Politix

Brian’s European Vacation continues as Matt is joined by special guest Jane Flegal of the Blue Horizon Foundation to break down the energy provisions of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.

The energy cuts have attracted less attention than the health care provisions in part because they were made much more severe at the last minute. Jane breaks down how the Inflation Reduction Act changed America’s approach to clean energy subsidies — making them more durable, more flexible, and more inclusive of the full range of technologies including nuclear, geothermal, and carbon capture — and how it connects to larger industrial policy questions related to supply chains and battery production. Repealing these measures will leave America worse off than it was pre-Biden in terms of clean energy production, which is going to lead to higher levels of air pollution and higher energy bills as Americans face a generational increase in electricity demand from AI and data centers.

After the break, Matt and Jane analyze the broader philosophy of investment-led climate policy — what’s the right lesson to learn from the failure of Obama-era carbon pricing and what can we do about the flood of extremely dirty Chinese steel on world markets?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* How Republicans turned against energy programs in their Big Beautiful Bill.

* The impact of repealing energy credits on electricity prices.

* Dylan Matthews on the geopolitics and environmental economics of steel.

Brian is on vacation, so special guest McKenzie Wilson joins Matt to talk about Blue Rose Research’s retrospective on the 2024 election and their work on message-testing. McKenzie came to Blue Rose after working in the private sector, working for Jamal Bowman, and working in the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services — she believes in progressive values and she wants to win elections.

In this episode, Matt and McKenzie discuss:

* The central role of the cost of living in the 2024 election.

* The importance of partisan realignment based around engagement with news and politics.

* The deep unpopularity of Joe Biden and the need for Democrats to internalize that as they move forward.

Then, behind the paywall, what are the Trump administration’s biggest points of vulnerability? What are Democrats getting right and wrong about highlighting those issues? Most of all, McKenzie makes the case for a disciplined approach that ties everything back to core values that motivate progressives and also resonate with swing voters.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* The full Blue Rose slide deck.

* Matt’s article on Republicans’ Medicaid cuts.

* A corporate marketing guru’s appreciation and praise of Bernie Sanders’ message discipline.

By the time you listen to this episode, the Republican bill to give rich people trillions in tax cuts, and throw millions of people off of Medicaid will be…somewhere. It could be on the glide path to passage in the House, or on life support, or somewhere in between. But the basic shape of what Republicans want to do, and what Donald Trump wants them to do, is clear.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* How this terrible bill, which many Republicans really do not like, might become law anyhow.

* Should this bill, if it passes, change the way Democrats think about the social compact, where productive, younger, more tolerant Americans underwrite Republican populations and politicians that despise them?

* Will Republicans be committing political suicide by passing a huge, debt-financed tax cuts given inflation pressures and high interest rates?

Then, behind the paywall, the renewed but cursed Joe Biden discourse. Did Biden or his advisers actually perpetrate a coverup of any kind, or is that just hype from reporters and Republicans trying to sell books and hurt Democrats? Do Democrats really need to have any kind of “reckoning” or are the lessons of 2024 and electing extremely old presidents pretty obvious to everyone? And how should they go about engaging in this and other forms of discourse that are frustrating and unhelpful, but impossible to avoid.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Update: Biden says his last PSA was in 2014.

* Greg Schultz on the REAL reason Democrats lost the 2024 election. (The real reason was that Biden was very old.)

* Brian argues Democrats should spend less time staking out positions on controversies, and more time reflecting privately on what their real views are.

* Jonathan Cohn on the highly irregular way Republicans are trying to force their tax and Medicaid cuts through the legislative process.

Donald Trump blinked, as many people suspected he would. This week, he reduced the embargo-level tariffs he imposed on China a month ago, and did so unilaterally. So in exchange for a month-long crisis, a still-looming supply shortage, lost jobs, and lost wealth, we got nothing! But Trump’s supporters are all too ready to cover for him.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* What does Trump’s reversal mean for the economy in the near and medium term?

* Will his army of propagandists be able to sell his flailing as a “win,” and, thus, blunt the political consequences of his economic mismanagement?

* Would Democrats be better off if their grassroots were similarly cult like, or is Trump’s “superpower” actually a big weakness, both for the GOP and the country?

Then, behind the paywall, how should Democrats think about the damage Trump is doing, not just in the trade realm but across government? It’s (apparently) easy to tweak tariff rates, but much harder to convince trading partners that we’re trustworthy. Could this be a basis for Democratic opposition? Should Democrats unify behind a general promise to reconstitute the government Trump broke, and rebuild global faith in the United States? Or are technical questions surrounding how to rebuild destined to leave the party mired in infighting?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian argues it’s counterproductive to wallow in the fact that building things is harder than breaking them, and that Dems should adopt a posture of resolve and defiance.

* Matt on Trump rediscovering the virtues of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and how he succeeds politically by claiming credit for renegotiating shittier versions of deals he broke in the past.

* Adam Serwer: “The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying.”

They won’t come right out and say it this time, the way they did in 2017. But Republicans are still hellbent on repealing the Affordable Care Act—or at least the half of the ACA that expanded Medicaid coverage to millions more poor and disabled Americans.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* What do Republican pronouncements about their aspirational health care cuts actually mean?

* Will cuts to a program that benefits millions of Trump supporters, and that basically nobody in industry supports, create disarray among House and Senate Republicans?

* How should Democrats and industry stakeholders alike go about clarifying the stakes, so that Republicans might balk?

Then, behind the paywall, the ACA meant to expand Medicaid in every state. But the Supreme Court decided it was unconstitutional for the federal government to force states to adopt policy under threat of massive, peripheral spending cuts. Since that’s the law of the land, shouldn’t Democratic governors err on the side of fighting Trump, rather than capitulating to his extortionate threats? What counts as fair-game cooperation with the Trump administration, and what counts as caving? And do Democrats need to be mindful of the underlying issue, or should they fight everywhere the law’s on their side?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Matt on not letting the awfulness of the GOP tax-and-Medicaid agenda slip through the cracks.

* Brian on why Democratic governors like Gretchen Whitmer should stop Paul Weissing themselves.

* Resources to help citizens with Republican representatives effectively oppose Medicaid cuts.

On Donald Trump’s hundredth day in office—the day we taped this podcast—he was historically unpopular, driving the country into recession, and responding to the loss of confidence in his administration by escalating his authoritarian threats against the public.

In this special episode, Paul Krugman joins Brian to discuss:

* What Trump has done to the U.S. economy in just the past 100 days.

* Why it’s too late for him to fix some of the mistakes he made without subjecting Americans to real economic hardships in the coming weeks.

* How his own faithless, erratic conduct will make recovery difficult (for the economy and his polling) even if he ends his trade war.

Then, behind the paywall, how can future leaders attempt to undo the damage Trump has done? What will the country look like after 1300ish more days of this? Are economic forecasters underrating the risk of recession to hedge their bets? Would further inroads toward dictatorship deepen the economic crisis as well as the crisis of democracy and human rights? And what does it say about the direness of our circumstances that major upheaval, like impeachment and removal, would likely help restore global economic confidence in the U.S.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Krugman asks, Did Peter Navarro save democracy?

* Brian argues that though Trump is wreaking economic havoc, the rising against him isn’t class war as commonly understood on the left.

* Matt argues hoping Trump implodes is not enough, and Democrats need a plan to actually win back the Senate.

Right-wing religious fanatics want women to have more children with bread-winning men. Donald Trump views masculinity as synonymous with physical toughness. The synthesis: instead of using prosperity to make family formation more appealing, what if we just crushed female employment and made most jobs manual labor?

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* How Trump’s economic policy and disdain for white-collar professionalism might actually drive men into blue-collar work, and women into the kitchen.

* Why this is a bad idea!

* Whether Trump’s fear of backlash suggests Republicans will ultimately lack the courage of their convictions to stick with this attempted cultural revolution.

Then, behind the paywall, what, if anything, can liberal elites do to make progressive politics and the Democratic Party more appealing to men—particularly men who like the idea of working hard and playing by the rules to get ahead, but don’t like Trump’s lying, misogyny, and authoritarianism? Can quietly competent Democrats like Chris Van Hollen out “man” testosterone-addled incompetents like Pete Hegseth? And is the solution to this gender-driven tension for men to spend less time online and more time socializing?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian on how men can be manly without working in the mines at the behest of soft elites like Trump and Elon Musk.

* Matt on the gender politics of Trumponomics.

* Stephan Schubert.

Two weeks into his trade war, Donald Trump has made at least a few tactical retreats, and markets have stabilized a bit as a result. Are we just in the eye of the storm? Or is it possible the economic fallout from the trade war won’t be as severe as we feared on LIBERATION DAY?

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* Why did markets recover significantly (though not entirely) from the big sell off after Trump launched the trade war?

* Who has a better read on the harm Trump is likely to do to the United States and its economy, traders or Democrats?

* Even in a least-bad case scenario, isn’t Trump setting himself up to absorb more economic blowback than Joe Biden did for presiding over a year of moderate inflation?

Then, behind the paywall, how can Democrats hedge against the possibility that public opinion won’t do all their political work for them? Between Trump violating court orders, and Democrats facing greater threats of violence, how likely are we to lose democracy well before the midterm elections? What if anything can Democrats do to keep the rule of law intact enough to have a fair shot next November? What kinds of candidates should they recruit to maximize their odds of retaking power, even if the economy doesn’t collapse?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Matt on the trade-deficit myths driving Trump’s economic self-sabotage.

* Brian on how House Democrats can exploit the rules to run down the clock and draw attention to the assault on democracy, and growing momentum for resistance.

* Democrats plan a fact-finding trip to the CECOT gulag in El Salvador.

Last week, in one fell swoop, Donald Trump wiped out trillions of dollars in wealth, upended all of our trade relations, and poised the U.S. for a lengthy recession and higher prices. His big money backers are in freakout mode. He’s made himself politically vulnerable in dramatic fashion, but also undermined the foundations of the American age.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss life with (and after?) Trump’s tariffs:

* How the fuck did Trump’s billionaire backers get this so catastrophically wrong?

* Is Trump looking for an offramp, where he “negotiates” away these tariffs in exchange for symbolic victories, or are they here to stay?

* How does uncertainty around that question exacerbate damage to the economy economic?

Then, behind the paywall, where, if anywhere, do we go from here? Are Democrats handling the situation optimally, in both legislative and messaging contexts? Would it even matter all that much if Congress revoked presidential tariff authority, now that the whole world sees us as erratic and untrustworthy? Is there a path back to an American-led global economic order, or are we just permanently poorer?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian on what it would look like to really reverse America’s Trump-induced collapse.

* Matt’s 29 thoughts on Liberation Day™️.

* Josh Marshall on how all power is unitary.

There are signs of life in the Democratic Party, and if Republicans continue to badly underperform in special elections, the vibes could shift. But there are some things even a robust opposition can’t really stop, when a president claims autocratic power, and is insulated from normal political considerations

After a brief discussion of Cory Booker’s filibuster, and the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, Matt and Brian discuss the unitary executive theory. Specifically:

* What is the unitary executive theory?

* Is a rogue presidency really what Republicans had in mind when they concocted this theory a few decades ago?

* Would adverse court rulings establishing an all-powerful, unaccountable executive mean the end of Fed independence, and a ruined economy?

Then, behind the paywall, are there any legitimate reforms to our political system that would be both wise and make the government more responsive to election outcomes? Is there any circumstances under which this kind of king-like presidency would not devolve into criminality and corruption? Will any constitutional checks remain if the Supreme Court grants Trump’s unitary executive claims, or will it be entirely up to the masses?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* One way to weaken Trump’s executive would be to rescind his tariff authority.

* The long tail of law firms caving to Trump’s lawless threats.

* Pramila Jayapal’s Resistance Lab.