--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Support for this Friday, January 18th, 2019 episode of Today Explained comes from LinkedIn. Instead of posting on a job board, post your job on LinkedIn, the place where people go every day to make connections, grow in their career, and discover new opportunities. Go to linkedin.com slash explained and get $50 off your first job post. That's linkedin.com slash explained. Terms and conditions apply.
--:-- Lizo: Lizo, you're still in the shutdown beat for Vox. Yep. How are you keeping? Are you okay?
--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): I'm okay, but yeah, the shutdown, I think, is really wearing on everyone. Last week you were on the show. We were talking about how it's about to be the longest shutdown ever. Now it is the longest shutdown ever with every day becomes another record breaker. Cardi B noticed this week. I just want to remind y'all because it's been a little bit over three weeks. OK, it's been a little bit over three weeks. Trump is now ordering as in summonsing federal government workers to go back to work without getting pay.
--:-- Lizo: Now, I don't want to hear y'all motherfuckers talking about, oh, but Obama shut down the government for 17 days. Yeah, bitch, for health care. Trump this week, as we heard from Cardi B, has begun asking more people to come back to work without pay. Who's coming back? There's folks coming back from a couple of different agencies. The IRS, which is bringing back more than 30,000 employees in order to prepare for tax filing season. That's coming up at the end of this month.
--:-- Lizo: The FDA and FAA are both bringing back safety inspectors to help with food and airline safety. And then you also have the State Department, which is bringing back all of its diplomats and actually saying that it's going to start paying people for at least one pay period. And then, interestingly, one that you might not expect is that the Interior Department is bringing back people to help with offshore oil drilling rights, which kind of have a schedule that they are on, and the administration has said they don't want any delays to that schedule.
--:-- Lizo: Is that one just to sort of stick it to Democrats who maybe aren't that crazy about offshore drilling? It's interesting because in 2013, Obama actually brought this up, that shutdowns hurt the oil and gas industry because they could see effects to how their business is conducted, their schedules, things like that. One of the things that happens when the government shut down is new drilling permits aren't processed. So why would the Republicans say to the folks who are interested in drilling for oil, sorry, we can't let those things be processed until we have some negotiations and we have some cover to do what we're supposed to be doing anyway.
--:-- Lizo: Obama wanted them to see that effect because it would put pressure on Republicans to fix the shutdown. This time around, Trump wants to make sure that Republicans aren't pressured about the shutdown. So a lot of these efforts seem like they're trying to soften the blow and make sure they don't get the blame from industries that are favorable to them. He's literally just like blunting the force of his own shutdown by doing all of this.
--:-- Lizo: Right, and that enables him to kind of keep it going for as long as he's interested in doing so. And in the meantime, as he brings back more and more workers for offshore drilling, for food inspections, making them work without pay, is he getting into like murky legal waters?
--:-- Lizo: Yeah, he is. There's a law that actually was established in the late 1800s that basically says federal agencies aren't able to use money that Congress hasn't already given to them. So it's a little unclear how these agencies are bringing these services back if they don't actually have the funds to do so. The catch there is that the group that would be prosecuting any violations of this law is the Justice Department. And they've never prosecuted a violation of this law in the past. So it's unlikely that they will.
--:-- Lizo: But it is a murky legal situation. Are the courts that would prosecute a case like this even functioning right now? They are until the end of this month. And I think they've said that they're able to keep on going for a little while, but it's unclear how long that can extend for.
--:-- Lizo: Yeah, right. You mentioned last time you were on the show that there might be lawsuits as a result of this and that previously federal employees got double their pay as a result of previous shutdown lawsuits. Do we know of any lawsuits that have come from this shutdown already?
--:-- Lizo: Several workers unions have filed a similar lawsuit to make sure that workers get compensated while they're on the job now. And they actually asked for a temporary restraining order that would basically stop any workers who are on the job from working if they aren't getting paid. And a judge this week rejected that claim and said it would create too much chaos for the government.
--:-- Lizo: And in the meantime, people are hurting. Yes. I heard on the Twitters this week that TSA agents at JFK Airport in New York had just sort of given up and were playing like explicit Kanye West and Travis Scott songs Whoopity scoop Scoopity whoop Are there other examples of people on the job just sort of throwing in the towel a little bit but still working Whoop. Whoopity scoop poop.
--:-- Lizo: Increasingly, you're looking at people who aren't able to afford just basic necessities. So not even necessarily bills, which maybe you could get a delay on from your bank or something like that, but like food for their children. And you're seeing plenty of places around the country opening up food banks for government employees to go and get things to tide them over during the shutdown, which is just nuts to think about.
--:-- Lizo: Do we have any idea how much the shutdown is costing the country? It's already in the billions of dollars. Like how many billions? As of the end of last week, S&P Global Ratings estimates that it's cost $3.6 billion. If it keeps on going for another two weeks, it'll surpass that $5.7 billion mark, which ironically is how much Trump is currently demanding for his wall.
--:-- Lizo: So the shutdown will soon cost more than what the president even wanted. That's correct. I mean, we've seen shutdowns before, but have we seen a shutdown like this where the president is sort of like picking and choosing what he wants to bring back in a sort of seemingly random fashion? Even in 2013, like Obama wanted people to feel the pain of services being shut down because he wanted the shutdown to end. And in this case, because Trump doesn't necessarily want the shutdown to end because he wants to kind of maintain his position, he is picking and choosing services that will make sure they both soften the impact and also potentially leave Republicans in a more favorable position.
--:-- Lizo: And we just don't even know if that's legal. There's definitely questions about legality. Government sounds broke as fuckly. In a nutshell, yes.
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--:-- Luke Vanderplug: Game changer hiring you. Game changer? It was just me and Irene, and then you showed up, and then we started using Slack. We started organizing things the way you had organized things at your prior job. It was like night and day. Remember when we used to talk? We used to talk. All we do is use Slack. Now we just Slack.
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--:-- Ellen Nilsson: Ellen Nilsson, you cover the House for Vox. It increasingly seems like this shutdown is turning into a shutdown between the Speaker of the House and Donald Trump. Is that fair?
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: I think so. I mean, I think that this kind of all started with Nancy Pelosi telling Donald Trump no. I think sort of the beginning of all of this kind of went back to that very explosive televised meeting that Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, the leader of Senate Democrats and Trump had in the White House.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: And that was when they went in and most of it ended up being broadcast on national television. We got sort of this rare glimpse into seeing how Pelosi and Schumer were dealing with Trump. If we don't get what we want, one way or the other, whether it's... And that was the meeting where they basically got Trump to say... I will shut down the government. Okay, fair enough.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: And I am proud, and I'll tell you what, I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck. I will proudly own the government shutdown. Since then, there have been more negotiations between Pelosi and Trump. I mean, Trump tweeted after one of them, the one where he supposedly slammed the table and said bye-bye.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: She told him no. And we have to remember that under the last two years when Trump has had to deal with Republicans in leading the House over the last two years in the Senate, he hasn't really been told the word no a lot. And Pelosi is the new leader of House Democrats and she been speaker before under Republican and Democratic presidents She not afraid to tell the president of the United States the word no
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: And her telling the president no has only escalated this sort of tension between the two That really, really escalated this week, it seemed. Yeah, this week things really came to a head. So there had been these negotiations between Pelosi, Schumer and Trump that hadn't really seemed to go anywhere.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: And so this week, Pelosi kind of did this thing that people saw as her sort of playing hardball. She wrote Trump a letter suggesting that he move the date of the State of the Union until after the shutdown is resolved. But a lot of people saw this as her essentially uninviting him from delivering the State of the Union address at the House.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: Because he's like supposed to be invited to come to the House. It isn't just like he shows up whenever he wants. Exactly. The Speaker invites the President to deliver the State of the Union at the House. And when was it supposed to happen? So it was supposed to happen on January 29th.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: But basically, what Pelosi said in her letter is all of the members of Congress are going to be there. The President, the Vice President, the Cabinet, Supreme Court members. There are just so many important people here that are all going to be in one place. And you have Secret Service, FBI, all these people that aren't getting paid.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: If the president comes back to you and says, no, I want to give the State of the Union at the Capitol on the date we agreed to, what will you do then? Will you allow it to go forward? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But we haven't heard. It's very silent, more than 24 hours.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: So yesterday Pelosi held her weekly press conference and she kind of had this like little quip about, well, Trump's been very silent for the past 24 hours, which he usually isn't. And then we sort of all saw what he was – why he was being so silent. So yesterday he wrote Pelosi a letter basically canceling this trip that she was doing to Afghanistan with other House Democrats to go over and meet with military officials, see service members.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: And he told them that their trip was canceled about an hour before they were supposed to leave. Wow. Which created like this mass confusion yesterday. There was like this bus of House Democrats that was just waiting outside the Capitol to like figure out if they were still leaving. They were like about to go to the airport.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: They were literally about to go to the airport. And there was also like this concern about like no one really knew about this trip for security concerns because they're not really supposed to disclose it before, you know, the Speaker of the House goes on this trip. And so Trump was like, you know, essentially canceling the trip, kind of blowing Pelosi's cover and being like, you can still go if you want to fly commercial.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: So it was just this like tit for tat, like you punch, I'll punch back. Do you view this as retaliation for your letter about the State of the Union? I would hope not. I don't think the president would be that petty, do you? I do want to say that there had sort of been some grumbling behind the scenes about the timing of Pelosi's trip, I think, because, again, there are people that are working without pay to make sure this trip happens.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: And I think everybody wants to sort of see the shutdown resolved before anybody goes on these trips. So what you're saying is it's kind of a fair clapback from the president. I mean – If it's too much to ask security to oversee the State of the Union, it's probably too much to ask security to oversee your trip to the Middle East. Right.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: But it is worth pointing out that I think Trump took his trip to Iraq technically when the government was in a shutdown. It was a few weeks before. It was right around – I think it was after Christmas. But, you know, he sort of did the same thing. Yeah. So it was fine for him, but no, not fine for Pelosi.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: What's Pelosi's strategy? Is it to just refuse the president this thing that her base doesn't want? Some people are looking at it that way, but I think it's a little bit more complicated. Pelosi is somebody that can negotiate on things, but there are two big things that she really just does not see eye to eye on Trump on that I think is making it hard for talks to progress.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: One thing is that Trump lies all the time. And the two of them just cannot agree on like a very basic set of facts on the need for the border wall. You know, he's saying it's because there are all these people pouring into our country. They're raping and murdering people. They're bringing drugs over the border. While Democrats might actually be able to negotiate with President Trump on border security that they feel reasonable, including maybe, you know, a physical barrier.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: This wall, whether it's steel slats or whatever that he's talking about, they just cannot agree with him on the reasons for this. They don't want to be seen as delivering him a win on his signature campaign promise on something that is built on lies, basically.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: The second thing is that Pelosi sees herself as the head of a co-equal branch of government to the president. But the reason that we in this shutdown is because former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan basically pulled this funding bill saying if it doesn have this billion for Trump border wall the president not going to sign it and we not going to send anything to him that he not going to sign Right.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: Pelosi is saying, you know, you might have enough votes in the Senate to override a presidential veto of just a bill to open the government back up. Congress should act like a co-equal branch of government rather than just consistently deferring to the president of the United States on whatever he wants.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: So I think she – in addition to sort of seeing it as a political duty, there's this element of separation of powers. This is my constitutional duty on this issue. And does she have her caucus behind her? She does, yeah.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: And at this point, I mean, polling numbers bear out that I think the majority of Americans see this as Trump and the Republicans' fault. There was a Washington Post-ABC poll released earlier this week that showed that only 29 percent of Americans blame Democrats compared to 53 percent of Americans blaming Trump and Republicans.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: Interesting. So at this point, Democrats are fully behind Pelosi. And Trump has kind of been doing this strange thing this week where he was inviting moderate Democrats over to the White House. I mean I talked to some Democrats that felt like he was sort of trying to pick people off and make it look like he was sort of bringing moderate Democrats that are from more conservative districts over to his side.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: Yeah. But I think Democrats are really all united in kind of blaming him for this and are behind Pelosi. So then how about congressional Republicans for example? If they're aware that the tide is turning and most Americans are against them on this, have they started to break a little bit? Not really.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: I mean, the real hang up is the Senate. House Democrats have sent nine funding bills over to the Senate. And all of those bills are basically just running up into a wall, if you will. Nice. Yeah. And that is McConnell's refusal to bring them to the floor.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: There have been some signs that his caucus might be cracking a little bit, specifically with more moderate Republican senators that are up for reelection in 2020. Yeah. But right now McConnell is holding pretty firm.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: Last week it felt like the resolution here might be a state of emergency and Trump would get his wall and the government would reopen. Well, it would be a state of emergency. Trump's wall request would get hung up in the courts and the government would reopen. Right. Yeah, I guess so.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: But now that seems to be off the table too. So is there just no resolution in sight? So Senate Republicans are basically shielding Trump from having to veto a spending bill by refusing to take it up in the Senate. So if they do decide ultimately if they are pressured enough to bring up a bill and vote on a spending bill and it passes, it then goes to Trump's desk.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: And that would put him on the spot of having to actually veto a spending bill to reopen the government, which there would be a ton of political pressure on him to sign that bill and for the government to reopen. That could potentially be one way it ended, really kind of forcing Trump to show his hand.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: And another way is if there was sufficient political pressure on Senate Republicans for them to override a Trump veto. Or if Pelosi and Schumer decide that this has gone on long enough and that people really are suffering and they do feel forced to come to the table.
--:-- Ellen Nilsson: But I really feel like right now we're still very much in a one side is waiting for the other side to blink kind of mode.
--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Ella Nilsson covers Congress for Vox.com. And this is Today Explained, also from Vox. I'm Sean Rameswaram. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Bridget McCarthy, Noam Hassenfeld, and Luke Vanderplug make the show. Afim Shapiro engineers it. And Siona Petros is our intern.
--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Shouts to Bird Pinkerton and Jillian Weinberger for their help this week. and the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder, who makes the music. Today Explained is produced in association with Stitcher, and we're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It's a day of service. We are back Tuesday. Peace.
--:-- Host (Sean Rameswaram): Thanks to LinkedIn for supporting the show today. Instead of posting on a job board, post your job on LinkedIn, the place where people go every day to make connections, grow in their career, and discover new opportunities. Go to linkedin.com slash explain and get $50 off your first job post. That is linkedin.com slash explained. Fun fact, terms, and conditions apply.
