Washington Wednesday: Politics under pressure

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 15th of October.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Time now for Washington Wednesday. Political scientist and WORLD Opinions contributor Hunter Baker joins us now. Hunter, good morning.

HUNTER BAKER: Good morning

EICHER: Well, we are two weeks into a government shutdown and still at a stalemate. Here’s House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday:

REP. MIKE JOHNSON : We're barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history unless Democrats drop their partisan demands and pass a clean, no strings attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers.

To the speaker’s point: The longest on record happened in the first Trump term … it was 35 days. Today, the 2025 shutdown is entering Day 15 … so it’s already longer than seven of the last ten. If it continues past tomorrow, it will join the top three.

Hunter, the pressure keeps climbing and I think … and curious to hear what you think … but I think the pressure’s all on the Republicans. Have a listen to this, from Marjorie Taylor Greene … a MAGA Republican from Georgia:

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: … whether we're Democrats or Republicans, people right now are looking at everything through their wallet and their bank account, and they're going, The price of food has not gone down. They're saying rent has not gone down. Houses are still unaffordable, and now health insurance premiums are going to hike whether you're on the ACA or having private insurance as well. They're literally going to go up for everyone. And I don't really care about the drama up here. I could care less. 

We’ve got to fix this issue … says Marjorie Taylor Greene … and, worse, for Republicans, she added, “What I am upset over is my party has no solution.” On Monday, I talked with David Bahnsen and he thinks the Republicans are going to blink here. What do you say?

BAKER: I don't know the answer to that. I spoke with one insider who told me he has told me throughout—and he reaffirmed today—that he thinks the Republicans are going to win this thing we're going to see once Donald Trump starts to address himself to it more. The big point that I want to make is that this is really about how the ACA or Obamacare is used. The Democrats want to extend COVID-era subsidies. And it just seems to me—strange to believe that we're more than a decade and a half into this experience—and I just do not think that Obamacare has been a success. I think that it has broken a lot of things in our healthcare. Despite having very good intentions, it has not made healthcare generally more affordable. Instead, we see prices continuing to climb. So I am very concerned that if our answer to the shutdown is to just extend subsidies further, that this thing is only going to continue to grow and grow.

The second thing that I want to say is that I just think that it's untenable to continue to govern by shutdown, and we have been doing this continually for a long time as we have less and less budget discipline. And I really wish that the House and the Senate would address themselves to figuring out how to get past government by shutdown.

EICHER: Can you forecast any scenarios that might bring this to an end more quickly?

BAKER: Well, it's a good question. I mean, we have seen the percentage of government spending relative to the overall size of the economy continue to grow. Eventually that becomes unsustainable eventually. You know, that that which cannot go on, my friend Glenn Reynolds likes to say, eventually, won't. I think that we will eventually hit kind of an unsustainable point, you know. I know that we're very far away from being Mexico or Greece or something like that, but eventually you work yourself into that kind of a standpoint. I want the United States to be a place with sound policy and sound money for my children, if not for me. And so that's why I think that the government needs to address itself to this.

MAST: Another area where Democrats are under pressure … the Virginia governor’s race.

In an off-year, the party out of power generally does better, but recent polls are surprising…Democrat Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger’s lead has dwindled to just a couple points ahead of Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears. In the Attorney General race, it’s worse for Democrats…GOP incumbent Jason Miyares is now 6 points up over Democrat Jay Jones after months of being behind. The reversal of fortune coming just on the heels of that text scandal we talked about last week.

Early voting started in September…and it’s not over till ballots are counted…but what are you seeing here, Hunter?

BAKER: Well, I think that we're seeing that Winsome Sears may have a chance. I mean, this text scandal has been really big. It has gotten a lot of people's attention, and it reminds people of some of the more extreme impulses that are kind of generated by the political left in the U.S., where you have these sort of violent fantasies about killing opponents or their children. And no, it wasn't Abigail Spanberger who said these things or texted these things, but her most prominent tagline of this entire campaign has been, “Let your rage fuel you.” Well, that's a bad tagline right now with this particular scandal, and so some people are starting to reconsider, and it'll be very interesting to see if this ends up being a lot closer than it seemed to be, or if Sears even manages to win somehow.

EICHER: So Hunter, did you see the debate where winsome Sears really went after Spanberger, and she just sat there, stone faced, wouldn't look back, wouldn't respond? That looked just like a live taping of a TV commercial. I wonder if that's not part of it.

BAKER: I've seen those clips, and I think that Spanberger feels caught in this thing. I think that she feels like, Look, I'm not the one who said this. I'm not the one who created this issue, and I resent having to address it. And I think that she further does not want to anger her allies on the left by going after the Attorney General candidate. And so I think that she feels like it's a lose, lose situation, and so she's just trying to ride it out.

MAST: Well, moving north to New Jersey Hunter…any thoughts on the startling accusations coming out of the New Jersey Governor’s race? The New York Times reports Democratic Nominee Mikie Sherrill is accusing her Republican opponent Jack Ciattarelli of spreading misinformation about opioids via a medical publication he owned until 2017.

Here’s part of what Sherrill said during a debate last week … and only a part:

MIKIE SHERRILL, NJ MAYORAL CANDIDATE: And I'll tell you, yeah, tens of thousands here as you published misinformation.

We won’t play the rest because for his part, Ciatterelli flatly denies the claims and says he plans to file a defamation suit over it … and honestly, it’s a reckless claim that is not verifiable … and we’re not putting it on the air.

But this is billed as a race to watch in terms of whether Republicans will come out when Trump isn’t on the ballot. What do you make of this sudden turn in tone in New Jersey?

BAKER: Well, I think it's a desperate accusation. You know, of course, I had to read it and check it out, and I think that almost no responsible person would make an accusation of this type in the context of a political campaign. You're very free to make these sorts of claims and and without really getting into legal danger. Here we have it happening from Cheryl. But I just think that it may indicate that the Cheryl campaign thinks this race is closer than we have typically thought it is. So it'll be interesting to see. I mean, every now and then, you know, you have a Republican who manages to win, or even to become very successful in New Jersey, and so maybe there's a little bit of a wave happening here.

EICHER: This week saw a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages in a deal.

AUDIO: Thank you Trump, Thank you Trump!

And there you hear crowds in Tel Aviv chanting thanks to him for his work on that deal, but no recognition from the Nobel Committee. They gave the award instead to the opposition leader in Venezuela, Maria Karina Machado. So Hunter, do you think that Trump will eventually get that kind of recognition, however grudging?

BAKER: I know, don't know if people recall when Barack Obama became president in 2008 he was named the Nobel Peace Prize winner about five minutes later. And that was, that was a case where he was the kind of person that the committee really likes, right? You know, sort of an ideal, sort of a choice. In this case, he may still have that prize coming if, if things hold up in the Middle East for another year or so. He may be the kind of person who just has to get an award at that point, but recognizing Machado from Venezuela is still a pretty big deal.

Yeah, you know, you have had kind of a left wing dictator, the successor of Hugo Chavez, who literally was not allowed to run in the last election. For her to get the recognition is pretty important. This shows a judgment against that dictatorial regime in Venezuela. That I think is is very positive. And I think that Donald Trump, if he can't have the award himself, he probably feels pretty good about this choice. And when the committee does this kind of thing, I think about when they chose somebody like Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the Soviet Union, you know, it showed a judgment against the Soviet Union, and I see this award the same way.

MAST: Well one more story of the week…the media meltdown over new Pentagon press rules…

Here’s Secretary of Defense/Secretary of War Pete Hegseth with FOX News’s Peter Doocy at the Air Force at Navy football game on the 4th:

HEGSETH: We're setting clear rules at the Pentagon. We're not playing games. We're not allowing everybody to roam around the building. You know, that was the policy before, Peter. If you were a Pentagon reporter, you could just walk around the building. No badge, no escort, no nothing, walk into offices, talk to anybody. Who knows where there's classified information. We're making the rules more like you might say the White House. Can you roam the White House wherever you want?

DOOCY: Typically not without getting a Secret service guy up in my grill.

HEGSETH: So we're just normalizing it.

Hard pass holders will have less free access inside the Pentagon, and military officials will require sign-off from the top to share even unclassified information. A growing number of outlets are refusing to sign. They have until 5pm Wednesday to sign on or turn in their badges…and the stack of badges could be BIG. Yesterday, FOX News joined ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, even Newsmax declining to follow the new rules. So far, only one outlet … One Voice America … has signed on.

Hunter, is this a tempest in a teapot or could press freedoms really be at stake?

BAKER: It just makes a certain amount of sense to me that access should be tightly controlled inside the Pentagon. I just think that it should not be like walking around the halls of Congress or other parts of our government. And so from my perspective, I do think it is commonsensical to maybe regulate that more closely, and to have more precautions that are taken.

EICHER: Hunter Baker is a political scientist and provost at North Greenville University. Hunter, thank you.

BAKER: Thank you.

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