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CHUCK SCHUMER: Donald Trump owns the chaos in government. He owns the chaos in the stock market. He owns the damage happening to the economy.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
But Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer may end up owning some political pain from the shutdown that wasn't. NPR's senior contributor Ron Elving joins us. Ron, thanks so much for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: What is in this spending agreement to keep the government funded, and why might it come back to haunt the minority leader politically?
ELVING: It's already haunting him. First off, this is not the main event for this year in spending and policy. It's not the package Trump calls his one big, beautiful bill. That showdown is coming later. Last night was a vote on what's called a continuing resolution. We sometimes call it a stopgap spending bill. It's a hangover from last year's failed budget process, and it keeps the government running even though the regular spending bills were not enacted last year. We've been running on these stopgaps since last October. They extend the budgeting resolutions of last year with relatively small changes for defense and domestic spending.
So the real fight this week was over what this resolution did not do. It was written by Republicans in the House and Senate. It did not put up a stop sign or guard rails for Trump and Elon Musk. So the current assault on federal agencies and their employees will continue with the only pushback really coming from the courts. And a lot of Democrats, certainly the House Democrats, thought the Senate Democrats ought to vote no and confront Trump here, even if it meant a shutdown. Here's House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, yesterday being asked about Schumer's future.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is it time for new leadership in the Senate?
HAKEEM JEFFRIES: Next question.
ELVING: Yeah. No, the next question. Like no comment.
SIMON: Yeah.
ELVING: Look, Schumer and nine other Democrats decided voting for a resolution they hated was the lesser of two evils. They know Trump will see it as a green light, but they believe a shutdown right now would be worse, like waving a red cape in front of a bull. We've seen 21 shutdowns in the last 50 years. They always create chaotic situations, and the executive branch does a lot of scrambling, calling some employees essential and calling others not. That is exactly the kind of power Trump and Musk have been reaching for and trying to get.
SIMON: President Trump went to the Department of Justice yesterday and delivered, like, a political rally speech in what has traditionally been an arm of the government that has steered away from politics. Same time, the courts aren't exactly cooperating with the president, are they?
ELVING: No, they're not, and you will never convince Trump or his supporters that the Justice Department has shied away from politics. They think it's all been about politics because Trump and some of his associates were prosecuted. They see what Trump is doing now as simply payback. Meanwhile, you're right, the federal courts are proving to be the most effective resistance to Trump, at least temporarily. Two federal judges this week said Trump had to rehire the probationary federal employees he fired at several agencies, and other judges have said he can't fire people without cause, or he can't ignore laws or override legal directives.
SIMON: Lots of questions about the economy this week, and here's Jake Tapper with Montana Senator Tim Sheehy.
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JAKE TAPPER: A new CNN poll out today shows that the public, the American people, are not happy - majority, at least - with President Trump's handling of the economy. Fifty-six percent say they disapprove. Now that's the highest disapproval rating on the economy that Trump has seen ever, including in his first term. What do you think is behind it?
TIM SHEEHY: Well, first of all, the stock market's been on a sugar-high for a long time, Jake.
ELVING: So yeah, so sugar high there may have been a lot of froth in the tech stocks and elsewhere in recent months, and you can always say the market has been overbought or oversold. But this week, the University of Michigan released its regular monthly measure of consumer confidence, and it was the lowest it's been since COVID - lower than it was right after the 2008 Wall Street meltdown that started the Great Recession. And no one was calling that a healthy development.
SIMON: Two major conflicts - are we any closer to peace in Gaza and Ukraine?
ELVING: Let's hope so, Scott. It's better to be at least talking about a ceasefire in Ukraine and a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, but Russia and Hamas are still stressing their preconditions for further talks, so we are not there yet.
SIMON: NPR's Ron Elving. Thanks so much.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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