in this situation.
Republicans have the narrowest majority, I think, in like 100 years. And so Mike Johnson really can only spare one vote. And the fact that Mike Johnson is telling reporters ahead of this vote that he thinks he's only going to lose one person, which is going to be Thomas Massey from Kentucky, is pretty remarkable. Even yesterday, there were a bunch of holdouts because people want their leverage. Beth Van Dyne from the Dallas area, she said she wasn't sold. And Trump has taken over the Republican Party where people do fear him now.
Trump doesn't even need to sort of make this threat explicit. They know that if they vote against this, they're going to be seen as voting against Trump. And Trump is more popular than them in their districts. I mean, the Senate is interesting because Rand Paul has said he's going to vote no. He's the Republican from Kentucky, Libertarian. He's against the tariffs. He's against the spending, but he's also kind of, he's been a Trump supporter. So that means you would need eight.
Senate Democrats to vote yes, out of what 47. And, and so you really don't need all Democrats to get on board, but you just need eight who are going to be like, I don't want to get blamed for a shutdown. Or there's a lot of federal workers in my state who are going to be furloughed or whatever. Usually the Republicans or the Democrats who are always in charge end up negotiating with the other side to get the votes. And so I think a lot of Democrats feel like this is kind of a unpleasant situation because The government either shuts down, but they aren't going to get what they want. And they could be blamed for it as well. And so let's talk about the Democrats a little bit. I know everyone's been saying, oh, they're not, they don't have a cohesive message. There's no unity. I've actually been saying there is unity when it comes to something like this. And this is a big deal because they have all said, we are voting together as a party. Republicans, you're on your own. Democrats feel that this type of deal may have some things in it that are yet to be seen, such as cuts to entitlements or may open the door to that or further cuts with the federal government workforce, cuts to health care. So Democrats say they're a little worried about this. And so they are all going to not vote for it. So what do they win anything?
if they stand together like this and are challenging Republicans to figure it out on their own. Yeah, I mean, this is really one of the few moments where Democrats have some leverage, as we've been talking about how Democrats are sort of in soul-searching mode of what do they do, how hard do they push back against Trump and the Trump administration. But, you know, you've heard mixed messaging from Democrats on this as well, which is we need the government to stay open because of the services for constituents, and that ultimately just harms them and doesn't, you know, necessarily mean that much for us on the political front. kind of their base, the base wants to see Democrats fighting here, putting up a fight, getting concessions out of Republicans out of the Trump administration, specifically on holding Elon Musk and Doge a little more to account, and also to prevent some of the kind of marginal cuts that are in this CR that gets them through September here.
You know, I think that what's interesting about this dynamic is that traditionally in recent years when we've been talking about this, it's our Republicans going to vote to keep the government open because Republicans would need to come on board. The last two government shutdowns were both under Trump when Republicans controlled both chambers. So now we're in a dynamic where Republicans still control both chambers. But now it's our Democrats going to vote to keep the government open because they do need those eight votes if Rand Paul votes against us in the Senate. Because even if this gets through the House today on a party line vote.
How many Senate Democrats think that this is the fight to have right now? And to your earlier point, James, which I think is exactly right, if they punt this a month, is their leverage going to be any different in a month, or is this just about sort of stringing that along and forcing Trump to expend more political capital to keep this in line? The master at this round of your question is Nancy Pelosi. She was able to, by keeping this from being there and covering all these fights, but Pelosi could hold all of her members together, even when Republicans had like a 20-seat, 30-seat majority. And then when there were 30 defections, Pelosi could say, well, if you want a single one of my members, you're going to have to make these major concessions. And then they'd have to come hat in hand to Pelosi, and Pelosi would drive her relate.
hard bargain because she kept her members in line. So far, for being the new leader, Hakeem Jeffries is doing a good job of holding his members together in hopes of getting leverage because Republicans can't all fall in line and they have such a narrow majority. What will be interesting is if the bill is going to pass anyway, are there a couple House Democrats from swing districts and thinking of someone like Jared Golden from Maine who wants to sort of vote for the bill, but if he's the deciding vote, doesn't want to undermine Leader Jeffries in his leverage. When the majorities are this close. All of a sudden, every member of Congress becomes like a senator. You know, we spend so much time talking about the Susan Collinses of the world. But right now, the House is basically like anyone in the House can act like a senator if they want. And that makes Mike Johnson's job a heck of a lot harder. It does. And I noticed when he came to the cameras and microphones earlier today, he already was blaming Democrats for it, which also tells me, and this is something that's really fascinating right now, is they will take this vote to the floor without a confident whip count. And they did that in December, where the first vote, it didn't go anywhere.
because they had not done a whip count and knew if their members were going to pass it. So I think we are also in new times there where they are taking votes to the floor without knowing if they have everyone. And that's really, that makes us really a nail biter. I will add to just tie up this segment on what's happening with the shutdown and what it all means. I did a story last year on why do we keep talking about looming shutdowns? It feels more frequent than it used to. And the expert I spoke with who follows Congress at the Brookings Institute, she said, actually, shut down looming shutdowns.
It's common in congressional politics. She said, but what's uncommon is that we can't really tie this to any specific policy. And that is interesting because she pointed out when there was one during the Obama administration, it was over the Affordable Care Act. When even in Trump's first administration, there was the shutdown over the border walls. We were always able to tie it back to one specific policy that people had problems with. Right now, it's just politics and math. It's really not that there is a big problem with one piece of policy. It is that the margins are just so slim, at least in the House. Really good point. Yeah, yeah.
And Republicans want, this is early in the Trump administration. That's kind of the last thing that a lot of these Republicans and definitely the Trump administration wants at this point, is that sort of quick shutdown to your point. Yeah, yeah. All right, guys. Well, next up, we are going to talk about someone who's on the Hill to help Republicans keep it together and get to the floor and all vote in unity. And that's J.D. Vance. He had a closed door meeting with House GOP members. We're going to talk a little bit about Vance, who he's becoming. What does his vice presidency look like when we come back?
Okay, Vice President J.D. Vance was on Capitol Hill today to meet with House Republicans about the budget. James, I want to get a sense from you. J.D. Vance was on the Hill as a senator not long ago, months ago. For two years, but just months ago. So he was recently there. At the time, he didn't really seem like a power broker senator. And really, there wasn't enough time to build relationships. But now he's on the Hill right now as a person who is part of the negotiation, standing in for the White House. What do we make about how he is being received on the Hill and his relationships right now? It has been remarkable to watch. Even today, as he was on the Hill, people were sharing some of his not very old tweets, honestly, from like 2019, where he was trashing Trump. And it's really been quite a journey when you look at it.
the trajectory from never Trump or Trump critics saying Trump was America's Hitler to running as the MAGA candidate in the crowded Republican Senate primary, winning in the spring of 2022, the primary, then winning the election, coming in in 2023 and sort of immediately becoming a thorn in the side of Mitch McConnell and being very much part of the kind of anti-establishment crowd, the anti-internationalist crowd. But because of his past, he has been viewed very dubiously by MAGA. Like a lot of MAGA people, we saw a lot of that last summer after he was named, just haven't seen him as one of them. They've seen him as an interloper, he's sort of faking it. And I think that has really started to change. I think a really big turning point was that Oval Office meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, where Vance really seemed to be the one who, you know, shivved Zelensky and started the fight. Trump was sort of wrapping up the meeting, said, I'll take one more question. And then Vance started lighting into Zelensky. And then I think Zelensky...
saw Vance as someone who he could punch at because he felt like he couldn't hit a Trump, but he couldn't advance. And then Trump came to Vance's defense and it kind of blew up into this big thing. But I think that that, when you talk to MAGA world, that like Dunn Jr. loves JD, Dunn Jr. more than anyone else is why JD became vice president. But JD has really won over the MAGA base. And so he has credibility to go over there. And even, I mean, it's having covered the hill for a while, the people who are the most defiant and
the biggest thorns in the side of Republican leadership for years, not just members, but staffers, like the staffers for members of the House of Freedom Caucus. They are now the top people in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. So I saw the video of JD, you know, leaving the Hill, and he's being followed by a bunch of staff. And it's like, these are the people who were like, angling to shut down the government last year, you know, these are the people who were like the burn it all down crowd. And Vance has gotten in with them. And that's why they sent Vance to sort of go.
twist those arms. You know, he's not, J.D. Vance isn't going to persuade Mitch McConnell to vote for anything, but he can get to these maggotypes who see him, one, is speaking for the president, but two, is one of them. And it really is a remarkable shift in a very short amount of time for him to get that. Yeah. So that's sort of like where he is with, you know, those who share the same ideologies as him, other politicians. But I'm also wondering how his, how the public is viewing J.D. Vance. I want to play a clip though first. This is from over the weekend in Cincinnati, Ohio, where J.D. Vance was spending the weekend at his home there.
I'm speaking with you and I'm trying to be respected. OK, that clip has been getting a lot of play over the last few days. And just for some context, that happened near his neighborhood. He has said that the protesters were following him. They have said they already had a planned protest in support of Ukraine. And this is important to mention, this is his home state, too, where they are having protests. And they said they did not realize he would be there. They just kind of happened upon him. So, you know, the accounts there differ. But they both said, Vance as well as the protesters said, that it was peaceful. But he is being tied right now to the issue of Ukraine. And I'm just wondering, JM, what do you think about how the public is viewing Vance?
that Oval Office meeting and right now in this moment. One of the things that Trump liked the most about Vance as he was kind of weighing his VP picks over the summer was that Vance was good on television, in Trump's words. He would go on any network and he would basically do combat with the host or with whoever the other guests were and would defend MAGA and would defend Trump. And he wanted someone like that by his side. That was a factor in all of this. So when we see moments like this, I can't help but think back to that because in some ways, Vance, I'm sure.
wants some of this. I'm not saying that he started this or, you know, there's mixed accounts of what happened. But I think this plays well for Vance and for Trump's base here. On Ukraine, it's very interesting because Vance, for a few years there as he was... both first running as a candidate, then once he was in the Senate, would go on Tucker Carlson's Fox show a lot. And Tucker was really one of the first people in the mainstream cable news network kind of ecosystem to come out against or cast out on Ukraine and on the war and on U.S. involvement over their U.S. support for Ukraine. And Vance very much, they kind of played off of each other in that regard. And to have that come full circle now to the Oval Office from a few weeks ago now with that interaction with Zelensky is really kind of a striking turn. And you can't help but wonder how much Vance has kind of swayed some of Trump's thinking on that matter as well. And the last thing I'll just point out on this is
We've noted how Trump and some of his cabinet officials have really shifted their tone, even in recent months, definitely over the last two years, two, three years here on the issue of Ukraine, not even being willing to say that Russia was the aggressor in some cases. You heard in that clip there that Vance said that, yes, Russia invaded Ukraine, which that alone is news, which is remarkable that that's news, right? Fact, but it's news in the world that we live in now. You know, Vance is still trying to, by all accounts, he's still trying to kind of find his way a little bit in terms of what his lanes are going to be. He's overseeing this TikTok deal that may or may not happen. And every vice president has this happen. But, you know, Vance is coming in with very distinct views that I think play to Trump and to MAGA world, but also on the issue of Ukraine, I do think have the...
the chance of kind of shaping that and kind of carving out a new space there. James, you said that he does want this. And I just want to read some polling that I found earlier today. This was taken from March 8th. It's an Emerson poll and his unfavorability is at 46%. The economists and YouGov have him at 48% unfavorability among the Americans polled there. So it seems as if he's about half there, that half of the public doesn't view him favorably. The other half does.
The moves he's making, whether it's being outspoken about backing away from Ukraine and some of the other things, his Munich speech, are these by design? It's just not how he's feeling and off the cuff. Do you feel that this is by design? It is how he's feeling. It's not off the cuff. I do think it's definitely by design.
Two things to clarify, you know, when I say he wants, I think he wants to fight. He's happy to have the fight. I actually don't think he wanted the harassment in the streets of Cincinnati. I mean, like he was with his kid. He was walking around the weekend before he was skiing in Vermont and there were large scale protests and people sort of in his face or the face of the motorcade. So I don't think he likes that. I mean, but I think he's happy to mix it up right now. Vance is thinking about the 2028 Republican primaries, not the 2028 general. And he wants.
He wants to be the Republican nominee. He wants to be, he wants to inherit the Trump coalition and carry the torch. And a few weeks ago, Trump was on Fox News and was asked, is Vance your successor? He said, no, very quickly. And said, well, there's gonna be a lot of people who want to, you know, I think a bunch of people in the cabinet want to run. And so Vance is trying to.
tie himself close to Trump, went over the MAGA crowd. And right now, I think that's that's his game. It's not be liked or popular. And in some ways, looking like a fighter will endear him to the very people he will need, including Trump, to become the Republican nominee. And it's sort of I mean, those numbers are sort of on par with Trump's numbers, too. It's hard to see. Trump's unfavorability with the economist poll is at 52%. So a little higher. That's actually there. That's really good. That's really interesting. Well, if we harken back to the campaign, right, especially.
right after Trump picked Vance and the numbers were a little underwater, a little shaky, right? They weren't getting the same bump that you would usually get right after picking a vice presidential candidate. And then he had a couple kind of stumbles on the trail or maybe some lines that just didn't land. And there was chatter about, okay, A, should he replace Vance? And B, is this going to drag down the ticket? Obviously neither happened. But I, you know, I think that's carrying through here. And that may have been what drove Trump to kind of quickly say, no, he's not my successor. And then he tried to kind of caveat and clarify it. You know, Vance's main thing that he's done right now for the administration is getting those cabinet.
nominations through the Senate, right? He was up there with almost all of them, you know, interacting with senators, kind of assuaging concerns that especially the controversial ones some senators had with them. And the fact that all of Trump's cabinet nominees have been put up for a vote have gotten through is quite remarkable, given where we were two months ago on some of these. Now, how much you attribute that directly to Vance kind of the backdoor work that he did lobbying, you know, is maybe a little bit of an open question. But to your point.
That's kind of the first step and him kind of standing by Trump's side. Trump wants someone who wanted someone who was going to be a loyalist and who wasn't going to overshadow him in the vice presidency. And Vance is doing that. Traditionally, the VP plays that attack dog role. That's, you know, going back there, the person Trump loves being the attack dog. But Vance is sort of doing what a vice president historically does do. All right, James Jam. Thank you. That is it for us today. You can join us here on Sidebar on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm Rhonda Colvin for The Washington Post.
When it comes to the big questions, who you ask matters. From breaking news to politics that impact your life to advice you can trust. Get answers you don't have to question with Ask the Post AI. Trained exclusively on post journalism with clear sourcing. And if we don't know the answer, we'll tell you. Ask the Post AI. Find it on WashingtonPost.com or in the app.