Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lipson Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com.
Just for the record, there's no punishment for getting any of these numbers wrong or not winning this little game. There might be a prize if you do win, but fear not. Speak for yourself. Shame is a punishment for me. Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. Welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Podcast.
Welcome aboard the Acela. Listeners, we are taking a break from the campaign trail today and heading to D.C., where there's quite a bit going on. So first and foremost, as you may have heard, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced last week that Republicans are opening an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. The focus of that inquiry revolves around the Biden family's finances, in particular work that Hunter Biden did while Biden was vice president.
The decision has divided even Republican lawmakers. And today, we're going to rewind a little bit and talk about how we got here and then how this could shape politics going forward.
Also, we are now 12 days away from a possible government shutdown. Some Republicans have already said they aren't open to passing a stopgap measure to keep the government open while debate about funding continues. So will McCarthy seek support from Democrats? Will he let the government shut down? Will he even remain Speaker of the House long enough to see what happens?
And lastly, if it seems like there are more strikes than usual this year, that's because there are. The left calls it hot labor summer. The right is a bit more equivocal on the matter. And we are going to play a game. Call it Quiz of the Union. Here with me to discuss it all is politics reporter Leah Escarinam. Welcome back to the podcast. It's good to have you.
So excited to be here. Thanks. Also here with us is Rachel Bage. She's the co-author of Politico Playbook and also an ABC News contributor. She's the author of the book Unchecked, The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Galen. Okay, so Rachel, you are very much steeped in the machinations of Congress, the internal politics, the procedures, the investigations in a way that we here at FiveThirtyEight are not.
So please help us out today. And I want to start at the beginning.
When did investigations or suspicions about Hunter Biden's business dealings begin? And then how did we get from there to here? How long can I make my answer, Galen? It's a long story. You got 90 seconds. You're on the clock. Let's see if you can do it. I'll try to condense it. So, I mean, you can go back years, back when Joe Biden was actually vice president, and you can see some reporting. The scandal actually started surrounding Hunter Biden in these
business deals he had with all these foreign entity while his dad was serving as Obama's number two in the White House, there was reporting back way back when. And so that's sort of really the start of this story. And then it started percolating again, fast forward a few years, Trump is in the White House. In 2019, you'll remember that Donald Trump
tried to leverage taxpayer dollars to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. And that was a way he wanted to hurt him politically in the 2020 election. And the thing he wanted Ukraine to look at was more at Hunter Biden's business deals. So that started percolating even back then. And so I was...
very closely covering Donald Trump's impeachments. And I mean, I remember when one of the Democrats' witnesses was a State Department official. He had actually come in to testify against Donald Trump, but he also implicated Hunter Biden in it as well. And he said, he told investigators that
The deals Hunter Biden was making while his dad was vice president was really squishy. It didn't look good. He wanted to raise the issue with the White House, specifically with Biden's team. And Biden's inner circle told him, look, the vice president just lost Beau Biden. We don't want to deal with this. Like, just don't come to us with this. We're not dealing with it right now. So the scandal was even happening a little then. The thing is, the Republicans, they didn't investigate it at the time. Even Trump's Justice Department didn't look into it.
So now we're seeing that Republicans are picking this scandal that's been out there for a long time. They're picking it back up to try to hurt Joe Biden. And they're trying to help whoever becomes the Republican nominee in 2024. When you talk to them privately, they'll admit this. What they're trying to do right now is link Hunter Biden and what was going on with him and these sort of
shady, you know, squishy deals that he was doing abroad. They're trying to link it to Joe Biden. They've alleged that Joe Biden benefited from these deals and they've alleged that Joe Biden changed policy because of these deals. But we should say right now, they don't have evidence of either of those. Obviously, we can see there's a lot of reporting on Hunter Biden and what he was doing. But that link is something that
they're going to have to try to dig up as part of an impeachment inquiry if they want to impeach him and actually convince the public that there's a legitimate case against the president. And right now, they don't have that.
Was there any new information in particular that prompted McCarthy to open this impeachment inquiry? Or is this really about internal politics within the House GOP caucus? It's definitely the latter, Galen. I mean, they have, Republicans have turned up some information. They have new whistleblowers that have come forward alleging that there was some sort of politicization at the
Justice Department. That's another piece of this impeachment investigation. That actually happened a few months ago. But why now? The why now has everything to do with Kevin McCarthy wanting to maintain and keep his gavel as Speaker. There are a bunch of conservatives who voted for him as Speaker only reluctantly in January. And frankly, they're frustrated with him. They went back home in August and heard from constituents who said,
conservative constituents who said, you're not impeaching Joe Biden. You have to do it. And so they actually started telling leadership over the August recess, I've heard from senior Republicans, that if McCarthy doesn't endorse an impeachment inquiry, they could try to oust him as speaker. And so it's no surprise that literally a couple of hours after Matt Gaetz of Florida, he's a Florida Republican, him and McCarthy do not get along. He's a Trump ally and he wants impeachment. He announced
the day before the House came back in session in September that he was going to go to the floor and make a case for removing McCarthy as speaker. And literally a couple of hours after McCarthy heard about this, he decided to move forward with this impeachment inquiry of Trump. And I've talked to people in leadership. They didn't even know this was coming. And everybody believes it 100% had to do with him protecting his gavel and trying to hold onto his job.
Just to be really clear here, what exactly are we talking about when we say Hunter Biden's sort of shady business dealings or unseemly business dealings? And what is the like? I just want to lay it all out here for folks. So we're not like beating around the bush and speaking in sort of shorthand or whatever. Like, what is it alleged that Hunter Biden did? Did he do it? Like, do we have data that he did and shows that he did, in fact, do it? And what are the closest we've come to actually linking that to the president?
Yeah. So, I mean, Hunter Biden was making, you know, millions of dollars from different foreign companies when his dad was vice president. The one that's often cited is his work on the board of an energy company in Ukraine called Burisma. And Burisma was sort of seen as this corrupt entity. If you, you know, talk to Ukraine experts in the State Department, they always have sort of questions about this company. And he was making money from them. I can't remember how much exact
a month, but he was on their board while Joe Biden was vice president. And people raised concerns about that. They thought it looked bad and that it was like the appearance of it was just not something that should be happening. So that's...
That, we know, happened. Republicans have tried to allege that because Hunter Biden was getting money from this company, Burisma, that Vice President Joe Biden at the time, he actually called for the firing of a prosecutor in Ukraine who was alleged to be investigating this same company. And the Republicans are alleging that he only wanted to fire this prosecutor to protect the company that was paying his son.
The problem with that is that that prosecutor, his name was Victor Shulkin, he was extremely corrupt. And all these anti-corruption crusaders across the world, really, in the United States, also in Europe, they were all pushing for this guy to be ousted. There was reporting about diamonds being found, you know, surrounding this guy's deputies and stuff like they're
the general sort of narrative was that this prosecutor was on the take. So to try to say Joe Biden was trying to influence policy to protect his son or the company that hired his son, it's clearly, there's no evidence of that. And in fact, there's evidence to the contrary that Biden at the time was just upholding American policy when it comes to pushing out a corrupt prosecutor. So that's one very specific example of what we're talking about here. And in terms of
Did Biden benefit from this?
Republicans have been requesting bank records and all different sort of document requests that they have right now to try to link that money and chase the money, find out where did it go when it went to Hunter Biden? Did some of it go to his dad? But again, no evidence of that. So at this point, they don't have that. They don't have the smoking gun. All right. So that's what we know about the facts on the ground. Now, let's talk about what Americans think of it all. How do Americans view this?
this specific impeachment inquiry and sort of Hunter Biden's behavior in particular? It's complicated, right? Like we have several layers here. We have on one layer, we have Hunter Biden. And what is what did he do wrong? Do Americans think that he might have had some improper conduct along the way? And, you know, Americans are more likely to think that he did than that Joe Biden did.
And that's where it gets tricky. I think that, you know, when we think about Hunter,
he does get a lot of bad press and that does take a toll on his public image. And he's, you know, he's had, he's admitted. So as Joe Biden, he's had a kind of rocky past, but does that extend to Joe Biden and whether he was involved? That is much less clear to voters and more divided upon partisan lines. So Republicans are more likely to believe that. But if we look at kind of the big overview, it's,
know the majority of voters are Americans. They're not massive supporters of this inquiry. Yeah, let's put some numbers to this. And how does it compare to what Americans thought of, you know, Donald Trump when he was facing impeachment? So in a Fox News poll, and for the record, Fox News polls are, they are not conservative. They are polls that we follow. If we can listen to our previous polling conversations about that.
asked, what better describes your view that this is a legitimate action on a serious matter or it's a bogus attempt to undermine Biden's presidency?
And 47% said it's legitimate action. And 48% said that it is an attempt to undermine Biden's presidency. And not surprisingly, if you look at the crosstabs there, a significantly bigger share of Republicans think that it is legitimate. We're looking at 15% of Democrats saying
think it's legitimate and 79% of Republicans. And interestingly, we also are seeing like just a five point split between among independents. And this is, you know, one poll, so snapshot in time. But among independents in this poll, we see legitimate action is 44%, whereas 48% think it's bogus.
So, again, that's really on the margins. That's not a massive difference, but it's enough where you would imagine that Republicans would be a little cautious stepping into this, given that independent voters are obviously the ones who are going to make or break the House majority and the presidential election.
Well, also, this is a question about the inquiry itself. And there's a difference, I imagine, in Americans' minds between investigating something, trying to figure out if Biden was actually connected to shady dealings, and saying like, yeah, I think Biden should be impeached, which is where this is potentially heading. I mean, by the time Democrats decided to actually impeach Donald Trump, in both cases, the
either it was like very evenly divided, but the margins were slightly in Democrats' favor on the first time, or there was an out and out majority of Americans saying that Trump should be impeached the second time. Like they waited until public opinion was on their side, not just for an inquiry, but also for impeachment for the most part. Although you're shaking your head a little bit, Leah. Tell me where I'm off to. No, no, I was trying to nod it actually. No, I think that what's- Okay, all right, all right, there we go. Well, I mean, it's really tricky because-
Yes, there's a difference between an impeachment inquiry and impeachment. Republican members of Congress, especially some of the more moderate members, the ones who, let's say, have to run for re-election in districts where Democrats tend to perform pretty well, they've been taking to, you know, the Sunday shows, to the cable news shows, saying this is an impeachment inquiry. We're looking for evidence. This is not an impeachment inquiry.
And that's a message that they do very much want to get across. I'm a little skeptical that voters are in the massive world of all of the problems that this country is facing and also following the potential shutdown of the federal government in a couple weeks are looking at that much of a difference with the word inquiry or not the word inquiry. So, I mean, let's see, you know, if this smoking gun, like Rachel mentioned, like if that has
happens to come across if that happens. But right now it's a search for evidence. And so I don't know how much voters are going to tell the difference between, you know, how serious this is. But Rachel, I'm curious if you agree or disagree with that. Two thoughts on this. The first one is,
Republicans got this exact argument from Democrats during the first Donald Trump impeachment. Jamie Raskin and a bunch of Judiciary Committee members who wanted to impeach Donald Trump in 2019, they were running up against Nancy Pelosi, who did not want to do it because she thought there was going to be political blowback. She thought it was a political loser. The numbers weren't there. And the way they got, you know, the whole conference or Democratic caucus to support
moving toward impeachment was they argued this exact argument. An impeachment inquiry is not impeachment itself. Just because we start it doesn't mean we're going to impeach the guy. And Pelosi would later end up adopting that herself and saying it publicly. Second point on this is that when the Democrats made this argument, Republicans called bullshit
I wrote in my book about this funny anecdote when Pelosi was making this argument publicly, Jim Jordan was watching her in his office. Jim Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chairman right now, who is going to be leading the impeachment of Joe Biden, by the way, was watching Pelosi make this argument publicly.
Oh, because you think we're going there. We are going to impeachment. Oh, this is exactly what he was saying. He was saying, saying you started an impeachment inquiry is like jumping out of an airplane mid-air. There's no going back. You're going to land and you're going to hit the ground at impeachment. And Jim Jordan's comment was like, she could either land gracefully with, you know, a parachute or she could land gracefully with a parachute.
Or she could land smack on the ground. We're going to make sure she lands smack on the ground. So, but the point being, Republicans back then called bull on this argument. And right now, they're trying to make this argument to their own moderate members because they're worried about political blowback. But everyone knows the political reality of beginning an impeachment inquiry and not finishing it and not impeaching Joe Biden. That would actually help Joe Biden. It would...
suggests that Republicans are exonerating him. So politically, they are going to have to impeach him because they began this process. No, I think it's so risky in a lot of ways. And I mean, and I guess not doing anything is also risky, right? Because not doing anything that means that Matt Gaetz gets angrier. And then, you know, what happens with Kevin McCarthy's role as
Speaker of the House, you know, it's not exactly like there's an easy decision and a hard decision. And, you know, we're going to choose between the two. But if you just look at just general polling of impeachment, we're looking at it pretty divided, you know, 41 percent, 42 percent. Sometimes a few percentage points more believe that there should be an impeachment, not impeachment inquiry, but that Biden should be impeached.
Sometimes it's the other way, talking low 40s. This is very much still in motion. And it's not following, like you said, Galen, it's not following public opinion, but I think it's trying to create public opinion. And that's what's really interesting and what's worth watching, especially for some of these more vulnerable members in the House.
Yeah, I was going to say, speaking of past conversations about polling that we've had on the podcast, that Wall Street Journal poll that was conducted by Fabrizio Lee and Associates and GBAO, the Republican and Democratic polling duo that created some drama on the Internet. The poll that they did on this about actual impeachment, not an inquiry, was 52 percent of Americans objected.
opposing impeachment of Biden, while 41% were in favor. So that's an 11 point gap against actual impeachment. And I understand like, for example, when Nancy Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump, the first time, it was either sort of a
equivocal or they still didn't have the majority of Americans on board. But once Nancy Pelosi announced it and you saw Democrats going on the talk shows, going on the Sunday shows, arguing in favor of impeachment, we saw public opinion shift.
So we'll be watching those numbers. It's a different case here, I think, because McCarthy seems to be doing this reluctantly, whereas when Pelosi decided to launch the impeachment inquiry, it seemed pretty clear where we were headed. Maybe it seemed clearer then. And as soon as they launched the inquiry, they were making the case for it on a regular basis out front.
in public. I don't know what Republicans are going to do, especially given that the most high profile voices we heard this past week seemed a little more equivocal on it. We got an op-ed in the Washington Post from a member of the House Freedom Caucus saying this is BS, we shouldn't be doing this. So I don't know how much public opinion will change. But these, in a moment like this, it is somewhat malleable and we'll have to watch over the coming sort
sort of weeks to see how it evolves. I'm also wondering if maybe we're kind of looking at like a floor for impeachment, potentially around 41%. Like you said, that Wall Street Journal poll had 41% in favor. There was a YouGov poll that also had 41 or had 44% in favor, but 41% opposing. I mean, it does seem like there's at least some undecided votes here. We've always known that Trump's
base of support has a low ceiling, but that it has a high floor. And I think the question is, does that translate to the impeachment question? Yeah. On the public sentiment question, Pelosi used to always say when she was speaker to her members in key moments that
In the House, like when they were doing something big, she would always quote Lincoln, public sentiment is everything. With it, you can do anything. Without it, you can do nothing. I'm paraphrasing there. And so when she launched the impeachment inquiry, she told her members, go out and sell it.
But she also had, in addition to going on TV and really backing the inquiry, she had the transcript of Trump's July 25th call with Zelensky where he asked him to, quote, do us a favor. And she had a whistleblower report that—
that basically detailed this whole scheme where he was using taxpayer money to try to get these investigations of Joe Biden. They had real evidence to present their case. And that happened around the same time that she launched the impeachment inquiry, which is why you saw public sentiment change and a majority begin to support impeachment. Republicans don't have anything of the sort. The closest thing they have right now is...
a Hunter Biden business associate who has come to Congress and testified that, oh yeah, when Joe Biden was vice president, Hunter Biden would call him on our business calls when we were talking to these foreign government officials. Hunter Biden would call his dad and the vice president would get on the phone. But even he said that
that Joe Biden wouldn't talk about these business deals. He would just talk about the weather and like casual things. Of course, it doesn't look good. And there's certainly questions about it raises more questions. But like that is nothing close to what Democrats had against Donald Trump when it comes to real concrete evidence that could actually move public opinion. The big question is, is this 1998 all over again? Right. Like that's the risk here is, is there enough evidence?
evidence where, you know, voters feel like at least this is a legitimate inquiry or does this end up hurting Republicans because voters see this as a blatantly political push. And keep in mind that 1998, uh, when, uh, Republicans were impeaching, uh, Bill Clinton, uh, that same year, Democrats picked up five seats in the house, um,
despite the fact that Democrats had the presidency. There have only been, I think, three examples of that happening in history. One was the Great Depression, one was 9-11, and one was the impeachment of Bill Clinton. And picking up five seats for Democrats right now with the
maps changing and redistricting and an incredibly narrow majority, that's enough to flip the House potentially. So this is playing with fire. And Newt Gingrich, just to add one last thing, Newt Gingrich has actually publicly warned
Republicans about this. He said, go slow, take your time, make sure you have the evidence. And he acknowledged that they didn't have, you know, a case against Bill Clinton, which is why Bill Clinton's poll numbers went skyrocketing after he was impeached. And by the way, Newt Gingrich got ousted by his members. He had to actually like resign as speaker. So there's, you
You know, you're playing with fire here with impeachment. And we're going to have to see. I'm curious as well. Is this going to be more 1998 than anything else? I have a pretty nerdy question here, Leah, that I want to ask, because we have talked about the whole 1998 public backlash to impeachment, turning Bill Clinton ultimately into a victim of sorts and Democrats gaining seats in the House.
This, of course, is an election that followed massive pickups for Republicans, the Republican Revolution, basically, of the early 90s. And so some will argue we're overreading that data point because Republicans had picked up so many seats that went into Democratic territory that it's not actually ultimately that impressive that Democrats picked up five seats because they were just winning back some territory that really should have been
And that, yes, while it is an anomaly, we shouldn't make so much of it. What do you say to that? Okay, let me, I'm going to download some information while I figure out where I'm ending with this. But you could theoretically make the same case about 2020, right? Democrats made massive gains in 2018 and lost some of those in 2020, including districts that Democrats had no business being
in like in South Carolina's first district. We had one in Oklahoma's fifth at the time. So, I mean, that is a relatively natural progression, I think. Like that's not unheard of. I do think it's important not to pay, give any specific...
cause for an election too much weight. Because when you actually look into House elections, and this is what I do for the Cook Political Report, we look into the individual House elections, as much as you want to say, well, this was because of a national wave, this is because of abortion, this is because of the economy, I mean, weird things happen in individual districts constantly. And so when we're talking about districts on the margins, you don't ever want to give anything too much weight because it's
In the end, it could be that, you know, in this random New York district, they didn't have enough time to vet a candidate. And so they took the last guy and all of a sudden you have George Santos. So, you know, that is something in general to keep in mind. But it's only happened three times ever. So given the fact that it's happened...
It's not like a guarantee. You know, it's not like, oh, if you mess this impeachment up, then people won't care about the economy. And, you know, as Amy Walter recently wrote, you know, the indicators we use for political success have changed so much over the last few years. We don't use the same metrics of wrong direction, right direction. None of these have the same weight. So all that's to say,
I think that it's wise not to read too much into any specific factor. And I think that there are going to be a lot of things that determine the House majority. One of them will be Trump. One could be impeachment. One could be the economy. One will be Biden's age. But you can't discount that that did happen. It was a historical moment. And that at the time, as Rachel said, the leader of the House Republicans basically blamed it on impeachment.
You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lipson Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com.
You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lipson Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com.
One more note on public opinion before we move on is I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but it's no surprise to anyone listening that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are not particularly popular amongst the American public. But when pollsters ask specifically, why don't you like these people? For Biden, the most common responses are that he's too old and that he's incompetent. And for Trump, the most common answers are that he's dangerous and that he's corrupt.
Now, this argument that Republicans are now trying to make is, hey, like Joe Biden, too, is corrupt.
corrupt. You know, usually we say with scandals, the sort of like political wisdom over the years is scandals are most likely to stick when they align with something that we already think about the politician. This is how folks explained Hillary Clinton and the emails, basically, that like the Clintons are long thought of as kind of skirting around the rules, they don't apply to them, blah, blah, blah, you get this whole email scandal and something that
ultimately, you know, in the grand scheme of things, not that important sort of sticks to her. I don't know if that's good analysis or not, but that's what you oftentimes hear.
Is this the kind of thing where, like, you know, Republicans think they're going to be able to pull Biden's, like, corruption numbers even with Trump and that even if, you know, Trump has these four indictments or whatever, Americans just throw their hands up and say, well, Biden is corrupt, too. And if that is the goal, do you think that's, like, a reasonable thing? Like, do you think that we're headed in that direction where Americans just throw their hands up and say, oh, they're both corrupt, who cares? I mean, that's certainly their goal. There's no doubt about it. And...
I do think that there are some Democrats who worry, given how close everyone is expecting this election to be, that they might gain traction with independent voters on this, that they will sort of
Republicans will be able to sort of make it a wash. I mean, Trump's been charged with how many charges? 90 some. I can't even count them anymore. But, you know, Republicans are going to say, oh, look, you know, Hunter Biden and this DOJ investigation and impeachment. And yeah, exactly. They're both corrupt. So you might as well pick Trump when the economy was your you felt like the economy was better or something like that, like that that
That's certainly an argument some Democrats are afraid of. And it's, I mean, clearly it's a false equivalency, at least right now, given what we've seen, the lack of evidence on the part of these allegations against Joe Biden. But, I mean, Republicans, we've seen them do this sort of thing with Democrats before. They're very good at like...
selling something that maybe otherwise wouldn't be a scandal and turning it into a big to-do. I mean, you just mentioned Hillary Clinton's emails. I'm also reminded of the Benghazi investigation that also came after Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I'm reminded of the IRS scandal when there were these allegations that the IRS was targeting Tea Party groups. Again, no evidence of that.
But Republicans in the House did all these public hearings. They held people in contempt of Congress and they riled up their base and made some people question like, OK, is this really happening? And so right now, I think Republicans are going to be throwing spaghetti at the wall trying to get something. And their hope is, even if they don't, that all the rhetoric will change some minds and make people think that Biden has the same corruption issues that Donald Trump is.
I mean, the way I think about scandals in politics in general is that they tend to open a door, right? Like there are some scandals, like let's think Roy Moore in Alabama, where you could say that did a little bit more than open a door that probably like just...
lost him the election. But usually, it gives opponents kind of a window or an open door to get voters to open their minds and think about different candidates. So when we saw in 2016, Hillary Clinton, particularly scandal plagued, Donald Trump was, you know,
Not – he had his fair share of scandals himself, but they – enough voters seemed to be okay with giving him a chance or, more importantly, okay with giving Gary Johnson or Jill Stein a chance.
And I think we see the question with Biden being a scandal-plagued president is who does that open the door for? It's not like people are like, well, Biden's scandal-plagued, so I'm going to vote for Trump after January 6th. Might they vote for a, I don't know, a third-party candidate, a no-labels candidate? I'm just operating on the view. Cornel West?
You never know. It could be President Glenn Youngkin. That was a joke. I don't think that's going to happen. But I'm operating under the assumption that Trump will probably get 46 to 47 percent of the popular vote because that tends to be what he gets. And the question is, how much of Biden's vote deteriorates and where does it go?
So does he manage to get to 46%? Because his floor might not be 46%, but his ceiling is significantly higher than 47%. I want to see what the alternative options are, I guess. Well, there you go. You've just framed the whole election right there, Leah.
Although, OK, well, you know, we still have a Republican primary to get through. But every day that passes, it feels like we are just getting closer to diving into the general election. But bear with us because we still have like seven Republican debates to cover. And this is like if Trump is the nominee. And like we've already just had this conversation on the last pod. Like maybe not. We don't know. OK, so to wrap up here, what happens next?
Rachel, it sounds like you have said that what happens next is that ultimately Biden will be impeached. How do we get from here to there? Okay, so as for what's next, I think we're going to see Republicans fire off a ton of subpoenas for closed-door depositions in the next couple weeks as they try to make this case. They're going to be asking for bank records to try to connect the money from Hunter Biden to Joe Biden. I think one thing to watch will be
how does the White House respond? The interesting thing about Trump's first impeachment is that the Trump White House created this precedent for basically stonewalling impeachment inquiries and like refusing to give over evidence. And there's actually now a DOJ sort of opinion about that that sort of justifies it. It'll be interesting to see if the Biden White House cooperates with this probe or do they stonewall? So that's something I'm going to be watching. I do think, you know, regardless of what evidence comes forward,
Republicans are more than likely to make this argument that the White House hasn't been cooperative enough. And we could see them try to impeach Joe Biden if they can't get evidence to, you know, make the case on abuse of power and bribery. We could see them impeach Joe Biden over, you know, obstruction of Congress, which is something that Democrats did with the Donald Trump White House. But, you know, as I said earlier,
My belief is that they're going to end up in impeachment and it's going to be interesting to watch how they justify that to a lot of these
Republicans in Democratic-leaning districts or Joe Biden districts and try to get them to vote for impeachment. I think there's a feeling amongst Republicans that those moderate members may not want to do this right now, and they certainly don't because of the political risk. But a lot of these members, they get in line when leadership tells them they need to get in line. There's a reason that their colleagues joke that they're, quote, squishes, and that is because
there's this sort of like trend that when leadership tells them you need to vote this way, a lot of times they ended up voting this way. And so we'll see if they get, you know, 218 votes to impeach the guy, but I guess I would be surprised if it doesn't end up there.
All right, well, add potentially it looks like one more thing to our political electoral calendars over the next six months or so. It's going to be a freaking wild ride. But let's move on and talk about the possibility of a government shutdown. Without the passage of 12 spending bills or a stopgap measure, the government will shut down at midnight on September 30th, meaning all non-essential government agencies will stop their work.
the passage of a dozen spending bills is not at all likely. And frankly, the last time the president signed those bills before funding expired was 1997. So what is Congress going to do? And as I mentioned, will Speaker Kevin McCarthy stick around to find out? So Rachel, right now, what are the main sticking points currently over those government spending bills?
Well, you can sort of think about this in two buckets, the short term and the long term. On the short term, lawmakers have a deadline, October 1st. That's when the government shuts down. There's no way the Senate and the House are going to pass all these spending bills, conference them, negotiate them out and get them to the president's desk.
There's just not enough time, not enough legislative days. So right now the debate is, you know, what does that temporary government funding look like? This is like a patch that will last about a month, give them more time to negotiate long-term agreements.
And the big disagreement over that is that in the Senate, there's a bipartisan strategy to keep the government open for a couple of months on current spending levels. They want to add $24 billion in Ukraine aid. They want to add disaster funding for the wildfires, for hurricane victims, et cetera. And they just want to sort of give themselves more time. But over in the House, Kevin McCarthy is facing pressure from conservatives who are threatening to oust him.
that if he doesn't take a stand on what's called the CR, this temporary funding patch, and if he doesn't try to win conservative concessions, that they're going to oust him as Speaker. So the House is working on a package to extend government funding, but they want to take an 8% cut across the board to most non-defense agencies. And they also want to pack it with a bunch of
partisan policy writers on the border, including provisions cracking down on asylum seekers, building the wall, hiring new border agents. And this is a no-go for the Senate and it's a no-go for the White House. So that's why we're on a collision course on this short-term funding patch. And then the second piece of this
is the long-term funding agreement. You'll recall that back when lawmakers raised the debt ceiling, Speaker Kevin McCarthy made a deal with the White House to basically freeze spending at the current levels. Well, conservatives didn't like that. They said it wasn't enough. They wanted spending cuts. So McCarthy has actually gone back on his word on this agreement he struck with Joe Biden, and the House is marking up a bunch of spending bills that are
cut much steeper than the Senate right now. And keep in mind, the Senate is moving on a bipartisan basis. The House is doing its own thing, listening to the conservatives, so McCarthy can protect himself and his gavel politically. But that also needs to be hashed out. And that's more down the road, you know, October, November, December. We've already heard from Kevin McCarthy that he wants the House to pass this continuing resolution so that
you know, funding just the government stays open, funding continues while these machinations play out.
Matt Gaetz said something along the lines of, you know, you pass the continuing resolution. The next thing that happens is we're taking a vote on whether to dethrone you, take away your gavel as speaker. So how does that play out? Like, ultimately, you're pretty, you know, you're pretty bold in saying we're headed towards impeachment. To your mind, are we also headed towards a government shutdown? I love I love making a non 538 or play mispredict it.
on the 538 Politics podcast. Okay, yes. Are we headed towards a government shutdown, Rachel? Let's just say I've canceled all my first week of October plans. Anything after October 1, I'm assuming I'm going to be in the Capitol.
covering shutdown negotiations. Look, I think, yes, I think we're headed for a government shutdown because McCarthy, he's got to show these guys, these conservatives who despise him, that he's fighting. And, you know, I was talking to a top McCarthy ally about this just a couple of days ago. And this is an ally that knows
you know, there's no political endgame here in a shutdown, that they're not going to get anything from Democrats, even if they shut the government down. It's unlikely they'll get what they want. But this person was telling me that McCarthy, in order to save his own skin, is going to have to follow his
his members where they want. He's going to have to follow the conservatives where they want. Now, McCarthy has been making this argument to try to persuade these guys. Look, a shutdown is going to help the Democrats. A shutdown will slow our investigations of Joe Biden. Conservatives aren't buying that. OK, they're just not going to buy it. So good luck, you know, changing their minds. OK, but what if McCarthy, you know, theoretically McCarthy could get maybe half of Republicans, half
a bunch of Democrats pass that continuing resolution, that's a no-go. That's not happening as far as you're concerned. Yeah. I mean, theoretically, McCarthy could put the bipartisan continuing resolution that the Senate is putting together, he could put it on the floor and it will pass with flying colors. I mean, like 300 votes more. Because there are enough Democrats and enough Republicans who will vote for what's called a clean CR, one without policy riders that conservatives want, to keep the government funding. So
But there are a number of members who have already said, if you put that on the floor, we're going to oust you. And...
Even Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is a top ally of Kevin McCarthy, by the way, very close. She told me, you know, just a couple of days ago that she thought McCarthy would face a motion to vacate if he put a clean CR on the floor. So that's why he's putting together this continuing resolution that is just, you know, decorated kind of like a Christmas tree with all these different conservative red meat issues on the border, cuts to funding, etc.,
But the question right now is, can he even get his conference on board with that? I mean, there are members who are saying it's still not good enough and he can only lose four votes. So there's a question about whether he can even get the House to pass the Republican CR. And then is that dead in the Senate? Even if it passes, dead in the Senate. They won't even consider it. They'll take it, they'll change it, and they'll send it back to the House with what they want.
All right. So, Leah, it sounds like a government shutdown may be the likeliest outcome here. I'm not, you know, I'm going to be a little less bold. I'll say likeliest, but...
But what do we know about how the public perceives government shutdowns? Because they've happened plenty of times before. To be clear, this is not as dire as the sort of fiscal cliff that would result in a government default on its debt that could sort of spiral into potential economic crisis. This is more, we've been through this before, they put up gates at national parks, at the monuments. Government employees do get furloughed, so people's lives are absolutely affected. But
We're not talking about things spiraling out of control because rates rise rapidly and people can't afford homes and blah, blah, blah, like that kind of stuff that we were talking about back at the fiscal cliff. So beyond partisan politics, I'm just going to throw out there that it's usually just not a good look for government and faith in institutions. So that's one thing we can expect.
We're drawing the decline, as we all know. Exactly. So, you know, that's not going to reverse it. So Nathaniel Rakich actually went through the last five government shutdowns and looked at each one and who took the blame. And in general, he found that it was the Republican Party for various reasons.
but also emphasize that it depends. It depends on what happens. It depends on how the talks go. It depends on what the fallout is. And I think the risk here for Republicans, again, another risky game is that you can imagine, and actually, Rachel, if you disagree with this, I would want to know, but Democrats so far have been pretty united in their views
kind of decision that they're like, they're not really going to bail out Republicans. They've been pretty much on the same message. Whereas Republicans within the House have been criticizing each other, demanding things from one another, and that's without even getting into the drama of the Senate. So are you going to have back and forth between McConnell and McCarthy in addition to McCarthy and Gates? And what's Chip Roy going to do?
And so you can just imagine that it won't be a good look for Republicans because they will be the ones that we're all kind of waiting for, you know, and they're going to be the ones going to the press and saying what they want out of this deal and whatever.
That's why I think it's probably a little riskier for Republicans right now, even though Democrats have the Senate, Republicans have the House. It could technically go either way. But just looking at the last year, I think Republicans probably have more.
um, greater risk. We can also state like from a historical standpoint, uh, the, the party that usually makes the demands in a shutdown fight, um, typically, you know, they are the ones that are hurt and they don't get what they want. I mean, I'm remembering the big shutdown, um,
It was like 2013, 2014 over Obamacare, where Republicans shut the government down because they wanted Obamacare repealed. They didn't get it. They took a hit politically. And then fast forward a few years, Donald Trump did the same thing with his border wall, right? He refused to sign government funding bills until Congress appropriated money for the border wall.
He didn't get a penny of that money. And we went to like a 35 day shutdown. Pelosi and Schumer held strong. They knew he would, you know, take the heat in terms of from the public opinion. And he did. Polls show that he was blamed and he ended up caving. And,
The shoe has been on the other foot, too, with Democrats. I mean, there was a time when Trump was in the White House. And I remember Chuck Schumer was refusing to, you know, get behind a spending bill because DACA had been, you know, there was something going on with DACA where it was going through the courts and there was a question about whether these, you know, young dreamers would be protected in the United States in terms of their immigration status. And, you know,
Schumer and Pelosi joined together to say, we want DACA, we want DREAMers protected before we support these government funding bills. Well, they ended up caving too and getting nothing for it. And it was just an embarrassing sort of display for them. So historically, the party that makes all these demands, they don't get anything and they get heard from it. But I do think McCarthy...
He's looking at what happened with the debt ceiling just a couple of months ago and thinking he can sort of replicate this. McCarthy had a theory that if he got Republicans to join together on a debt ceiling bill and raise the debt ceiling with a bunch of red meat policies, that the White House would have to negotiate and would have to give him something in negotiations. And he was right. They ended up promising to freeze funding at current fiscal levels when they wanted to actually increase funding. So
I think McCarthy, I don't think, I know McCarthy is making this argument to his members this week. If we unite behind a Republican CR, the White House is going to have to give us something. And again, history does not show that that is the case, but McCarthy was able to do that on the debt ceiling a few months ago, and he's hoping to replicate that.
I was just going to ask, how do these things usually end? It sounds like they usually end with the party-making demands caving. So we'll just have to see how this plays out. But before we go, I do want to wrap up by talking about the ongoing strikes and playing a little game.
You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lipson Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com.
The United Auto Workers Union went on strike last week at three plants, a Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan, a GM factory in Wentzville, Missouri, and a Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio. And it is the first time that the UAW has gone on strike against all three of the big three automakers simultaneously.
They're joining other high-profile strikes, including the screenwriters and actors guilds. And so, you know, after decades of union decline, what do Americans think about all of this? And we are going to play a game. We're calling it Quiz of the Union.
And it's basically because there is a lot of polling out there about what Americans think on unions. It's not really worth doing a good or bad use of polling. It's decent polling. But I just want to sort of tease it out a little bit. And maybe we can talk a little bit about the politics of it all as well. I know this might be a little unfair, Leah. I know you spend a lot more time with public opinion data maybe than, Rachel, you do. It's been a while since I've looked at union public opinion data. Yeah.
Let's set the bar nice and low for me, please. And I will say, I specifically asked you all not to look at polling about labor unions before doing this segment. Hopefully no one cheated. But also I will say, even sometimes when we play these games and people are like way off on the numbers, it's informative because it helps give a sense of maybe like
what Americans think versus what the reality might be in terms of the numbers. Like I have, I play this game because I'm a nerd. I play these games sometimes at dinner where I'm like, people are having a conversation about politics and I'm like, hold up y'all. What percentage of Americans do you think have a bachelor's degree?
People will be like, oh, 65% of Americans have a bachelor's degree. And it's like, no, babe, it's 35%. The vast majority of Americans don't have a bachelor's degree. And then mining the gap between people's perception and what the reality is oftentimes teases out interesting truths about our politics. So just to set that framing, let's go.
dive in and I will ask you a question. You can all write it on a piece of paper. And then when I say go, you can show me at the same time and we will see who gets it. I know Rachel, can I like text you separately? We can just like agree to the same number. So we're in this together. Let's do it. I'm ready to get my butt whooped. Oh, I'm not going to, we're, we're just going to sync together. Okay. So we're going to start, we're going to start broad and maybe we'll get a
What percentage of Americans are in a union? All right. Three, two, one, reveal. We have 15% from Rachel and we have 18% from Leah. It is 11%. So Rachel, you got that.
And just for some historical context, peak unionization rate was 35% in the 1950s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So not a lot of Americans in unions. I'm so glad we guessed this, though, so that we can all know that my 7% being off gave us this opportunity to discuss how we overestimate the strength of unions. I'm so glad I sacrificed myself for this.
Absolutely. Okay. What percentage of Americans approve of labor unions according to Gallup? Just for the record, there's no punishment for getting any of these numbers wrong or not winning this little game. There might be a prize if you do win. Speak for yourself. Fear not. Shame is a punishment for me. Okay. Three, two, one, reveal.
I have a lot of numbers. I said 40%. 40% from Rachel and we have 58% from Leah. Leah gets it, although you both underestimated American approval of labor unions. It is 67%, according to Gallup. Wow. That is down, actually, from 71% last year. Interesting.
For some historical context, the record low was 48% approving of unions after the financial crisis. So two-thirds of Americans approve of labor unions. We've talked about this on the podcast before, and one of the conclusions that we came to is like, in some ways, as labor unions have declined and become less powerful and more symbolic, approval of them may have increased because Americans aren't experiencing the perhaps sometimes negative consequences of labor unions,
while also understanding that supporting labor unions is symbolically basically, you know, pro-workers. And both parties have become increasingly populist. I wouldn't say increasingly populist. The Republican Party has become increasingly populist on labor issues, while the Democratic Party's sort of history lies with labor and, if anything, maybe has become less populist. But anyway...
Let's break this down a little bit. So it's one to one. What percentage of Republicans approve of unions? You might be able to, you know, now that you have the broader number, you might be able to deduce a little bit of the crosstabs here. But we'll see. We'll see. All right. Three, two, one. Reveal. I said 35%. 35% from Rachel and 35% from Leah. We weren't texting each other, we swear. No. No.
Oh, okay. Oh, all right, all right, all right. So finally, once it's tied 1-1, you both suddenly put up the same number, and I am to believe that no one here is cheating.
Okay, so you both get a point because you were equally close. The number is 47%. So once again, actually underestimating the support of Republicans. And so to give you the rest of the crosstabs, 88% of Democrats support union, approve of unions and 69% of independents.
So this is one of those issues that fully unites Democrats, basically, and divides Republicans. I mean, I'm curious for your thoughts on what that means about the political significance of unions. Is like, would that mean that supporting unions, whether it's screenwriters or autoworkers or whatever, is a winning position politically? Yeah.
at least for Democrats and maybe even for Republicans? Like, how should we make practical sense of those numbers? I mean, I have noticed that there's like a flock of Democrats who have gone to the picket line over the weekend. Hakeem Jeffries, John Fetterman, a lot of big name Democrats showing up and, you know, showing their support.
it's been a little more unclear. I mean, I think Donald Trump put out a statement supporting, you know, the workers. But like, I don't think we've seen anything else from other Republican, you know, Republicans running for president. Maybe we have, but like, you know...
I'm not surprised that this divides Republicans. If you think about like just a few years ago when Scott Walker was like this hot shot Wisconsin governor, you know, he made a name taking on the unions and Republicans loved him. The traditional Republican, you know, mantra is like,
Not for unions, right? Often opposing unions. And so I'm actually surprised that there's that much support for unions in the Republican Party. And I know that Donald Trump has very much supported
changed the Republican Party writ large, like it's more populous than it ever has been. But like, this is just, this is proof. The proof is in the numbers here, just how much he has changed the Republican Party when it comes to unions, when it comes to blue collar workers who, you know, really like him. And yeah, I mean, it's interesting. It's really interesting.
Yeah, it's like those blue collar workers, I think is where it's like, it's most interesting, because those were, you know, have been potentially, you know, Obama voters in 2008, who, you know, those are the ones who switched over to Trump, eventually. And I don't know, I mean, I am curious what the difference is in union leadership versus union members. Because that is, I think, a titanic
I've seen a few candidates have to walk in places like Ohio where, you know, the Democratic Union leadership gets behind the Democratic candidate, but the members of the union itself can be significantly more Trumpy and more Republican. So, yeah, I think it just kind of goes to show how, like, where the populist divide is a little bit in American politics. Like, Democrats, while they're all, like, half seen as kind of, you know, like the Obama line, lattes,
sipping elites. They're also, you know, kind of the party of Bernie Sanders, who's an independent, and, you know, more kind of working class workers' rights advocacy. So, yeah,
It's interesting. And I will say the teachers union thing I'm also really interested in and how much that's had an effect on the overall perception of unions. Like when people think of unions, are they thinking about blue collar workers? Are they thinking about auto workers? Or are they thinking about teachers unions, which are, I'm sure we'd have a much higher percentage of disapproval of them in the Republican Party community.
Yeah, yeah. I think that's an important point. And in fact, you preempted my next question, so it's two to two here. Of the three strikes, autoworkers, screenwriters, and actors, which group do Americans side with the most against their employers? And this is according to Morning Consult. So basically, which one is most supported by Americans? Yes. And the question basically says...
These are the strikes that are going on. Do you side with the workers? Do you side with the employees? Do you side with neither? Do you side with both? I know which one. I'm very curious if I got this wrong, too. This is like a good one. If I got it wrong, I'd be really interested. All right. Three, two, one. Reveal.
Auto. Everyone says autoworkers. It is autoworkers. Totally. Yes. So no surprises there. 75% of Americans side with the workers in the autoworker strike. However, the drop-off is not that big. 72% side with writers and then only 67% side with actors. So...
Not so surprising there that actors might be getting the least of the support, but still 67% of Americans siding with actors. That's surprising given that those people make tons of money and yet, like, you know, people seem to have sympathy for them. Well, Fran Drescher may be, you know, gaining some traction in terms of her argument that, like, no, actors belong to every different rung of the socioeconomic ladder, like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Not all actors are millionaires. There's a lot of people working for a two-bit part on...
X show or Y show who aren't millionaires. Although I imagine that most people have not heard Fran Drescher say that. Gotta love the nanny, man. Gotta love the nanny. Fran Drescher is constantly standing up to the man and the nanny. She's just the nanny. She's not Mr. Sheffield. She's not Mr. Sheffield.
He's the one who's out of touch. Mr. Shepard. Yeah. I mean, frankly, I'm glad they reelected her to her post. I look forward to many more press conferences from the nanny. Okay. It is three to three. We're really, it's really egalitarian here. Next one. What percentage of Americans blame Joe Biden for the United Auto Workers strike?
I'm making like some deductions here. Same. Yeah. It's like my deduction's like, okay, definitely Republicans, probably most of them would blame him just because. Like if you asked a Republican on the phone, like is it Joe Biden's fault? Like I'd imagine most would say yes. That's all. Oh, but I just gave away my. That was my thought too though. Totally.
See, we don't have to cheat on text. We can cheat right here in front of you. Yeah, exactly. See, we're being transparent in our cheating. This would be like a fun, actually, YouGov, I
I just say YouGov because they seem to be the most responsive when we put out requests that polling get done. YouGov, I would be fascinated by a poll, and maybe this is a bad use of polling, a poll that just presented challenges facing the country or humanity in general and asking people to what extent is this Joe Biden's fault? So like climate change, to what extent is this Joe Biden's fault?
Like the deficit, to what extent is this Joe Biden's fault? Declining birth rates, to what extent is this Joe Biden's fault? And see what we get. You could do it for Donald Trump too. Yes, exactly. You could do it for anyone, you know? To what extent...
is, you know, to what extent is Marianne Williamson responsible for any of these things too? You know, we could get a whole slate of polling going. Okay. Anyway, I digress. Three, two, one, reveal. I said 30% if you can read my paper. 30% from Rachel and 44% from Leah. I had 40% and I crossed it off and I went to 30. It is 51%. Okay.
You know, originally I had 47% then I realized he just had 47 so I changed it. So 28% of Americans say that he deserves a lot of blame. 23% say he deserves some blame. More blame the auto companies. So 70% of Americans blame the auto companies for the strike.
But that just gives you some some. I mean, I don't know if this is like if you could rationalize it in a roundabout way, basically saying like, well, the reason they're on strike is because of living conditions under inflation over the past several years. Democrats are responsible for that inflation, you know, whatever, like Democrats.
This is according to the person who's the respondent in this. You can also chalk some of it up to like the maybe the spending bills, the aid passed under Trump to whatever you want to say. Or if it's just a reflexive like, yeah, I would say that Joe Biden's probably responsible for this. Do they have an option to say neither? You know what? That is a great question. Sorry, I'm not trying to put you on the spot.
No, it wasn't an option. Okay. Interesting. But you could say it's not his fault. I mean, you could just say it's not Joe Biden's fault. Okay. They went through and they asked, are the auto companies responsible? And it's like a lot, some, not much, not at all. Is automation responsible? A lot, some, not. And actually, interestingly, the second most common answer was automation. So it went-
The auto companies, automation, the union itself, then the success of other unionized efforts this year, then Joe Biden. So while quite a few blame Joe Biden, he is the least blamed of all of the possible responses. All right, so it is four to three. We got our final one. Of the United Auto Workers' Demands, which is the most popular? So here are the demands.
It is a 46% increase in wages over the next four years. Next demand, a one-time $6,000 inflation recognition payment to union members. Next one, a 10% immediate pay increase for full-time employees. Next one, an increase in retirement benefits. And finally, a shortened work week. Honestly, I mean, can we all adopt these demands? Yeah.
Just thinking out loud, I would be highly skeptical if it's the first one, the 47% increase, just because I don't think most Americans have any prayer of getting...
And salary increase that is nearly close to that. And so they might see that as unreasonable. I'd like to pull that though. Personally, that would be a nice way to ask for a raise. Like Americans say, I'm about to go ask my boss for a 47%. Uh, thank you. Can we all band together? Can we, can we unionize this, um, podcast panel and, um,
Go ask for a 46% raise. Okay, so before we dig into this any further, let's have you reveal. So three, two, one, show me.
I said the 10% immediate increase. The 10% immediate increase, inflation. Oh, so wait, did you? No, you didn't guess the same thing. No, I almost guessed to the first inflation payment of $6,000, $7,000, but I went with 10% instead. So I'm curious. So here's an order from most support for this demand to least support for this demand. An increase in retirement benefits is the most popular. Okay.
401ks. 10% immediate pay increase for full-time employees next?
Then 46% increase in wages. Wow. Although there's also some staunch opposition there. So we're not doing net. We're just doing, you know, total. Then a one-time $6,000 inflation recognition payment. And then the least supported is a shortened work week. So I guess the closest was Rachel. So it's 4-4. You both win. Congratulations. I'm so happy for the both of you. Wow, look at that.
Perfect. Just to close out here, you know, did you all learn anything from this exercise? Or what was your takeaway, basically, when it comes to what Americans think about unions and the current labor strikes? That last question, I think, was the most interesting to me, the retirement benefits. Because I kind of, when I heard that one, I was like, well,
people have probably given up on that, right? Like that's given like what we're seeing in Congress and the social security age being debated. I just assumed that that was not going to be in the top kind of realistic category, but the fact that it is, is very interesting, especially with Biden constantly talking about social security and benefits. So I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I was surprised by how much support there is. I mean, part of this is like, you know,
I'm not super steeped in the union sort of politics of things, but, you know, growing up, I grew up in, you know, Dayton, Ohio. The GM plants were, you know, everywhere and, you know, a big part of the economy there. And I actually have a family member who worked at GM and, you know, lost a big chunk of his pension when the union workers went on strike and got certain benefits. He was not
part of the strike and so saw, you know, adverse reaction to it. So I guess just from my own sort of hearing people's stories, I sort of assumed that, you know, there was a bigger opposition to union based on like blowback that you can see from union demands. Um,
But clearly that's not the case, which tells you how people feel right now in terms of their own workload, their own salaries. They are feeling like if people are, you know, feeling so supportive of the unions. I just think that tells us a lot about where Americans are right now and feeling like they're underappreciated. And like, you know, the big guy is like, you know, making all this money and they're not seeing any benefits. And even Republicans, which is really interesting to me. So, yeah, cool exercise. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I'll just say, you know, we've in the past, as I mentioned, talked about how it's possible that maybe support for unions is so high because they are so relatively weak and Americans haven't experienced that.
you know, some potential negative consequences of strikes, for example, say like the teacher's union goes on strike and your kid stays home from school, can't go to school for a bunch of days or something like that. That obviously might change people's perceptions of unions. If cars get a lot more expensive, maybe that changes people's perceptions of unions. So I'm curious if this all continues to,
You know, how will if Americans begin to feel more and more like they're impacted by strikes, will their perceptions change? Will that change the politics of it all? Or will union membership? Will we see a turnaround and will union membership rise?
It's all very interesting, especially being placed in this realignment between the parties and sort of the populism versus more elite parts of the parties. So we will, as I frequently say on this podcast, continue tracking it all. But for today, thank you so much, Rachel and Leah. I really appreciate you joining me, informing me on all the things going on in D.C. and our listeners on all the things that are going on in D.C. and playing along for the Quiz of the Union.
Thanks for having us, Galen. Yeah, thank you. My name is Galen Druk. Tony Chow is in the control room. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple podcast store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.
