The Shutdown Showdown

(and why we never have enough air traffic controllers)

It’s only Tuesday, but it’s already been a week politically! In today’s episode, we work to keep our heads and spirits up.

We’ve tried so hard all year not to throw up our hands and say “EVERYTHING SUCKS ABOUT THIS ADMINISTRATION!”

But the administration is testing us.

We talk about the petty pardons, the coin by which the president seems to wish to be coronated, and the interior decorating obsession. We talk about Congress and the contentious Senate framework for ending the government shutdown. We talk about all the needless suffering taking place. We struggle with and through it, and we know you’re struggling with and through it, too.

Then we turn our attention to air traffic controllers and why, even when the government is open, they are chronically overworked and understaffed.

Outside of politics, we’re getting into holiday prep mode. We share what we’re doing and thinking about, and look forward to hearing from you, too. -Beth

Topics Discussed

• The Trump Administration’s Shutdown Priorities: Coins, Renovations, Pardons, and Cutting SNAP Benefits

• The Senate Plan to Reopen the Government

• The Generational Impact of the Air Traffic Controller Strike

• Outside of Politics: Getting Ready for the Holidays

Correction: In our 'Outside of Politics' segment, Sarah mentions Ralph Lauren and suggests he may have passed away. This is incorrect; as of the publication date of November 11, 2025, he is still alive and designing lovely polos.

At Pantsuit Politics, we’re able to keep it nuanced because of the support of our community. Join the Spice Cabinet by becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

• More to Say by Pantsuit Politics

• Good Morning by Pantsuit Politics

• Spicy Pantsuit Politics

Episode Resources

• More to Say About SNAP, States, and the Supreme Court (Pantsuit Politics)

• Trump pardons Rudy Giuliani and others who backed efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss (The Associated Press)

• Trump wants Commanders’ new D.C. stadium named for him (ESPN)

• What we know about White House plans for an ‘Arc de Trump’ (BBC)

• $1 Trump coin is ‘real,’ US Treasurer says (CNN Business)

• Trump proposes $2,000 dividend funded by tariffs. Here’s what experts say about the plan. (CBS News)

• Senate advances plan to end historic shutdown in bipartisan breakthrough (POLITICO)

• Did Reagan Start the Fire? (Pantsuit Politics)

• More than 8,000 US flights delayed as air traffic control absences persist (Reuters)

• Supreme Court declines to hear case on constitutionality of same-sex marriage (SCOTUSblog)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:11] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we’re discussing the Senate’s framework to end the government shutdown; the president’s focused these past few days on the normal pardons and coins; and some good news from the United States Supreme Court. Then we’ll spend a few minutes discussing why air traffic controllers are so impacted by government shutdowns. And Outside of Politics, we’ll talk about how we’re preparing for the holiday season.

Sarah [00:00:35] Before we get to that, we are in the middle of our Substack membership drive. So let’s talk about what you get when you subscribe to our Substacks, including More to Say. Twice a week on Monday and Wednesday, Beth takes the conversations that we can’t fully explore on the main show and digs in. If you’ve ever listened to the podcast and thought, I wish they’d keep talking about that or I don’t think I understand the basics of this topic, More to May is for you. Beth brings her trademark research depth to topics that deserve more attention. It’s just part of our $15 a month paid subscription along with my show, Good Morning, and our weekly bonus episode that we call The Spicy, because we’re a little unleashed on the Thursday episodes. That’s seven premium episodes every week. If you have been on the fence about becoming a premium member, now is the time. Beth, tell the people if they subscribe today what they would get on More to Say this week.

Beth [00:01:30] Well, this week on Monday’s episode, I went through the legal journey of SNAP, which has been convoluted to say the least. It was one of those episodes that I recorded on Sunday and then had to do a little addendum Monday morning because we had another judicial decision to break down. So that’s Monday and then on Wednesday, I am talking about a credit card settlement that affects how much we pay everywhere for things. And I think hopefully pulls back the curtain on why prices are so high in a new way.

Sarah [00:01:58] So if you want to check those episodes out, go to Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com. We want to thank our two new executive producers, Laura and Lauren. And thank you to everyone who has served our country as we mark Veterans Day today. We are so privileged to hear from many, many service members, veterans, families of service members. And it always adds to our understanding of any complex issue involving our nation’s military. We know that that service exacts all kinds of costs from these families. And we are so grateful for you.

Beth [00:02:26] Up next, let’s talk about the president’s focus during the government shutdown.

Sarah [00:02:45] Well, it hasn’t been the government shutdown. That’s for sure.

Beth [00:02:46] It hasn’t been the government shutdown.

Sarah [00:02:48] A little worse.

Beth [00:02:50] I think that the president believes the shutdown might be a nice distraction to do something that he’s been wanting to do since the first day he took office. And so on Sunday, we got the news that President Trump had pardoned 77 people, including people like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Kenneth Cheesbrough, Mark Meadows, the stars of the January 6th hearings; in language that purports to exonerate everyone who has been accused of interfering with the 2020 election. Now, this doesn’t go very far because it is only a federal pardon. He cannot pardon these folks from state prosecutions. It also is extraordinary to me because it’s a use of his political capital and for what? He has fully captured the Department of Justice, the FBI, Cash Patel and Pam Bondi were not going to bring federal prosecutions against these folks. He did it because he can and because he wanted to. And I just think that tells you a lot about who Donald Trump still is and what is important to him with everything else going on in the world.

Sarah [00:03:57] I think the last few weeks have been really revelatory. If you’re looking at the president’s priorities, it is not running the country. The government was shut down, he showed absolutely no interest in negotiating a close to the shutdown, in working to even take some learnings or wins out of the shutdown. He was focused on many of the things he’s been obsessed with since he came back into office. He wants things named after him. He’s been floating the idea that the new NFL stadium in Washington D.C. Should be named after him. He went to an NFL game. He has been traveling all around the world, pumping up his global reputation, obsessed with deal making, a lot of deals which make him and his family much, much richer. And when he was back from his international travels, he was fundraising, and golfing, and hosting, unironically it seems, a Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago. And just generally the Trump arch, the tearing down the East Wing, the marble bathroom, the entire Oval Office dripping in gold, it is just one thing after another after another that is in service of his ego while prices continue to climb, while the government was shut down, continues to be shut down while people’s lives get measurably worse.

Beth [00:05:29] Yeah, he’s decorating and score settling and trying to solidify a king-like legacy for himself. This 250th anniversary one dollar coin that the treasury department is floating where his face is on both sides. I know that this is unimportant in the grand scheme of things, except that it’s not. It’s just a small piece in this bigger puzzle of the presidency and what it represents fundamentally changing every single day right now. And it’s frustrating to see the presidency being reduced from an office to a person at the same time that Congress is showing how ineffective it is and that the Supreme Court’s usual way of operating has become mostly taking emergency appeals from the executive branch. There’s just a lot happening at one time where you think, man, all three branches have the flu at best, but we are in a world of hurt right now.

Sarah [00:06:27] It’s giving the Gilded Age, man. Here we are with more and more federal workers not getting paid, more and more federal work getting laid off. We’re starting just beginning to see the repercussions of DOGE. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is about to be the world’s first trillionaire. They’re giving more and more tax breaks to the richest people in this country who are just getting richer and richer and richer by the day. And then apparently losing their heads over the idea that someone somewhere, Zohran Mamdani, is actually articulating taxing the uber wealthy as the rest of us pay more and more and more for basically everything. I don’t mean to sound like Bernie Sanders, but I don’t really know another reaction.

Beth [00:07:08] Well, I think Bernie Sanders named a dynamic that was already in existence, but it has multiplied and multiplied and multiplied under the second Trump administration. If you think about what’s really happened in the past year, it is that people who already had a lot have much, much more. And people who were already struggling are struggling to a much greater degree. That’s what 2025, year one of the second Trump administration has boiled down to.

Sarah [00:07:35] And to unapologetically-- over the weekend this SNAP benefit journey from like saying, no, we’re not, we’re going to fight in court and say the bigger injury is to the government handing out congressionally apportioned funds for SNAP than people going hungry is just mind blowing to me. To fight so aggressively then some states, Johnny-on-the-spot, got the benefits out and they want to claw them back. They want to make states pay back SNAP benefits. I know we’re going to get into the democratic approach, but this from the Republican Party coming off of election day, them just following him off this cliff of we’re going to double down on making the rich richer and again the gilded age vis-a-vis Trump while people are losing their minds at cost of things. Like you see these long lines for food pantries. We had Lacey on the show. She texted both of us that they usually get 20 families a day. They’re now getting 40 families a day. I’m not surprised, but I am horrified by his ability to ignore the political incoming that should be screaming pay attention. And you’re hearing it more and more. If you read the stuff we read, more and more Republican advisors, more and more Republican consultants, more and Republican congressmen and senators are saying like, I don’t know, but they’re not doing anything about it. They’re not doing anything about it.

Beth [00:09:21] There’s been so much reporting about the SNAP situation and so much of it is confusing. If I could tell you one thing to hold onto in your mind from all of these court proceedings, it is that the government, the government’s lawyers in front of judges where they have to tell the truth have said over and over, we have the money to fund SNAP in November. What the Department of Agriculture put on its website about the well-running dry is a lie. There is a reserve fund for SNAP. There is also a government reserve fund where our businesses have been paying revenue for tariffs. There is more than enough money available to pay for SNAP in the month of November fully for every single state. And Donald Trump’s lawyers have admitted it multiple times. They don’t want to. That’s what this is about. They don’t want to.

Sarah [00:10:14] Yeah. Well, they don’t want to go into the tariff fund, Beth, because he’s going to send everybody a $2,000 check. Did you not hear? Out of the tariffs. Yeah, I would like the $2,000 that I’ve been paying in increased prices because of the tariff, so fine. That’ll get me a little bit closer back to-- not really, but that’s the problem. The prices are going up because the cost of doing business in America is going up. And he is not doing anything about it except for these short-term feels good, looks good in a Truth Social post. Well, I’ll bail out the farmers. I’ll send everybody a $2,000 check. And as we’re going to get into with the air traffic controllers, the way they take a sledgehammer to stuff causes things to break for literal decades. Literal decades. And again, the pursuit, the ADHD of his own ego. What can I dip in gold? What can name Trump? What can say to piss off people on Truth Social without any long-term sustained effort to improve the lives of Americans? It’s just mind blowing.

Beth [00:11:34] It’s hard for me to have much more than a big sigh about the $2,000 check idea because, one, I’m just on the edge of my seat waiting for that to show up. But two, that is not how this works. Congress is the body that controls the money. And for him to, on his own, impose these arbitrary tariffs that have been a disaster for our economy. And then two, arbitrarily, on own, decide what to do with them. And three, make that decision in a way that raises his political fortunes, not actually helps people who need help, and to do it on the backs of the people who have suffered tremendously because of mass layoffs, delayed SNAP benefits, the list goes on, it just makes me sick. And this is not what I wanted to do. I feel like you and I have fought all year from sitting down and being like, urgh, he’s sucks. We’ve tried so hard not to do that. But here on the 10th of November as we’re recording, I’m finding it difficult.

Sarah [00:12:34] I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know what to say when you’re out there wanting to build arches and name shit after yourself and the stupid, stupid coin that makes me so mad while I’m watching videos of ICE agents go into a daycare in front of little children and traumatize them, not to mention lines and lines and lines and lines out of food banks of people just trying to feed themselves, much less trying to get through Thanksgiving and the holidays. It’s heartless. I don’t know what else to call it. I don’t really don’t know what else to say. I do think this is politically ruinous, which is probably a good transition to talk about the deal at least eight Senate Democrats have struck to attempt to begin to end the government shutdown.

Beth [00:13:28] It feels necessary to timestamp everything. We’re back in that universe. So we’re recording at about 11:30 Eastern time on Monday morning. And as we sit here, eight Democrats, as Sarah said, have joined all Republicans to advance in the Senate a package that would fund a number of agencies and programs for a full fiscal year. That’s because the Senate committees, the appropriations process, had been chugging along in the senate. And so some of the things they had already negotiated will be funded for the full fiscal years. That includes SNAP, because it’s full funding for the Department of Agriculture. It includes the FDA, Veterans Affairs, Military Construction Projects. It protects the Government Accountability Office, which had been heavily negotiated. That’s been way under attack by the Trump administration. So some good things funded for the full fiscal year. Everything else would be funded until January 30th. So we are set up for another funding fight at the end of January, if this goes well.

[00:14:24] This package also requires the administration to rehire the government workers they fired at the start of the shutdown. It requires them to give back pay to federal employees. It does not just trust the agencies to do this; it requires them report to Congress and show their math on what that back pay looks like. It forbids them from doing any more reductions in force in government departments or agencies until January 30th. And then the thing that this has all been about, the Affordable Care Act subsidies, those payments that the government makes to help people who get their plans through the marketplace have them a little bit more affordably. John Thune, the Senate majority leader will have to bring a bill that the Democrats write and choose to the floor in mid-December for a vote on extending those subsidies. So it doesn’t actually extend them. It is a promise of a vote in one chamber of Congress to do.

Sarah [00:15:22] It will most certainly fail.

Beth [00:15:25] So that’s where we are.

Sarah [00:15:27] Here’s the thing. To me, this will have to go to the House and that’s the win here. At least Mike Johnson will have to call the House back and we can get that representative from Arizona sworn in and hopefully the discharge petition on the Epstein files. That to me is a win I will accept. I understand people’s incredible frustration with this. I think when you look at who the eight senators, none of which who are up for reelection, many of which are retiring, they’re moderates; it’s not surprising. It is, to me, a reflection of the transition the Democratic Party is currently going through. I keep thinking about Ezra Klein describing Gavin Newsom as not afraid and how I think that’s right. The people who are moving forward in the Democratic party without a sense of fear really represent the future.

[00:16:20] If you can couple that lack of fear with a sense joy, really, you’re cooking at that point. But this to me is sort of reflective of the old ways operating out of a sense of fear. I get the sense of responsibility that they feel like they were not going to cave and we were stretching out this shutdown and exacting a lot of harm that was just going to get worse and worse and worst. I am sympathetic to that argument. And I think that the demands under the shutdown coming from the Democratic Party were always tough. They were tough because it wasn’t 100% reflective of what people are actually upset about. And it was tough because it was a big ask and there wasn’t a lot of room for negotiation. So I get why people are upset. And I think it’s not surprising coming from the group of eight that negotiated this. And I still think it not over. It still has very many steps to get through.

Beth [00:17:12] Yeah, the Senate is procedure heavy. And so where people in the Senate don’t like anything, they can make it slow down. Rand Paul has some issues with hemp language in the overall package. So he has threatened to slow it down. You have progressive saying, we don’t like this, we’re going to use tools available to us to slow down, so there are some obstacles to quick passage in the senate. And as Sarah said, I just want to make sure everybody understands the process here. It’s not done once it’s through the Senate, then it has to go to the house. And the House is a tricky place in terms of margins right now. And you have some Republicans who probably won’t vote for this. And you some Democrats who probably will vote for it. And so the House is going to be a messy situation in terms of the numbers game. And then the White House has to sign onto it for it to actually become law. So at 11:30 on Monday morning, we are a long way from this being done but we are also much closer than we were a few days ago.

Sarah [00:18:10] As a lifelong Democrat, (I’ve been a Democrat since I turned 18 years old) I am overall feeling pretty hopeful and not just because of the election results. The Democratic Party to me is in a healthy place when there’s a lot of debate. Look, we’re just never going to be marching in step. That’s not who we are. That’s who we have ever been. That’s not how I want us to be. That’s not a big tent. And there’s always going to be more debate and argument inside a Democratic party that is not a cult of personality like the Republican party is right now. And so, all of this frustration with these moderate members, debate, even the argument that took place at Crooked Con with all the Pod Save America guys, particularly the retirements like Nancy Pelosi stepping aside and saying she’s not going to run again, I really hope Jim Clyburn and Steny Hoyer do the same. So this like turnover in generations, this debate about approaches like with Gavin Newsom and with Zohran Mamdani and Abigail Spanberger, that to me is energy. That’s what the Democratic party needed. They needed energy and we’ve got it.

[00:19:24] And that doesn’t mean that we need 100% agreement. It doesn’t mean that some Democrats will make calls that will piss the rest of us off. That’s fine. That’s a good and healthy outcome of a political party. So I am frustrated, of course, but overall very hopeful. I think all of this like open debate-- first of all, when you’re debating within your party, you’re getting attention. I think we think we need to have attention in like lockstep moving in one direction and I just don’t agree with that. I think when there’s debate within the party, there’s more place for Americans to see themselves within that debate, to say, well, I agree with the progressive side of the Democratic party, or I agree with the centrist part. But at least there’s sides that you can see yourself in. I think that that is good. Listen, I’m a Democrat. I’m used to being frustrated. I accept that as the baseline situation of being a Democrat, but I think this energy and this robust, debate around approaches and ideas and policies is a sign of life. And I’m going to take that as a sign of hope and a thing to be celebrated.

Beth [00:20:34] I’m looking for signs of life within Congress at all. I have been reticent about the government shutdown from the beginning because the underlying feeling, where the energy is, the driving force, is a whole lot of people who are like we were five minutes ago. I don’t like any of this. This is all terrible. And so you go into a government shutdown with the hope in your heart that at the end of it, Donald Trump won’t be the president anymore. And that’s just never been available. You’re not going to get that. I understood congressional Democrats, especially senators wanting to make a statement that Congress still matters. When you have the president of the United States saying, as he did, that they don’t really need any more laws now, I understand trying to make a stand and say to the American public, as well as to the White House, we still have a job to do and we’re going to do it.

Sarah [00:21:34] Well, forget Trump. You could also make it a point to Johnson. He just shut everything down. They hadn’t been there for weeks.

Beth [00:21:40] So I understood the shutdown. I haven’t been angry at Senate Democrats about it. And I’m not angry today, even though there’s a whole attention economy trying to me angry about it, because I do think a lot of people have gotten hurt now and that’s only going to get worse. More people are going to hurt in worse ways the longer this goes on, and I think it needs to end. I try really hard not to use war metaphors or violence metaphors, but I do think this was always going to be a war of attrition. It wasn’t going to be a war where you walk away and the democratic base has everything it wants, even if you got the extension of the ACA subsidies. That doesn’t stop ICE running around in Chicago. It doesn’t stop the president. They have already bulldozed the East Wing, right? It doesn’t stop any number of things that this administration has done that have run roughshod over the rule of law. I think what they did is put up a flare to say, we are still here and we are still trying to do our jobs. And I think that a group of people who are insulated from some of the base energy by their terms and by their ages have said, and now enough, I’m going to give my colleagues cover. They can say they’re still fighting, but I’m going to make sure that people get fed who need to be fed. And I’m to make sure government workers get back to work and get paid on time. We are not going to inflict more pain.

[00:23:10] And I think that is a responsible and admirable thing to do. And they haven’t lost all their leverage because there are pieces still open through the month of January. To me, that’s how Congress gets some energy back. This is a different matter than the politics of it. I am fully aware that maybe half of 1% of the American population gives a shit about any of the things I’m talking about right now. But Congress getting some energy back in it is about having open issues where the administration needs something from Congress and this deal leaves some issues open. That’s much better than the clean CR where they started, which was just keep everything the same and just kick it another year. This is better than that. And so I take this. I take this for the wins that it represents, the issues that it leaves open and the losses that it presents because now when you get this vote on the Senate floor, it will be clear to the American people who wanted to keep those subsidies in place and who did not. And that clarity is important. It sucks for everybody’s health insurance to go way, way up. Mine is too. I totally understand. It sucks. And it is important for us to know who has done the thing that sucks and who’s working on a better way. And we can’t have that clarity if we stay in this limbo forever.

Sarah [00:24:37] Yeah. I think there are worse outcomes than moderates who are politically safe taking the heat so that progressive Democrats or moderate Democrats and Democrats who are up for election can go, “We tried on your health insurance and then the Republicans just really wanted you to have higher prices. So here we go.” I think there are worse politics than that. That was an issue from the beginning. Like, why are we saving them from the bad outcome? Well, because we care about the American people and we don’t want them to have a higher health insurance. But at the end of the day, it’s not terrible politics to be like they are the ones who can hold the bag. The Republican party holds the bag for your 20 to 30% increase in health insurance costs. So you’re mad about that, go talk to them. We fought it. Especially the people who are running can say, I fought it. I tried. This is on them. They’re the ones who refuse to even meet-- Donald Trump was out of the country. Mike Johnson wouldn’t even bring the House in session. They were not going to even speak to us about this health insurance cost. They refused to negotiate with us at all about the ACA subsidies and your rising health insurance costs. They would not even come to the table. They were too busy coming to Mar-a-Lago to dress up and celebrate great Gatsby style. The fact that everything you buy is 10 times more expensive.

Beth [00:26:01] And it’s just basic hierarchy of needs. I have been fighting on healthcare and the White House has decided to use the poorest people in our country as leverage in that fight. And I’m going to start with making sure that the poorest in our county and their children do not go hungry as we get into the coldest time of the year and the holiday season. I’m going to start there and I’m going to keep fighting on healthcare. And I’m going to keep fighting on the overreach of sending federal troops into cities. I’ll keep fighting on reasonable immigration policies. I’m going to keep doing all that. But for today, I, one of eight people, have decided to take this step to try to take care of the poorest people in our country. And my colleagues are frustrated with me and I understand their frustration. And many of our voters are frustrated and I understand their frustration and this is politics.

[00:26:59] You said being frustrated as part of being a Democrat? Being frustrated is part of be an American. If you pay any attention to this, and even if you don’t, being frustrated is being an adult. As an adult, they made calls on the first most urgent needs and I appreciate them for doing it. Well, SNAP is not the only program that’s been affected by a long shot by the government shutdown. I’m supposed to fly to Boston for work on Thursday and the flight that I’m going on has been canceled every day for the past three days. So I’m nervous about that. Air traffic control and TSA have been forced to work without pay. And predictably, the number of people not showing up for work, calling in sick, I get it. I totally understand where they’re coming from, but it is causing a lot of havoc. So next up, we’re going to talk about air traffic controllers. Sarah, you have been on this beat for a while now. You have been keeping up with the air traffic controllers. Really interested in hearing what’s bubbled up from your research.

Sarah [00:28:05] Well, listen, this is a longer term beat of mine, which is Reagan broke everything. We have an episode. Is Reagan to Blame for Everything? We will put it in the show notes if you’d like to join me in my Reagan hatred. The water is warm. If you don’t remember this, not surprising it happened in 1981, the year I was born, but there was the professional air traffic controllers’ organization, which was the air traffic controllers union at the time. And there was a strike. And basically, what happened was Ronald Reagan used the power of the presidency to intercede in this strike, and he decertified PATCO as a union and fired over 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. Not only was this a major defeat for organized labor, but it truly screwed up this industry in a way that we are still feeling the effects of today. Because think about it, they went through and they rehired as many as they possibly could.

[00:29:12] They had a big hiring wave. But what do you have? You have an age bubble. You don’t have a natural balance between generations. You have a massive amount of people coming in, getting hired that are going to retire at the mandatory retirement age of 51 starting in the mid-2000s. And so you have this massive problem. So this is the foundation upon which all these staffing issues we hear from air traffic controllers all the time like we don’t have enough, we don’t have enough, we don’t’ have enough. This is where it started, back in 1981. Because when you do the things that Reagan did, who was even more careful than Donald Trump, and go in and just take a sledgehammer and eliminate entire departments, entire programs, this is what happens. It screws things up.

Beth [00:30:09] I feel like this runs against a theme that we’ve been talking about all year, too. The limits of common sense policy making, the limits of strength-based governance. Because I think probably a lot of people at the time thought that President Reagan stood up to the union for the American people and exhibited toughness and strength and that it makes sense to tell people who don’t come to work that you can’t work here anymore. And also the presidency is extremely powerful. The federal government is extremely powerful. These systems are extremely complex. And so common sense doesn’t always yield the result that we think it’s going to yield. One thing that I learned preparing for this episode in conjunction with that start, so you have the age bubble, you have not enough people already, you have this job that is extremely stressful. I cannot imagine doing this job. Extremely stressful. There’s a mandatory retirement age because of concerns about vision and fatigue and reflexes, just your ability to quickly make decisions based on the information that you’re seeing. So all of that is happening.

Sarah [00:31:16] Well, and add in that they have to work mandatory overtime because there’s not enough of them. So it’s stressful if you were doing it under regular hours.

Beth [00:31:24] So with that whole backdrop, because the federal government controls air traffic control, when there’s a government shutdown, the school for air traffic controllers also shuts down. The pipeline is halted every time we do this. So the ripple effects of not funding the government hit not just the airport and whether we can have enough air traffic controllers for airlines to run their flights, but also our future ability to run as many flights in this country. It’s all connected. And that’s why you can’t just do the common sense tough thing. You have to think through the consequences of those types of decisions.

Sarah [00:32:06] Yeah, we have one FAA Academy in Oklahoma City. Obviously, it’s just one Academy. It has limited capacity. It creates a massive bottleneck. You get the bottleneck grows with every shutdown. You had a huge bottleneck during COVID-19 because it was forced to temporarily shut down and significantly reduce training capacity. So these complications just stack upon each other again. So we don’t have enough, so we force them to work mandatory overtime then people retire early or they quit because it’s so stressful and it’s exhausting. We have an air traffic controller in our audience who I talk to all the time and she always says, I tell people it’s a great job if you can handle the stress and if you can handle the exceed-- that’s the thing. What’s so harsh about this is the job, the industry itself is under so much pressure that it would be extraordinarily stressful. But the actual day-to-day work is also stressful because you’re responsible for all those lives. I am so frustrated that something that is so-- I pay a lot of attention to this because I travel a lot. This is such a key component of an incredibly essential industry that holds so much precious high stakes components in their hands.

[00:33:28] And I will say, look, it’s not like it’s as bad as it was right after the firings in 1981. So they’re still short about 3,000 controllers. You have about half of FAA facilities under staffed, but they are trying. Secretary Pete did a lot of really great stuff in the Biden administration. They really tried to elevate their hiring targets. They trimmed down the process. It used to be like an eight step, very complex process. They’ve got it down to five steps. They shaved off about four or five months on the time it takes for candidates to move from the application process just to starting the academy. It’s not like they’re trimming down the training. They’re just trying to get people into the academy quicker. This is true of the Trump administration too. They’ve really tried to target veterans and initiating like year round, really dedicating hiring track to elevate military and private industry people who have some of the training already. So they don’t have to go start from zero. So they’re doing some things and it is getting better. But again you have the longest shutdown on history. That’s just going to keep any good you’ve done over the last year is going to be bottlenecked again by another long shut down.

Beth [00:34:53] That’s right. So I was interested in seeing what some of the more conservative thinkers-- not conservative like Heritage Foundation, but like Cato and American Enterprise Institute. What have people been talking about around this problem. And for like 10 years, there’s this guy at Cato, Chris Edwards, who’s been arguing that we should move air traffic control to a private nonprofit corporation, which Canada did in 1996 and lots of other countries have moved to. In a nonprofit like that, air traffic control would directly charge the airlines fees. That’s how you’d run the nonprofit. Right now it’s funded through taxes that we pay on our tickets. And there’s some studies saying that it actually brings prices down, ticket prices go down when you move to this kind of model. But more fundamentally, there’s a scholar, Dorothy Robin, who worked for the Clinton and Obama administrations (so not a conservative intellectual) who said the Federal Aviation Administration is not suited to run a capital intensive, high tech service business that is constantly changing because of new technology. And we do need continuity. This should not be at the whims of a congressional funding fight. And I was pretty compelled by those arguments that this is one of those things that it’s a terrible political football and maybe we just need to take it out of that realm. The great stakeholder here are the airlines, right? They want to run these flights and make as much money as possible. They should pay the freight for this service. And if there’s a way to do that responsibly, I’m really interested in learning more.

Sarah [00:36:33] I’d be interested to know what the Air Traffic Controllers Union, NATCA-- they do have a new union. They decertified the old one, but they do have a new union and I’d be really interested in hearing what they have to say about that solution. It just to me another example of the Trump administration and the Republican Party coming into power, into enormous power, having control of both houses of Congress and pretty much the Supreme Court and just exhibiting no willingness to tackle some of these tough problems. You’re not coming out with anything. I mean, a lot of what they’ve done, Sean Duffy has done, is just elevated the numbers. Like, well, we’re going to hire more people. Okay, but how, buddy? We’ll just pay them more. Well, you can only do so many bonuses, retention bonuses, hiring bonuses. I don’t think that’s a bad idea, but it can’t be the only idea. I’m frustrated by an administration that loves to exert power, and the only really solutions they have are just try harder, do more. None of this is innovative for having all these tech guys and Doge and all these things on your team and supposed to be like really trying to make America great again. There’s no innovative solutions to some of these really intractable problems like the air traffic controllers that we’ve been dealing with in this country for (oh, I don’t know) my entire adult life.

Beth [00:37:55] Well, the reason that I’m interested in reading from the libertarians and the Cato Institute people at think tanks like that, it’s because some of them are still actually conservative. This administration is not. Moving air traffic control to a private nonprofit corporation, which we have now lots of data from other countries to see how that works-- including from Canada, which should be our friend, but we’ve alienated. Looking at that, that is a very conservative idea, right? That reduces the size of the federal bureaucracy. It reduces a need for government revenue to go to a government expense. That is a conservative idea. If you take this situation and you sit it alongside the conversation we had at the top of the episode, what you see is that Trump is interested in more things being controlled by the federal government because he is interested in controlling them through his will moment to moment to punish people he perceives as hostile to him and reward people he perceived as friendly to him. That is the opposite of conservative governance. And I am so sad that this government funding fight is bringing that into such stark relief. And I also think it needs to be brought into that kind of relief because as Democrats are sorting through who their party is going to be, Republicans are going to have to do that too. And I’m curious about whether there is much of a constituency for still talking about ideas like this.

Sarah [00:39:24] At the beginning of this second administration, I think I said on the show I’m confused by the idea that you want to have all this power but you’re taking a bulldozer to the functions of the federal government that would give you that power. You’re shutting things down, but you seemingly want to control everything. And I think that’s because he’s-- it’s starting to make more and more sense to me. I streamlined the government not because I’m interested in governance, but because I am interested in power for pursuit of my own personal priorities. And so I don’t really care if there’s a Department of Education to put into effect the solutions I think would work. That’s what they say. Well, the president is the most democratically responsive office right now. And so that’s Russell Voight’s argument is, well, the president just needs to be able to control everything, But that’s just control. That’s not actual government solutions. They don’t want to improve anything. They just want to be able to exert power for revenge, for political strategies to keep winning, even when the people aren’t democratically on their side. So, that’s becoming more and more clear to me. They don’t need solutions to these problems because they don’t care if the government solves them. They just care if they maintain their own power.

Beth [00:40:52] If you have a private jet, this doesn’t affect you the way that it affects everyone else. And I think there are so many ways in which Donald Trump and the donors who have really flocked to him and the business leaders who have really flock from him, their concerns are less about problem solving and more and more about insulating themselves from problems.

Sarah [00:41:14] Did you see-- where speaking of, I didn’t get this off my chest. Did you see where Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem and all these Trump administrative officials have moved to military bases?

Beth [00:41:27] No, I did not.

Sarah [00:41:28] They have moved, they have kicked out basically high ranking generals and they have moved to military officials. Stephen Miller did it after a neighbor protested basically and was like, I hate you. I hate that you live here. I see you. And confronted his wife. This wasn’t somebody who doxed him. This is somebody that lived in the neighborhood and they have moved to military bases. It is giving Versailles. It is giving how far can we remove ourselves from understanding, feeling, being responsive. You’re not even listening to members of Congress who are a little bit still responsive to the people. They’re just pulling back and building walls of money around themselves.

Beth [00:42:15] Yeah, before you said Versailles, I was thinking, what’s next? The motes? Like, it is very, very nobility focused and using our taxpayer dollars and facilities to provide that protection. I don’t want anybody to be harmed. I understand that political violence is a problem. I am for increasing security for everyone who serves of both parties. I think we have a problem right now and I would like us to work on how we treat each other. But to insulate yourself from the experience that most people have of just living, of buying groceries, of living on a street, having conflict with your neighbors, how you think that’s going to make you more leaders of the people? I do not understand.

Sarah [00:43:02] Well, there’s no desire to find a release for all this pressure, especially from the likes of Stephen Miller, whose language and policies themselves are escalatory, nationalistic, racist, and cruel. And then to not say, how can we prevent this? How can we fix this for everybody? But instead to say, how do we protect ourselves? That’s all that really matters here. I just think that is the fullest representation of this administration, truly. Let me renovate my own bathrooms and my own home and keep having parties and multimillion dollar fundraisers while the rest of you line up for the longest line at the food bank.

Beth [00:43:48] It’s getting clearer and clearer, and this is only the first year. This has been a tough discussion, so let’s end on some good news from the Supreme Court which denied a petition from Kim Davis, who is a fellow Kentuckian of ours.

Sarah [00:44:05] Why’d you say it like that? Take it back.

Beth [00:44:07] Well, because it’s true. To reconsider its ruling on same-sex marriage. Kim Davis if you remember is the county clerk who opposed same- sex marriage and she was ordered to pay $360,000 to a couple, David Ermold and David Moore, that she denied a marriage license and she appealed that judgment all the way up to the Supreme Court and said, by the way, in addition to protecting my First Amendment right to not issue this license, I would like you to overturn your marriage equality ruling and you would need four justices to say yes to hearing that case and it did not happen. And so the Supreme court denied her petition. And I know that that is something that has been hanging out there for a lot of people in a really intense and scary way for a while. And at least for today, we have great news on that front. Okay, Sarah, we always end with something Outside of Politics, and right now for me it is feeling the holidays breathing down my neck. I cannot believe it’s November already. I cannot believe when I look at the calendar and I see how few days before Thanksgiving and then how few days before Christmas and how few days before January. I’m really feeling it. I’m feeling both the fun of it and the pressure of it.

Sarah [00:45:30] I think it’s a really interesting year because I know that everyone is talking about financial stress and still there is all this reporting that people are going to spend a lot for the holidays. I think the vibe among so many people in my life-- our agent Caroline has been posting Christmas content and Instagram for like six weeks. I mean people and her and I have been exchanging messages like we need a little Christmas. Okay, right this very minute. We are ready. It’s funny, I just feel like there is a sense of like, oh, the travel for Thanksgiving. Oh, the prices and also give me the holidays. I want the holiday season. It’s a wild vibe out there right now. I’m kind of into it.

Beth [00:46:17] It is. And it’s like there’s so much content that’s about consuming less this Christmas at the same time that we are flooded with gift guides.

Sarah [00:46:26] There’s a lot of gift guides and some of them have improved. The gift guides around Teenage Boys, I’m here to say have gotten better because it was stark out there for a couple of years. It just was really, really stark. But there’s some good stuff out there. I like the ones that are like, here’s for someone who’s hard to buy for. I always think, fine, those have some really good ideas. I just feel like every time I open, even like Substack, there is a new gift guide.

Beth [00:46:52] I feel like a lot of the gift guides that I have looked at, with a few notable exceptions, feel pretty overwhelmingly like Amazon affiliate links, which I’m not against at all, but there’s a curation missing. Like I would rather have a gift guide with maybe three or four recommendations in that category than fifty.

Sarah [00:47:12] They’re really, really long. I totally agree with that. But I am getting excited. I have a slow on-ramp to the holidays. So I put up my 12-foot Christmas tree with just lights, usually. I usually put up the first weekend of November because I have so much Christmas that I have to have sort of like a slow build. And I like to put up trees with no lights. I feel like you can put a Christmas tree with no light next to Thanksgiving decor and it’s fine. So that’s what I do. So I have a lot of Thanksgiving decor out. I have enough little handprint place mats to fill both of my tables in my house. Years and years of turkey handprint placemats. So I put all those out and then I have a slow build, but I really like it. It doesn’t feel as stressful getting it all out quickly. I used to do that. Try to get it all up like the day after Thanksgiving. And that’s a hard day. That’s like hard labor to get up that much Christmas. I have like five trees.

Beth [00:48:11] Jane put our Christmas tree up right after Halloween. It’s not decorated. It’s just the tree with the lights on it. It’s really nice. We have started watching holiday movies as a family. We’re going to try to do that regularly, leading up to the holiday season. We started with Home Alone, obviously. Public service announcement. Home Alone has a remarkable number of 6-7s in it. So many opportunities for everyone to go 6-7. So just so you know, just be on alert. We are going to do some cleaning out of all of our holiday stuff, too. I’m tired of a lot of it. I probably have too much because I’ve had years when I’m tired of what I have and then I’ll buy more and just leave what I’ve in the boxes. So I’m going to host a little holiday decor swap.

Sarah [00:48:55] Such a good idea.

Beth [00:48:56] I’ve invited a lot people over to just bring whatever they have that they’re tired of and we can trade amongst ourselves and donate whatever is left at the end. So I’m looking for a little bit different vibe this year. The girls and I really want to make some things. So I’d like to get rid of some of the target purchases and replace those even with temporary things that we make. So all of the sort of Little Women Christmas reels are being exchanged between Jane and me right now.

Sarah [00:49:25] That’s what’s so interesting, too. It’s like everything’s expensive. Also, Ralph Lauren Christmas is the trend. I’m like I don’t understand at all, guys. Maybe it’s because he died, I don’t know. Maybe it’s in loving memory of Ralph Lauren. But I love that idea. I might steal it. In fact, I was thinking as you were talking, I’m going to text my girlfriends and be like, do we want to do this? Because I used to love closet swaps like that. I always would get such fun things to wear. Because you do, you just get kind of tired of it. I move stuff around in my house a lot, so I don’t get tired of it. Which is tough because then I can’t find it the next year because I put it in a different room, boxes. But I think that’s a really, really fun idea. And I’m trying to think of some fun holiday gathering ideas. So I want to mix it up a little bit. But Nicholas and I are heading to New York City for Christmas one weekend. That’s going to be really fun for a bar mitzvah that I’m very excited about. Yeah, I’m excited. Listen, I am always excited for the holidays. It’s my favorite time of year. It’s cold, it’s like snowing in November. This is an excellent sign. I love this time of the year. I absolutely love it.

Beth [00:50:30] Well, we’re interested in anything that you all have learned that is an on-ramp to the holidays, especially things like going ahead and cleaning out to make space for new gifts for your kids. We are off for a full week of Thanksgiving this year for school, which I’m so happy. We never get a full week at Thanksgiving. And I want to take the beginning of that week and really spend some time in Ellen’s room and just do a big clean out of Ellen’s room. She’s kind of in a transition of sort of little girl to tween anyway. So it’s a good moment for us to do that. But all your tips around those kinds of activities are appreciated and welcomed. And your time and attention are appreciated as well. Thank you so much for being here today.

[00:51:09] Thank you for listening to us pitch you on our premium work, which we do think is really good work that we’re really proud of. And it is really important to us being able to make these two episodes that are free every week. So if you would like to upgrade to paid at pantsuitpoliticsshow.com and get More to Say, Good Morning and our Spicy bonus episode, it’s $15 a month for those seven premium episodes every week. We have kept that price stable for eight years, I guess now, so no inflation at Pantsuit Politics. We’re just trying to do what we do sustainably and we appreciate your help with that. We will be back with you for a new episode on Friday. Until then, everybody have the best week available to you.

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