This is a lightly edited transcript of the November 10 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch the video here or by following this show on YouTube or Substack.
Perry Bacon: I’m the host of The New Republic show Right Now. I’m joined by my colleagues, Monica Potts and Alex Shephard, and we’re here to discuss the Democrats’ deal—capitulation, we can pick different words here—that broke last night in terms of ending the government shutdown, potentially. And so, just gimme your instant reactions, Monica.
Monica Potts: I mean, I think my instant reaction was one of just disappointment, because the Democrats really had public opinion on their side. Most voters—most American voters—blamed Trump and the Republicans for the shutdown. They wanted Democrats to continue to fight for enhanced subsidies to make healthcare more affordable.
That was really a winning argument, and they won soundly on Tuesday. They really could have carried that momentum forward by putting more and more pressure on the Republicans as the shutdown increased pain on Americans. And it’s, you know, a lot of the effects of the shutdown were increasingly serious.
It was really an important thing to address the needs people had. So I understand why people wanted to get the government reopened—you know, people needed their paychecks; SNAP beneficiaries needed their benefits. But the pressure was really on Republicans to solve those problems.
And politically, I think that they could have lasted a little longer.
Alex Shephard: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s just a total disaster—like, across the board. I think they could have—if, you know, I think that the pain of the shutdown was real—but if that was actually the case, right? They should have reopened the government 10 days ago, and that’s not what they did.
And I think, one, they lost an argument that they were winning—intentionally, right? So that, by reopening the government now, six days after these elections that they just won, it’s hard to argue with the fact that this was a Democrat-controlled shutdown. I think that’s the sort of top line. I dunno. But the other thing here—well, there’s three things.
So, the second thing is that, you know, at every point here, right, Republicans were losing. They were losing over anger and anxiety heading into Thanksgiving and Christmas. They were losing on Obamacare. And then they were losing on all these sort of illegal SNAP benefits. And on each one of those points, Democrats bailed out Republicans.
Right? They allowed them to just sort of escape an argument that they were losing—and they got nothing for it. And that sort of leads me to the third point, which I think is the thing that makes me angriest: there’s just no way of looking at this and not saying that it’s ultimately about the filibuster. Republicans and Trump were getting closer and closer to fully nuking the filibuster.
It’s like Schrödinger’s filibuster at this point—it both exists and doesn’t exist at the same time. And I think Democrats saw that and started to get very nervous. And I think that, at the end of the day, what really changed here was that Democrats wanted to protect the filibuster, and they threw themselves and their own party under the bus to do it.
And I think if you’re somebody who’s looking ahead at how we get out of this mess right now, it’s really hard to imagine doing that with a filibuster still in place—and Democrats just capitulated to protect it. It’s pathetic.
Bacon: Lemme ask a couple of the mechanics here. So, we had eight senators who voted for this deal—but, and let’s come back to them in a second.
Should we assume that—Monica, do you assume Schumer, even though he voted against it—Schumer is for the deal?
Potts: I assume he gave them his blessing.
Bacon: Alex?
Shephard: Yeah, I mean, I think all the reporting suggests that. And I think, just to underline the point, there are only two options here, right?
Either Schumer has no control over his caucus and was unable to stop this sort of critical mass of senators from joining with the Republicans, or he was secretly doing this deal that screws the party over as they head into the midterms.
Either way, the conclusion is the same: he’s a disaster, and he needs to go.
Bacon: Yeah, Monica?
Potts: Yeah, I mean, I think that Schumer is always worried about upsetting, like, the median voter. But he represents New York. New York is, you know, full of Democratic base voters. They wanted Democrats to fight. There’s a lot that Democratic voters object to about the Trump government.
And, you know, also, the longer it went on, the more people were gonna blame Trump. The Democrats have this idea that voters are kind of like watching everything that happens in D.C., and they’re like, well, it’s time for Democrats to give, or whatever. But no—when bad things happen, people blame the president. And they are aware that Republicans are in control of Congress.
And so the worse the shutdown got, the more pressure was gonna be on Republicans. I don’t know if they would’ve listened to it; I don’t know if they would’ve done anything about it. But everything bad that happened would’ve pinged the Republican Party.
Bacon: Lemme go through these eight members with you, Alex.
And just—so it’s Angus King; John Fetterman, Pennsylvania—Angus King is the independent from Maine. Catherine Cortez Masto is Nevada, as is Jacky Rosen. You have both New Hampshire senators, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen. You have Dick Durbin of Illinois, and you have Tim Kaine of Virginia.
So I know that’s a lot of people. Anything stand out to you about them—or anything unifying about them—that’s worth us noting here?
Shephard: Yeah, I mean they basically all are… they’re retiring or they have terms that, end in, in 2030 basically. So they were well…
Bacon: So the base, can’t punish them basically.
Shephard: Yeah. So, yeah—and they probably won’t, in some cases.
The names that stick out to me are Rosen and Cortez Masto, most of all, I think, just because they are—and sorry, God, now I—who is the New Hampshire senator who’s not Jeanne Shaheen?
Bacon: I can’t remember if it’s Hassan or…
Shephard: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are the three that really jump out to me because I think everyone else is basically retiring or can be expected to leave office. I think Tim Kaine will be in his mid-seventies when his term ends…
Bacon: You’re hinting that Fetterman will be involuntarily released from his Senate seat this upcoming year?
Shephard: Yeah. Fetterman and Kaine sort of jump out a little bit—but you’re like, Fetterman is D.O.A. and has, you know, ever since he had his stroke, been a different person, right? So that’s totally different. But those are the three that really jump out to me as people who are filibuster-defending here.
And I think that’s really the other key. The other thing that I would highlight—because it enrages me—is that I think one of the ways that they were given cover was: Abigail Spanberger did a press tour yesterday, most notably on Meet the Press, and gave, you know, basically, a pretty forceful argument for reopening the government, which then was being circulated among Senate staff.
And what we saw here is something that Spanberger has done before in these kinds of tense situations: she goes on a press tour and throws her colleagues under the bus. And I think that’s what happened here—that a crucial part of the strategy was Abigail Spanberger using the political capital that Virginia voters gave her to throw her own party under the bus.
It’s something that she’s done repeatedly. It’s something that, I think, should not be forgotten—especially as her big victory on Tuesday, I think, will probably make her a vice-presidential candidate, maybe even somebody who’s whispered about as a presidential candidate.
And, you know, this is the kind of person that Abigail Spanberger has shown herself to be on many, many occasions: somebody who takes grassroots energy in her party and tries to dull it. And, more importantly, throws her colleagues under the bus for the sake of protecting norms.
It’s not benefiting Virginians in this case. That’s what she’s up to.
Bacon: Okay, so I had two takes I wanted to give. The first one was that I am not excited about Abigail Spanberger—famous for “Joe Biden is trying to do too much” in 2021—is now a national figure and a voice for the party.
She’s a voice—she’s a voice for blahness and do-nothingness—and is like Joe Biden with less courage. Like, that is not good.
So, the second thing I wanted to say was: is this about Tuesday, in the sense that—was the entire shutdown about appeasing the banks, and now making sure… I think if they reached this deal on October 15th, that’s probably not good for, even if Spanberger and Sherrill don’t know it, I think it’s not good for them.
If the Democrats are seen caving on October 20th, that probably doesn’t help—’cause it looks like last week is about turnout, also in addition to persuasion. So was this a deal that could only be reached after they won the election?
Monica?
Potts: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I will say that Virginia—Tim Kaine and Abigail Spanberger—do have a lot of pressure from Northern Virginia to get those people their paychecks.
But, you know, I think that they wanted to keep their base motivated and engaged. The Democrats always wanted the government to stay open. They didn’t want it to come to a shutdown. They wanted healthcare subsidies, but they also didn’t want the government to shut down and stay shut down.
And I think this is the fundamental problem when it comes to Democrats really standing their ground on these kinds of things—that they believe in government. I mean, this is a little naïve, but I mean, there’s a lot more going on politically—but they do fundamentally believe in government; they believe it should deliver services to people.
And this is what the Republicans can always use against them. The Republicans are fine, you know, detonating, you know, kind of a disaster in the middle of the country right before the holidays—and letting people go hungry without their SNAP benefits, and shutting down airports, and causing pain. They don’t believe the government should be doing those things for people.
And so they’re willing to be nihilists when it comes to the government. But fundamentally, Democrats are gonna want the government to work for people—and they believe, wrongly I think, that that comes back to them in goodwill. It doesn’t. You know, people understand theater, I think, more than they understand just, like, good service delivery.
Bacon: So one thing I think we should note here is it’s not just these eight members—they’re taking the blame on some level. If the Democrats in the Senate were merely upset with Schumer, they could pick a different leader tomorrow, if not this afternoon.
We should assume there are people who wanted this government shutdown to end. Like, I have a hard time believing Alyssa Slotkin—another mayor of the moderates—was really outraged about this deal. You’ve seen Janet Mills is really outraged by this deal.
We assume there are a lot of people pretending to be outraged about this deal who actually agree with it, right?
Alex?
Shephard: Yeah, I think that that’s right. And I think that one of the things that’s helpful here is that the, the kind of defectors, the moderates, institutionalists, whatever you wanna call them, are being kind of weirdly honest about what they were doing. I mean, Angus King went on CNN and basically just said, you know, we tried standing up to Donald Trump, it didn’t work.
Right. Most of what Tim Kaine, I think, was saying—Hassan as well—is that they were not gonna get a deal on Obamacare subsidies, so they may as well just stop trying. And I think that that’s, you know, the problem that they always had here was that the Obamacare subsidy thing was the kind of core position that, like, they were saying something that was politically good for them, but that couldn’t necessarily get an outcome that was possible.
Which is true. But what you’re also seeing here as well is that it’s a failure of political will. Right? The party is just saying, well, you know, we weren’t getting—we weren’t seeing signs of getting what we wanted—so we just gave up. And that’s, I think, always been the issue with the Democratic shutdown strategy: it relies on Democrats to have political will that they do not currently have.
It requires them to take risks and to be uncomfortable on these things, but also to press these kinds of positions. They were winning this thing politically, even if they didn’t see a policy outcome. And I think that that also shows another damning problem here, which is just the disconnect between the party itself and its base, right?
That they are not able to—they’re only able to see the kind of wheely-dealy stuff that they do in D.C. They’re not thinking about what their base is telling them or what people want. And not only that, they see that as a problem, right? They see the political engagement and anger that people have right now as a problem that needs to be tamped down.
And the way that they do that, which is the way they’ve always done it, is just by telling people, no, you can’t have the things that you want.
Potts: I think that’s right
Bacon: Oh, good. Sorry.
Potts: Yeah, just to jump in real quick and say that it wasn’t even just their base—like, there were a fair number of independents ready to blame Trump for everything that was going on, which could have really, like, fueled the fire for support for Democrats in 2026.
And so I think that, yeah, I think you’re totally right there. Again…
Bacon: Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, Alex.
Shephard: Oh no, I was gonna say, just to build off a point I think I made, you know, late in the evening on election night, is that what the lesson here is, is a party that remains profoundly uncomfortable with politics, right?
They do not like doing politics. They especially don’t like holding political positions if they are not ones that they intrinsically hold. And I think that that’s the dynamic right now that sort of defines where we are, is that the party’s base is deeply politically engaged and they want their party to do politics, and the people that are in the position to do that are unwilling to do it.
Bacon: Monica, what is this… let’s assume this shutdown is gonna end in the next few days—I think it’s probably likely. What did this shutdown—we’ve got, this is one of the, I think, the longest, one of the longest governments we’ve had in a long time, or ever. What’s the meaning of this shutdown long-term?
If it ends Wednesday or the end of the week?
Potts: Well, I think that it shows the Republicans that Democrats can have a winning political position, but they don’t have the political will, as Alex says, to really enact it and to, like, stand up for it. And they’re uncomfortable with politics, you know.
The saying, you know, when they go low, we go high—well, it’s like, well, somebody has to get down in the mud and sling some dirt. Somebody has to fight real hard, you know?
And so, you know, the Democratic Party isn’t gonna do that as a party, even if some members are pushing for it. And even if they have the public on their side. I think it shows Trump that he can continue to kind of roll over Democrats and do what he wants.
I think it shows Democrats that they don’t have a unified caucus in the Senate, and that moderates will bail on them whenever they feel like the pressure gets too high ‘cause they can’t take it.
And I think that it shows the American public—and especially the Democratic base—that Democrats aren’t gonna stand up and fight when really push comes to shove, that really bad things could be happening and Democrats aren’t gonna present a unified front to kind of draw a line in the sand.
Bacon: And Alex, can you hear me? Alex?
Shephard: Sorry. Sorry. My internet cut out.
Bacon: That’s okay. I wanna finish by asking about Alex with this great piece. Are you still here, Alex?
Shephard: Yeah.
Bacon: Alex wrote this great piece just describing essentially the Democrats having their Tea Party moment—meaning that there’s this big disconnect between the base and the leadership that was similar to the 2010 to ’14 period where the Republicans struggled to have leaders in charge, ’cause the base wanted to be more aggressive.
Where does this take us now? Like, that was—that piece, I thought, was prescient before, but now you have a second capitulation on some level. But you also had—I think the party leadership would say—Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, the quintessential generic Democrats, won.
Is there really a Tea Party, or are we just one party that hates Trump and we’re unified? So where do you see the Democratic Tea Party idea a week after the elections, but also this capitulation?
Shephard: Yeah, I mean, I think—so we’ve been in this kind of different position since the shutdown began. So I think I got a little out in front of things when I wrote that piece because we were in the one part of this term where the Democratic base was largely aligned with their leaders.
And that anger toward Schumer and Jeffries, although it was still very much deserved during that period, had kind of faded a little bit. And now it’s not only back, but it’s bigger than it was before. And it’s a huge difference from where we were this time in Trump’s term—at any point in Trump’s term—where essentially Democrats were arguing for norms, right? A return to normalcy.
They wanted a party that was, you know, standing up to Trump, but mostly they were just saying, look, you know, Nancy Pelosi was a hero, and she should be, because she is the best House Speaker of a very long time. She’s the best House Speaker in a very long time because she knows that the purpose of having power is to use it.
And I think what we’re seeing here now is that Democrats want their party to have a plan for when they retake power. They want them to do things—and they are not doing that now. I think that they will not be able to blame the people that voted for this, because for the most part they are all kind of insulated from near-term consequences.
And I think if we’re thinking about this electorally, it’s probably the wrong rubric. I don’t think that this matters for, like, the broader Democratic midterm prospects—but where it does matter, is…
Bacon: I mean, if it helps Graham Platner or, uh, El-Sayed, or does it help the progressive candidate if you’re the endorsed-by-fewer person? It probably doesn’t help that much that he’s now even more embattled.
Shephard: Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly where I was going. So I think that if you’re—I think where it matters is in the primaries, right? And I think that there are candidates who have understood that—like Pla being one of the great examples—that understand the anger at the grassroots level and at the base, and that they are going to capitalize here.
And I don’t think that Democratic leaders realize this, right? This is very bad for Janet Mills, and I think that even though she came out very strongly against this, she—you know—she’s Schumer’s candidate, right? And the anger here is that Schumer and people are gonna want candidates that go against it.
Although, interestingly, the El-Sayed thing that is funny is that one of his first moves politically was to say that he, you know, thinks that Schumer should remain Democratic leader. But nevertheless, I think that that’s gonna be the dynamic that’s gonna define the next, you know, six to eight months.
Bacon: Alright. Good. guys, thanks for joining me. This was a great conversation. Good to see you.
