Cornel West and Robert George debate civil discourse in Truth Matters, urging love over partisan hatred while condemning political violence like Charlie Kirk’s assassination, comparing it to 1968’s King and Kennedy killings. George resigns from the Conservative Heritage Foundation after they defended Nick Fuentes’ ties to fascism, sparking praise from Galston and others. West highlights moral courage in candidacies, focusing on justice over polls, as midterm strategists Feary and Payne dissect 2026 economic narratives—Democrats on healthcare costs, Republicans on post-Trump agendas. Trump’s celebrity alliances, like Nikki Minaj’s support for Nigeria’s Christian persecution, reveal shifting GOP coalition tactics amid deepening polarization. [Automatically generated summary]
Welcome to Ceasefire, where we seek to bridge the divide in American politics.
I'm Dasha Burns, Politico White House Bureau Chief, and joining me now, two guests who have agreed to keep the conversation civil, even when they disagree.
They're both very good at this, former independent presidential candidate Cornell West and conservative legal scholar Robert George.
They are co-authors of Truth Matters, a dialogue on fruitful disagreement in an age of division.
What could be more perfect for ceasefire than that?
Thank you both, gentlemen, so much for joining me.
Two big brains, two scholars, two professors who are agreeable disagreers, I would say.
Well, I mean, one, we ought to just commit ourselves to love and justice, not hatred and revenge.
One of the wonderful things that I've been able to experience with my very dear brother, Robert George, is that I love the brother when he's right.
I love him when he's wrong.
I love him when he's wrestling in his quest for truth.
And it comes the other way because love cuts much deeper than just finite opinions or political analysis.
We revel in each other's humanity, and we have to begin with that deeper moral and spiritual starting point before we even get into all of the contentiousness of politics.
And that takes a lot of courage.
And I mean, as a Christian, it means I can't do it by myself.
Everything that Brother Cornell said is absolutely true.
Let me remind our viewers that not everything has to be about politics.
Now, that doesn't mean that we have to shy away from political discussions.
The Greeks had a kind of, the ancient Greeks had a concept that Cornell's fond of invoking, and I am too, called parhesia.
That's translated as frank speech or plain speech.
We need to be able to talk plainly with each other, including about points of politics or ethics or culture on which we disagree.
But not everything has to be about politics.
And we don't assess and judge each other exclusively on the basis of politics.
So when we're sitting around the Thanksgiving table or Christmas or Hanukkah, whenever we've got the family together, we don't have to lead with politics and with our differences of opinion and our debates about political issues.
There are lots of other things in our lives that we can talk about, we can share points on which we agree or have shared commitments or shared relationships and devotions, our children and our grandchildren and so forth, our parents.
So let's begin by talking about those sorts of things.
Now, it doesn't mean we can't get politics.
Eventually, we should be willing to get to points on which we disagree, including political points on which we disagree.
But let's remember we human beings are complex critters.
Well, I do notice that both of you happen to conveniently be able to avoid actually coming to Washington to sit at this table with me.
I'll give you the holiday as the excuse.
But when you look at Washington, whether it's the White House or Congress or even the judicial branch, what is your advice for the people that are in politics, our leaders in politics here in Washington?
Is there something when they go back to those family tables for the holidays that they can bring back to D.C. to try to foster a less divisive environment?
Well, I think, one, we just have to recommit ourselves in a serious way to integrity.
One of the things I love about Brother Robbie is he says what he means.
He means what he says.
He doesn't pose.
He doesn't posture.
He's not fake.
He's not phony.
There's nothing fraudulent about it.
When he says something, he means it.
Whereas, of course, most politicians these days, you know, they got to check and see what the polls say before they give us a sense of what their opinions are.
You can't trust them.
They don't have integrity.
They're tied to money.
They're tied to their next election.
And so you end up with a lack of character.
Herodotus and Ralph Waldo Emerson said character is destiny.
What they meant was character is that endures, the constancy that the great Jane Austen talks about in her novels.
How do you hold on to who you are as you grow, as you develop?
And it's hard to find politicians like that in both parties.
Well, again, I have to say amen to what Brother Cornell just said.
At the end of the day, it's a matter of character.
It's a matter of integrity.
It's a matter of doing to the best of your lights, and we're all fallible.
We all got some things wrong, doing what's right.
And one thing that is right is treating other people with dignity and respect, even if we disagree with them.
Even if we disagree with them on the points that matter most to us, on our most cherished beliefs, our identity-forming beliefs, even if we disagree with the way they lead their lives or the political party they belong to or the ideology they embrace, we have to treat them with dignity and respect and recognize they are fellow human beings, made in the image and likeness of God, bearers of profound, inherent, and equal dignity.
When we forget that, we can quickly demonize each other.
And there's so much of that going on in our politics today.
The other thing I would say is that people need role models.
Human beings do.
This is not unique to the United States of America in 2025 for all of human history and all cultures.
For anything decent to happen, people need role models.
They need to see people doing it.
We need more people like, for example, two former late, alas no longer with us, Supreme Court justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia.
Now, both of these justices were people of profound conviction.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg had views.
Anton and Scalia had views.
They weren't shy about saying what those views were.
They were willing to stand up and speak out and fight for what they believed in.
And so often what they believed in put them at odds with each other politically and constitutionally and legally.
And yet they could be dear, beloved friends, treating each other with respect, learning from each other, engaging each other in productive ways when they disagreed.
We need more of that.
I can think of other examples.
You can think of Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill.
Here are a couple of guys who were on opposite sides of the political fence.
Reagan is president.
O'Neill is Speaker of the House.
Two of the most powerful people in the world, not only in the nation, in the world.
But despite their differences, which they could fight over very aggressively, they respected each other.
They honored each other.
They befriended each other.
They were good friends.
There's no reason, even across the lines of ideological division, that people cannot respect and even love each other.
And that's so important in families where there are disagreements, to love each other, respect each other, honor each other as bearers of inherent and equal dignity.
One of the darker narratives that has become part of our national conversation, especially over the last year, is that of political violence.
It's been about three months since the murder of Charlie Kirk, but incidents of political violence have occurred on both sides of the aisle.
At the risk of this question sort of taking over our whole show, I would love to hear from both of you as people that have witnessed a lot in our politics personally and that have studied the politics of human history way back to ancient times.
What do you make of this cultural and political moment of the division of the extremism that has now brought political violence into the fold in such a big way?
Yeah, I appreciate the question, though, because Brother Robbie's point about people coming together, the William Buckley's with the John Kenneth Goldbrights or the William Styrons with the James Baldwins of the past, mean that respect sits at the center.
And when you respect people, you're less likely to either rationalize, let alone engage in any kind of political violence.
And a lot of times it's linguistic violence, it's psychic violence, as well as actual physical violence.
And I think we all have to try to be consistent in our rejection of all forms of violence.
And see, I say this as somebody who comes out of the great tradition of black struggle for black freedom.
Most of the black freedom leaders were assassinated.
Most of them were killed.
Why?
Because of white supremacy was so vicious, it cut so deep that their love for black people was translated as a hatred for whites, and therefore they ended up getting shot.
And so I speak not just based on a moral and spiritual grounds, which are very important for me, but also on actual historical grounds.
And we know that no democracy can survive, let alone no decent society, community, can survive as violence as a primary means by which we motivate conflict.
It is toxic to Republican government, to the maintenance of our democratic institutions.
Cornell has plenty of experience with death threats.
I myself do as well.
Someone went to jail for three and a half years for threatening to kill me, federal prison.
We know what it's like to speak out, and as a result of speaking out, to draw the ire of people who are not satisfied simply to answer words with words, but who are prepared to resort to violence.
But we have to make clear that it is unacceptable.
All Americans have to make clear.
America's political leaders have to make clear.
America's religious leaders have to make clear.
Anybody who's got cultural influence has to make clear that political violence is simply unacceptable.
As it happens, Cornell and I were guests on Charlie Kirk's show just a few months before the horrible assassination of that young man, a husband, a father of two.
We had a wonderful conversation with him.
Neither Cornell nor I completely agreed with him.
He didn't completely agree with either of us, but we had a very fruitful dialogue.
And of course, he was a bit further from Cornell than he was from me politically, but he treated Cornell with great respect and dignity.
And in fact, invited him back onto the show to have a one-on-one so that they could further explore the points on which they disagreed and perhaps some points on which they converged.
So it was especially hard.
We were both especially hard hit having had that experience with Charlie when the dreadful news came of his assassination.
My worry is in the wake of political violence like a violent act like that.
We had the same worry back in 1968 when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated after the assassination of Martin Luther King.
We were worried then, we're worried now, will this trigger a cycle of violence?
Will some people say, all right, this shows us that answering words with words, working in the political sphere is fruitless.
It's futile.
It can't ultimately work.
The only way we can advance our cause is to resort to means other than words, other than politics.
And that's how you get situations like the ones we all know about in history, whether it's in Northern Ireland or in many other places where once the feuding starts, once the violence starts, it's hard to put an end to it.
Well, I just think of the courageous responses to assassinations.
I think of Emma Thiel's mother when she said, I don't have a moment to hate.
I will pursue justice for the rest of my life.
I think of Martin King's eulogy for the four precious girls in Birmingham, where he talked about the love that we have to hold on to and the justice we have to promote.
Sister Erica Kirk, I salute her because her courageous call for forgiveness.
And what is forgiveness?
Forgiveness is the abandonment of revenge.
Forgiveness is the attempt to push revenge back and talk about justice and love.
She did it as a Christian.
She was unbelievably courageous in terms of doing that at the very moment that her precious husband had been murdered.
Those responses make a difference.
That's where courage comes in.
And part of the problem of our political class and much of our ruling elites, let alone fellow citizens, not enough moral courage, not enough civic courage, not enough fortitude, courage and magnanimity.
Courage and strength of character lead to fortitude.
That's what's missing.
That's part of the spiritual crisis, the moral crisis of our day.
Well, I think there's a conversation about courage going on right now among both parties, and everyone's sort of searching for what that looks like.
Some are searching earnestly, some are searching more politically.
I think we saw that play out with this government shutdown, the longest in history.
There's talk about a potential resurgence of that, that happening again in January.
There's a story in Reuters where they write that the deep political divisions that led to the 43-day shutdown in the first place remain unresolved.
What is your advice to lawmakers in this moment?
Is there too much emphasis on winning?
Do they have something right?
For Democrats, you know, the reason, one of the reasons that they really pushed for the shutdown for so long was to show some semblance, in their words, of political courage, a fight that they believed voters were asking for.
But it also did cause a lot of pain.
Like, how do you navigate and think about courage as a politician in this moment when winning does matter so much to so many people, Robert?
Courage means standing up for what is right, especially when it's hard to stand up for what is right, when you pay a price for standing up for what is right.
And in the Democratic Party, that will sometimes mean, it will require standing up to the more extreme elements of the party, and same on the Republican side.
Sometimes that will mean standing up against the more extreme elements of the party on the Republican side.
That's not to say that the truth is always in the center.
The truth isn't always in the center.
But you've got extremist groups on both ideological wings and in both political parties that are intimidating other people into acquiescence, at least silence and sometimes even acquiescence and cooperation.
And we need the courage for people to refuse to do that.
Just we're not going to do that.
We're not going to let you bully us and we're not going to let you push us around.
We're actually going to do what is for the common good.
And sometimes that's going to require actually negotiating, actually compromising, actually trying to put the interests of the country, the interests of the people of the United States, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, at the forefront.
No, no, I don't think Democrats or Republicans were because courage requires that you acknowledge that truth and justice is something bigger than your party.
If you have a team mentality and think that your team could do no wrong and the other team could do no right, then you have not only polarization, but you have a level of juvenile conformity.
Courage shatters conformity.
It recognizes that there's something at stake that's bigger than just the team winning.
And right now you've got this team mentality that is generating a slippery slide to chaos, let alone the increasing hatred and contempt of one another.
Where's Lincoln?
Where's Barbara Jordan?
Where's Harold Washington?
Where are the politicians who historically were willing to be critical of not just both parties, but critical of anybody, of churches, of mosques, of synagogues, of universities, in the name of something bigger than all in them?
And what's bigger?
Truth and justice.
And as a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, I tell you, I am, and Brother Robbie is too, an extremist of love, an extremist for justice, which means what?
We're willing to be marginalized in the name of something that we know is bigger than us.
This is what Politico, my home here, wrote about it.
Another member of the Conservative Heritage Foundation has resigned following a video posted by the organization's president defending Tucker Carlson's interview with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
Robert George said he can no longer remain part of the foundation without a full retraction.
Well, sometimes one finds oneself in a situation where it's impossible to go along with something that one's friends and colleagues and comrades are proposing or promoting or going along with.
And I found myself in that position recently.
I had the honor of serving on the Heritage Foundation board.
I've been on the board since 2019.
I think you're well aware of the circumstances that created a controversy surrounding the Heritage Foundation.
Of course, as a member of the board, it was my responsibility to work with my board colleagues toward rectifying a mistake, a bad mistake that had been made at the leadership level at the foundation by a good man.
Nick Fuentes is a white supremacist who is a sympathizer with figures like Hitler and Stalin.
I probably needn't say any more.
Your viewers, if they're not familiar with this person, will know on the basis of that description what they're dealing with here.
Apparently, he has a very large following, especially among disaffected young men.
And that's very worrying that a person with sympathies for figures like Stalin and Hitler would have a big following, and especially among disaffected young men.
We've seen in history what that leads to sometimes.
And another public commentator did a public interview, a rather softball puckball interview with Mr. Fuentes.
The leader of the Heritage Foundation defended the interview and made some allegations against the critics of the interview.
I thought that was a terrible mistake.
From my point of view, it was necessary to repudiate the statement.
When the statement was not repudiated, I felt that I had no choice.
With greatest regret and sadness, had to resign from the board of foundation, the foundation's board.
Now, you know, sometimes you find yourself in that situation, and when you find yourself in that situation, you have to do what your conscience requires.
Now, some of my colleagues on the board, their consciences took them to a different place, and I respect that.
I'm not holding them up to criticism, much less ridicule.
Everybody was in a tough situation.
Everybody had to decide for himself or herself what the right thing to do was.
And those good people took a different path than the one I took.
Well, I think it's fair to say that it has been mixed.
Certainly people who are sympathetic to Mr. Fuentes, and many of them are online on X, formerly Twitter or on other social media accounts, have been extremely and aggressively hostile toward me.
On the other hand, many good people, and again, across the ideological spectrum, people like myself on the more conservative side, people on the more liberal side have reached out to me to thank me or congratulate me for my courage.
I was very gratified and grateful to William Galston, the great political theorist at Brookings Institution, former Clinton administration official, certainly on the more liberal side than I am, who did a piece praising me in the Wall Street Journal.
Of course, I've had the absolutely unwavering support of Brother Cornell, but also lots of people on the conservative side who abominate figures like Fuentes, who agree with me, and who agree with me that there is absolutely no place in the conservative movement for white supremacists, anti-Semites, eugenicists, or bigots of any kind.
But I want to make it clear that I would have a love for Brother Robbie if he stayed on the board.
It's just not a question of one action or particular actions, but you're talking about a larger sense of who he is as a person of integrity and character.
So that, again, I could have a variety of disagreements, staying on the board, off the board.
We struggle over issues of markets and what have you.
But there's a love that cuts deeper than that.
And Robbie knows that.
And I'm unashamed of that.
And that's true not just for him, but that's true for people across the board as well.
Well, I mean, I ran because I want to keep alive the legacy of Martin King.
I want the elimination of poverty.
I want to make sure that there's democratic accountability for all the monopolies in our economy.
I want to make sure we don't have 70% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck.
I want to make sure that the dignity and sanctity given to each person, being made in the image of an almighty and loving God, can be affirmed in a political way, in an economic way, as well as a moral way and a spiritual way.
And people say, Brother West, that has a chance of a snowball in hell.
I said, maybe so, but I'm going down swinging and fighting for it.
I want to see people standing up against this effort by extremist figures, like anti-Semites and white supremacists and other bigots.
I want to see politicians standing up to them and saying, no, you have no place here.
And then I want the focus really to be on the common good of the country.
And the best way to serve the common good of the country is to just ask with respect to any question, begin the conversation, begin the deliberation by asking, what is and what isn't consistent with our fundamental principles, the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
We're about to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration next year.
Let's actually take the Declaration seriously.
Let's begin any deliberation on a question with, is it consistent with, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they're endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
Now, you can't answer every question simply by adverting to that statement from the Declaration, that principle from the Declaration.
And we're going to have reasonable disagreements about what the implications of that principle are on many, many issues.
But it's the place to begin, and we'll have a much more productive engagement of our differences on how to interpret it if we agree that we're going to begin from that principle.
Let's turn now to this week's C-SPAN Flashback, where we dig deep into the video archives to show you a moment in political history that reminds us of today.
Let's take you back to November 2012.
Then Vice President Joe Biden visited a brand new Costco in Washington, D.C. to knock out some holiday shopping and push for middle-class tax cuts.
All the people you meet in here today, and you see, these are hardworking folks who don't need to see their taxes go up.
The ability of consumers to actually have money in their pocket to be able to go out and support their families in terms of the Christmas gifts they want to buy.
The middle-class tax cut should be made permanent.
You know, actually, and just thinking a little bit about what John said too, the thing about where Republicans are and their life cycle and talking about the economy, Donald Trump's issue right now is that all of the things that are natural to him that he wants to do are things that are not going to be helpful to the American people, pushing this tariff regime the way he's doing it, you know, creating uncertainty for the economy.
That's not going to help him.
I think what Democrats have shown themselves to be pretty good at is kind of counterpunching in this moment.
I think they still have some work to do to figure out what is the effective positive message to put forward.
And at a broader point, too, you know, on the economy, but just writ large.
The American people are pretty good at telling you what they don't like right now.
I don't know if the American people know what they do want, both with the economy but also writ large from their politics.
But they're pretty good at telling you what they don't like right now.
To that point, Joel, the same poll took a look at the president's approval rating and found that just 38% of Americans approve of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president.
John, how concerned should the White House be about this and what should they do to change these numbers?
unidentified
They don't have to just look at the polls.
They just could look at the election from earlier this month where they got kind of wiped out.
I mean, it's in the blue states, but they'd lost well beyond the margin of error.
They lost the point spread.
And I think that for them, they've got to recalibrate.
I think the president's been always, as presidents always do, they feel good when they're cutting peace deals overseas.
And it's almost inevitable that a president will want to go big on the international states because they're looking for legacy.
But the president's legacy is not going to be secure unless he gets the economy going again.
If people feel strong about their financial prospects for the future.
And right now, they're not feeling, they're feeling anxiety, not only affordability, but anxiety about the future.
The president needs to do more to try to ease that anxiety.
Look, I think Democrats certainly feel a little bit more buoyed by the current political prospects and particularly around this discussion around the economy.
It's clear that the advantage that Donald Trump entered the year with on the economy has whittled away a lot and there's a lot of reasons for that.
You know, for a long time, Dasha, I've always thought that the economy was kind of the permission slip for Donald Trump to do maybe some of the other things, the parts of his agenda that are a little bit more divided among the electorate, that the things on immigration that can be a little bit more controversial, some of the, frankly, the weaponization things, the going after political enemies.
Him having a stable, solid economy allows him to do that.
When the American people don't feel good about those things, that's the destabilizer.
That takes away his ability, his permission structure to do maybe all the things that are natural to him that he wants to do.
In his first term, the reason why he had a period of relative peace is because the economy had a period of relative peace.
And I think what you're seeing now is the economy dissembling for Donald Trump quicker in term two than it did in term one.
Well, and John, on the immigration issue, actually, that also has an economic component that might not be looking so good for the president at this point.
unidentified
I've talked to members of Congress, and they are hearing from their constituents who voted for Trump, but they're worried that they can't get workers for their different kinds of small businesses.
You go to a local Home Depot and it's empty because people who do a lot of the work in the fields or work in the homes and things like that, they're afraid to go there.
So there's a lot of places where, and the president has talked about this.
We need H-1B visas, we need H-2B visas, we need farm workers.
And all of those things are extremely important to keep the economy growing.
I think you're trying to do these things to achieve a very important political promise that he made, which was he was going to stem the tide of illegal immigration, illegal immigration.
But if you don't have the immigration work for you, it's self-defeating because you slow the economic growth and that leads to more economic anxiety.
That's how so many voters kind of discuss whether or not they feel like the political world is normal or things are going according to plan based on how their personal economy is going.
It's almost like their check engine light, right?
The check engine light of how much does it cost to buy eggs?
How much money do I have in my pocket?
Can I afford the basic needs that I have to keep my life going?
If those things are going well, people generally think that the political system is working the way it's supposed to work.
And when it's not, they think it's not.
And what Donald Trump is on the wrong side of right now is people's experience to that question.
We saw with the shutdown, Congress was really on the wrong side of people's day-to-day experience between the airports, federal workers not getting their paychecks.
We saw massive disruption because of this record-breaking shutdown.
I keep hearing as I talk to people in Congress that there might be a possibility that we're here again with another potential shutdown in January.
So, you know, Chuck Schumer has been chastened by his base related to how people feel like the conclusion of the November shutdown went.
I think it's fair to say that the base of the Democratic Party was happy that elected Democrats were kind of going into this fight.
I think there's a relationship between Democrats seeing an advantage on generic ballot going into 2026 and the fact that they showed that they were willing to fight.
Dasha, if you look at a lot of the public opinion polls, I know it shows that the Democratic Party is held in low regard.
A lot of those numbers are because there are rank-and-file Democrats.
There are traditional Democratic constituencies who are unhappy with the party.
So if they can start to get some parity with those numbers, that will elevate their chances for 2026 and to rebuild trust with the coalition.
But to the question on the shutdown, that's what's at the core of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries' decision about how to handle a potential January shutdown.
Do they risk alienating that base that they're going to depend on to be engaged and resolved going into 2026?
Or do they want to pass on this fight and say there's a better fight ahead?
There's another way to make our point politically than kind of going down this rabbit hole of having a government shutdown and maybe some uncertainty about how to resolve that.
I think if the elected Democrats feel like there is something else that they can point to to take the energy, the bottled-up energy that's within their base right now and steer it in another direction, yeah, they could probably sell those folks and sell their coalition on a different fight.
But if they can't, they have a hard case to make about, well, why should we get behind this government that is sending mask troops in the different communities, this government that is taking away money through the rescissions process from priorities that we care about?
I mean, if essentially people are experiencing the effects of a shutdown already, if you're someone who votes Democratic, if you are already experiencing what you think is part of a shutdown, why would you feel engaged in any way to give a thumbs up to Donald Trump's budget the way that he sees fit and the way that Mike Johnson and John Thune want to see that out?
I mean, John, in this last shutdown, there were very few conversations happening, especially at the leadership level across the aisle.
Should Republican leaders, should Johnson, should Thune be trying to preempt this and having conversations with their Democratic counterparts right now, or is it better politically for everyone to just be in their corners right now?
unidentified
Well, I think it's there's two things.
The most fascinating thing about the original shutdown is how long it took people to be concerned about it.
It really didn't have an impact until the last few weeks, last week, I would say, and it really had to do with flying.
People were worried about Thanksgiving.
This time around, it's going to be after Christmas, so you're not going to have that worries about some sort of Christmas shutdown.
I think the Republicans are going to try to get the defense budget passed along with the labor HHS budget, which will be combined.
And so you're really only talking about 15 to 20 percent of the government that would be shut down.
So it becomes kind of meaningless.
And the biggest problem with shutdowns is it hurts the Congress as an institution because they don't have control over what the executive branch is doing.
So I thought it was a tremendous, from an institutional perspective, a tremendous mistake to have this shutdown for as long as it was.
I thought it was a tremendous mistake for House Republicans to be out of session for as long as they were because they really were not driving any kind of messages.
For example, they could have driven a message had they been in session about health care.
What were the real stakes in the Obamacare fight?
And why don't we want to increase these premiums?
And why is Obamacare broken?
They didn't do any of that.
They didn't talk about health care at all.
So hopefully they would learn lessons about if there is going to be another shutdown.
And the Republicans do not want one.
So it's a Democrats will make the decision that they want to do it for internal Democratic reasons.
And how are you going to react to that?
You just cannot be passive.
I believe very strongly in the concept.
If you're not on offense, you're on the run.
And Republicans did not win this shutdown.
I don't think the Democrats want it either, but they want it more than the Republicans did.
I actually think that's going to be the core issue related to what happens in January.
Are they able to make a longer deal?
I know there's a discussion of, hey, is there a three-year extension?
Is there a one-year extension?
You know, I think for Schumer, for Jeffries, particularly Schumer, to save some face with that Democratic base, it has to be contingent on making a deal that changes people's lives dramatically related to the rising cost of health care that they're experiencing because those ACA expenses are going to expire at the end of the year.
What should Republicans do on this health care issue, though?
Because this is a topic that has had the GOP on its back foot for quite some time.
I mean, Democrats made a ton of gains by putting health care in the spotlight during the shutdown.
The president's talking about some plans, giving people money to figure it out on their own.
I think Johnson's talking to his people.
Thun's talking to his people.
Is this something that Republicans want to be working on, especially going into a midterm year?
unidentified
Healthcare, when there's these premiums and they're going up, what will end up happening is that a lot of people will decide they can't afford the premiums and they'll just go to the emergency room for their health care.
So that increases costs.
It would be far better had the Republicans come up with some sort of coherent alternative to Obamacare, which they should have done during President Trump's first term, and they still haven't done.
Republicans typically don't like to talk about health care reform because they don't really like it.
There's discussion of this idea where you would have money go directly to consumers.
I've seen some experts that would debunk that and that would say that would still negatively impact the system, so that wouldn't necessarily get at the core issue.
But it seems like there is some Republican momentum potentially behind that.
unidentified
I think there is some momentum, but the question is, would it be enough to get bipartisan support, which I find very difficult?
I think the visions between the Republicans and the Democrats on health care are totally different.
Republicans And Obamacare00:15:35
unidentified
The Republicans do not like Obamacare.
They still do not like Obamacare.
Some want to increase the, kick this can down the road and extend the subsidies just so they don't have it as a political issue.
But most Republicans don't want to do that.
To your point, I don't know if there's enough time to come up with a comprehensive plan.
If they do that, they have to do it through reconciliation because it would be a Republican-only plan.
I find it very difficult that the Democrats would all of a sudden give President Trump a huge win on health care in a bipartisan way.
Because it would be, if they got a bipartisan deal on healthcare, it would be a big victory for the president.
And what do you see what the president do instead?
He's going to healthcare CEOs.
He's going to pharma CEOs.
And he's trying to cut his own deals.
Like he's trying to do something on GLPs.
He's trying to do something on all these other expensive drugs.
He's trying to do MFN for a lot of these drug manufacturers.
He hasn't really had much of a conversation with the healthcare insurers.
And that's the conversation that has to happen because insurance premiums are so expensive for so many people.
And these Obamacare subsidies are not enough.
And if you look at the subsidies themselves, yeah, they make up about 20% of the increase.
The number one increase is inflation.
It's healthcare inflation.
And you know what happens when you put a lot of people in emergency rooms?
I think healthcare is certainly the issue that the Democrats would like to go on offense around.
I also do think that corruption and accountability for Trump and what I think a lot of voters and clearly what Democrats view as abuse of power from this administration.
Well, what typically happens in midterms, especially the second term, is we need a check on the president's power.
And I think that that's what the Democrats are ultimately going to come to.
They think the president is overreached on so many of these things that you talked about.
And so I think that unifies the Democratic coalition, but I also think it gets the independents on board.
The Republicans, on the other hand, are going to have to make a case of peace and prosperity and obstruction from the Democrats who are stopping good things from happening.
But that requires the Republicans to come up with good things that they're voting on that the Democrats are obstructing, which so far, there's not a second term agenda that the president's really outlined outside of OBBB on the domestic front.
And they've had to really hope that the economy comes roaring back or they're going to be in big trouble.
Oh, I think he, in terms of name ideas, that if a Democrat was put on the spot to name, hey, who is the highest profile Democrat that have a chance at the White House in 2028?
I'm sure he rises to the top.
He's the governor of the largest state.
He's had some of the highest profile fights with Donald Trump.
I actually, you know, so Dasha, I worked the 2008 presidential cycle.
I worked for John Edwards.
That cycle had heavy hitters all up and down.
Joe Biden, a future president.
You had Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson.
That times three is probably what you're looking at in 2028 for Democrats.
You might have an AOC.
You might have a Gavin Newsom, a Pete Budajudge.
You may have someone who is not a political office holder, someone who's an entertainer, who has an independent power base who decides to run.
There could be some business people who could get in the race.
But I guess my broader point is the bench is very deep on the Democratic side.
And honestly, look, yes, Gavin Newsom's in a good spot right now.
But if we look at the history of our presidential cycles, the last few cycles, you actually don't want to be in poll position two and a half years before the election at this point.
In particular, this vice president trying to run with this president that he's serving with, it is a particular challenge for JD Vance.
I'd also say, too, the fact that you have in recent weeks so many Republicans kind of popping their head up, Ron DeSantis doing more television, you know, folks like Ted Cruz talking more openly about running, that signals to me a little bit of a change in the Republican, you know, acceptance of where Donald Trump is in his life cycle.
Is he closer to being a lame duck, which I know is a shunned upon word in the White House right now.
But let's face reality, Donald Trump's not going to be on the ballot again.
Republicans are going to have to start looking forward to what's next.
There's a reason why you have folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene who are more bold and challenging Donald Trump right now.
I actually think this conversation we're having is proof positive that Republicans are already starting to look past Donald Trump.
unidentified
And to your point, when the president says, I am MAGA and MAGA is me, well, how does someone run on that?
Because no one else is Donald Trump other than Donald Trump.
So how do you define what MAGA is if the president, who's not a traditional conservative, has kind of identified the MAGA movement as something that he has done and he only can define it.
Barack Obama, very, obviously, these are very different political figures in terms of their political ideology, but Barack Obama, very similar to Donald Trump.
His brand was Obama.
It wasn't the Democratic Party.
Donald Trump's brand is Trump MAGA.
It's not the Republican Party.
And I actually think what Republicans are, again, starting to come to grips with is something that I think Democrats you've seen borne out over the last few cycles is that because Barack Obama took his brand, walked away with it, and voters did not necessarily have the same loyalty to the Democratic Party brand as they did to Obama, I actually think that Republicans might have the same experience.
I mean, we already saw that in the off-year election, right?
The biggest problem for Republicans was that Trump voters didn't show up for Trump not being on the ballot.
unidentified
They also had pretty lousy candidates.
I mean, Winston Sears were not a good candidate.
Citer Elliot had lost a couple times before, and we were supporting Andrew Cuomo in New York.
Why were we supporting Andrew Cuomo?
It made no sense.
No, you're right.
And I think that all over the place, we had elections that were really bad for us.
And that's been the case for a while.
Trump has to really kind of make this election about not just about him, but also about the Trump voter and the working class, which he's not doing a great job right now.
What you're discussing is exactly what he went through in New Jersey.
He had to run far enough away from Donald Trump so that he could appeal to independents and maybe some Democrats who are maybe not loyal to the Democratic brand, but he couldn't run so far away from MAGA that he shunned the MAGA base.
And I think a lot of Republicans are going to find themselves in that position coming up soon.
Before I let you both go, I want to show you a little segment that we have here on the show called Not On My Bingo Card.
Every week we highlight something a little offbeat, a little weird, a little funky, unexpected as our politics are today.
This week, what was not on my bingo card is a team up between rap star Nikki Minaj and Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the UN.
They became, Minaj became the first female rapper to address the United Nations with the ambassador and faith leaders calling for protections for Christians in Nigeria.
Well, thank you, Ambassador Waltz, for this invitation.
It is an honor to stand on this stage with you and the other distinguished speakers here today to shine a spotlight on the deadly threat faced by thousands of Christians in Nigeria.
I would like to thank President Trump for prioritizing this issue.
Ambassador Mike Waltz here here with the amazing queen of rap, Nikki Minaj, and I just can't be more thankful to you for putting your spotlight on the persecution, the killing, the devastation that's going on with Christians in Nigeria.
I imagine that might be the first time Mike Walsh has ever uttered the name Nikki Minaj, let alone into a camera.
Nikki Minaj actually, I think, responded to a True Social post that Donald Trump put out a few days before that, where he talked about this issue in Nigeria.
Look, there's a lot of context to that that maybe that discussion misses, but be that as it may, having someone like Nikki Minaj with that type of cultural cache speak on your behalf is certainly something that, you know, I think is something that the Trump folks will hope will pay dividends for them.
And what I would add is, and I think that Democrats have to kind of come to grips with this, Trump has been skillful at finding those types of cultural currency moments, whether it's going to a UFC fight or going and doing a couple of minutes of announcing on a phone call.
And that's a challenge for Democrats to think about and how not to poo-poo that, but how to maybe mimic that and take some lessons from how Trump finds connection to some of those cultural issues.
John Fury, Republican strategist, Democratic strategist Joel Payne.
Thank you both.
We'll close this week's program with our ceasefire moment of the week, highlighting what's possible when politicians come together as Americans, not just partisans.
A Minnesota nonprofit is leading the charge in building relationships across the aisle.
A unique exchange program pairs two state legislators from opposing political parties and helps them plan visits to each other's districts.
The goal is to form connections, learn about local challenges, and identify policy issues.
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We went to see the airplanes being manufactured at Cirrus.
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White House trade advisor Peter Navarro went to prison in 2024, convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the January 6th Committee after being found guilty on two counts.
In his new book, I Went to Prison So You Won't Have To, Peter Navarro lays out the Justice Department's case, his arrest and trial, and what it was like for him behind bars.
It's like everybody told me there that they'd rather be in a cell because you only don't have to worry about one other guy.
You know, there's this thing called the lock, lock in the sock, right?
You take a padlock, you throw it in a sock, and a lot of rough justice goes on like that.
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White House trade advisor and author Peter Navarro, Sunday night at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
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