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The government runs out of money in eighteen days. I know no one's talking about a shutdown yet, but I'm reminding you of this as there's no agreement on top lines, and you are going to hear the shutdown clock and all that stuff coming in the next couple of weeks. House Republicans are set to vote tomorrow though on a budget resolution. This brings us back to the whole reconciliation plan, the Trump tax cuts and so forth. They may not have the numbers for that either. And I will just
let you know. An hour from now, we're going to be talking with New York Congresswoman Nicole Malia Takis, who is a Leen's no according to reporting, with concerns about potential cuts to Medicaid. Just keep that in your pocket until next hour. Big doings at the White House. French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House today as we
mark the third year of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The President just kicked off a truth social about that, saying that I am in serious discussions with Vladimir Putin concerning the ending of the war and also major economic development transactions, he says, which will take place between the US and Russia. Talks proceeding very well. Would love to know more about this if you're with us on YouTube looking at the
truth post. He says, everyone expressed their goal of seeing the war end when they had their meeting of the G seven this morning. Emmanuel Macron even crossed the street from Blairhouse to sit in the Oval for this conversation. I emphasized, he says, the importance of the vital critical minerals and rare Earth's deal between the US and Ukraine, which we hope will be signed very soon. A big pressure play going on there that we'll talk about a
little bit more later on this hour. We do expect to see Emmanuel Macron make a formal arrival, if I can call it that, at the White House. He's staying really just truly across the street at Blairhouse, ran over for the meeting. Now the real formal arrival will take place, and they'll be in the Oval Office for a bilateral meeting later this hour. We'll bring you to the White House for that. There's one more I haven't mentioned. Federal workers have until midnight to prove that they should have
their jobs. Elon Musk first went on Twitter with this idea that an actual memo from the Office of Management Budget went out. Yep, you got to send an email with I believe five bullet points to suggest what you accomplished last week and why you should keep your job. Which is where we start our conversation with Laura Davison, Bloomberg Politics editor. She runs our political coverage here in Washington. You ever send an email like that to an employee,
give you to the close of business five bullets. I mean, this is kind of blowing some minds around here.
Well, it's one thing to send it to one employee, it's another to send it to two plus million employees, which really raises the question of what are they going to do with all these responses. But the guidance from agencies across the board has been totally different. At DoD, at the State Department, some other places, they said do not respond. Department of Homeland Security said we will respond
on your behalf. Other agencies were sending out guidance saying, hey, do respond, and here's some tips about how to talk about what you've been doing. It is really unclear what happens the OPM, the officer Personnel and manage it.
Basically the HR for the federal government o PM thank you for gving me.
Yes says that agencies will decide what the next steps are. Musk says, if you don't respond, you'll be fired. So there's just a lot of uncertainty and a lot of angst in the federal workforce.
Yeah, so, I guess there were some pretty tough sessions over the weekend with people sitting down to write emails only to hear from their boss that they shouldn't send them. So is this midnight deadline real or not?
It's as real as far as we know. But there was you know, as one person put it to me, every single cabinet secretary's weekend was ruined as they.
Tried to deal with all of this.
It just it was unclear exactly what the authority is, what they're going to do, and you know, for the case of a lot of agencies, they're dealing with classified information. They're dealing with you know, personal sensitive information that shouldn't necessarily go out to just you know, a random inbox over at o PM.
Yeah. So, Elon Musk, when challenged over this whole idea, said on Twitter that he was essentially following the direction of the president here, consistent with President Trump's instructions, and that followed we're presuming a tweet or a truth from Trump who said that Elon is doing a great job all caps, I would like to see him get more aggressive. Were those of the instructions.
That's what he said, But of course Trump didn't say specifically, email everyone and ask them what they're doing. There's a really interesting dynamic that's playing out here where Trump is essentially kind of having Musk do a lot of the dirty work. You know, we're starting to see and pulling that Musk is becoming less popular. People think he's overstepping
his authority here. So there could be a little bit of you know, Trump says, go do more, Musk does it, but Trump doesn't have to take the political political fall for it.
So please reply to this email, well, the approximately five bullets of what you accomplished last week and c see your manager says the email, This is coming from the HR division of OPM. As you just mentioned with the heading what did you do last week? Please do not send classified information links or attachments. Do you wonder how many actually wrote the email.
It's really unclear that there are dozens of agencies who have said, yes, go ahead and reply. Certain agencies said we'll be reviewing this at the agency level. You're also supposed to see see your manager on your response. So one thing that has been pointed out is maybe this is a way that the dog is trying to put together a tree, sort of a list of all the people in the federal workforce and how it all fits together.
You could use AI, you could use a bunch of tools to examine all of these, but people are really worried about sort of what it means if they respond, and what it means if they don't respond.
Well, we should know. Federal Labor Union say the OPM email was illegal. Does that mean that this then goes to court and we have yet another case that we're waiting on it.
It is already in court. Multiple multiple cases have already been filed. So we could expect to see you know, potentially a restraining order even before the deadline at midnight to night.
Wowee, it's just amazing. You can almost see it coming to your point. Pentagon State Department Justice, FBI, n I H Energy, I ran out of fingers, DHS, HHS Officer of the d on I Noah, and the nssay have all told employees they either should not or do not need to respond. So I'm guessing that Elon Musk is going to be kind of disappointed by what he gets here.
It's interesting. He even had an early morning tweet saying that this has a little bit, a little bit of a mess, sort of acknowledging the issue that was created here. He also sort of just sought to defend his actions by saying, look, you know, this was essentially a pulse check. You know, this would be very normal in the private sector, but we're really seeing sort of those private sector management
techniques really run into loggerheads. What is typical and legal and you know, considered to be normal within the public.
Is the doose bros like reading these emails deciding whether people keep their jobs.
No know, this even this this email address that sent out the email. This is the same email address that no one had really ever seen before until it set the buyout email a couple of weeks ago saying hey, you know, take this buyout and we'll get you out of the government. Only about seventy five thousand people took that. They wanted a lot more, you know, potentially three to four times as many people to take that. So now we're seeing the repercussions of sort of sure as they dig deeper.
More specifically, Laura Davison US aid is essentially shuttered as of today. Is that does that agency exist anymore? All of the workers are on leave? Is that true?
Essentially all of the workers are on leave. There are a handful of people in top administrative roles that are that are there. They still have some folks overseas who they said will keep access to their systems and their things so they can get home safely, but essentially all the work has stopped. They even want a sort of an injunction in illegal battle this weekend. We'll see where
that continues as the courts go here. But this is if you know, DOGE wants a success story, they can point to that and say, look, here's how we were in within less than a month able to dismay into an entire agency.
Can I ask you if we could just lift the veil for a second here on covering DOGE. This is your purview. Your team is trying to cover this. But it's not a government agency in the traditional sense. It doesn't have like a pr office, does it. How do you track all of these headlines and figure out what's real because you see something on Twitter, truth social and then a memo and they're all different.
It is really sort of a game of triangulation and going and checking with multiple people, you know. So DOGE what it really officially is is what's called a temporary organization. It's an office that sits in the White House complex. There are some employees that were there beforehand, many of those have been laid off. New people have come into the fold, and then they've fanned out across all the agencies.
We're seeing a lot of the DOGE bros that go into certain agencies are popping up at other agencies in the following week. You know, there's about three dozen or so names that we've tracked. There could be more, but it's a relatively small group of people who are sort of, you know, flitting about Washington, you know, accessing data, compiling list of people that they think should be laid off, et cetera.
And then you have to scrub any number of social media posts to get to an actual headline before you realize what's real. That's the hard part of the job, right.
And it's really confusing even to people inside the agency. They just don't know what's happening, even the leaders.
Yeah, wow, you should hear it in the newsroom. When the truth or the tweet goes out, people start running, the phone calls start happening. That's Laura's team, and thank you as always Laura Davison with us here on the fastest show in Politics. You know it's real if Laura says that, you can at least take that to the bank. And we're going to talk a little bit more about what's happening on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue with
regard to crafting a budget, never mind reconciliation. It's all ahead with Ron Bonjin.
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Important stuff going on on Capitol Hill all the while House lawmakers are streaming back into town. So then we'll be with us over the course of the day, including Nicole Malia Takis right at the top of our second hour at one o'clock, all leading up to a rules committee vote today that's expected to take place in a floor vote at least. Look, this is what they're saying. I'm not telling you it's actually going to happen, but
a floor vote tomorrow. This is like make or break time all over again for Mike Johnson, because not everyone appears to be on board. This is the big stuff, the big budget resolution that would include Trump tax cuts and all the rest. Stakes are high right now and they're awfully busy working on all this stuff on K Street, which is why we wanted to spend some time with Ron Bonjing. Of course, a legend on Capitol Hill, now an icon on K Street. He's co founder partner Rock Solutions.
Ron Bonjing, welcome back to Bloomberg. It's great to have you, sir, just right off the top. What do we think is happening when we've got this Senate versus House situation, one big beautiful bill versus this idea of doing it a couple times, and everyone seems to think they have the answer to this. Can Mike Johnson even get this out of the blocks and say that he's got a Republican conference behind him.
Well, it's definitely crunch time, Joe. On Capitol Hill. You've got the budget resolution that is supposed to come up for a vote sometime after six o'clock tomorrow. This leaves House Republican leadership with absolutely no wiggle room for maneuver. That's why I'm skeptical that the vote actually happens tomorrow night. You have a number of Republicans that are very skeptical
or very concerned about the cuts. You know, a number of House Republican moderates have already signed a letter indicating their concern about all sorts of cuts, including Medicaid. One of your guests coming up, you know, Melia ta Congresswoman Melia Takis is alean No. It only takes one member right now of House Republicans to vote no to bring
down the whole thing. So they're usually when you have a big monstrosity, you know, a huge bill like this, you're gonna want to take the whole week, maybe Thursday or Friday for a vote. And that may be very well when happens, and that helps you really, you know, fine tune and get these members back on board.
There's your reality check. Then from Ron Bonjing, a lot of people to saying, do not hold your breath or stay up all night. So marku is the vote simply isn't going to happen. This House Resolution run includes instructions for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to find eight hundred and eighty billion dollars in cuts, and the idea is he can't do that without raiding Medicaid. Is that a fair synopsis of what's going on. That's why the Malia Takises of Washington are concerned about this.
Yeah, that's right. Look, the Bunisher resolution doesn't say where the cuts come from. They don't dictate that, but it's pretty obvious where they need to come from. You're going to go to the social service programs like Medicaid, and that carries a huge political risk for Republicans like Malataki's
for it. Like a moderate from California and David Valdeo and others who have are really in purple districts, and this could be a vote that if they take and these cuts are in there, this could be a huge, huge problem for them, you know, with all the advertising that's unleashed to motivate voters to go to the polls and to vote against them come November this early on too,
so they're going to have to figure this out. The one big beautiful bill has to be made shinier, has to be made with sparkles it or something for these members of Congress to really think it's beautiful.
Well, so where are you on that whole idea? I mean you just pointed out this majority of one. It's kind of ridiculous. Does that necessitate one big beautiful bill, as some say, because you're not possible going to pass two, will be lucky to get one. Is what folks in the House would tell you. The Senate would say, look, we need to get a win on the board now, so do what you can and we'll come back around on the tax cuts. Ron Bonjin, it's the existential question of the moment in Washington.
Yeah. No, look, I would say this. The fact that there the Senate's already passed there, so the House is working on theirs is positive motion for President Trump. He has made this a signature part of his first year.
I mean, he has a whole host of other priorities of the scene that you've been broadcasting, but the fact that he's getting this in motion, getting this put forward, something is going to happen here with this bill and the amount of political capital that's putting put into it, I can't see this vote failing, I mean his vote. If this vote were to fail, then you have to look at other alternatives, like the Senate bill. That's not
something they want to do. By the way, the government needs to also be funded this month, so you're putting in all this political capital on the front end, and you're going to need some on the back end for that funding bill too. It's just a really difficult situation. While at the same time, they are putting the momentum forward and making members flashing the members out, where are the members standing? Okay, they've got a handful of members that are really concerned about it. What can they do?
What can the leadership do to modify their concerns? What can they do to make them, you know, vote yes. If that were to happen, then the bill moves forward, and you know, the political risks are what they are, and then Trump gets what he needs. I don't think Trump cares what you know, he may call it the big Beautiful Bill. I don't think he cares what gets to his desk, as long as his priorities get there eventually, in in a timely manner. This is just the resolution.
By the way, this is not even the beginning of reconciliation, which is going to take all year.
Yeah, the hard part follows this. Ron Bondrey and I just want to mention that Emmanuel Macron has made his way back to the West Wing, crossing over from Blair House, and there you see on YouTube a live image of President Macron and President Donald Trump as they prepare to go inside. They will retire to the Oval office for some pretty hard conversations as they make their way into the mansion. Right now, they will emerge a little bit
later on. We will have a pool spray at the top of their sit down on the Oval, so we might get a couple of words. Once they play that back. You see the press pool now running behind them into the West Wing and then an actual formal bilateral news conference will follow. I want to remind everybody Ron Bonjean was chief of staff to the Senate Republican Conference. In one life he was also Comms director of the Speaker, a Republican Speaker of the House, Denny Hastard, and another life.
So listening to you talk about the push and pull between these two chambers, Ron is really interesting and kind of figuring out who's actually going to win here. But you just pointed us to something that very few people are talking about in Park because I don't know how everyone even understands all this stuff taking place at once. You've got a budget resolution reconciliation fight in waiting, but yeah, have to fund the governments and in eighteen days we're
about to run out of money. We know how the Freedom Caucus feels about this. A lot of Republicans who have a real allergy to continuing resolutions, they have an allergy to raising the debt ceiling. And you wonder, to your point, how much political capital is going to be burnt here before we have to take another difficult vote on keeping the government open in March.
A tremendous amount is going to be burned over the resolution. However, they're going to have to dig deep to find to find a way on funding the government. And there could be another extension. There could be an agreement between Republicans who have serious problems over this or funding to kick the can down the road once again. You very well could because you're not going to have one Democrat on
the side of Republicans. I just can't see it. With the fact that you know, we have a president who is on leached d Elon Musk and cutting in the federal agencies and really frustrating House Democrats, why would they want to be helpful? Why would House and Senate Democrats want to be helpful to helping President Trump govern the way he's the way he's leading. In their view, they
don't like it. So I can you know, not to mention you're you know, within this funding resolution, we're also talking about raising the debt ceiling, which is a tremendous ask as well. So I think you know, could they fund it?
Yes?
Will they need to have more time?
Probably, So you've got folks like Tim Burchett just say they won't even consider raising the debt ceiling or at least have always voted no. Can I ask you, Ron, what's what does a thin majority like this mean for K Street? Is it better for business the tighter things get or is it the opposite because some members are less willing to be influenced by outside forces.
I think that the more confusing things are, the more chaotic they are, the better it is for K Street because they are view look to to help solve these type of problems, to help to help companies and organizations
groups navigate this traverse terrain. It's at with certainty comes you know, comes clarity, and without that, you know, without that, you really need the best minds of KSE straight, you know, helping you out, helping you guide yourself, helping guide your organization through this maze.
Well, that's why we're talking to you right now. And if I heard you correctly at the outset run, it'll likely if this budget resolution passes the House, it'll likely come at the end of this week. Is that what our audience should expect?
I would think conventionally, Yes, conventionally, that's what usually occurs. Anything can happen in this unpredictable environment. I just don't see how you can convince these members on the floor of the House when you put this down that this is going to be, that this is going to work out well, there has to be much more of a dialogue in order to bring some of these questionable members on board. So could you see it now, yes, but I think it's more likely later on this week.
Makes a heck of a lot of sense and always a pleasure to spend some time with Ron Bongie and thank you Ron for the insights. Rock Solutions partner, co founder, republican influencer here in the nation's capital. Macron's in the building. Will assemble our panel next. Rick Davis Adam Hodge with us as we prepare for an important day in geopolitics.
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Back in Washington this week after the President's Day recess is the House of Representatives and they return to work on Capitol Hill today with a big to do list this week, all supposed to culminate in a vote tomorrow evening on the budget resolution that would give the Ways and Means Committee four and a half trillion dollars of headway to make the Trump tax cuts permanent, but has to come with a lot of spending cuts to keep
conservatives in the conference happy. And it seems that there are enough members who are unhappy with the way this is all laid out that it's no guarantee this thing can pass on the floor.
Or at least concerned I guess. Yeah. Look, we're going to have a committee a vote of an important one a little bit later on today, then we talk about the potential for a floor vote as early as tomorrow. Ron Bonjin, the Republican strategist on K Street, told us earlier,
don't hold your breath. If this happens, it'll likely be toward the end of the week for the very difficult math that you're referring to here, Kley, And it's where we start our conversation with Congresswoman Nicole Malia Takis, the Republican from New York, is with us live from Capitol Hill right now with this looming vote, congress Woman, welcome back to Bloomberg TV and Radio. It's great to have you reports say that you are a lean no on
this over concerns about potential Medicaid cuts. Is that accurate and what would need to happen to make you a yes?
Well, I would say right now I've moved a little bit toward yes. I'm still between undecided and LEO and the reasons why or because I still need to get a better understanding and some assurances that we're not going to have impacts on Medicaid recipients in my district and the hospitals that I represent that are already struggling safety
net hospitals and any cuts that could affect them. The reality is, if you want to achieve what they've put forward, they've only given us four and a half trillion dollars for tax cuts, and that has to include an extension of all the existing provisions that are in the Tax Cut Jobs Act, Right, So your child healthcare, a child tax credit, your standard deduction that was doubled, the lower personal income, as well as the corporate tax rate, the bonus deduction R and D. All of that is going
into that four and a half trillion, So it doesn't leave a lot of room to add the president's additional tax priorities, which happen to also be priorities of mind, restoring the salt deduction to an extent, lowering taxes for seniors, no tax on tips. So what happens then we'd have to find additional savings. They're already proposing about one and a half trillion dollars in savings, and they want to do another half a trillion to increase those tax cuts anymore.
So that begs the question where will those savings and cuts come from? And I have a big problem if it's going to be in the medicaid space. We've already said no Social Security cuts, no Medicare cuts. But with the Medicaid, if we focus on true waste, fraud, and abuse and mismanagement of the program, that's one thing. If we want to ensure that only US citizens receive Medicaid,
that's another thing. I can support those making sure able bodied Americans eighteen to sixty four without dependents are working to receive their benefits. I can also support that. But those are the questions I have at this moment, and they have not been addressed, and so until they're addressed, I'm aleno.
Okay, Well, we are understanding, at least Congressoman, is that leadership has a limited amount of time to address those concerns. If they do want this on the floor tomorrow night, what odds do you put on this getting delayed as they try to work to address your concerns and that of other colleagues you might have them.
Well, well, those of us who have the concerns on where this eight hundred and eighty billion within the energy and commerce space, which includes medicaid, just have a simple question, where is it eight hundred and eighty billion dollars going to come from? Are we going to be repealing additional IRA energy tax credits, Are we going to be ending electric vehicle get mandates? Are we going to be like
where is it coming from? That's those you know, that's our question, and we need an answer to that before the vote. I know that the President has made very clear he also does not want to see cuts to beneficiaries on Medicaid. That's great. I'm glad to hear that from the President of the United States. I've heard it also from the Speaker. I had a good conversation with him last night, and he also has a very large Medicaid population in his district, so he also shares these concerns.
So the question begs, then how are we going to get to that eight hundred and eighty billion by not touching it. I'm glad that everyone agrees that you don't want to affect the beneficiaries. I have people who are senior citizens who are developmentally disabled or have other disabilities in my district and they rely on this Medicaid healthcare and I don't want to see them be impacted by it. So we just need to see that. Look, look, I come from New York, and we also know that New
York State mismanages a lot. Let's be honest, and there's a lot there that could be that is abused by the State of New York, certain loopholes that they're taking advantage of to take more Medicaid money. And the expansion of Medicaid after COVID actually led to the federal government picking up ninety percent of the share and the state only kicking in ten percent. Maybe the state needs to kick in a little more and that would help us reduce the debt that we have here on the federal level.
Those are all conversations I'm open to having. I just want to make sure that my beneficiaries are not impacted in the process.
Well, and of course that that is your job to ask those questions, congresswomen, and you're not the only member asking them. This idea of a vote tomorrow seems to be like a bit of a reach. What's the real timeline as you consider the days ahead? Maybe by the end of this week, when do you think Speaker Johnson and to Emmer will know that they have the numbers to move forward.
Well, we'll be a group of us that are particularly concerned about the medicaid issue. We're going to be meeting with the Speaker in a little while this afternoon, and so hopefully we can get some additional clarity and assurances and we'll see. We'll see what happens in that conversation
and what kind of insurance assurances that we receive. But yeah, I mean, look, if they don't have the votes, it would make more sense to either amend the resolution or to wait until we have more conversations with the White House and our colleagues. Now, the other thing is people need to recognize this is a budget resolution that the Senate already passed a different version that includes no money no,
no money for tax cuts. So we have two different versions here, so eventually we're going to have to get
to one version that passes both houses. So really, in a way, we're taking this vote and even if it passes, it most likely is not the final version because I don't see the Senate taking that up, which means we'd have to come together and hash out something that's in the middle, hopefully one that will address all the President's priorities of the of the savings, rooting out the fraud wasting abuse, as well as the money for the tax
cuts to implement the additional tax provisions for the middle class. And then we have to go forward as a team on both sides in the House and the Senate and pass that before we can actually unlock the legislative process of getting into the details and which which provisions will be included in the overall conciliation package. So there's still
a long way to go in this process. I know that this vote is important tomorrow, but you know, if it does not pass, there's still an opportunity for the House and the Senate to get together based on these two frameworks and pass that one package. It's going to be done regardless of whether we passed this tomorrow or not.
Well, and of course the timeline you're working with here does have the ability, at least the flexibility to be extended, as it's really the tax cuts that are expiring at the end of the year, and that seems to be the deadline. I'd like to ask you, though, Congressoman, about
a deadline that is much closer. Mid March. We're just eighteen days away from government funding running out, and it's still unclear to us here at Bloomberg, and I wonder if you can provide some clarities to whether or not forward progress is being made on talks with Democrats to avert a shutdown. Are we going to see the lights turn off? Or will there be a continuing resolution or actually appropriations bills getting across the floor.
Well, I'm hoping we will once ay again at a government shutdown. This is I mean, I've only been here for two terms and I've already been through this about five times, but thankfully each and every time we did avert the shutdown. But this does require cooperation and bipartisanship, and I'll explain why. Under unlike the budget resolution, where you can do this with just a simple majority, which
the Republicans have. The funding mechanism has to be done with sixty votes in the Senate, which means you need seven Democrats to come along in the Senate. You can't achieve that if you're just going to have a Republican only a piece of legislation that moves forward. So regardless of having the trifecta, we need to engage the Democrats
in this process. Now, once you negotiate with the Democrats, what happens you lose a few dozen in the House because the Freedom Caucus guys don't believe we should negotiate. They don't you want to negotiate with us and the other Republicans in the conference forget about the Democrats on the other side of the aisle. So this does present a little bit more of a complication this year. So we do need, you know, the moderates in particular on the Democrat side, to recognize that we need to avert
a shutdown. Hopefully they will come and join us to vote to avert a shutdown. And you know, that's the reason why I'm a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, because I think it is important for Republicans and Democrats to get together and have these conversations, and this is an opportunity where they can actually help. They were not there for us when the far right tried did kick out our Speaker Kevin McCarthy. They went along with the
far right to do that. This is another opportunity for the Problem Solvers Caucus to show that they truly want to work together and avert a government shutdown. And I hope that's exactly what happens. But I'm going into this knowing. You know, in government you're not gonna get everything you want, just like in business, just like in relationships, just like in life. But certain unfortunately there are some members that want all or nothing. And that's just the way, not the way it.
Is here, not the way the cookie crumbles. All right, Congressoman, thank you so much, joining us live from Capitol Hill. That's Republican Congressoman Nicole Mally Taucus of New York. And as she told us, she and others of her colleagues who are concerned about potential cuts to medicaid. We'll be meeting with the House Speaker later on today. And we actually heard from Speaker Johnson earlier speaking about this process. This is what he said.
If we get the budget resolution passed this week, which is the plan, then it's possible that Elistophonic would go ahead and move on to her assignment at the UN as the ambassador there once she gets through the confirmation process and a Senate, which I think would go quickly, and then that would start the clock. And so let's hope that we can get it filled in time and hope that the law is respected by Democrats in New York.
So referring to a few things here, won the potential passage over this budget resolution in the House, which he said could mean that another congresswoman from New York, Alista Phonic, who has been tapped to be the ambassador to the UN, would actually leave the chamber. She's trying to juice the majority as much as possible given how thin it is. So on that note, we turn to our political panel today.
Rick Davis is with US Republican Strategist and Stone Court Capital Partner, also Bloomberg Politics contributor, together with Adam Hodge for spokesperson for the National Security Council at the White House. Now with Bully Pulpit International and Democratic Strategist. Welcome to you, both Rick. Obviously, we just heard from Congressman Maliya Takis that she has not yet sold on this budget resolution. If you had to put odds down, is this thing going to get a vote tomorrow night?
Yeah?
I just don't know how if you're concerned about the medicaid portions of this reconciliation bill, how you can actually go forward. Because eighty eight billion dollars a year, eight hundred and eighty billion in ten years the term of the reconciliation package, and that's off the four point five
billion in tax cuts. The Freedom Caucus once an additional five hundred million in or billion in tax cuts, which means they got to get five hundred million additional cuts, which, by the way, brings the medicaid portion already in a formula from the Energy and Commerce Committee to one point one seven trillion. Now you go back and campaign for reelection on having just cut one point one seven trillion
dollars from the Medicaid bill. I'm sorry, but there is a lot of waste frauden abuse, and she's absolutely right about New York and it's inefficiency, But that one point one seven trillion is a lot more than waste fraud abuse and politically untenable to anybody running for reelection.
Adam, your thoughts on this? And I just want to mention quickly that we are waiting for video from the Oval Office that is just about to start rolling here of President Trump's meeting with Emmanuel Macrone. First of all, will there be a vote tomorrow on this on the floor of any sort, Adam? And when you listen to someone like Nicole Malia Takas, do you think it can pass?
But I think if you look at Speaker Johnson's past history, things get kicked down the road a little bit, so it wouldn't be surprise me if this slips just a little bit. What you're hearing from the congressman there is what and Rick also said perfectly. I mean the math has no opinion here. It is really hard to imagine them getting the huge cuts to Medicaid without a bunch
of members or Congress jumping off the ship. And it reminds me of in tw twenty ten when Democrats tried to pass the big cap and Trade bill, and there was a House members and took a bunch of big votes, including one on Captain trade that they ended up paying for dearly in the midterms, and many members of Congress said that vote not Obamacare was the thing that cost me my seat in the House and cost the Democrats
their majority. So you're asking a lot of members to walk the plank and vote for something that, as the congress woman said, may not even be the bill that they vote for in the end. That is a really really hard pill for them to swallow, and I think that's why you're going to see them really struggle to get the votes to pass this this week.
Adam, thank you so much, and Rick Davis our panel today. Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC at Noontimeeastern at Bloomberg dot com.