Congress, the Potency Problem, and How To!

The Gist

Peach Fish Productions

Daily News, News

4.5 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2026

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Trump sought $163 billion in cuts, including slashing the EPA by 54 percent, HUD by 44 percent, and the CDC by 41 percent, but even his most loyal House allies let the effort stall under the cover of the budget process. A separate bipartisan attempt to shore up Obamacare subsidies for 24 million Americans also fizzled, with Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick warning that letting them lapse would be bad policy and worse politics. The throughline is inertia: Congress will not enact maximalist right-wing cuts, but it will not pass incremental fixes either. Plus, a handoff to the debut of How To!: "How to Be a DJ, Not a Playlist," featuring the DJ with hooks for hands, Tom Nash, on craft, resilience, and commanding a room. Produced by Corey Wara Video and Social Media by Geoff Craig Do you have questions or comments, or just want to say hello? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠thegist@mikepesca.com For full Pesca content and updates, check out our website at https://www.mikepesca.com/ ⁠For ad-free content or to become a Pesca Plus subscriber, check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/ For Mike's daily takes on Substack, subscribe to The Gist List https://mikepesca.substack.com/ Follow us on Social Media:⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4_bh0wHgk2YfpKf4rg40_g⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/pescagist/ X https://x.com/pescami TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@pescagist To advertise on the show, contact ⁠⁠⁠⁠ad-sales@libsyn.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://advertising.libsyn.com/TheGist

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Wednesday, February 18th, 2026 from Peachfish Productions.
0:08.4	It's the gist.
0:09.3	I'm Mike Peska.
0:10.6	The New York Times front page had an interesting story today.
0:14.2	I have it right here.
0:15.4	If wasn't a real front page, it wouldn't sound like this.
0:18.3	Budget cuts from Trump were stymied. He wanted $163 billion in deep
0:24.1	spending cuts. But this was not a priority or even a possibility to even its most loyal House members.
0:30.8	Representatives who would never utter a bad word about Trump in public, but who under the quasi
0:36.1	cover of bureaucracy did not go forward with the 54%
0:40.1	cut to the EPA, the 44% cut to HUD, the 41% cut to the CDC. Maybe you could tell
0:47.0	yourself a story of, oh, this is the legislative branch asserting itself, if not regular order,
0:53.3	than normal values. But then I read another
0:56.2	story in Politico about the short-lived, lived, lived Republican effort to get something going
1:01.9	on health care spending. What a story. Why Congress failed to reach an Obamacare deal.
1:07.2	I mean, maybe because Obama is right there in the name, but it was about mostly moderate
1:12.2	Republican Brian Fitzpatrick, and he looked at the evaporation of subsidies for 24 million
1:18.7	people, including many of his Pennsylvania constituents and say, well, that's bad policy
1:24.3	and certainly bad politics for someone in a swing district like me.
1:28.7	And so he had a bipartisan bill and it went nowhere.
1:32.1	The theme is that things do not change in Congress.
1:37.0	They do not change toward a momentum-filled right-wing budgetary push symbolized by Elon Musk
	...

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