The following is a lightly edited transcript of the October 8 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
With the government shutdown fight dragging into its second week, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene basically rolled a grenade right into the Republican camp. She erupted on Twitter, demanding to know why Republican leaders have no plan to help the millions of people who will be hurt when expanded Obamacare subsidies expire. Whether Greene knows it or not, this wrecks President Trump’s whole strategy in this fight, which rests on the idea that only Democrats are to blame for the standoff. And this sent House Speaker Mike Johnson scrambling.
But we think this fiasco goes even deeper. Greene has exposed serious cracks in the MAGA coalition and revealed why Trump’s stance in this battle is weaker than it first appeared. We’re unraveling all this today with congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, author of a new piece urging Democrats to hold the line in this battle. Norm, good to have you on.
Norman Ornstein: Great to be with you again, Greg.
Sargent: So let’s start here. Democrats are demanding that Trump and Republicans agree to extend the expanded ACA subsidies, Affordable Care Act subsidies, that were enacted under President Biden. If they expire, millions will be hurt. Norm, a lot of pundits reflexively predicted at the outset of this that Trump would win any protracted standoff over it. Yet as of now, that hasn’t happened. What’s your explanation for this?
Ornstein: So there are a couple of things to keep in mind, Greg. One is, if you look at many of the previous shutdowns that occurred, they often worked to the benefit of the president because they’ve been under divided government. So go back to when Newt Gingrich, in a fit of pique, shut down the government when Bill Clinton was president.
And Clinton — and the clever people around him, but also the things that Gingrich said — put the blame very squarely on Republicans. And there were a lot of Republicans in the country whose businesses were hurt and whose lives were disrupted by the shutdown.
Now, we had one instance where this backfired, and that is the biggest or longest shutdown ever, which was under Donald Trump. And that’s because Trump said flat out, ‘I’m responsible for the shutdown.’
Well, what we have now is an unusual circumstance. It’s one where there’s not divided government. The Republicans — as Americans, even those who don’t follow things very closely, know — have the reins of power. This is Donald Trump, who is proclaiming all the time that he’s running things, that he is all-powerful. So I think that puts them a little bit on the defensive.
Just as important are the positions that the two parties are taking as a whole. And what you have is Democrats with, I think, a simple, powerful message — which they need to, as I wrote, proclaim over and over again in every venue possible: They want to take away your health care. We won’t let them. And Republicans basically not defending in any significant way the reality, which is they do want to take away their health care.
Sargent: Well, that’s the thing, Norm. They do want to take it away. And that’s why Marjorie Taylor Greene’s grenade blew up so resoundingly. She did this extended tweet that included this: “I’m absolutely disgusted that health insurance premiums will double if the tax credits expire this year.” She added, “not a single Republican in leadership talked to us about this or has given us a plan to help Americans deal with their health insurance premiums doubling.”
Do tell, Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s as MAGA as you can get. And she’s admitting that Republicans are utterly derelict when it comes to the expiration of these subsidies, which will in fact, jack up premiums for millions and cause millions more to lose their insurance. Norm, doesn’t this just shift the whole debate right onto Democratic terrain?
Ornstein: It certainly does. And let’s also add, Greg, that far more people in red states and districts rely on Obamacare. So far more people would be screwed completely if these subsidies disappear — Republicans rely on them even more than Democrats.
But that raises another key point about why Democrats are on sounder ground with the shutdown. If you go back to previous shutdowns, Democrats were united. They were united when Bill Clinton was president and saying, we want to reopen the government and provide services again for people. They were united back during the first Trump shutdown when Trump took responsibility for it.
Republicans are divided now. I’ve seen many statements from Freedom Caucus Republicans saying, No, let those subsidies disappear. A lot of their allies out there are saying, we’re for fiscal discipline — which of course is farcical in and of itself — but these were supposed to be temporary, and if you make them permanent, it’s gonna cost so much money.
So they’re putting themselves into a position where they have no coherent stance other than trying to say over and over again, it’s the Democrats doing this. And when you had the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, look in the camera and say, we’re the ones who care about healthcare, when they have nothing to say about it except we want to cut, that makes it harder for them.
You know, there’s another point here, Greg, which is this isn’t just about the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as we know it. It’s also about the meat-axe — the giant meat-axe — that Republicans took in their so-called “big, beautiful bill” to Medicaid, which is putting not just rural hospitals but all hospitals in a terrible place, which is going to cost even more in terms of the health burdens on Americans — which will cost lives.
Now, what Republicans did, knowing the pain that that would cause, is to put off some of those deeper cuts until after the midterm elections. But they can’t do that with the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, which would take place in January.
Sargent: Right, Norm. So it seems that even health insurance commissioners across the country are essentially suggesting that Republicans really can’t do this, yeah?
Ornstein: And most of the insurance commissioners — the ones in red states — are Republican. So the conservative Republican insurance commissioner in North Dakota, one of the reddest states in the nation, said, all of us are together. You cannot do this. Because they know what havoc it will wreak.
And remember, if people lose their insurance, they’re going to end up going to emergency rooms when they have problems. They’re going to have diseases that are untreated and will end up costing more. And what this insurance commissioner said is every insurance company now preparing for this has two sets of rates: one is what they’re gonna do come January 1 if the subsidies are continued; the other is what they’re gonna do if they’re not.
The second means doubling or tripling of most of those premiums. But they are not gonna do it just as of January 1. The notices of what your insurance costs will be are gonna go out well before January 1. So Republicans are sitting on a ticking time bomb that will backfire for them unless they come to the table and agree to cut a deal.
And Democrats — let me add, Greg — need to find a way — it’s much better, frankly, if we can do something to help people who are in need and have them back off of their belligerence. But we also need a commitment that there will be no bait and switch — that we can’t do this and then have Trump, after there’s a bipartisan agreement with the Senate and then with the House, go back and use his rescissions to eliminate a lot of the spending that they agree on.
Democrats, I think, have the upper hand here now, despite what much of the press commentary says.
Sargent: Well, I think there’s another thing worth focusing on here. Trump and Republicans want this debate to be all about the supposed desire of Democrats to give health insurance to undocumented immigrants. That’s a complete lie. But the entire GOP and MAGA propaganda apparatus has been blaring it out for weeks now.
In her tweets, Greene does repeat some of this as well, but by saying Republicans don’t have a plan on subsidies, it makes this whole thing all about the GOP desire to take healthcare away from Americans rather than the supposed Dem desire to help the undocumented, which I guess is bad in Republican-speak. And Republicans can’t let that debate shift this way.
Ornstein: So all of that nonsense, that set of lies, is aimed at that Republican base. And it’s repeated ad nauseam on Fox and on all of their right-wing shows. Okay, fine. It’s a lie. We should refute the lie.
When subsidies disappear, and a lot of these people find that their health insurance is suddenly unaffordable, You’re not going to have very many of them saying, it’s okay, because at least we’ve kept those illegal aliens from going to the emergency room. They’re going to scream bloody murder.
So this is, I think, you know, it’s a way of mollifying their rabid cultist base. It will do nothing to alter the political consequences. And what has to happen here, what Democrats were able to do is to make sure that, if subsidies disappear and rates go up, it’ll be clear who’s responsible.
Sargent: Indeed, and that’s why Mike Johnson is kind of scrambling right now to deal with this broadside from Greene. Johnson said that Greene is simply out of the loop as other House Republicans discuss solutions to the expiring subsidies. Johnson said that the committees of jurisdiction are dealing with that. Gosh, it sounds so responsible and hands on.
Norm, what do you know about where Republicans actually are on this? It does seem like the ones who are vulnerable in 2026 would like to find a way out of this. But on the other hand, as you say, the Freedom Caucus lunatics really are just salivating for Obamacare to implode or whatever they think is going to happen. Is there any chance the party can get behind anything at all worthwhile?
Ornstein: I would be stunned if they did, Greg, because remember, we have had a mantra now for years, “repeal and replace.” And there’s never been a “replace.” They’ve got no way of dealing with this other than a sham set of proposals, which will give you really cheap insurance, but it’s really cheap because it doesn’t cover anything. And if you ever try to invoke it, the insurance companies will say, sorry, either you have a pre-existing condition because you had a hangnail, which is what we had before the Affordable Care Act, or look at the fine print that’s not covered. So they’ve got no plan.
So we’re not going to see anything other than a sham unless they ultimately have to cave and give in on those subsidies. And whether they’re going to give in on some of the horrible changes in Medicaid, I don’t know. Democrats, though, have to get out there and they need to go to hospitals and they need to go to red districts and states and they need to make it clear, day after day after day, what the stakes are here and where the parties are. And if that happens, Republicans are in a bad place, I believe.
Sargent: Yeah. And I think Marjorie Taylor Greene actually exposed something else as well, which is that there are really serious cracks in the MAGA coalition about this. If you think about the two pieces of policy, the big pieces of policy that are on the table right now, one, whether the expanded Obamacare subsidies will expire, and two, whether Democrats can somehow get Republicans to roll back their Medicaid cuts from the big ugly bill that Trump signed: Those are very hyper directed at the MAGA base in the sense that MAGA voters, Trump voters, will get very badly hurt by the expiration of the subsidies and also by the Medicaid cuts, which are looming in the distance.
And I think Greene, by sort of exposing the truth about the Republican Party stance on this, kind of gave Democrats a wedge that they can use to really split the MAGA coalition on this. What do you think?
Ornstein: I agree completely. And it’s a wedge that I think even has a broader swath. And it’s this: if you look at Democratic candidates running and winning in — let’s take a good example — an Iowa state Senate seat that had gone overwhelmingly for Trump, that opened up and the Democrat won on one issue: affordability.
That’s the issue that propelled Mamdani to a place where he is likely to be the next mayor of New York City. It’s affordability — because this isn’t just about the costs of healthcare, although that’s the prime mover. It’s about how that fits in with every cost that working Americans face, now under siege because of Trump’s tariffs.
So people — that working-class base that voted for Trump — these are people who are struggling. All of their costs are going up. Trump keeps saying, you know, another big lie, as he is so wont to do: everything’s great, the cost of eggs are down, everything is coming down, the economy is booming. The people out there know that that’s false, because they know what their daily reality is.
And if you take the fact that rents are going up, food costs are going up, back-to-school costs are enormous, all of these tariffs — cars are going to be more expensive — and then you get a doubling of your healthcare premiums — and that’s all on Trump and Republicans right now.
Sargent: Norm, what’s the way out of this whole thing? It does appear that Democrats are finding themselves in a somewhat unexpectedly strong position and they’re like, hey, this is kind of cool. We can actually fight. And it also appears that Republicans are kind of on their back foot here, on their heels. But it’s still a little hard to envision what some sort of deal at the end of the day looks like. Is there a scenario where Republicans actually do cave in some sense — obviously, they’re not going to give Democrats everything they want on the ACA subsidies and on Medicaid. But is there a scenario where Republicans do concede something to Democrats that’s actually kind of a decent outcome?
Ornstein: So I don’t think we’re going to find Republicans agreeing to permanently extend the subsidies or do it, say, over a ten-year period. What I do think is possible is that Republicans agree to have a one-year or two-year extension of those subsidies so that they can say, look at the ten-year window, we’re being less fiscally irresponsible than we were, and maybe ameliorate some of the bad impacts of the Medicaid changes.
I think we can find a deal here. But the cautionary note is we did have three Democratic senators who broke with all the rest to vote for that seven-week extension of current levels of spending with the, you know, false promise by Republicans that during that time they would talk. So what I would worry about is, as this shutdown continues for any length of time, and lots of people are hurt by the shutdown — and, you know, the president has some power to decide where the programs will continue and what will be completely shut down — you may see some slippage among Democrats.
But having said that, Greg, I’d make one other point, which is the longest shutdown we’ve had was thirty-five days. Why didn’t it go longer? Why don’t they go longer? Employees of the government — whether they’re working because it’s essential or not — do not get paid during a shutdown. The law written in 2019, after that last big shutdown, says unequivocally they all get back pay.
But if you are, you know, let’s take somebody in ICE or in the FBI, and you’re working and basically living, if not paycheck to paycheck, pretty damn close to that — and you have to go a month or two months and you’ve got a rent payment due or a mortgage due, and you’ve got to buy food and take care of other necessities — after a while, and it won’t take long, they’re going to be going, including those who are part of that, you know, MAGA shock troop, they’re going to be going to their Republicans and saying, you can’t let this go on anymore.
So the pressure is going to be great. One of the reasons that the last shutdown ended when it did is a very large number of TSA workers — and remember, they’re paid a pittance — started to call in sick because they were required to work. You know, if you’re not working for the federal government, you’re on a furlough. At least you might be able to bring in a little money by taking a job at a Walmart or at a gas station or doing something else.
If you are an essential employee, you’re not getting paid, you’re having to go into work sometimes forty or sixty hours a week, you’ve got nothing coming in. So I think there’s gonna be some pushback that will hit Republicans at least as much as those Democrats.
Sargent: Well, Norm, I will say one thing about your scenario in which there’s sort of a deal for a short-term extension of the subsidies. Let JD Vance explain to the public, as he’s running for president in 2028, that the ACA subsidies are about to expire because of his party. So it’s a it’s small consolation maybe, but there may be poetic justice at the end of this whole thing.
Ornstein: Well, let me just add, Greg, that if we have to go every year with facing a cliff where it’s once again, Republicans saying, no, let’s get rid of the subsidies and double your insurance premiums. If that’s the debate we’re gonna have, I’m perfectly happy with a one-year extension, because it’s gonna be extended again.
Sargent: Well said, Norm. Norm Ornstein, thank you so much for coming on with us. Always great to talk to you.
Orinstein: Good to talk to you too, Greg.
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