Minutes after recording this episode, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) provided the decisive vote for GOP legislation to kick 15-20 million people off their health insurance and give rich people a trillion dollar tax cut, along with many other horrors.

Now it’s back to the House, where hope, which springs eternal, goes to die!

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* What more could have been done to stop this?

* By whom?

* Given GOP margins and Donald Trump’s warlord-like control over the GOP, would it have made any difference?

Then, behind the paywall, could Zorhan Mamdani kill this bill … by endorsing it?

And, more seriously, what does his victory in the New York mayoral primary mean for Democrats post-2024? Is there anything Democrats in more conservative places can learn from a primary in a very blue city? Can the Democratic Party be a genuinely big tent, where centrists abide progressives (even self-avowed socialists) and progressives give red-state Democrats room to run on cultural issues?

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 sewer socialists Mamdani can (and hopefully will?) learn from.

* Brian on whether Republicans’ continued obsession with “starving the beast” will return us to the era of New Deal politics.

* Matt, again, on the moderate-left synthesis: The view that an obsessive focus on cost-of-living issues is a winning move across factions.

* Brian, again, on the hard truths progressive and moderate leaders should tell their fellow travelers, for the sake of unifying against right-wing extremism.

Welcome to hell, because we’ve reached the hot war phase of the second Trump presidency. Or have we?

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* What has actually happened, both since 2018, and just in the past couple weeks, and why it’s so unlikely to have left the U.S. and the world better off.

* Is there any upside to Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu using and playing each other in a way that undermines both of their political goals?

* What’s the least worst and worst worst possible near-medium term outlook?

Then, behind the paywall, how opponents of Trump and his war can balance political and substantive objections? Is it possible to oppose/criticize/mock Trump for his spastic, failed policy without driving him toward further hostilities? Is that even a consideration Democrats should heed? What about the fact that Trump and his administration lied to justify the attacks? That the strikes were illegal? That they may lead to American civilian deaths?

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 Trump’s evolution from shitty president who posts a lot to shitty president who wields dictatorial power should bring an end to the Democratic tick of brushing off all of his outrages as “distractions.”

* Matt’s 21 thoughts on Trump’s Iran war.

* Chris Murphy: 8 Things You Should Know About Trump's Strikes on Iran.

Donald Trump may not always chicken out, but his on again/off again, advance-retreat dance does seem to insulate him from lasting blowback. It seems the only way to drag Trump’s popularity down low enough to really hem him in is for his supporters to find out the hard way.

In this episode, Matt and Brian tackle the questions:

* Does the hyperbolic claim that “Trump Always Chickens Out” serve to insulate him from public backlash, while also perversely encouraging him to prove his haters wrong?

* Would we be better off if he stopped chickening out?

* Does defeating Trump (in Congress, the courts, etc.) weaken him, or does it protect him from his own unsustainable policies?

* If we’re all accelerationists now, where would failure (or catastrophic success) undermine Trump most? Economic mismanagement? Medicaid cuts? Mass deportation? War?

Then, behind the paywall, some considered thoughts on how the Trump opposition would respond if Trump didn’t chicken out. What can Democrats as a whole learn from the handful of leaders (most recently Alex Padilla and Tina Smith) who’ve drawn attention to their causes in productive ways? Are Democratic political fortunes best served if Trump’s Medicaid cuts fail, or if they succeed? And how, in this hothouse environment, can progressives and moderates align to help Democrats recruit viable Senate candidate in red states?

Further reading:

* Matt argues you’re not really alarmed about the slide into autocracy if you aren’t willing to make ideological sacrifices to help Democrats win the Senate.

* Brian’s schema for when to try to stop Trump, and when to let him step in it.

* Noah Wyle helps get the word out about looming Medicaid cuts. (Paging George Clooney, Jimmy Kimmel…)

Since last week’s episode, Donald Trump and Elon Musk had a bitter falling out, Republicans encountered new obstacles to enacting their top priorities (cutting rich people’s taxes and poor people’s Medicaid) and Trump ordered a federal siege of Los Angeles.

Also, Brian got his first taste of sweet, sweet European health care.

What do these things have to do with one another? Arguably not much, arguably quite a lot. If safety nets weren’t valuable and important, Republicans wouldn’t be lying about the contents of their budget reconciliation bill. And if their reconciliation bill was wise, popular, and on the glide path to passage, Trump (really, Stephen Miller) wouldn’t be trying to whip up a violent pretext to squeeze Republicans on Capitol Hill into voting for a reckless, terrible bill.

But siccing federal troops on American citizens is a big deal, whether it’s intended as a diversion or an inducement or not. Should Democratic leaders have seen it coming? Should they have been more prepared? Are there ways for them to increase public awareness of the looming decimation of Medicaid without falling back on the trope that everything else is a “distraction?”

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 Democrats overweighted the importance of “issue salience” and it left them unprepared to wage unavoidable political battles with Trump.

* Matt argues that if progressives understood FDR’s legacy more accurately, they would be more tolerant of Democratic efforts to widen the party’s appeal.

* No Kings protests across the country on Saturday.

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.