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[rock music] Well, it is that time again here on Oklahoma Memo where I talk to Make It Make Sense with Grant Herms host, Grant Herms.

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How are you doing, Grant? I'm good, man. I am good. It's a, uh, chilly Friday here in Detroit. I woke up and it was exactly 40 degrees outside today, so we are in full fall up in Michigan.

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We are in full fall for Oklahoma. That would be mid-60s, very rainy. Uh, the Sooners play Mississippi tomorrow, and it's supposedly going to be a real ugly, wet, swampy sort of game. But fall is finally here, finally.

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Yes. It's a mud ball, though. Everyone likes, likes those games. It's like- Oh... the snow games for New England, right? [laughs] 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Enjoy those, you know, especially if the Sooners win.

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Now, this week I think, um, I'm gonna use a 1980s ana- analogy that I, I didn't really mention before we started recording here. There was a hit song by a guy named Paul Young.

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Paul Young had, like, a number one hit, uh, with, uh, Every Time You Go Away. It was an old Hall & Oats song. But he had a minor hit with I'm Gonna Tear This Playhouse Down, and it was...

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It's one that gets made fun of a little bit, even though it was kind of a cool song, and it's reminding me of what's happening at the White House. We're gonna tear this East Room down. Um- Yeah...

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and this, so this week is really kind of a shutdown and teardown episode. We are in day 24 of the federal government shutdown. I got a chance to talk to Senator James Lankford yesterday, and I thought it was, uh, uh...

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I, I learned a lot. I mean, there, there's a lot. It was hard for me not to find some common ground with him.

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Uh, but also, I am kind of disturbed by this East Room teardown, because a lot of things that are happening in this presidency can be undone. This can't. Right. I think disturbed is the right word for that.

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I do wanna say, I watched your, your Lankford interview twice, actually, uh, because I thought it was excellent, man.

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I know you told me, kind of when we were texting, that you felt a little under-practiced, and like, I didn't hear that at all. So, like, you... It was a good interview.

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If, if whoever's watching this doesn't or hasn't seen it yet, you should go watch it. It's really, really good. Uh, uh, so some- Yeah... of the things that Lankford says in there, uh, and like, I agree.

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And when I talked to Lankford when he was a junior senator, uh, at that point in time, uh, under Inhofe, um, you know, he was always a much more reasonable, regulated person.

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I think that's just kind of his speed as a dude. Um, and he did make some, you know, certain common sense arguments there. Uh, he always does.

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He is the person who's got the bill up that says these government shutdowns like this shouldn't happen.

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Uh, and he's just not getting any pull on that from anybody, even in his own party, uh, let alone from Democratic senators, because the looming shutdown idea is some pretty good leverage when you're somebody in power.

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Um, and so no one wants to give up, you know, a piece of potential power, uh, even if it is good for the rest of us. Um, there were some things that I thought were interesting.

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Like, you know, like you said, he does know his audience, and so he is striking these sort of tones. He didn't say anything, you know, that was, "The, the Democrats have shut this down.

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It's not what we're seeing across government websites," or if you've been in the airport lately, Kristi Noem is saying that in a video. Uh, it, it was really measured.

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He says an interesting thing about Affordable Care Act and Obamacare prices, um, have gone up about 200%, uh, compared to regular marketplace private insurance companies.

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And he was like, "There's something in that system that we have to figure out because it's broken in a way." And it was like, I don't know what that is.

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As if where he kind of does know what that is, because we saw that insurance companies were more or less price gouging the government when it came to Medicaid or Medicare Part D, uh, which is prescription drugs, and that is where a most of this money goes.

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We're not talking about inpatient care or at-home care.

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We're talking about prescription drug prices, because generally people who are on the Affordable Care Act or on Medicaid, Medicare tend to be older Americans, and they need more medication. They just take more meds. And

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r- before 2022, I had to get my year right there, uh, the government could not negotiate with the insurance companies or the drug companies about lowering those prescription drug prices.

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That happens in the Inflation Reduction Act. So when Lankford is saying he doesn't know why these prices are so high, we do know why.

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It's that the government can't negotiate with insurance companies to keep the rest of their coverage low.

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Uh, and also, and he points this out too, um, although I don't, I don't have any evidence to, like, say what he said was right or wrong here, and I don't wanna say that, you know, he was right or wrong.

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He said that insurance companies are adding people to ACA coverage or, uh, I think even Medicaid coverage, uh, without them knowing. I'm, I don't know if there are actually instances of that that are widespread.

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Uh, but we do know that when we talk about things like Medicaid and Medicare fraud, most of that fraud is coming from hospitals and insurance companies. Some malicious, some not.

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Sometimes it's just, you know, you get double-billed or whatever because hospital administration is difficult, and it's a lot of moving parts.

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But that's the kind of thing that we're talking about when we're talking about waste and fraud. DOGE looked into all that stuff and found that, like, surprise, surprise, people aren't bilking the system.

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It's just the system is big and complicated, and these things happen. And so it, it's an interesting idea that, that he wants to keep the government open, uh,

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in order to talk about healthcare stuff and do what he said, which was, like, back in 2013 when Democrats said we're never gonna negotiate healthcare during a shutdown.

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I would argue that these moments in time are different. In 2013, we did not have this, this deadline happening, which is now just, what?

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Six days away, uh, five days away, um-From which is the November 1st deadline of these tax subsidies expiring that will cause six million Americans to lose their health insurance.

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And yes, he's correct that these tax subsidies were extended because they were COVID measures. But if we don't continue them, six million people lose their health care.

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And it's it's the curse of the government, which is to once you give people something, it's really hard to take it back because they've gotten used to having it. And

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I think, too, that there is a middle ground that neither Republicans or Democrats are talking about right now, which is we could pass the CR or Congress could pass the CR, I should say,

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with built into that an extension of these tax credits and subsidies for a medium amount of time, say to the spring, say

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they expire not even the first of the year, say it's at the beginning of the next fiscal year in June or whatever. There's a there's an interim place in which those things could get tacked on and there's money for that.

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And it's an interesting thing that it's sort of this all or nothing idea right now, because so many Americans are going to be really hurt come November 1st.

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It's going to get really, really bad for a lot of families really quickly.

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And if all they want to do is do another continuing resolution, which is keep the government funded at the exact same levels, which is just kicking the can down the road for the big budget fight, then they could probably just do the same exact thing with health care and negotiate health care in the meantime.

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And like that's sort of a political analysis hat that I put on there instead of a reporter hat.

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But it is an interesting part of this conversation that nobody wants this middle ground, which I think it would give them and Americans writ large a little bit of breathing room when it comes to this.

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Since in the headlines that the Republicans are starting to feel the pressure, there were some allusions in news stories that they might be ready to quote unquote cave their words, not mine, because there are multiple deadlines coming up, not only for health care, but for SNAP.

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Six hundred and eighty seven thousand people in Oklahoma, Oklahomans on SNAP benefits. You also have federal workers who are not getting paid today.

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The Shutdown Fairness Act, which was sort of an impromptu piece of legislation, failed yesterday, 55-45. So instead of only needing three people, they actually needed five to get that passed.

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And what's crazy is Democrats had a bill that was 95 percent of that same bill and actually kind of more favorable to workers because it was going to include those who have been furloughed.

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And Senator Ron Johnson from the state of Wisconsin was like, nope, not happening. Wouldn't even give it a chance to be heard. And so there are a lot of these things coming together all at once.

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What ultimately do you think will happen? Do you think the Republicans will, you know, will go ahead and give in? It certainly feels like or it seems like we're getting signals of that right now. You had this week 13

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relatively at risk members of Congress for losing their seats, but also pretty conservative and outspoken members of Congress who signed a letter and sent it to Mike Johnson to be like, hey, our people need help.

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You need to figure something out here as soon as possible

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because we are if these people lose their health care or they or their farmers in their district and they are losing out on a bunch of USDA money and aid, which we can talk about, too. And I think we should talk about.

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But if they lose out on that money or it's one time money or whatever it is, they're at risk of losing their seats.

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And even with all of the changes that are happening at the redistricting levels of all these states and all this stuff, losing 13 seats in the House is still losing 13 seats. That matters. That matters.

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It changes how negotiations happen. It changes who has power in certain committees. It matters. Also, really, really importantly, Tom Cole, Oklahoma, what is he for now? Is that District 4 still? You bet. Yeah.

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He is the chair of the Appropriations Committee, which is arguably the most powerful committee in the House.

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I mean, you can go back and forth with a few of them, but they they're the ones that like control the money, basically appropriate the money. And he is the head of it.

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And he said this week, we need to figure something out. I would he said I would like Mike Johnson to bring House members back to work,

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which they because they're not at work right now because he sent them all home because he was like, we got our job done and passed this continuing resolution to kick the can down the road.

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This is the Senate's fault now, which is funny for a thing I'll tell you in a second. But like Tom Cole saying this,

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he is an elder statesman in the House, regardless of how much power he does or doesn't have in this new MAGA Republican Party. People trust him and listen to him. And he has been there for a long time.

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So him saying, hey, we need to get back to work on this is a big thing. And and he's someone, too, who doesn't take to being public about these things very often. It's not his way of doing business.

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So for him to step out in the limelight like this, that's a deal. That's an important thing.

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The thing that I was going to say is that there's like this sort of old political joke that a new member of Congress comes in and looks at the opposite party across the aisle and goes and he goes, I'm going to do everything I can because they're the enemy.

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I'm going to do everything I can to stop them. And an elder statesman of his own party says, you got the wrong idea. They're not the enemy. The Senate is.

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And that's and and that's sort of like what Mike Johnson just did here with this whole shutdown. But for Tom Cole to say that it's really, really interesting. And I think

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showing at least a little bit here that some of this stuff is is wearing on Republicans. I think they thought that this wasn't going to last this long.

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I think they thought that maybe the president was going to come around to different ideas of ending the shutdown.

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And and he's just not.You know, he's, I, I am not gonna pretend to know what happens in the president's brain, but he is in charge of this shutdown right now because Mike Johnson and the Senate Republicans are taking marching orders from the White House right now, um, 100%.

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So we'll see. Trump's whole being when he approaches these things, and I think I said it last week too, is that he, if he's got a vendetta, he gets even, and that's his sole focus. There is...

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He cannot be seen in any way, shape, or form caving or losing or taking a loss for the greater good. That's just not a part of his identity or being or political thought. So I don't know.

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Um, unless Congress decides to buck the President for the first time, Republicans in Congress, I should say, um, since he's become president, I don't know where this ends. We, we could

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hit mid-November with this, closing in on Thanksgiving, uh, before something happens. Uh, and that's, that's a long time for a lot of people. That's the holiday shopping season.

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That is, that is deep into cold and flu season at schools, um, where a lot of kids tend to get sick.

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That is deep into when we talk about, uh, food production, um, deep into the, the, you know, winterization of, of farms.

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And obviously I'm not a farmer, so farmers who listen to this and ranchers who listen to this, like I, I understand there's way more technicality to that, but, like, you get my drift here.

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Uh, it's, if this thing drags out, you know, until November 11th, say, I don't know, uh, Veterans Day, uh, we're looking at a whole bunch of problems.

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Evidence of what you just said about Congress folks taking their marching orders from the President, there was a lunch the other day at the Rose Garden that raised a lot of eyebrows, not just for the President's insistence that everybody stay in lockstep, but there were swag bags?

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There were. Uh, so these senators went to this Rose Garden lunch. They were there ostensibly to talk about shutdown solutions, and a lot of these senators actually brought their, their concerns.

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They were from beef states. Um, and I don't know if Lankford was one of them or not. I, uh- He was. He was. He was He was. I couldn't remember- Right... if he'd said that or not. Yes.

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Um, and they brought their concerns about helping, uh, ranchers and, and farmers directly to the President, but they left with these red bags that had gold, Trump's gold signature on it, um, you know, the sort of like Richter scale signature he's got.

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Um, it's 'cause it's really identifiable is why I said that. Uh- Yes, yeah...

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but in, in those bags, at, at the very least, there were two hats that said Trump 2028 and four more years on them, and Senator Jim Banks from Indiana posted about that, uh, having those up in his office.

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And I know that on one level the President and Republicans like trolling the press and Democrats and, you know, anti-Trump Republicans, however many of them are left, uh, with this idea that Trump's gonna run for a third term.

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But it's more than that because what, what they're advocating for there is patently illegal. It is, it is unconstitutional. It is illegal.

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Like I, I know that we've had presidents who have served more than two terms in the past and that the initial tradition of it, uh, was a tradition, but like it's law now that you can only serve two terms.

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Uh, Steve Bannon, who is, for listeners who don't know, uh, is a longtime like back and forth insider/outsider of the MAGA world who was a real architect of Trump's 2016 win, and

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he went on, I, I think it was either BBC or maybe it was The Guardian- It, it was the Eco- Yes... The Economist. The Economist, thank you.

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Um, uh, he went on The Economist and said, you know, "This is, Trump is gonna be a three-term president. We just have to get used to that."

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Uh, so for, for Trump to be doing this from the Oval Office, uh, is, is one thing, uh, because that means that his head right now is about either owning the libs, quote-unquote, or trolling the, the media, uh, or, you know,

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not focused on the shutdown in general 'cause he wants to do this thing, or he really is trying to soft launch an illegal third term. Uh, and it's,

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it should be troubling to everybody that this is a thing that other members of Congress are willing to get on board with, whether it's as a joke or, you know, in some sort of way they're, they're serious.

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Sort of like joking, but also like, "But if you're cool with it," kind of a thing. Like, you know, I, and I don't know what's in Senator Banks' head.

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Uh, I, he was the only one that I saw, but I'm sure most of them have these things, um, you know, and if the President comes around they gotta put them up or whatever. But it,

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it should be troubling to people that this is a thing that, that the President is talking about frequently, frequently enough that it's become sort of a meme online. Uh, it is, [laughs] like I said, it is illegal.

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Uh, but also, and I think, uh, bef- I think this is, this would be a good spot to jump to the White House teardown.

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Um, but before we do, we need to talk about the USDA bailout for farmers and ranchers, um, that happened here. Bailout's the wrong word.

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It, it's more a reopening of the USDA offices, uh, I think it was several thousand, uh, around the country. Do you have the number on that offhand? The number of- Go ahead... uh, offices?

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It was just that they, it was $3 billion that they doled out to farmers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that was money that they were gonna get anyway. Um, it wasn't like... Like, a bailout's the wrong word.

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Um, so like it was money they were gonna get anyway 'cause it was gonna go to them. But, you know, in the shutdown here, um, it is unclear how much money or how often they can continue to do that.

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Um, farmers have gone without some of this money for quite some time.

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Uh, ranchers have gone without this money for quite some time, so it's unclear what kind of concessions they had to make becauseYou know, they all know if they listen to this, like you're not planning on a day to day, week to week basis.

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You're planning this stuff months out.

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You're planning for the care of your animals, the feed of your animals, when you're going to send them to a slaughterhouse, when you're going to do all of those things and get them to market.

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That takes months of planning and foresight. And so, you know, we don't know what the impact is going to be on the just the delay of these these funds themselves. But it is a good thing that they can get help.

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There are some questions about whether or not some of this is fully legal. But I think during a shutdown and with this Congress, no one's going to stop the administration doing this. And so

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I think at this moment, like in a point in time when people are going to get help, just kind of take the help and maybe don't worry about some of that so much.

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But that is a if there is a silver lining or moment of brightness in this, that ability to get these people the money they need to be able to send food out to keep prices down because they are at a 30 year high in your grocery store right now.

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You know, that's a good thing. That's when I asked Senator Lankford, that's good news for the food producers, but what about the food consumers?

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The 687,000 across the state of Oklahoma who are on SNAP benefits for whom, if you're on social media, anybody listening to this, there are already people saying, I will step up and help make sure your family gets fed, which is great, which is great.

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But at that point, we're doing, it's not that we're doing the government's work. Charity begins at home. There should be a nice mix of both.

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And as we segue into talking about the East Room, one of the things that struck me going back to the Bannon conversation and the normalization of ideas is that Bannon's approach to these conversations is, oh, you just gave me a rule.

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I will say, why? Why is that a rule? Why should that still be a rule? As if all of these guys are still in debate school. It's just, it seems a little sophomoric to me.

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But it's concerning because it's not an issue until it really becomes an issue.

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And the thing about the East Room, and tell me if I'm wrong, because I listened to your podcast, Make It Make Sense with Grant Herms last night. It was kind of a history of renovations in the White House.

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The president isn't measuring the drapes. He's rebuilding the house, the people's house. Right.

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And that's that the people's house is the important part here is that the president doesn't own the White House while he lives there. He's renting it.

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I think I said in the episode, like we you know, he gets elected and we let him keep his shirts and pants there for four years until he gets if he gets reelected again, then it's another four years.

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But then you got to move out. And so and yes, in that episode, there's a long history of presidents making alterations to the White House. Most of those happen pre 1961.

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And so when when you hear people talk about all the renovations that somebody like Teddy Roosevelt did or William Howard Taft did or Truman or even a Wilson or Calvin Coolidge. Right.

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We're talking about major repairs to the White House because at that point in the 1920s, it's almost 100 years old after the British burnt to the ground in the War of 1812.

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So things are falling apart in the 1950s under Truman. The White House is in such disrepair that engineers are like, I can't imagine this standing still. I don't know how this is happening.

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And so they they don't fully demolish parts of it. There's a cave in in the in the attic at one point because of a fire. But it's not the same thing.

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But after 1961, the White House is given museum status for all intents and purposes, which means that any major changes to the White House have to go through something called the National Capital Planning Commission.

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It already kind of did. But like it's now much more strict and much more rigorous. There's a public comment period that is supposed to happen because, again, the president doesn't own the house.

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He's renting it basically. And it belongs to us. And so we have to sign off on any major changes that happen at the White House.

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And whether that is a direct signing off through public comment or through Congress, that still has to happen. And before we talk about like the swing itself, it's

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it's an interesting thing to me that in the in the vein that we're talking about and I should have said this in the episode, but I didn't because I was kind of lost in the sauce of history in this whole thing. But it

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when Trump talks about being president again in 2028 for an illegal third term. Tearing down part of the White House and creating a brand new space is not something you do as a renter. So he doesn't plan to.

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It's a sign that he doesn't plan to leave. And, you know. Second verse, same as the first, I guess, because he wasn't planning on leaving in 2020 either. But. This is something else.

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And that's a thing that people will be talking about this week. And I think part of that is is wrapped up in people's, you know, being disturbed at seeing the East Wing of the White House torn down entirely.

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I don't know if you've seen the aerial overheads, but they're just a month apart. The satellite images of how much is gone of the White House right now.

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And, you know, for those people who don't know, the East Wing was a later edition. We don't get it till like 1942 to the White House, but it housed starting in the 1970s. But for almost its entire existence,

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it housed where the first lady's office was. Eleanor Roosevelt did most of her massive World War Two organizing from there, her women's rights organizing from there.

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You got major, major moments of the first ladies that we have had in American history coming out of that East Wing.

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And toUnceremoniously tear that down is to erase a large piece of our collective American memory, and that, I think, matters.

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We are people, as Americans, who like symbols and story, and to have something as important as the office of the First Lady, uh, whether you've agreed with every First Lady's mission or not, um, you know, to have that completely erased without notice, without warning, um, i- is, uh, shocking to a lot of Americans who see the White House as an image and symbol of something that has remained a constant for us, uh, a- as an image.

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Um, I mean, I... Hell, even the, some staffers for, um, the... I cannot remember Nixon's wife's name right now. Um- Pat. Pat, Pat Nixon. Pat, thank you. Pat. Yeah. Yes, Pat.

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Um, some, some staffers who worked in Pat Nixon's office when she was First Lady, um, had tried to get the administration to stop demolition just for, like, a little bit so they could go in to try to find a time capsule that they

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buried beneath one of the windows there, because they were worried that it was gonna get damaged.

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Um, and I don't know how long that time capsule was supposed to be there, but at least, you know, a- at this point 50 years, so maybe it was a centennial kind of time capsule, and we have no idea what happened to it because they didn't stop demolition.

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Um, so a lot of things are being lost here. Um, and, and just the idea that the president thinks that he can unilaterally do this is sort of shocking.

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You've seen the list of contributors, because apparently this isn't being paid by, for by taxpayers. It's being paid for by corporate America.

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Aaron Parness, in a video that he posted to TikTok, it was everybody from its usual suspects. It's the Magnificent 10, the, the tech companies. You have some individual, uh, the Edelson Foundation. Um, but i- is it...

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You know, this is, is this not pay for play? So yeah, like, it absolutely is, uh, pay for play here, or at least that's the implication. Um, Trump is transactional as a person. We know that's how he operates.

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Uh, it's how he thinks. Uh, he believes in tit for tat. He believes in quid pro quo. He doesn't see anything wrong with that, and it's been a hallmark of this administration so far, clearly.

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Um, e- even if you just look at recently, Trump said he was gonna send National Guard troops into San Francisco, and then a bunch of tech people who have given him money, given him special honors, uh, donated to his inaugural ball, uh, they said, "Hey, don't do that," and he said, "Okay."

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Um, and so, like, which is, it's a thing he wouldn't have done, uh, if they had just come to him without giving him anything. So when you're talking about the names of, you know, these companies who,

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you know, are, are in this room of people that Trump is talking to to donate to this ballroom, which are, you know, like you said, the, the big 10 companies.

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You've got engineering firms, AECOM, one of them, um, who is doing some of the demolition work right now. Lockheed Martin is on that list.

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Uh, you know, if they donate five, $10 million to this $300 million ballroom, which is now $50 million more than what he said originally, so that cost is going up, um,

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they're gonna expect to get something in return for that. These companies aren't doing this because they think the American people need a grand ballroom.

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They want to be able to point to the, you know, gold star donor wall and say, "Hey, we did that.

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We would like a little extra leeway when it comes to, I don't know, the safety regulations on this latest, uh, A-10 Warthog helicopter." I don't know if Lockheed makes that. I, you know, whatever.

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Um, like, a- and the president might be like, "Yeah, sure," or whatever. Um, so that's, that's there.

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There are also a whole host of secondary questions that need to be asked about this ballroom that, frankly, I have not heard anybody in the White House press corps ask yet, and I think some of this is happening really quickly.

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Uh, and, you know, those are people who work in the White House every day, and it's all of a sudden a third of it's gone. Um, and so they're dealing with their own thing. But it's that

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who pays for the upkeep of this ballroom, the maintenance? Does that get folded into the White House maintenance budget under the chief White House usher? Um, because that's given out by Congress, um, every year.

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So that will change. Um, who pays for the utilities that run into it? You know, gas, electric, water, all of that stuff. Um, and then what happens after Trump is gone?

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And, like, you know, I know that we just talked about him running for a third term here, but he's pushing 80 years old. Um, like, uh, he's not immortal. Um, and it's like- Time is undefeated. Right.

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Right, and, like, I don't want to, like, wish ill on anybody. I'm not saying that here. I just mean, like, time will be undefeated. It re- it remains undefeated [laughs]. So, like, what happens afterwards? Um,

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are, are we as taxpayers then gonna have to pay rent on the Trump ballroom annex to the White House in perpetuity to the Trump family as a way to, like... I, like, I, I don't kn- I don't know.

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We have no idea what's gonna happen with this thing.

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There's a reason that this kind of thing hasn't happened before, and it's not that, you know, as Caroline Levitt said, uh, you know, President Trump just has the, the gumption to do it. Uh, that's not what this is.

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It's that, like, the process to get this done, uh, is really complicated, and there are a lot more consequences that happen from this thing. And so yeah, it's, it's a,

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a, a shocking, disturbing moment here to watch this, this happen, and it says a lot about what Trump thinks about the presidency and how long he's gonna be in it and how important he sees the office of the president versus himself.

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It's all wrapped up in this thing.I think that there is, um,

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has historically been a respect for the office, and that's a, a big reason why the people who have held it and their families have not, uh, breached these norms.

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It's a big reason why your Barack Obamas, your Bill Clintons, your George W. Bushes, they don't come out and criticize the new president, because they have so much respect for the office and its history.

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But before we go, I wanna ask you about this, and, uh, I'm popping this on you impromptu, but it seems like Return of the Jedi, or to quote Mark Morrison, Return of the Mack, former president, former, former president Barack Obama is back in it to win it.

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He's- Yeah... working with these states to fight redistricting. What can you, uh, explain to us about that? So this is super interesting, um, w- on, for, for two reasons really quickly.

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So the first one is that, uh, from a historical standpoint, if we're gonna stay in this sort of brain mode for a second, a lot of this stuff, fighting at the state level, is, is actually a problem because of Obama.

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So one of the, the large failings if you're a Democrat of the Obama years is that he pulled so much money and, and energy away from state level Democratic politics, and put that towards national level politics for lots of reasons.

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But it hollowed out places that were solidly Democratic or were maybe purpley, bluey purple or whatever.

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Um, and, and it just erased whole swaths of these things, and meant that state levels in which a lot of these things matter, um, sometimes governorship races, they just didn't have the backing of the Democratic Party anymore because there just wasn't money there.

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And so for him to go back to these places and fight these things is really this sort of interesting kind of full circle moment.

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I don't know if it's like a mea culpa tour, but, like, it is an interesting bit of, of mirroring, um, versus, you know, Obama now versus Obama then.

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The, the second thing is that the Democratic Party still does not have a clear leader. They are still listless in this.

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Um, you know, the most senior person on the Democratic Party right now in leadership is Chuck Schumer. He is not long for his leadership job. Um, i- that is very clear at this point.

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I would be surprised if by, you know, next fall, uh, after the midterms, if he's still the majority leader or the minority leader, um, for, for the Democrats. Um,

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so Obama coming forward in this moment is really interesting because it may give people at a state level, uh, which will balloon out, um, a person to rally around again, and a figurehead of the party, which people for a long time have wanted Obama to be.

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Uh, and out of respect for having his day in the sun and then moving on, he's chosen to not do that. And also, like,

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why take the slings and arrows of being that person after you've already done it for eight years, and you can go live your normal life with a bunch of money and do a bunch of Netflix stuff, right?

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Like, I, I get that, too. But Obama stepping into this world, uh, and out in, into the spotlight again in a serious way in politics is an interesting moment in terms of who's gonna lead the Democratic Party.

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Um, and then also I think on the flip side says something about how the Democratic Party doesn't have a core of younger leadership coming up.

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They have to turn back to a guy who was president, you know, uh, almost a decade ago, right, who hasn't been president for 10 years, to do some of this stuff.

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Will it actually move the needle when it comes to redistricting stuff? I don't know. Virginia just said they're gonna try to redistrict, uh, in their state. Um, I,

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you know, I put a video up about this yesterday on the social media stuff for Make It Make Sense where Virginia is gonna try to rig some of this to get two or three more seats for Democrats, because they control, Democrats control the legislature right now in Virginia.

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And Virginia went to, uh, Kamala Harris, but there was a moment there in which, like, that was gonna be this linchpin for the race, and the fact that it was so close kind of already was.

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So I don't know what, if Obama's gonna move the needle for this. It, he's good at energizing Democrats. He's a, still a great public speaker.

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Might be the, the best living speaker we've got right now in American politics. But we'll see how much political weight he can actually still throw around or if we're just in too different of a moment. I don't know.

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This could be a litmus test for 2028. If Bannon wants his dream to come true, why not turn this into a Rocky movie? Because if Trump runs, there's no reason why former president Barack Obama shouldn't be his opponent.

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Right, and he's, and Obama would still be, um, I think at least a decade younger than Trump, uh, at that point. Right. So at least. Like, uh, Obama's not pushing 70.

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So yeah, so, like, it, it, it could be one of those things. It would be a dizzying, insane campaign to be doing what we do. Um, but then again, what hasn't been in the last couple years?

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[laughs] So it would just be sort of par for the course. That's why I listen to you every week, Grant- Yeah... to get this, this sense of perspective and learning. That's why they call it Make It Make Sense.

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And when, folks, when you go out there and look for this, make sure you're looking for Make It Make Sense, uh, with Grant Herms, H-E-R-M-E-S, or as I have started to look for it whenever I go into YouTube, because sometimes I'm like, is it a video that we posted?

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Is it a v- video that you posted? I just look for MIMSpod, M-I-M-S-P-O-D. Yes. Yeah. MIMs is, is always the acronym for it. It's probably the easiest way to find it.

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The icon is a little, like, dumpster fire, so if you find that, you found the right one. Love it. It's anything but a dumpster fire of a listen. It's fantastic. Thank you.

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And I appreciate you talking with me again this week. We will do it again next week, and, and, you know, w- we will be hitting November 1st, so we'll see if we're still shut down. Yeah, we will see, man. It's, um,

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it is do or die time this next week, so, you know, fingers crossed that we're having a very different conversation about the government shutdown. Uh, but we'll see. I can't wait to talk to you next week. Same.

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Thank you very much. And for those of you who have not subscribed to the Oklahoma Memo newsletter, it is a daily local news recap. It hits your inbox at 7:00 A.M., Monday through Friday.

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