The legislative branch of the government is in crisis. The shutdown is entering a second month. Millions of Americans were given a reprieve on Friday after a judge ordered the Trump administration to continue paying for food stamps. The Opinion national politics writer Michelle Cottle discusses the repercussions of a weakening Congress with the Opinion columnists Jamelle Bouie and David French, and what the future could hold for this institution.
Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYTimes app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.
The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Michelle Cottle: Well, believe it or not, we are not going to talk about the elections that are happening on Tuesday. We’re going to save our powder for next week, when there will be lots of results and fascinating data to dissect. Instead, our conversation today is going to be about Congress.
David, I’m so sorry — I know you would probably rather talk about something more upbeat — like how the courts are still actually doing their job. But you lost the coin toss this week, so we’re just going to go with congressional dysfunction.
David French: Michelle, I’m all about this. You’re all about this. You’re ready. I can do this topic. I can do this topic at “Joe Rogan” podcast length, I promise you that.
Cottle: Delicious. Jamelle and I have been writing this week about the sad, extreme dysfunction of the legislative branch, about the House speaker not swearing in a new member and Congress putting the hurt on millions of Americans with this shutdown. So let’s just start here: We’re taping on Thursday morning, so the government has been shut down for a month. On Nov. 1, SNAP benefits — a program that provides food assistance to lower income households — are going to abruptly stop.
David, Jamelle, you’ve had time to process. What’s your take on what’s happening — or not happening — with this Congress? Are we seeing a difference in kind or a different degree from the level of dysfunction that we’ve all pretty much become accustomed to?
Jamelle Bouie: I think this is a difference in kind. I think what we’re seeing, with how Speaker Johnson, especially, is handling the House, is something novel. He kept it out of session. No one is meeting, and critically, there are not really negotiations happening, nothing to begin the process of trying to wind down the shutdown. It’s as if Speaker Johnson and House Republicans are acting as if they have nothing to do.
What I find not baffling but just striking is even as this SNAP cliff approaches, Republican members seem completely, by and large, indifferent to the fact that many of their constituents are about to lose food assistance. No matter what kind of old stereotypes they may throw out about who they think SNAP recipients are, the fact of the matter is that many people who are represented by Republican governors and Republican lawmakers are recipients of SNAP — and they’re disproportionately children, disabled people and seniors.
And so just observing how House Republicans feel no urgency about this and have taken no steps to try to negotiate this — as if they have no obligation to — I find it genuinely striking and something that marks this as a different kind of phenomenon.
Cottle: David, what about you?
French: I’m going to agree that we are dealing with a difference in kind on two fronts here. One is the absolute total subservience of the majority of the legislative branch to the executive branch. That is a thing that is a difference in kind. It’s sort of this idea that whatever the president says, we’re going to snap into line and do. That combined with an absolute abdication of the power of that entire branch of government.
The impetus seems to be that as long as the president is ready to fight, there will be no real discussion here. There will be no compromise at all. This is going to be all about who gets to point at the scoreboard at the end of this, whenever the end of this occurs. So you are looking at the absolute breakdown, at least so far, of anything approaching a legislative process.
This is not unprecedented to have differences between Republicans and Democrats in a budgeting process. And what happens is, in generations past, typically in a year they would get in and hammer out, say, a 65 to 35 or a 70 to 30 compromise that would leave people at the extreme edges upset — but a majority would be at least accepted or comfortable with it.
And now, just that very word — that word “compromise” — is seen as synonymous with defeat. It’s seen as synonymous with humiliation and subjugation. And that marks a real difference in kind. I should say, though, we’re coming from a low base line. This isn’t a sudden change in an otherwise healthy and functional branch of government — it’s the utter deterioration of an already weakened one.
Bouie: I want to add quickly to David’s points. What’s especially strange about the supplication of Congress, of the Republican-led branches, to the president’s priorities and political stances is that if you are a long-serving member of Congress, the theory and what has been the practice in the past is that actually provides you a bit of insulation from the president of political priorities.
If you’ve been there for 20 years, from your perspective, presidents come and go: He’s not the first president I’ve served with, and he won’t be the last one. So that gives you a level of: Oh, well, I can break from the president here to an extent because I have a separate base of power from the president.
That’s supposed to be even more true of senators, who are elected on an almost entirely different schedule than the president. This might be a product of the fact that so many members are relatively new — they’ve been there for one, two, three terms. But what’s striking is how they really do fully identify their political futures with that of the president. Even in circumstances where it’s clear to me that Trump is dragging you down substantially, the incentive here actually runs in the opposite direction. But they cannot break from him.
Cottle: Well, I’m interested in particularly how Trump is impacting each team’s behavior here. So my suspicion is that Republicans in Congress who ordinarily are worried that they’re going to pay a huge price if they are participating in a shutdown or seen as obdurate are counting on the president to do whatever weird magic he does: to blame the other team and make this all about how the Democrats are doing something horrible. I have no idea if this will work, but I do think that they’ve done the cost-benefit analysis, and they find it less scary to risk being blamed by the public than to have to cross this president — whom they are absolutely terrified of.
Whereas on the other side, the Democrats — if you talk about negotiations — they don’t trust the Republican congressional folks to be able to stick to any promises they make. Because the Democrats have watched this president claw back stuff that Congress has already pushed through. So the idea that Democrats are going to agree to something with the confidence that it will actually come to pass is just out of the picture at this point. It’s become a very ugly, hardened situation.
French: Absolutely, Michelle. And that does raise a really important question: What’s the Democrats’ endgame here? With the Republicans, what’s going to go forward is pretty clear to map out as far as the process. We don’t know the outcome. The process is going to be they’re just waiting for the king on the throne to raise his scepter in a particular way and to say: Make a deal. Don’t make a deal. Hold the line — whatever.
We know all Republican eyes are on Donald Trump. But what is the Democratic endgame here? Because Michelle, you said it very well: They can’t trust a deal with this president. The president has taken a position on executive power that is, in essence: I get two vetoes. I get the veto that is in the Constitution, the one where I veto legislation. It can be overridden by supermajorities in both Houses. But also I have this other veto that is just called executive power. And I get to choose which laws to enforce and which laws not to enforce.
And so that then raises the question: What is the Democrats’ endgame here if there is no deal that they can rely on? At this point, we seem to be in a situation where we’re just waiting for someone to crack or break — and then every day that passes, the cost of cracking or breaking to your own side becomes higher. Of course, something could pop very quickly and break the logjam. But at this moment, as we record, I’m not seeing how that happens.
Bouie: I don’t know how it happens, either. What we’re seeing are the problems with this imperial notion of executive power. This is why this is bad — because it actually renders governance impossible to do if there’s no commitment to the broader rules of the game. One of the rules of the game being Congress does a thing and the president carries it out, and to the extent that the president has any wiggle room, it’s if Congress gives him wiggle room. But absent that: We pass spending — you carry out the spending. But if you’re not going to follow that rule, if that’s not going to be on the table anymore, then you can’t govern. The only thing that can happen is for Republicans to just unilaterally govern, and they don’t want to do that, either. So I don’t know how this ends.
What I want to say is you can’t have a forever shutdown — for very practical reasons. You don’t want every air traffic controller to quit. You don’t want the properties owned by the federal government to fall into disrepair. There are actual things that have to happen for the country to run, and there is some wiggle room and redundancy over the course of a month — maybe, if we’re stretching, to two months. But beyond that, it matters that the federal government is operational. It seems to me that the president thinks you can have a forever shutdown, and that in the president’s conception of things, the shutdown gives him more power through some magical, convoluted, transmogrifying mechanism that no one understands. The shutdown means the president is even more powerful, or whatever.
Cottle: I was going to nod to that because we are seeing that he’s been happy to use the shutdown as a tool for doing what he wants. We’ve seen Russ Vought at the Office of Management and Budget talk about how they’re going to just take this and run with it. They’re going to try to lay off federal workers en masse, and right now the courts are blocking this. But this is clearly something they’re willing to experiment with.
Trump has taken money from a rich donor to help pay the military. They’re freezing congressionally appropriated funds for projects in states they don’t like. Basically, anything that they can do to disrupt the functioning of government, especially in blue areas, Trump is doing. And his response is always: Come at me, bro.
French: I don’t think there’s any question that if Donald Trump could engineer a situation where the Congress stays out of session or the House stays out of session for the rest of his presidency, he’d be totally fine with that. I honestly think he has no real desire to work with Congress in any substantial way. Otherwise, you know what? He would have had a very different opening to his presidency.
His party controls the House and the Senate, and instead of this tsunami of executive orders, if he had an actual governing agenda to dictate how America is going to be governed for the foreseeable future, he’d have had a legislative agenda. He’d have walked in passing actual laws. Instead, he came in with a giant amount of executive order vaporware. And so what you’ve done is you’ve created a situation where the president is more powerful than ever, but presidential actions are more ephemeral than ever — because they’re all channeled through executive orders rather than using his power to actually shape and change the law. It’s hard to overemphasize how unstable this makes American governance.
Bouie: Unstable, unreliable. It’s bad for business. I’m not one to be supersolicitous of business interests, but if you are someone who makes money, this level of instability and inconsistency in government operations is intolerable. How do you plan for the future?
Cottle: Globally, it’s a problem, too. Other countries cannot remotely predict what our foreign policy or trade policy — or anything — is going to be.
Bouie: I wanted to say a quick comment about Russ Vought. I feel like so much of the coverage of Vought is about how he’s some evil genius, and the photo they always pick has him with bags under his eyes, and they’re kind of bloodshot, and he looks —
French: Like a Sith Lord.
Bouie: He looks like a Sith Lord. He looks like he’s asking Anakin if he’s heard the story of Darth Plagueis, right?
French: [Laughs.] I love that reference.
Bouie: That was for you, David.
French: Thank you.
Bouie: But all he’s doing is just breaking the law. All he’s doing is saying: I’m just not going to follow the law. You don’t have to be a genius to say: I don’t think the law counts anymore. And I find it very frustrating that so much of the coverage of him buys into this image of a devious, plotting, scheming vizier. When in reality, Vought is just a guy who has decided that the law doesn’t apply to the president anymore. And that’s all.
And if there were a Congress interested in enforcing its prerogatives, you could just cut that short in an afternoon. You drag Russ Vought up for oversight hearings and ask: What are you doing? Do you need me to hold you in contempt?
Cottle: Well, I have a question for both of you. Yes, Trump is authoritarian curious, I guess we’ll call it, but how much of this do we think is that either the people around him or even some of the establishment Republican players knew that this Congress — and that Congress in general — for years — has been basically abdicating its responsibility on all kinds of levels, and so they were essentially ripe for a takeover?
I mean, you can certainly blame Trump for much of the extreme degree of control he has taken over congressional power. But Congress has been happily shoveling that out the door and letting the executive branch or the judicial branch do its job. And so if you’re standing around, looking from the outside, you could say: You know, all it would take would be a really kind of strong man in the White House to take advantage of this and implement whatever policies or changes I am interested in. So as much as I like to blame Trump for what’s going on, I feel like we should spend time smacking Congress as an institution, as well.
French: Yes, absolutely, Michelle. I’m not a big fan of trigger warnings and things like that, but I do have a trigger warning for myself, which is the phrase “coequal branches of government.” Don’t say that around me.
Cottle: I need to remember that.
French: Don’t say that. It causes involuntary spasming. It’s Article 1 for a reason, if you actually look at the constitutional structure. It’s not that the legislature is supposed to reign unchecked in supreme. But think of the legislative branch in the formulation of the founders as like first among equals. This is the one that you can’t spend any money without. It can fire the president. It can fire any member of the Supreme Court. You’re not supposed to be able to go to war without it. All of the basic fundamental functions of government you can’t do, in theory, without Congress, according to our structure.
This is intentional because Congress is crafted to be the most representative part of our tripartite system of government. And so what we’re seeing here isn’t just congressional abdication in an abstract sense. What we’re seeing is constitutional devolution — almost like a constitutional revolution — where Article 1 is receding down to, like, Article 3 level, and Article 2 is Article 1 now with a bullet. And it’s not the way the system was supposed to be created or administered, and it’s putting huge strains on us. Because if Congress is basically irrelevant, and the presidency is decided really by the swing states and the presidential election, then the vast majority of Americans have no meaningful say over the core functioning of the American government. And all of these things are all destabilizing.
Cottle: Jamelle, this is leading directly into what you’ve been writing about this week. And before we jump in, I just want to note that I have done a lot of reporting on this: Among senators, both sides know this is a problem, and both sides are really unhappy about it. It’s just a question of: How do you address it? But you have been talking this week about an “imperial Congress” being needed to push back because we’ve reached such an imbalance at this point.
Bouie: I feel like that’s a term of art just for what David has been alluding to — a very active Congress that is taking its role in the constitutional firmament very seriously. I’m interested in and write quite a bit about Reconstruction. If you’re basically familiar with the timeline, there are two parts of Reconstruction. There is the presidential Reconstruction under Andrew Johnson, and there’s congressional Reconstruction, basically after Johnson’s impeachment begins — a little earlier than that. But basically Congress sidelines Johnson and really takes full rein of Reconstruction.
It’s Congress leading the pack. It’s Congress spearheading constitutional amendments. It’s Congress doing the kinds of close oversight and monitoring. It’s Congress flexing its authority in really aggressive ways. And I think that is what I’m talking about when I say something like an “imperial Congress” — a congress that recognizes the full sweep of its formal and informal powers, and then uses them to try to shape things in the way that it wants to be shaped and engages with the public. And there’s still room for the other branches to push back, of course. But the key thing is the other branches are responding to Congress, not Congress responding to the other branches. It changes the direction of the energy in the system.
Cottle: So is there any practical path toward that?
Bouie: I’ve been thinking about this. Some of it is structural. Over time, for a variety of contingent reasons that reflect the fact that this is a big, complex, modern country with a modern economy, power has siphoned up to the executive branch. I think a little bit of that is basically unavoidable. But I think some of this really is the members themselves. I think that if a newly elected majority of the members said: We don’t want this to be so leadership focused — then it wouldn’t be. If the Senate said: We really want to be active — then they would be.
I do think that some of this is actually cultivating an ethos among members, and people who want to be members, to think of themselves not as passive members of a party but active members of a legislature who have a lot of individual power. I also think it reflects the absence of real ambition. By that I mean: ambition not simply to ascend to a higher office but ambition to use the office you have in the most aggressive and maximalist way that you can.
Cottle: One of the things that senators have complained to me about in respect to the leadership-focused way that Congress is run, is that part of what’s fueling that problem is the way that money is dealt with. The Senate leaders control huge campaign funds, and they can decide who gets what piece. That is a very powerful tool in a system where money is vital to surviving in these campaigns. David, what is your thought on all of that?
French: I think we’re going to be in a difficult position until there’s a change in a fundamental reality. And that fundamental reality is that every Republican member of Congress believes that their entire career, their place in that House, depends on Donald Trump’s approval. So I think even Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House: If Trump came out and said he needs to go, then Mike Johnson loses his job. Why do we know this? Look at the last 10 years. How many people are left in the Republican Party whom Donald Trump has specifically targeted? I mean, I can think of one at the state level: Brian Kemp in Georgia. He’s the Harry Potter “ boy who lived” of the G.O.P.
Cottle: He’s viewed with a kind of magical reverence.
French: Exactly. But this will not last forever.
I think there are a couple of things to point out here. No. 1: It’s a mistake to think this will be a 50-50 nation forever. We’ve had the 50-50 moments in American history, and the logjam has always broken in a particular direction. One way or the other, the logjam tends to break. If you go back and you look at American history, many times when you’ve had extreme presidential power and abuses of presidential power, that has been followed by a snapback, by constitutional amendments or Congress acting decisively once the logjam is broken.
I think there are some lessons we have learned about the original 1787 Constitution that just lend themselves to abuse. And the antifederalists spotted this coming from miles away. No. 1 is the pardon power. The pardon power is a destabilizing vestige of monarchy that needs to be fundamentally reformed. No. 2: Antifederalist George Clinton called Article 2 “vague and inexplicit” — and that lends itself to lots of mischief.
Here’s another lesson that I think is an important idea: Expand the House. I think there are a number of ideas of reform that are floating around out there that can help prevent his situation from happening again. But we have to get through this moment. The real impediment here is the primary voters. Even something as grotesque as Jan. 6 did not break that bond between Trump and the primary voters. In that circumstance they think, legitimately, there are no lines that Trump can cross where he will lose the loyalty of the primary voters in the Republican Party.
Cottle: I think we have to wait until this cult of personality has ended before we can move on. That fever has to break. Then I want to do an episode devoted entirely to David and Jamelle’s list of amendments and reforms, so I’m just putting —
Bouie: It’s funny David said that because I myself have a document, like an omnibus amendment. One reform is the same way that the first lines of the 14th Amendment are basically overturning Dred Scott, I think we need to constitutionalize overturning Trump v. U.S. — there needs to be some sort of constitutional clarification of the president’s criminal liability.
What we’re seeing is how a corrupt president interprets it as a license to do whatever they want. And I think there needs to be some sort of constitutional clarification of the president’s criminal liability.
Cottle: Before we switch to our closing recommendations, I did want to bring you guys back because we haven’t been together since the magical renovation project of the East Wing began. To me, this smacks of Trump trying to take us toward some kind of glorious old empire with gilded ballrooms. I have been pleasantly surprised by how much this has really ticked off a lot of the country. Were you guys surprised by this?
Bouie: I’m not surprised that people were mad. It’s crazy! When Trump said: I want to put up a ballroom — I thought it’s ugly. It’s garish. I don’t like it — but whatever. I would prefer that he went to Congress and said to Congress: I need money to build this thing.
Cottle: But why do that when you’ve got rich friends? He doesn’t need Congress, Jamelle.
Bouie: This is a pay for play operation. I would be shocked if a ballroom actually gets built. But then I open up my computer, and I see that they’ve demolished the East Wing — as if it belongs to him, as if it’s just something he can do. The White House is very distinctly not a palace, right?
Cottle: Give it time.
Bouie: The palace in the capital is the Capitol, right? The White House is a relatively modest Executive Mansion by design. As imperfect as American democracy is, the White House is this symbol of the relationship of the government to the people. It’s open to the public for the most part. You can go visit it. You don’t need to be a rich donor — you can just go. Given the importance of the symbol to how Americans conceive of themselves, it makes total sense to me that, even if you’re basically sympathetic to Trump, you’d think: Wait a second — this isn’t yours to demolish. And if you want to tear it down, you have to go to us to see if we are going to allow this.
Cottle: But isn’t this project then the perfect metaphor, the perfect symbol?
Bouie: Oh, yes.
Cottle: He’s taking a wrecking ball to the whole thing.
Bouie: It’s a hat on a hat. It’s so on the nose.
French: I don’t care if there is a ballroom built. In other words: Do we possibly need a ballroom? I’m very open to that argument. I’m totally open to that.
Cottle: I like to dance.
French: But I’m not open to the idea that the president can demolish any part of the White House on his own authority, or all of it. Like, what’s the limiting principle here? You hate to go from White House to the Venezuelan boat strikes, but as I was talking about the other day: What’s the limiting principle here to stop Trump from designating anybody as a terrorist enemy and ordering their death? What’s the limiting principle? Can he demolish the whole White House?
And when you see part of the White House demolished — suddenly, with no real conversation or discussion — it has a very tangible effect that other things don’t have. Because it’s just right in front of people’s faces.
One last thing before we get to our recommendations: I just want to say, Michelle, somebody needs to stage an intervention for both Jamelle and I because I also have a Google Doc of constitutional amendments. Is there a name for this condition?
Cottle: I’m going to come up with one before next time.
Bouie: It’s Nerdlinger. That’s what the name is.
Cottle: That works for me. Let’s end on some lighter recommendations, or at least something that does not involve a Google Doc. David?
French: OK. Bear with me here because this show has changed a lot in its evolution. So Season 1 of “The Morning Show” on Apple TV+ was very heavy, prestige TV — very cinematic, weighty, really well done, in my view. And then Seasons 2, 3 and now we’re in 4, got just sort of like a soap opera. More like: Do you remember “Dallas” and “Falcon Crest” from the 1980s?
Cottle: I’m sorry, have you met me? Of course, I do.
French: So all of a sudden, it has gone from this big meta-commentary around #MeToo to something much more like “Dallas” and “Falcon Crest” for the 2020s. And I just have to say: I’m here for all of it. So “The Morning Show” on Apple TV+. It’s been great.
Cottle: It’s on my list because you are reliable, I have to say.
French: I’m nothing if not reliable on streaming recommendations.
Cottle: Jamelle?
Bouie: I’ve been trying to catch up with movies. I usually watch a lot of movies every year. Last year, I think I clocked 230 movies.
Cottle: Wow.
Bouie: This year, for whatever reason, I’m just not watching as much. I’m trying to pick up the pace again, and I’m trying to catch up with stuff that came out this year. I watched “28 Years Later,” which is the legacy sequel to “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later,” the previous two films. I liked those other two movies.
I went into it thinking it was just going to be a fun zombie picture. What I was not anticipating is that it’s actually a very thoughtful coming-of-age story and at times a quite profound and moving meditation on life and death and rebirth, and coming to terms with the nature of the world in which we live. There are zombie thrills, and it’s kind of gruesome and stuff, but the emotional core of the film is so thoughtful, and there are moments of genuine visual and emotional beauty in the film. So I’m going to recommend “28 Years Later.” It is maybe becoming, I think, my favorite film of the year so far.
Cottle: Really?
Bouie: I was so struck by how deeply felt it is. And it has maybe the best child actor performance I’ve ever seen.
Cottle: Yes, I’ve seen it.
Bouie: He carries the film.
Cottle: I’m going to pivot and do less of a recommendation than a plea. I don’t want it to be a downer, but I want to recommend that as we roll into November, you find a local food bank and donate. I have a friend who launched one during the pandemic, and they are just overrun already, even before we get into the Thanksgiving season.
I’ve had other friends come to me asking how they can get in touch with her and donate. I’ve got my husband contacting the local food bank in our neighborhood. It’s one of those things where it’s good for your soul, and the need is just overwhelming. So that’s mine.
French: Wonderful suggestion, but I’m just going to say: You made us look bad, Michelle. It’s, like, around the Thanksgiving table, when people say: What do you want for Christmas? And someone says: I want a new car. And somebody else says: I want a new boat. And somebody else says: I want suffering to stop in the world.
Cottle: No, see, I would have pitched “Sinners,” the movie, but Jamelle had already given a horror movie. We can’t have too many horror movie recommendations. So, fine: Donate to your local food bank. Get out there and watch the horror movie “Sinners.” Is that better?
French: There you go.
Cottle: OK, and with that, we’re going to end it. Guys, thank you so much. I have missed you. Have a great Election Day, and I’ll see you next week.
Bouie: See you next week.
French: Thanks, Michelle. See you later.
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected].
This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Vishakha Darbha. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Kaari Pitkin. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Pat McCusker, Isaac Jones and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. The director of Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
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Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va.
Michelle Cottle writes about national politics for Opinion. She has covered Washington and politics since the Clinton administration. @mcottle
David French is an Opinion columnist, writing about law, culture, religion and armed conflict. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former constitutional litigator. His most recent book is “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” You can follow him on Threads (@davidfrenchjag).
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