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Left, Right & Center

Is President Trump losing his grip on the Republican Party?

Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.24.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

2025 is set to end without the passage of a new health care bill. 


Congress had been working to hammer out new legislation before the holiday break. Democrats were pushing for an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that lowered the cost of health care premiums for millions of Americans. Those subsidies are set to expire at the end of 2025. 


House Democrats were joined in the fight by moderate Republicans who worried that skyrocketing healthcare costs would leave them vulnerable in next year’s midterms. GOP leadership pushed for alternatives that would increase the possibility of coverage without the extensions. 


Lawmakers will resume the fight in January, with votes set for the extensions desired by Democrats after a Republican proposal passed earlier this week. Will the pressure of the midterms lead to larger cracks between GOP members and leadership?


Midterms also have the potential to bring a new look to the Republican base. New polling from NBC News shows that the share of Republicans who identify as MAGA compared to traditional Republicans dipped from 57/43 in the spring to 50/50 as the year ends. Is this identity shift among voters a red flag for a party looking to increase turnout next November? And has the president lost some of his charm with Republican voters?


Plus, does either party really care about the national debt anymore? Our KCRW panel answers one listener’s question about a political argument that seems to have gone by the wayside. 


Transcript

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0:00.0

The U.S. military deployed on the streets of America.

0:03.8

Whole communities targeted for removal.

0:06.6

There was tremendous anxiety as they saw neighbors and friends being taken.

0:12.0

And when accountability finally came knocking, the burn order to cover it all up.

0:17.7

I never believe that America would be doing this.

0:20.4

A stain on this country,

0:22.2

one that we said we would never repeat. Rachel Maddo presents burn order. Listen now,

0:27.7

wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to left, right and center, everybody. I'm David Green.

0:34.2

So House Speaker Mike Johnson faced a rebellion this week over health care. With subsidies under

0:41.3

Obamacare set to expire, a handful of Republican moderates joined with House Democrats to force a vote on a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits.

0:52.0

They did so by signing something called a discharge petition.

0:55.8

It's a workaround that allows a majority of House members to force a bill to the House

1:00.1

floor for a vote. This is actually the same type of measure that members of the House used to force

1:05.4

a vote on the public release of the Epstein files, another source of Republican tension in recent weeks. So the four House

1:12.2

Republicans who joined Democrats to force this vote were feeling, shall we say, vulnerable in the

1:17.4

upcoming midterm elections and they didn't want the responsibility for skyrocketing health

1:21.6

care costs hanging over them this fall. So just listen here to New York Representative

1:26.4

Mike Lawler, share his frustrations

1:28.6

with CBS's Major Garrett after Republican leaders initially discouraged bringing extensions to a vote.

1:35.0

It's idiotic and it's political malpractice. The fact is that we have a time sensitive issue,

1:42.8

which is the expiration of these enhanced premium tax credits

1:47.0

that were put in place during COVID. We can all agree that Obamacare has failed to reduce health care costs across this country.

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