Trump's agenda vs. The GOP's agenda

Indiziert: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]Today on the Playbook Podcast, voterama should finally get underway in the Senate today on the Republican second reconciliation bill. But what we're actually going to see is a sneak preview of the whole midterms debate with Dems on the attack over Iran, ICE, the White House ballroom, and lots more. And Republicans fighting a rear guard action to defend Donald Trump's least popular policy moves. Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard.

[00:00:25]>> And I'm Dasha Burns. It is Thursday, May 21st. Dasha, it's going to be cold and rainy in DC today after the heat wave.

[00:00:32]Are you happy?

[00:00:33]>> I actually love the rain. It was very peaceful sleeping too last night.

[00:00:38]However, um I am not I am not sleepy. I am not deterred because it feels like midterms week, Jack. Like [laughter] everything about I'm like are we is this November? Like we had a mini Super Tuesday this week. We've got endorsements flying around. We've got messaging wars. We have all of it's just wow it feels like we are like really in election season right now.

[00:01:02]>> Well and and here's the thing I was looking at this last night. Although there is officially like what is it five and a half months to go actually you know voting starts in some of the key states Minnesota Virginia being two particular examples in less than four months. That is really not very far away at all for these guys to be making their arguments. I know right less than four months. So you know these debates are now playing out you know before us. This is the real thing. This is the campaign and and as I said at the top, we're going to see that in the Senate today.

[00:01:30]We think it hasn't been 100% confirmed, but we are expecting the Republicans to get this bill out today and for the uh the marathon voting session to start in the Senate uh on the second reconciliation bill. Uh, as we know, it's a $70 billion bill essentially to fund ICE uh and Border Patrol and a few other bits that uh still haven't got their proper funding package um through, but it's going to turn into something much bigger, Dasha, which is basically the midterm debate at large, a debate about Donald Trump's policy moves of the last few months in particular, uh, and whether or not the public can get behind them or whether they hate them as much as the polling suggests. This is really a prime opportunity for for Democrats to test the waters with with this messaging because the president has given them on the policy front a number of softballs here. Whether >> you can say that again [laughter] >> whether it's this uh this fund that to to pay out victims of of weaponization uh which even uh a lot of Republicans are are pretty uncomfortable with. I mean, there there are just a number of issues um that that Democrats can highlight here. Um gas prices, affordability issues. Um, again, the contrast with the ballroom. Like, I cannot tell you how many Republicans I've had breathe a sigh of relief that the ballroom is dead, but was were so so so nervous that they were going to have to um deal with this thing because they know that the president really really cares about it, but they also know that this is something that a lot of voters uh do not want to to hear Republicans talk about or or move forward with.

[00:03:10]Chuck Schumer, the Senate uh minority leader, said yesterday that they're going to be forcing Republicans to vote on amendment after amendment about Trump's ballroom, about what the Democrats are calling his corrupt slush fund and of course the rising cost of the Iran war. The big one, the thing that is really going to loom over these elections. I was looking at it this week, Dash, and I was watching the president. He took reporters out to show them the the ballroom sort of site this week and did this sort of display in front of it. He's so proud of what he's trying to do there. The pictures, he's showing them where he's knocked down.

[00:03:42]It's like, does this guy actually want to win the midterms? Does he even care about the midterms anymore? Nothing he is doing appears to align with what his strategist, you know, if you're going to do like a big building project like that, don't shout about it every day.

[00:03:56]Talk about the things that, you know, voters actually care about. He doesn't care, does he?

[00:04:00]>> He loves it. He loves it. He's going to keep talking about it. There's nothing anyone can do. uh no strategist in the world that can get him to stop talking about it because this is a passion project. And the thing that's really um getting to some Republican operatives I've been talking to is that he um previewed his endorsement for Kent Paxton, which a lot of Republicans believe is going to make their midterm battle much more difficult, going to require more resources to erase that shouldn't be such a big concern for Republicans because of the president's endorsement. So he's standing there in front of a ballroom that polling shows, data shows voters don't like. Previewing an endorsement, which we now know was for Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton.

[00:04:41]So there are a lot of Republicans tearing their their hair out right now at um at at the uphill climb that they have in part because of this president for the midterms. And so you have this interesting split screen and we we talked about this a little bit in in in playbook, but it's just a story that keeps playing out and that different uh sources of mind keep pointing to which is that the president is all powerful in the Republican party right now. Like he has this vice grip on on the party and he keeps dominating and winning against his enemies among Republicans.

[00:05:22]But does that winning within the Republican party translate to being able to win against Democrats? And some Republicans are worried that the the things that he's calling wins for himself are are detriments to the party at large.

[00:05:41]>> Yeah. I mean, there's no question about it. It seems he seems more interested in flexing that muscle over the party than he does in trying to win over larger amounts of the public to the cause ahead of ahead of November. Um, and you know, you mentioned some of them uh that he did on Tuesday. The day before we got uh details of this extraordinary deal with the IRS that's uh apparently going to create this massive fund of $1.7 billion. um if it actually happens that is going to be paid out to uh well we don't quite know yet who um victims of weaponization is how Trump puts it.

[00:06:15]We've already heard the leader of the Proud Boys is hoping he's going to get a few million dollars of American taxpayers money out of it. Um Republicans are absolutely gobsmacked by this and we're hearing voices from within the Republican party not just the usual suspects who are saying this cannot happen the way that it's being saying oh I don't I don't know about this thing. I mean that is really striking. I think I think he's he's crossed a line here, the president and and there is some suggestion that what we're going to see today is actually the Republican senators coming up with we don't quite know yet what it's going to look like, but something that is going to put some sort of lid on this to a degree because they are so concerned um a that there are Republicans who will back Democratic amendments on it or b like the public fallout if this goes ahead in the in its most sort of extreme version like how that is going to play out for them in the next few months going into the midterms because the Democrats know an open goal when they see one and this this they feel is definitely that >> the thing that Democrats have with both the ballroom and this fund is they can tie it back to the affordability issue that Americans are so concerned about.

[00:07:23]It's not this idea of saving democracy, right, that Democrats have like struggled to connect with voters on.

[00:07:30]Like some people think it's really important, but for other people it's too esoteric. like the ballroom is a symbol that can be used to tell a story for the Democrats. This this $1 whatever billion dollar fund, that is a lot of money to be giving out to the president's allies when a lot of Americans can't afford to fill up their their gas tank. like that is the story that Democrats are able to tell with some of these other policy issues in addition to, you know, pointing to to the rising cost um because of of what we're doing overseas.

[00:08:03]So, this is much more tangible than some of the other things that Democrats have have tried to >> That's such a good point. It's so true.

[00:08:10]And and then in terms of the overseas stuff, you know, as we head towards uh the weekend now, happily, um two big overseas so close you can almost touch it. um two big overseas issues potentially coming back to the four again you know um on Iran um the president said he was an hour away from restarting that war essentially on Tuesday he claims uh he pulled back but when he's been asked like okay like how long are you giving them to do a deal he said like Friday maybe early next week but that is the sort of time scale he's claiming he's given Iran before the bombs start to fall again so that in you know if you believe him and of course he sets these deadlines and he offers doesn't meet them. So, you know, the big pinch of salt, but if you believe him, that could restart again, you know, any point over the next few days. And on top of that, you have this Cuba thing now with uh the president, you know, very clearly signaling to Cuba that he is on the verge of doing something very, very big there. You don't send the director of the CIA to Havana. you don't, you know, indict the figurehead of the nation um to both things that the US has done in the last uh seven days unless you are really seriously considering something major there and we know he's well capable of it given the other things that we've seen him do this year, >> right? And given what we've seen him do uh with a close neighbor of Cuba, which is Venezuela, I mean, the steps that we're seeing um in in Cuba are very similar to to the steps that we saw leading up to the big move in Venezuela against Maduro. And so, um, this is a real clear turning of the screws. And given the examples that that, uh, have already played out over the course of the the last year, it's a signal to Cuba to say you're at a decision point here.

[00:09:52]You go one way or you go another way, but things are going to change no matter what. Is is I think the story that the White House is trying to push on Cuba right now. Um, and and it it seems like there's an inflection point with Iran as well. So it's it could be a very big >> um 48 72 hours uh in in American foreign might and that is uh the story of really this year. I feel like we've been on this precipice um with Iran several times now, but um with Venezuela, with Cuba, we're living on the edge.

[00:10:25]>> Living on the edge. And just to bring it back to the midterms point again, um you know, these are hugely unpopular things.

[00:10:31]You know, to be clear, like the hope inside the White House is that Cuba essentially capitulates and and transforms into the sort of country that America has long wanted it to be without a shot being fired. Fine. If that happens, I can imagine the American public will be very pleased with that.

[00:10:44]If it goes a different way, you know, it wasn't that long ago that um uh in fact, there's been polling this month that shows 64% of Americans oppose the US going to war against Cuba versus only 155% who are in support. That's almost exactly the same numbers uh who hate the war in Iran. I'm sure they don't want to see it restarting uh there either. So, you know, if Trump presses ahead with these things, the point I'm trying to make is this is yet another big highly unpopular thing that he will be doing that's going to cause the Republicans yet more headaches as they head towards these elections. But again, for the president and and I've I've heard this from a number of his adviserss that are trying to win the midterms for him, they feel they cannot put politics in the way of the president's foreign policy actions. And he is focused on legacy, as we've talked about. He's found this passion for American dominance around the world and using the American military and seeing our military might display it out there and um moving the chest pieces of the world order whether that harms him and his party politically at home or not. So I don't know, you know, he said earlier, does he really care about the midterms? The stakes are pretty high for them. He, you know, he and his team know that if they lose the House, certainly if they lose the House and Senate, his agenda is tanked essentially for for the back half of his uh administration. But he feels like he can make such a mark from now through the end of the year. And those are almost two separate buckets for him.

[00:12:21]It's not that he doesn't care about the midterms, but he really, really, really cares about his legacy and making sure that his his thumbrint is is all over the world. All of which suggests we're going to see a lot more action uh from the president in the next few months before November, which will give us plenty more to talk about, if nothing else, D on this podcast. We better leave it there for now. Thank you so much for listening. We got lots more news and analysis, including the latest on Vottoama uh in today's Playbook newsletter. You can find that at politico.com/playbook.

[00:12:50]Uh and Adam Ren will be back with you tomorrow. Have a wonderful day.

[00:12:54]>> Thanks everybody.