audio version of the segment here > Dems lost the shutdown narrative
Jay Weber Show transcript 10-2-25
So... neither side is moving on the so-called government shutdown that doesn’t really shut own ¾ of government.
Chuck Schumer and the democrats seem to be putting all of their hopes into two strategies: one that has their accomplices in the leftist media convincing Americans that the shutdown is trump’s fault....and that’s not going so well right now.
And two: that they can get president trump to ‘go rogue’ and negotiate extended health care subsidies with them that congressional republicans don’t want to extend.
So far, i don’t see that strategy working, either. As i said to start the show: trump hates to lose...and caving to Schumer and the democrats on this ...would mean trump is the ‘loser’ on the government shutdown.
It isn’t in Trump’s DNA to allow himself to be portrayed as the loser, here.
Still- there’s a chance that he could go soft on the matter. And republicans in congress worry that he will. But it’s especially important that trump not ‘go soft on it’ right now...and that he hold firm with his own vice president and other GOP leaders who say ‘we will not talk about any Obamacare extensions or engage in any other policy negotiations until the democrats end this shutdown.
That is the strongest stance to take-and as of yesterday- Veep Vance, speaker Johnson, and senate leader Thune were all taking it- and expecting the democrats to crack first.
Remember- only action in the senate matters-at this point, and so John Thune made them all vote to end the shutdown again, midday yesterday, and says he will keep scheduling votes until a few more democrat’s ‘flop’.
I love that talking point, because when democrats oversee everything, they never, ever, never negotiate. They say ‘elections have consequences and plow ahead with their agenda.Republicans need to, too.
But at some point, one of these two sides is going to have to give. Right now, it’s anyone’s guess who will blink first, but from where I’m sitting. Most republicans and conservatives should be okay with the shutdown. Or even ‘revel in it’.
If it leads to republicans refusing to backslide on our priorities and reforming Obamacare a little bit? Great.
If it leads to even more reductions in the federal workforce when the furlough is over? Great.
There should be no reason for conservatives to sweat this shutdown- so long as they keep up their strong messaging.
House speaker mike Johnson has been doing non-stop interviews since Wednesday night making it clear that this is democrats holding the American people hostage in order to get free health care for illegals and in order to get wasteful spending restored.
"We just needed a little more time, because tonight is the end of the fiscal year. Chuck Schumer has refused to give the extra time. Why? Because we won‘t agree to restore health care to illegal aliens. Because we won‘t agree to give a half $1 billion back to the corporation for public broadcasting. He wants to cut the big fund of $50 billion that we set aside to support and prop up rural hospitals in America because we won‘t agree to those partisan demands. And $1.5 trillion in new spending on a seven-week stopgap funding measure, he's decided to shut the government down."
And as for whether this ‘really is’ to fund health care for illegals, yes. It is.
Democrats are insisting that’s a false talking point, but it’s not. Yesterday, as Hakeem Jefferies was claiming, that’s a lie. Illegals aren’t eligible for these programs’.... both Maxine waters and Ro Khanna were exposing the lie.
Maxine waters confirmed to a reporter that some illegals get free health care....and so did
Ro Khanna...even as he tried to insist....’but it’s not many of them’.
Republicans-are not-inventing the talking point about democrats being more concerned about getting illegals free health care than working on behalf of the American people.
And so long as they keep up that two-part explanation for their position on the shut down- they can outlast the democrats.
Yesterday was a very good day for messaging for JD Vance, Karoline Leavitt, Johnson and Thune...
And the two-part answer is, first: we are quite willing to negotiate on the health care subsidies, but we won’t do it with a gun to the American people’s heads...
And the second part of the answer is: but you need to understand that’s only being used as an excuse and this shutdown is really all about chuck Schumer caving to his rabid activists.
That’s the messaging strategy that gets them past the shutdown...and then they never really ‘do’ need to negotiate on expanding the Obamacare subsidies later.
Not if they can keep the pressure off themselves and onto chuck Schumer-who has to feel like he’s in a pressure cooker.
JD Vance certainly did -his part- in ratcheting up the pressure on chuck Schumer, yesterday. He joined the daily press briefing to answer reporters’ questions-and at one point said- look, this is mostly about chuck Schumer trying to cling to power.
By the way-did you see AOC saying yesterday that president trump and republicans could just ‘come to her’ and negotiate?
Some people took it as her ‘trolling’ Chuck Schumer, as in: if he can’t get it done, I can.
But that’s not what it was at all. It was AOC being so arrogant that she held herself up as some leader of the party that could get things done-even though she’s only one of 210 democrats in the house.
Folks- this fight isn’t even being fought over in the house. This is entirely a senate showdown now. AOC isn’t in the senate. Negotiating with her wouldn’t get us ‘anything’.... aside from a booming headache.
This dimwit can’t speak for the party, and she can’t speak for the senate democrats. Wrong chamber, kitten.
This is the democrat’s ‘intellectual firepower’ moving forward. This is the ‘next generation great left-wing leader.
Yeah. Okay.
And it’s not just Schumer who is on the hotseat. It’s all the members of his senate leadership team, along with those of hakeem Jefferies’ team in the house. Listen to Harry Enten over at CNN, who agrees that the democrats are likely to get the most blame for the shutdown...even though it’s just ‘dc theater’ to try to impress their base.
CNN's Enten: "Democrats Think That Their Party Leaders Are Weak, Weak, Weak," 57% Want Major Change
It’s those sorts of bad poll numbers and it’s ‘that’ sort of desperation that had led to this bad bet...on a govt shutdown.
These people simply have. Not been able to stop Donald Trump. The man has a 46 percent approval rating according to the RealClearPolitics average, and daily- he is skit scatting’ and bee bopping’ all over them and racking up wins.
Just over the last 36 hours or so- President Trump has rolled out a major peace deal that could end the Hamas war...after having ended 7 or 8 other military conflicts since he got back into office.
He has put Iran in its place when Biden couldn’t he has announced a new public/private partnership to lower drug prices. He’s moved on to a program that will help end childhood cancer. His anti-crime efforts got underway in Memphis and Chicago....and he officially declared an end to twenty years of Dei and leftist nonsense in our military branches.
Trump has done all of that. And it’s been a slow week.
joe Biden did none of it. And today’s democrats simply sat and watched and dreamt up a government shutdown as a way to stall Trump’s momentum.
How pathetic.
Even now: there aren’t too many downsides for republicans related to this shutdown, and there might even be a few upsides.
There’s nothing but desperation and downsides for the democrats, though.
For heaven’s sake, people: Schumer and the democrats are actually allowing themselves to be exposed as prioritizing free healthcare for illegals over the wants and needs of the American people.
Wow.
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