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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Monday, November 17th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that has some questions for a dog in Shillington, Pennsylvania who appears to have accidentally shot its owner in the back last week when his owner put a shotgun on a bed while cleaning it. Or maybe not so accidentally. According to police, quote, “it looks like it was an accident, but it’s still being investigated.” Is anyone listening to this show a dog attorney? [music break] On today’s show, Charlotte, North Carolina, is the Trump administration’s latest target in the crackdown on illegal immigration. And President Donald Trump makes his breakup with Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene public. But let’s start with the Democratic Party. The longest government shutdown in American history ended on Wednesday after eight Senate Democrats agreed to a budget package. And the infighting between Democrats who wanted to keep fighting for extended Affordable CARE Act subsidies and Democrats who wanted to end the shutdown hasn’t stopped since. And much of the blame for the end of the shutdown, as in Democrats caving, has landed on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Here’s Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy discussing Schumer with ABC’s Jonathan Carl on Sunday. 

[clip of ABC’s Jonathan Carl] Chuck Schumer’s taking a lot of heat for this. Do you still have confidence in him as the Democratic leader, and do you think he will still be the Democratic Leader after the midterms? 

[clip of Senator Chris Murphy] Well, we can’t continue to operate like this in the Democratic Senate. This is not the first time that a small group of Democrats have crossed over to support Republican measures that give Donald Trump more power. So I’ve been candid with him and with my colleagues that um the Democrats are gonna lose this democracy if we continue to allow Republicans to cleave off 10 or 12 or 15 of us. So we’ve got some hard conversations as a caucus moving forward. Um. We can’t continue to be split like this or we won’t save our democracy. 

[clip of ABC’s Jonathan Carl] So–

[clip of Senator Chris Murphy] Certainly when we return to Washington next week, Senator Schumer’s gonna have to explain to us um how we’re gonna run the caucus differently. 

Jane Coaston: Woof. But here’s my question. What if Democrats ending the shutdown was actually good? That’s the argument my guest for today’s episode, the writer and podcaster Tim Miller has been making. And I think the Bulwark writer has a point. Because while Democrats are yelling at Chuck Schumer, the GOP is in a mess of its own making. While President Trump has been building ballrooms and bombing alleged drug boats without congressional authorization, the cost of living, including the cost of healthcare has been skyrocketing. Americans are noticing. Some Republicans are starting to back away from the White House, and key members of the administration have no answer beyond Joe Biden. Exhibit A, here’s ABC’s Jonathan Carl speaking to Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council on Sunday. They are discussing the President’s recent claims that Americans will be enjoying a cheaper Thanksgiving dinner this year. 

[clip of ABC’s Jonathan Carl] The president claims that Thanksgiving costs are down 25 percent. I mean, does he know that’s not true? 

[clip of Kevin Hassett] Well, if you look at Wal-Mart and the few places that put out their prices of Thanksgiving baskets– 

[clip of ABC’s Jonathan Carl] Now wait a minute, I gotta stop because the Walmart comparisons like not I mean Walmart had a Thanksgiving package last year. They’ve got a Thanksgiving Package this year. The one this year contains much less than what the one last year took so that’s why the price is less. 

Jane Coaston: But Hassett didn’t take the actual cost of actual groceries or smaller grocery packages for a major American holiday for an answer because of the previous administration. 

[clip of Kevin Hassett] You know, I really, though, don’t understand where you’re going in the sense that Joe Biden gave us, Joe Biden gave us 20% inflation. 

[clip of ABC’s Jonathan Carl] He’s not president. Donald Trump’s president. 

[clip of Kevin Hassett] No, no. 

Jane Coaston: Great. So here’s my conversation with Tim Miller of the Bulwark on who really won the shutdown and what Democrats should do next. Tim Miller, welcome back to What a Day. 

Tim Miller: What up, Jane, good to be back. 

Jane Coaston: So you had a medium, warm, hot take on the government shutdown. 

Tim Miller: Oh boy. 

Jane Coaston: Namely that Democrats won it. 

Tim Miller: Yup. 

Jane Coaston: Two questions. Why and how? 

Tim Miller: Uh. Great questions. I think about this kind of like a, you know, a poker game that they’re playing and um the Democrats went into the shutdown with like basically no political power and no chips. Donald Trump was running roughshod over the government and the Democrats said okay, well this is the one this is like we’re going all in. This is our one play that we have to make here. It was a pretty risky gamble some people got into this thinking the endgame was going to be something to the effect of like Donald Trump has been slayed or everyone gets free health care now. And it’s like neither of those things were actually on the table as possibilities for outcomes. Now we’re looking at it here, I guess a week or so after they folded. Donald Trump’s in his worst political position he’s been in a long time. He is embroiled in an Epstein scandal. And meanwhile, people’s lives got tangibly better. Like there were people that were going to lose their SNAP funding over this fight. And there were people that got fired that are getting their jobs back who were riffed from the government. Democrats are in stronger political position. They walked away from the table. For me, that was a win. Wasn’t amazing. Like Donald Trump is still the president. Republicans still control everything, but it was a very small win. And I think that additional fighting was not going to yield any better of a result than they got. 

Jane Coaston: So now that the shutdown is over, we’re still in the midst of Democrat on Democrat squabbling, which is basically been just all Democrats do. They love a squabble, but I do agree with you that like this administration was not going to be like, okay, okay. We’ll extend the affordable care act subsidies. Like this administration, was great. Russell Vought is going to cancel everything and fire everybody. So–

Tim Miller: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: All of this is to say, what do Democrats need to do right now to come together in this moment. 

Tim Miller: Look, I guess I just want to start this by saying like, I agree with people that are like, I want Democrats to fight harder. I’m with you. Like a little bit of squabbling is okay. What I don’t think is useful is just like petty whining constantly and and losing focus on like the actual threats. And so like one example of that, over the weekend, I saw that Jeanne Shaheen was speaking at some New Hampshire Democratic function and she’s getting heckled and shouted down. Now like, Jeanne Shaheen is retiring. Okay, like she is a retiring Senator, and that is an open seat next year, that is critical Democrats win. I just think that if you’re of the camp that you’re like, I want Democrats to fight harder, and I think it’s really important to take down the Republicans because they’re so bad and scary and authoritarian, then you should heckle the Republicans in New Hampshire. Like heckling a retiring senator like might make you feel good and might meet some of your emotional needs. Like, which is okay, I have emotional needs to yell at people, I just do that on X, you know? And um so like I think that the Democrats should unite around the fact that they gave Donald Trump an opportunity to lower people’s health care costs. He refused to do it. Everybody’s pissed about how much everything is costing and how he hasn’t solved the affordability crisis. People are pissed about the high cost and low quality of their health care. People are pissed about the fact Donald Trump is covering up his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein and the Epstein files. And Democrats should talk about that a lot and use the, what seemed to be a little bit of momentum from the elections a couple of weeks ago and from this fight and from Epstein and use that momentum to continue to put pressure on Donald Trump so that he has less political power and less ability to do the authoritarian stuff he wants to do. 

Jane Coaston: You argued also that the end of the shutdown led to Democrats in the House Oversight Committee releasing more of Epstein’s correspondence, including emails that referenced President Trump. Lots of emails referencing President Trump, where do you think Democrats should go next on the Epstein investigation and why? 

Tim Miller: Yeah. Well, look. I mean, you’re starting to see like a lot of Republicans feel the pressure to fold on this as more information has come out with these subpoenaed files from the Epstein estate that came from the Oversight Committee in the House. And so I think that the Democrats should really be turning their attention to John Thune and putting pressure on Republicans of the Senate and taking, there’s one of my senators from Louisiana who’s basically useless, John Kennedy, has basically implied that he thinks that they should be released. This has not been somebody that has broken from Trump really at all. And so I think that the Democrats should be putting pressure on the Senate to do that. Who knows what is in that material. And then I think they need to be preparing for hopefully winning that house back. Those house races are extremely important. This redistricting fight is extremely important because if they take back the gavel next year and they have a speaker and they control the house oversight committee, then they can start subpoenaing people themselves to come testify on this. 

Jane Coaston: In February and March, there was this whole vibe shift thing going on, especially, I think, partly a media creation, but partly a real thing that made it seem as if Trump was some unstoppable force because of a 1.5% victory in the popular vote. And now it feels to me, like if you’re seeing all the fighting going on among Republicans over, like, anti-Semitism and racism and, like the future of the party and America first, it feels like the wheels are starting to come off the MAGA express. How should those of us who want the wheels to come off the MAGA express, how should we respond to that? 

Tim Miller: Um. Just a modicum of happiness, uh, is allowed in this world, I guess. Look, this goes back to my original point about how I think spun correctly, and talked about correctly, like the Democrats, like gained some modest ground politically with the shutdown fight and they should pocket those winnings and move on to the next battle, which now is Epstein and there’ll be another battle after that. And part of the reason for that is that, uh Donald Trump this year has been able to do a lot of the stuff that he’s done. Because of that vibe shift, right? Like it isn’t, it wasn’t like they had overwhelming votes to pass a lot of new laws that gave Donald Trump new powers. It’s like Donald Trump asserted that he had powers. He bullied universities, he bullied law firms, he bullied media companies, and a lot them were folding because there was this sense in the world that like Trump was ascendant and he was gonna use his powers to go after his foes. And so it’s best to just get on board. If that shift changes, and if people start to think, oh man, this guy’s at like 36% in the polls, he’s having defections from his own side, whether that be Marjorie Taylor Greene, or some people in the more of the MAGA media space, and wait a minute, like Democrats might be in charge of the House and have subpoena power next year and be able to subpoena me and my company. There’s like a lot of things out there in the world that start to change. Right? Like people start to get a lot more courage and like you see it in various little ways. We’re seeing it a little bit in this redistricting fight. Where like in Ohio and Indiana, some of these Republican states like looked at that election a couple weeks ago and were like, wait a minute, I don’t want to redistrict my seat to be from a seat that I won last time by 15 to being a seat that I have won by eight you know because I might lose now. I don’t know if I want to do this. An attitude shift we haven’t seen yet that I would like to see is maybe people that are doing illegal stuff on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security and on behalf of the Trump administration might start to think, wait a minute, there will be other people in power at some point in the future. Maybe I shouldn’t do this illegal stuff on behalf of a lame duck flailing president. And so, you know, to me, that is why like the top goal if you’re a Democrat should not be, like, trying to pre-fight the 2028 primary right now, because there’ll be plenty of time for that in late 2027. And instead try to continue to put political pressure on Donald Trump in areas where he is weak, like the economy, like the cost of healthcare, like Epstein, so that potentially we can see his numbers continue to erode more. 

Jane Coaston: Tim, as always, thank you for joining me. 

Tim Miller: Anytime, Jane. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with The Bulwarks’ Tim Miller. We’ll link to his work in the show notes. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of Senator Bill Cassidy] It’s a sweet spot. Lower premiums, help with the deductible, making the patient the informed consumer. The President and I are united. We should all be united about that. 

Jane Coaston: Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy says he’s, quote, “in communication with the White House about a plan to make healthcare more affordable.” Great! So now we’ve gone from concepts of a plan to communication about a plan. Now that the government shutdown is over, Republicans say they’ll negotiate with Democrats on whether to extend COVID era tax credits that help tens of millions of Americans afford healthcare. But coming to an agreement before the subsidies expire at the end of the year will be difficult. Last week, President Trump said that instead of paying insurance companies, he wants the money to quote, “be paid directly to the people of our country so that they can buy their own health care,” which, if you think about that for ten seconds, is stupid. Cassidy gave that idea a little more context in an interview with Face the Nation on CBS that aired on Sunday. 

[clip of Senator Bill Cassidy] The president is proposing that we take the 26 billion dollars that would be going to insurance companies if we just do a straight out extension. And by the way, 20% of that 26 billion, 20%, will go for profit in administrative overhead. Give it directly to the American people in an account in which 100% of the money is used for them to purchase health care on their own terms. 

Jane Coaston: Sure. New Hampshire Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen told Face the Nation that while implementing significant changes in the first year will be hard, Democrats need to work with the Republican colleagues on finding a health care resolution. 

[clip of Senator Jeanne Shaheen] It should be a bill to extend those premium tax credits because as everybody has talked about there is real urgency to get this done and if we don’t address it then people are going to see huge rate increases. So we can work together, we can extend the credits, but we probably can’t implement significant reforms that Senator Cassidy was talking about in the time frame that we’ve got. 

Jane Coaston: Shaheen was one of eight Senate Democrats that sided with Republicans in the vote to allow the Senate to move forward with reopening the government. The Senate is set to vote in mid-December on extending the enhanced tax credits. Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed that federal agents have descended on Charlotte, North Carolina, as part of President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. In a post on Twitter, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said that at least 81 people had been arrested in the city on Saturday, allegedly on a combination of significant criminal and immigration history. Defending the action, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Trisha McLaughlin said in the statement quote, “we are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed.” Yet crime is down in the city this year through August, compared with the same months in 2024, according to the consulting firm AH Datalytics. But President Trump’s administration has seized upon the fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train to argue that democratic-led cities fail to protect residents. A man with a lengthy criminal record, who was, it should be noted, not an immigrant has been charged with the woman’s murder. CBS reports that New Orleans is next on Trump’s list, with up to 200 federal agents expected to be deployed there. Only a few months ago, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and President Trump were politically inseparable. Here’s Trump praising her at a White House event back in March of this year. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] A quiet woman, but she, underneath that quiet facade, she’s a tiger. Marjorie Taylor Greene. [applause Highly respected woman, I tell you. Thanks, Marjorie. Great woman. 

Jane Coaston: Quiet? But lately, that highly respected tiger has changed her stripes and she is not happy with the president. Greene has criticized Trump’s foreign policy focus, handling of healthcare, and pushed for more Epstein files to be released. And her criticism seems to have gotten under his very, very, very thin skin. Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday to threaten her with the possibility of being primaried and labeled her, quote, Marjorie Traitor Greene. Here she is responding to the traitor remark on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. 

[clip of Marjorie Taylor Greene] The most hurtful thing he said, which is absolutely untrue, is he called me a traitor. And that is that is so extremely wrong. And those are the types of words um used that can radicalize people against me and put my life in danger. 

Jane Coaston: CNN’s Dana Bash pushed Greene on her own rich history of politically charged rhetoric, and MTG did something unheard of in MAGA circles. 

[clip of Marjorie Taylor Greene] Dana, I think that’s fair criticism, and I would like to say humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic uh politics. It’s it’s very bad for our country. 

Jane Coaston: She humbly apologized? Is that allowed? Where is Marjorie Taylor Greene and what has the deep state done with her? Greene has recently set a different, more conciliatory tone. That softer rhetoric sparked speculation that she might be eyeing a presidential run, a rumor her boyfriend, conservative reporter Brian Glenn, later denied. So Greene’s new comments are par for the course, a notably brown course, according to Trump, who called her on Truth Social, quote, “Marjorie Taylor Brown” because, quote, “green grass turns brown when it begins to rot.” And they say he’s lost his touch. [clip of Volodymyr Zelensky speaking in Ukrainian] That was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announcing that his government has prepared a new gas deal with Greece. The deal, signed on Sunday, is part of a strategy to keep Ukraine’s energy grid afloat as Russian strikes threaten winter supplies. Zelensky said Ukraine will import natural gas from Greece this winter to replace energy production lost to Russian strikes. Greece is Zelensky’s first stop in a multi-nation European tour to bolster Ukraine’s energy security and deepen its defense ties. The Greek deal creates a new supply route and helps cover over $2 billion in winter gas imports, financed through Ukrainian funds and EU-backed loans. Zelensky heads to France and Spain next for talks on strengthening Ukraine’s air defenses, combat aviation, and wider security cooperation. Kiev is also pursuing long-term energy agreements with Poland and Azerbaijan. Ukraine’s security chief, Rustam Umarov, said he’s been in talks with help from Turkey and the UAE to restart prisoner exchange negotiations with Russia to bring 1,200 prisoners home. He said that as a result of the talks, the relevant parties agreed to activate the Istanbul Agreements, a 2022 deal that sets the rules for large, organized prisoner swaps. Kiev hopes to return the captives home by the holidays. Nearly 6,000 Ukrainians have been freed in earlier swaps, and that’s the news. [music break[ That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, contemplate the convicted scammer who may not have just scammed JP Morgan for $175 million, but also gotten the massive bank to pay for fancy meals and skin care products while the federal government was trying her for fraud, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about, Charlie Javice, whose fraudulent startup was purchased by JP Morgan before the bank realized her customers were largely fake. But during her trial, she won a ruling requiring J.P. Morgan to pay her legal fees, which cost something to the tune of $60 million, like me. What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston, and honestly, if you’re that good at scamming, you’d probably be really good at doing the job you were faking in the first place. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Fohr and Chris Allport. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Caitlin Plummer, Tyler Hill, and Ethan Obermann. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

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