Government Shutdown, Mattis Resigns, Criminal Justice Reform, Obamacare Declared Unconstitutional

The Politics Guys

Michael Baranowski

Politics, News

4.5 • 772 Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2018

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike and Jay open their final show of 2018 with a discussion of the partial government shutdown caused by President Trump’s unwillingness to sign a spending bill that doesn’t include at least $5 billion in border wall funding. House Republicans obliged him, but there aren’t enough votes in the Senate and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is unlikely to heed Trump’s advice to abandon the filibuster to pass the bill over Democrats’ objections. Jay believes that this issue will ultimately be a winning one for Republicans because we need better border security. Mike argues that what we really need isn’t better security, but better immigration policy. Next, the Guys talk about President Trump’s declaration of victory over ISIS in Syria and announcement that U.S. troops will be withdrawing. This was quickly followed by the resignation of Trump’s Secretary of Defense, James Mattis. Mike and Jay agree that this was a very bad move by Trump, and one that will benefit Russia. They also believe that the president’s continued erratic behavior will only make it more difficult to attract ‘the best people’ to top administration jobs. After that, they turn to some good policy news - the passage of the ‘First Step Act’, a significant reform of the criminal justice system. Mike and Jay applaud the measure, with Mike noting that the US leads the world in incarceration and that with only 13 percent of all U.S. prisoners being held in federal prisons, much more still needs to be done. The show closes with a discussion of the recent ruling declaring the entirety of Obamacare unconstitutional. Mike and Jay agree that the judge in this case almost certainly overstepped, though Jay believes that the mandate portion of the law is in fact unconstitutional and that this portion of the ruling will be upheld on appeal. Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-politics-guys/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the politics, guys, the place for a bipartisan, rational, and civil debate on American politics and policy.
0:06.2	I'm Michael Baranowski, a political scientist at Northern Kentucky University. With me today is my regular co-host,
0:11.8	Cleveland area attorney and Republican fact totem, Jay Carson. Good morning. Merry Christmas, Mike.
0:18.1	Whatever the hell you celebrate. You know, tomorrow will be
0:21.6	festivist, and so I celebrate that, of course, you know, made up Seinfeld holiday, but I love it.
0:26.9	So, yeah, Merry Christmas to you, too. And happy holidays and all that kind of stuff.
0:31.3	So before we get to the show today, Jay, I wanted to just briefly mention two things. First off, as listeners, as you know,
0:40.3	we recently had on with Trey, Alexandra Philandra and Athena King for their second appearances each.
0:47.9	So if you have any thoughts on them, whether you'd like to see them on a regular, like, once a
0:53.0	month or so basis.
0:57.4	Let us know what you think, positive, negative, well, indifferent.
0:59.3	I guess if indifferent, you're not going to bother.
1:02.4	But anyway, we would really appreciate your feedback on that.
1:07.3	And you can get in touch for those, of course, mail at politicsguise.com.
1:08.4	That probably helps to know that.
1:13.8	Also, before we get started... You really need to figure out sort of like an American Idol type voting system where they just like America votes one time. That would be good. That's a good idea, Jay. Yeah, well, maybe that's
1:19.0	a New Year's resolution for the show. I don't know. Also, though, before we get started,
1:23.8	we did want to let you know about our holiday schedule. This will be our last new show of the
1:28.8	year, and we'll be back with our first show of 2019 on Wednesday, January 2nd, and that,
1:34.7	on that day, Jay and I will be responding to listener questions, comments, that sort of thing.
1:39.5	Though, if something huge happens before then, we might do a special episode that would have to be,
1:45.0	you know, pretty, pretty huge. With any luck, we'll get a little bit of... If American needs us,
	...

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