Leaders Schumer and Jeffries Are Right To Force Trump And The Rs To Take Responsibility For The Harm They're Doing To The Country
We are going live at 4pm ET with Reps. Greg Landsman and Marc Veasey to hear the latest from inside the House......
Morning all. To get a sense of how House Dems are seeing the world on this first day of shutdown we are live with two Members today at 4pm ET - Greg Landsman (OH-01) and Marc Veasey (TX-33). Click on this link a few minutes before 4pm to join us. If you can’t join us live a recording of our discussion will come via a Hopium post shortly after we finish.
I also want to strongly recommend catching my inspiring new conversation with Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Hopium subscriber. He has become one of our most important leaders in this time of great challenge for our country, and this is a timely and informative discussion from the front lines.
In the right-wing information bubble, a place Greg Sargent once called Foxlandia, Trump is Superman and Congressional Rs heroes for helping him enact his big, bold, beautiful and very, very manly agenda. In this world Trump keeps racking up wins and slaying his enemies; the economy is booming, inflation tamed, taxes are cut, tariffs are being paid by foreign countries and corporate America is enthusiastically supporting the grand vision of Dear Leader; and most importantly, he is finally, finally getting rid of and putting “those people” in their place.
But here, in the real world, where a majority of Americans live, we have a different understanding of what Trump and the Republicans are doing. The economy is slowing, inflation rising, the deficit exploding and the fiscal integrity of the United States is under threat. Health care premiums are rising, the health care system weakening, public health undermined. Foreign leaders have refused to bend the knee, Putin has repeatedly humiliated him, and the world is moving on from our idiot in chief. Our rights and liberties are being trampled, our Constitutional order systemically torn down. Courts keep defying him, Democrats keep winning and overperforming in elections, Congressional Rs keep retiring and leaving to seek other offices, Jimmy Kimmel returned, Lisa Cook is still a Fed governor, the shooters keep turning out to be MAGAs, and he and his agenda have become deeply, deeply unpopular. Reality itself just keeps refusing to be swallowed by Foxlandia, and the circle of defiance here in America keeps growing.
Which is why what Leaders Schumer and Jeffries have done this week is so important. For what is happening now isn’t about shut down, or even the budget. It is about forcing the Trump and the Republican Party to begin to take responsibility for the extraordinary harm they are doing to the country.
Today, by law, the fiscal 2026 budget, which runs from today to September 30, 2026, was supposed to be in place. It isn’t. In fact, there is nothing resembling a 2026 budget on the horizon, and the wildly dysfunctional MAGA party doesn’t even appear to have a process in place to produce one. Despite this legal requirement to produce a budget by today, the House has only been in session for something like two weeks over the last TWO MONTHS. They were not in session last week nor are they in session this week. Some of this is driven by the unsettling rebellion Johnson has experienced over the Trump-Epstein files. But I think a great deal of it comes from them wanting to avoid, childishly, the very ugly and painful process that lies in front of them - producing a final 2026 budget.
For that budget is going to be full of deeply unpopular and harmful things - the wildly destructive tariffs, exploding deficits, cuts to health care/clean energy/food, the dramatic expansion of ICE, cuts to biomedical research and universities, the codification of the Trump/Hegseth plan to surrender to Russia and China and turn our military against Americans themselves, and many more horrors. They will have to own all of this, while going through the months long process of hammering out compromises between the two chambers that are currently far apart on many critical items. And then, unlike reconciliation, they will need 7 Democrats in the Senate to somehow go along with whatever monstrosity they create.
To be very clear - despite the need to eventually get Democrats on board their budget Republicans have imperially refused to even meet with Schumer and Jeffries over the last several months. The first meeting to begin the negotiations over the 2026 budget took place on Monday in the White House, the day before, by law, it was supposed to have been passed and in place. I don’t think the media coverage has adequately captured the level of dysfunction and recklessness of this process (or lack of process) over the last few months.
Republicans in Congress have been avoiding the inevitable here and wanted to keep kicking the can down the road with a “clean CR” that buys them a few more months to figure out what to do. But Schumer and Jeffries said no. We want to start the process of having the debate about your destructive agenda and eventual budget right now. And we are starting with the centerpiece of your big ugly bill - the barbaric cuts to the ACA and Medicaid that pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.
The MAGA Republican response has been both predictable and deeply unfortunate. First, they refused to even meet until Monday, just hours before the government was to run out of money. Second, of course, they said no to beginning the budget negotiation process and choose rather to shut the government down. Third, they have confirmed our core assertion that they and their agenda are recklessly doing unacceptable harm to the country and our democracy by 1) initiating new and ambitious acts of harm - shutting the government down, turning off critical economic reports, firing tens of thousands of government workers 2) calling us terrorists and threatening to turn the American military against us 3) Trump just losing his shit repeatedly on social media these last few days.
I don’t know we get out of where are now for 1) Trump as an aspiring dictator has no interest in negotiating with Schumer and Jeffries and acknowledging that Democrats have agency and power under our form of government. He has called them “deranged” for wanting to begin budget negotiations on a budget that was by law supposed to be in place yesterday and repeatedly mocked them on social media 2) childishly, Republicans don’t want to have to an extended debate about their deeply unpopular agenda and are doing everything they possibly can to avoid taking responsibility for the extraordinary mess they have created. Foxlandia is a far happier and comforting place than out there in the real world - no Democrats, no ugly data, no independent media, no growing stench of failure, no Epstein - and they are trying to stay in there as long as they can.
So, for shits and giggles, let’s spend a little time out there in the real world now……
Here’s a CNBC report from this morning showing a big private sector jobs report coming in below expectations and showing job loss last month. It appears America is headed toward recession now:
The main measures of consumer sentiment keep dropping:
Trump enters the debate in a weakened position:
Trump remains under water on the most important issues to voters:
Here is that new NYT poll chart we discussed yesterday showing repeated rejection of his “Strongman” assault on democracy, rule of law and our liberties:
If you have time watch this whole exchange between Speaker Johnson and George Stephanopoulos. The bubble boy and his ridiculous shutdown/health care narrative cannot survive first contact with the real world…..
That’s why I believe we are now having the fight with Trump and the Rs that we all wanted to have. The big debate about their agenda and the harms it is doing to the country and our democracy has begun, and will continue through the election next November. And it is a fight, and a debate, we simply must win.
Now, Let’s Get To Work Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Defending America, Winning The Big Argument With Trump - We have two recommended actions today:
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Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world
Defend our democracy, rule of law and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE, restore due process to our immigration system, defend the 1st Amendment, and end the use of the military on our streets and the occupations of our cities
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA and Medicaid; support and co-sponsor Rep. Haley Stevens’ effort to Impeach and remove Robert Kennedy
Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia and China
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Keep working hard all. We have a country to save and a future to reclaim for our kids and grandkids, together - Simon
The $20Billion bailout to Argentina seems worth a mention. Ruben Gallego ties Argentina's universal health care to the shutdown/bailout, after the White House says we are done "SUBSIDIZING THE HEALTHCARE OF THE REST OF THE WORLD. AMERICA FIRST" While Argentina sells soybeans to China and our farmers need a bailout.
Maybe also at the same time bailing out Bessent's friend Rob Citrone per this post: https://popular.info/p/trumps-argentina-bailout-enriches
I think Maga Mike Johnson will use the shut down so that he won't have to call the House back to session. He is going to run with this as long as he can, so that new House member Adelita Grijalva wont be sworn in and seated, so that she can't provide the 218th vote to initiate the discharge petition to bring releasing the Epstein Files to a floor vote.
How long can they run with this? How long can they just hide from their jobs so they won't face the vote on the Epstein Files, or heaven forbid, the budget? The more the pressure builds, the deeper they will want to hide from it. They are afraid to face the music. They have broken it which was their intent, but now they are afraid of the consequences. Two weeks open in the last two months? You aint seen nothing yet.
It triggered a memory which I hadn't thought about in ages. When I was 7 years old, in second grade, our teacher began to assign homework, probably 3-4 worksheets per week. I never did it. A few weeks went by before she called my parents. Suddenly I had 20+ pages of backlog and i had to face the music. My mom sat me down and I had to do 5 pages per day, including weekends, until it was done.
Maga Mike doesn't have a mother that will make him do his homework. So like a 7 year old he will just continue to find ways to dodge, to keep Grijalva from being seated so the Epstein vote won't come to the floor, which means nothing will happen on the budget neither. It involves lies, obfuscation, blame, whining and excuses. Just like a 7 year old.
When Nancy Pelosi was Speaker, the 2022-23 Budget was passed by December of 2022 ( 3 months of CR)
When Kevin McCarthy held the gavel, the 2023-24 budget was passed in March of 2024 ( 6 months late.)
When Mike Johnson was Speaker, the 2024-25 budget never passed.
We need to LOUDLY BROADCAST this story: Johnson has been dodging his responsibilities and failing at his job ever since he became Speaker. That is why Schumer and Jeffries must hold the line.