Panelists Debate: Was the Purpose of the Shutdown Achieved?

The Senate passed a temporary funding measure that will end the government shutdown if approved by the House and signed by the president. Joining us to discuss is Mike Leon, host of the Can We Please Talk podcast. And we have Tony Kennan, national correspondent at the Daily Signal and host of the Tony Kennet Cast radio show and podcast. So, as always, uh good to see you guys on this Tuesday afternoon and happy Veterans Day. So, Tony, I want to go to you first. uh your first thoughts uh when you heard Democrats join Republicans to vote for this bill? >> I mean, it was expected. Unfortunately, there were obviously going to be individuals, especially in side of the purple state and also with Tim Kaine and his large amount of federal workers as his constituents in Virginia. This was always going to happen. Uh we understood they were going to flake. They tried to run a really tough line and say, "Oh, we're doing this to extend Obamacare subsidies." And then when they were asked why Obamacare subsidies needed to be extended if the program was so great when you and I and everyone in the country was told it was going to be wonderful. Well, why did these subsidies need to be extended? Why did Biden's co subsidies need to continue on adnauseium? They had no answer. And as the country continued to look at the failure of the shutdown, eventually people like Cortez Masto were able to rally a couple other purple uh senators and kind of the more moderate establishment to her side and they broke the back. unfortunate had to take this long. >> Okay, so Mike, let me go to you. What's your perspective? >> Yeah, good good to see you guys this afternoon. It's a little similar. I I think the biggest thing was, you know, last week when we were on here, Tony said maybe the consequences of the election and what would happen would play a factor. Well, it did, but not in the way that you think. None of these senators are on the ballot in 26, right? And Angus King, who's, you know, sometimes caucuses with Democrats, is an independent. So when you look at it just from that perspective, when you look at there's no consequences that any of these senators will face in 2026, given the consequences of what happened in 2025 with this, you know, election on the off year, I think it kind of sent the message of these were the right Democrats that could actually do this because they wouldn't face the potential blowback at the ballot box. And like we've talked about, look, I traveled this week uh to New York and back for my brother's wedding. You know that I I dealt with flight delays, you know, taxiing delays as well, getting to the gates. You've seen the videos NTD has posted on their social media about pilots, you know, getting on the the loudspeaker and saying, "Hey, we're going to be about maybe 3 4 hours delayed here." So, there's a huge impact. But not only that, there's a safety and as we said before, Don, as you said before we came on, there are people that are going to be missing a second and maybe tertiary paycheck coming up here depending upon how the vote goes on Wednesday. So, it's good to see it finally potentially window down, but like Tony said, maybe this could have been avoided earlier, but to my overarching point, we're going to be back here in January talking about a looming government shutdown and how we figured this all out. Okay. So, Tony, like M Mike said, uh those senators that voted for for the bill are not on the ballot for 2026. What do you think persuaded uh these Democrats to vote for the bill? >> Well, two things. Number one, according to some of the reporting from Maxios, members of the House in their own state because yes, there are some House Democrats that are on the ballot in those states. Again, all of the House. So when you look at 2026 in the House is already being attenuous for Democrats as it is. Uh the idea that there might be some individuals, not you know Seth Molton for example, who's trying to uh undercut a senior Democrats in Massachusetts. But when you look at other House members across the country, there are those that don't believe that the current strategy uh right now of playing hard ball adnauseium is really effective. They they see it's not what Americans want. We saw that in Pennsylvania. We've seen that in Georgia. Although Oaf and Waro haven't necessarily played to that tune yet. I think realistically though, what got a lot of these people to finally end up uh kind of calling it quits on this particular shutdown is that they were never going to get what it was that they wanted because what it was that they were asking for was completely ridiculous and there was no argument to make for another year as again air travel in this country has been completely crippled. There's no reason it should be like this. And now, of course, the upgrades that were already set in place to pick up after the mess that Pete Buddhajed should have solved and then wasted money and time to ignore, those are things that now have to be factored into this series of delay reconciliation. And so, if you're Dick Durban, yeah, you do have eventually have to figure it out because O'Hare has to function one way or the other. So, Mike, uh, do you agree with that one point that Tony said, um, you know, that the Democrats were never going to get what they what they were asking for and that's why they voted uh for this package. >> Yeah. I mean, yes, short answer, yes. I do I I agree with what he's saying in terms of they they were never going to get exactly what they wanted. they were trying to hold the line and there was one potential line in the sand and this was kind of the one that they could potentially make. So I will agree with that. Let me just push back on something Tony said there because under Pete Buddhajes with with with the U with DOT, one of the big things that Buddhajes did was focus on holding the airlines accountable, right? So flight delays that impact consumers, uh making sure you're refunded and notified by the airlines. he focused more on that whereas you see Secretary Duffy's focusing more on the archaic system and how you know air traffic control handles this. So those are two different ways of the way they're going about it and I and I think yes there were some failures under Pete maybe there's been some failures under Duffy but again a lot of it has dealt with the government being impacted doge cuts first initially and now you have a government shutdown none of that's going to help him in his department. I think if you injected him with truth serum he would definitely tell you that. But in terms of the Democrats here real quick on this, again, I'll say this again, the Republicans are in charge of the government. There was a mandate in the election that every Republican strategist and their mother told me on every news outlet I've ever been on over these last 10 months that the country wanted Republicans in charge. So, because Republicans wanted the country wanted Republicans in charge, they now have to figure out how to govern. What does that mean? That means that these ACA subsidies that were being fought for by the Democrats, now Donald Trump is in this inaliable position to where inevitable, excuse me, uh, position where now he actually has to come up with a health care plan to replace this. He ran on it in 2016. We haven't seen a health care plan that has come to fruition from Republicans. So that will be the interesting thing in all of this because like Tony said, they didn't get the concessions that they wanted, but now I'm seeing Republicans start to flip their message to like Marjorie Taylor Green. I mean, we could all roll our eyes on the 180 she's done, but now everyone's starting to talk about, well, what's the new health care plan going to look like? If we didn't make the concessions on this, what is your plan, especially that you can take out on the road with you in 2026 from the Republican perspective? So that is what is going to be the next wave that we're going to be talking about over these next couple of months if we don't get another CR passed or actually a funding bill throughout the whole fiscal of 26 is going to be about the health care plan that Republicans are potentially going to put forward. >> So Tony, can you talk a little bit about the Affordable Care Act? Uh leader John Th promised the Senate will vote on it uh the subsidies in December. How do you think this is going to play out? Well, I think there's going to be a series of rules that are put forward that are essentially trying to keep funible uh amounts in different states from going to those who aren't supposed to be receiving federal assistance. We've seen this, of course, on the data in California, Minnesota, etc. Uh but of course, I don't believe we're going to see those subsidies passed in December because the Obamacare, the Affordability Care Act, it's a complete failure. And and that's not me saying that. That's Senator Peter Welch of Vermont saying that Democrat on the Senate floor. It's a failure. It was told, we were told it was going to be the savior of the American health care system. It was a complete abysmal failure. We threw more money at it. Then we threw more money at it. Then we threw extra subsidies on top of the more money we threw out. It's a failure. So, I mean, before we get into the conversation of, well, what's the magical plan? The system that we had before was far better than this. And we came in and we like a bull and a shine in a shop. We knocked everything over as the left often does. And now there's nothing to actually put back together. And so I I'm going to kind of push back just a little bit, Mike, on the well, where's the plan? Again, I don't recall asking anyone uh to come in and tear apart the system that we had, which was not perfect and had its own issues. But now that the Democrat system of throwing infinite amounts of money at the health care system that fails and insurance premiums are skyrocketing and and the idea that the last administration went after kind of consumer choice instead of fixing the systemic issues at play, just throwing another coat of paint on it and throwing more money and hoping the building stays up isn't working. And so this administration is going through and is picking apart some of that mess. There are a couple of proposals that I've heard. I hope that a privatized health care system is the way that we move to which opens up and deregulates and allows individuals to try different things. We're seeing this right now in as we've talked about in the ocular field. We've seen this in the uh in the cardiovascular fields now with uh some of the stuff coming out of Florida. And then of course we've seen this regarding uh weight loss drugs. U not to mention um anti-allergy medication, things like that. Um the injections for when you're having an allergic reaction. I don't know why that's not coming to my mind at the moment. Those are areas the market is starting to compete because they've been deregulated. That needs to happen across the board. >> All right, Mike. Uh, any points from Tony that you like to respond to? >> Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't think it's a fresh coat of paint. I I think the ACA was well-intentioned. And again, as somebody right now who's a private contractor who has to rely on the ACA to, you know, get insurance for my family, there's issues with it. Not only what you're paying monthly is obviously way cheaper than what you would pay if you had a W2 contract job and you lost your job and you had COBRA benefits. It's way cheaper than that, but the coverage is not the same, right? And obviously everybody has killed Obama already on the, you know, you could keep your doctor and keep the insurance or whatever whatever the slogan was. I'm forgetting at this moment. You all know what it is. And that none of that came true obviously because of the options that the ACA offers. But I I do want to push back, Tony. You know, I love pushing back buddy. The biggest thing that I would say is is that uh you know it's it's it's really up to Republicans to fix this. I I don't need more diagnosis of the issue. We've been talking about the issue. We know what the problems are with the ACA. Um and there's countless stories of people that are, you know, red, white, and blue, no political leaning or no affiliation that are going through issues with ACA. They want to solve to it. So, this is twice now, 45 and 47 that Donald Trump has been president and we actually haven't seen a plan. The and the best instance I can give last night, you know, I was watching a different network. I'm not going to say them here. And there was a Republican strategist that was on there that was talking about and he got asked point blank, well, what is the plan? And and the plan was similar to what Tony said, diagnosing the issue. I don't need more diagnosis of the issue. I want to use a doctor analogy. I know where the pain is. The pain is rotating right here. I need you to fix the pain, even if it's a temporary alleviation of the pain, but I need you to fix it short term and long term. And that's the issue that we're having right now. And and I think in 25, especially at the ballot box, we saw, and again, people can digest it either way with respect to the numbers and voter turnout, but we saw a little bit of the push back of what Trump has done on affordability. Now, I think in 26, the message that Democrats will take with them is about where's that healthcare plan because this is what we were fighting for. Republicans got the government back open, right? We we played ball. We came across the aisle with them. And now, where's that health care plan? When are we going to fix this? Let's hope hold them accountable to it. >> Okay, Tony. Uh, one more response on ACA, and I do want to move the conversation along a bit. Uh, your reaction to calls now for a change in leadership in the Senate. Some saying that Schumer couldn't keep his caucus unified. >> I mean, of course, he couldn't keep his caucus unified. There have been separate reports from different news agencies suggesting that he gave the wink and the nod. He didn't give the wink and the nod. Schumer's leadership is over. The Democrat party is now going on young progressives and old uh suburban women. That seems to be the new two key demographics moving into 26. Big mistake. Uh but alas, um I I certainly won't get in their way on that one. Uh but regarding the the healthc care situation, a diagnosis, a full diagnosis is necessary. And the reason I say that is mom Donnie. uh when you look at a diagnosis, it actually matters to determine what the root causes are in order to determine a solution. The left and the right think there are very different causes to this particular ailment on the American health care system. So whereas someone like Mandani has said, "Oh, it's the evil rich white corporations that are hurting everyone because they're mean and they're, you know, bent over backwards and insert stereotypes that we were supposed to throw away after the 1930s." No, that's absolutely ridiculous. And we did try the last diagnosis and solution. So if there's a period now, a month, two months, where Republicans openly debate, because our caucus doesn't usually go behind doors and unilaterally align, we argue things out in the open, messy, and, you know, often discordant, then we're going to find a solution that is hopefully better. I can't promise that it'll be better because whether it's Mike Lawler from New York who wins out or uh it's, you know, someone more like Thomas Massie or it's Byron Donald's or it's uh the the young man out from California that also has a new proposition that's far more moderate than Byron Donald's in that example. I don't know what the solution to that can be. What I want to see is it advocated and argued out in the open until we come with the most deregulated system. That that's kind of my answer to that push back, Mike. >> Okay, Mike. Um, I think we do have to wrap up a bit. Any final thoughts you have? Maybe you can respond to uh calls for a change in leadership in in the Senate. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, the the best relationship I have is with Congressman Seph Molton. You know, I've had him on the show a bunch and he's one of the members of Congress I've been communicating with prior to coming on here to just talk about his vote uh potentially on Wednesday. And you know, I I do agree with him just in terms of I know Aaliyah had a famous song, age is nothing but a number, but Chuck Schumer is getting up there in age. He wasn't able to keep his caucus together on this. The one thing I've always credited Republicans on my show about is that they stay unified. I think Marjorie Taylor Green is a exception to the rule right now in terms of what she's doing and going on every other network and talking about what Republicans have done wrong and maybe Thomas Massie obviously. But I think that unified front, the ability to have a unified message that trickles not only from the chambers of the Senate but also to the House as well. I think Schumer and and Jeff uh are leave a little bit left to be desired. And I know not only Seph Molton has that opinion, who's more of a moderate Democrat who I think will appeal more on a broader stage because he's an Iraq veteran, uh because he's somebody that, you know, ran in a purple district and flipped that uh years ago back in 2014. But I also think that there there needs to be more Democrats like a Seph Molton that, to Tony's point, should hopefully, you know, take over a little bit more of the party and reign the party a little bit more back in uh from the fringes of the far left. Well, all right, Tony and Mike, good conversation, uh, as always. Uh, thank you very much. Talk to you next week. Thank you, guys, son.