Hakeem Jeffries’s D.S.A. Tsuris

Marianna Sotomayor (0:00)

So there are a number of House Republican strategists who are wondering whether Trump's orbit just is starting to recognize that there's nothing you can do to save the House.

Peter Hamby (0:14)

Welcome to The Powers That Be Daily, Puck's podcast focused on the intersection of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley and Hollywood, and the players who run it all. I'm Peter Hamby. It's Tuesday, October 13th. Today, I'm joined by Marianna Sotomayor to answer an overlooked question in the midterms. What policies will Democrats embrace if they take back the House, the Senate or both?

As for the elections, Marianna tells me that Republicans are confronting a difficult reality heading into November. All the money they're spending on advertising doesn't really seem to be working.

We'll discuss all that and much more on today's episode of The Powers That Be.

Happy Tuesday everybody and welcome to The Powers That Be. We are three weeks out from election day, so I decided that Marianna Sotomayor, my colleague in Washington on Capitol Hill, one of the smartest reporters in DC, to join me today. Marianna, you're obviously a news hound on the House side, but covering all angles on Capitol Hill, we're going to talk about the elections and momentum and break down some late breaking news. But first, one thing that a lot of people aren't talking about, and you reported on this this week, is that it does seem likely that Democrats will take back the House. Kind of a jump ball whether they take back the Senate. But what happens after that? They have to come up with policy ideas. I know they probably won't be able to get bills past past, but they can start building a policy framework for two years after that. If there's a Democratic president, they're going to start thinking about this stuff, now that they would be back in charge, at least in one chamber, maybe in two. With that, you've got all sorts of new factions coming in. You've got the progressive left, you've got a lot of insurgent primary winners that will probably win from blue districts coming into Capitol Hill. You've got old line house members who are probably just not new on the hill. Then you've got some moderate Democrat types who exist to push back against the left in a lot of ways. They realize in particular that they can't just be against the young left, who they see as too socialist to win and too socialist to build majorities. They actually have to have ideas that compel people and ideas that can win. So what are Democrats thinking about doing as it relates to, let's say, health care if they take back the house?

Marianna Sotomayor (2:49)

Yeah, I am counting down the days for this election to be over so we can get to this next phase, which is seeing what the house majority will actually look like and who makes up that majority because, as you mentioned, you have a coalition of Democratic socialists who are very much putting together a list of demands that they are going to go to Jeffries in November and say, hey, look, you are likely going to be the speaker, but these are the things that we would like to get done. We would like to see you do. And then you have those centrists that you mentioned. And right now, we're at a point where Democratic strategists are really expanding the map thinking that they can play in districts that Trump won by 15 points, 18 points, even 21 points. And let's say, hypothetically, if they're able to rack up those wins, that means that there will be a number of centrist Democrats in the caucus. So this is a big reason why we haven't seen Hakeem Jeffries take any real policy stand besides these big platitudes of affordability, health care and corruption, because he just doesn't know what the caucus will want on a number of policy issues until he knows the exact makeup.

That being said, of course, everybody has opinions, and I'm starting to hear much more about the policy demands that all these different flanks are likely going to make. So on healthcare, Medicare for All is becoming a litmus test for the progressives, and we've seen that with a number of candidates. And there is this broader conversation that I've heard from both sides about, okay, if we win a majority, that means we can set the debate for 2028 in some form or fashion. So that's where progressives want to take healthcare on Medicare for All. And then you have those moderates who are now trying to bring back the public option. It's not a new idea by any stretch, but this group, Majority Democrats, they're putting forth what is called Medicare for Americans. Essentially, if you want to be protected, have some healthcare access, you can have that. If you want your private insurer, you can have that too. It's a line I think we've all heard many, many a time again.