Senator Patty Murray usually flies under the radar—she’s not a social media hyperventilator—relying on her considerable power as the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee to talk for her. So it was notable that, while news cameras flocked to outraged Democrats protesting Elon Musk, Murray firmly told Punchbowl that it would be “extremely difficult” for Democrats to agree on a spending bill when the president was “illegally blocking” funding approved by Congress. “Democrats and Republicans alike,” she warned, “must be able to trust that when a deal gets signed into law, it will be followed.” For those versed in Murray-ese, her commentary could be interpreted only as a shutdown threat. Given their margins, House Republicans can’t pass spending bills without Democratic votes unless they achieve near total unity within their conference—a mathematical reality that gives otherwise powerless Democrats their only serious leverage. Indeed, Murray’s seemingly dry statement caught a lot of attention around the Hill. Threatening a shutdown—a Republican-favored method of economic hostage-taking—would be a stunning shift for Democrats. As recently as December, Democratic aides swore to me up and down that they would never, ever embrace the tactic. But it’s been a long two months—long enough, even, that Democrats are hinting about coming debt-ceiling negotiations, and telegraphing a possible willingness to play chicken with the global economy to defend their branch’s constitutional role from Musk. Of course, when Republicans make such threats, they typically extract a few concessions, dutifully cave, and wind up dealing with the opposition to pass a compromise bill. Threats, as Donald Trump will tell you, are just jumping-off points to start negotiations. (See: tariffs.) But there are reasons to take Murray more seriously than the more prolific blusterers of the Senate. She’s the most senior Democratic senator, at the peak of her powers. She’s a close ally of minority leader Chuck Schumer, and she’s not known to go rogue. When Murray speaks, it should be assumed the entire caucus is behind her. She is, moreover, one Democrat that Republicans actually listen to. And whatever the fate of spending negotiations in March, she has crystallized how Democrats see their dispute with Musk: as a war for Congress’s very survival as an independent branch of government.

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Wall Street doesn’t like or want tariffs, per se—“There are only losers with tariffs,” said one veteran banker who worked for Trump back in the day and knows him well—but many accept them as part of the price of doing business with Trump. Indeed, many machers preferred Trump II over Biden or Kamala Harris. “To me, it was a prisoner’s dilemma,” this person continued before articulating the internal monologue in the highest ranks of the banking industry. “We had an anti-business Biden opportunity, or a pro-business Trump, who may put tariffs on, or may not. But if he puts them on and he realizes they’re bad, he may take them off within 24 hours. So they said, ‘We’d rather deal with Donald Trump because he’ll take our phone calls and we can tell him how bad these are, whereas Joe Biden won’t take our phone calls.’ Corporate America felt like we could sway Trump. We could get to him, and convince him that these tariffs are wrong.” In fact, according to this banker, other than the blanket pardons for the January 6 offenders and the press conference where he blamed the fatal helicopter-jet collision near the Potomac on D.E.I., the donor class on Wall Street is generally happy with Trump II—a reality that much of the media still refuses to comprehend. “There are very good reasons to criticize D.E.I., but in this context, it’s a little insane,” he said, referring to Trump’s post-crash commentary. “And insulting, and in bad taste.” On the other hand, he continued, “everyone is thrilled” that the “apple cart” at USAID is getting turned over and that people are seeing who’s getting paid what from the Treasury—“sort of all that DOGE stuff,” he said, which Wall Street types are giving “a standing ovation.” [Read the full story here]

Tara Palmeri: You were the only Democrat who voted to confirm Pam Bondi for attorney general. She was a fierce 2020 election denier and Trump loyalist who will have the power to go after members of your own party. Why did you confirm her?  John Fetterman: She would not be my choice, but I’m not the president, and that’s the way democracy works. Another thing is, she is qualified. She was the attorney general of the third-largest state in the nation, and she was a D.A. for 17, 18 years. So in terms of qualifications, she absolutely was a serious person. If everything is a “no,” or a freak-out, or you demand purity in every interaction, you’re never going to get anything done.

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Why do you think the Democratic Party is viewed as toxic by many voters, including some inside the party? The party’s primary currency was shaming and scolding and talking down to people, telling them, Hey, I know better than you, you’re dopes, you’re a bro, how can you be this dumb? And by the way, they’re fascists. You know, when you’re in a state like Pennsylvania, I know and I love people who voted for Trump, and they’re not fascists. They don’t support insurrection and those things. If you go to an extreme, and you become a boutique kind of proposition, then you’re going to lose the argument. And Democrats have done that. When I show up at a work site, I can all but guarantee you, if they’re politically engaged, who they vote for and why. They want to identify with people who seem to be looking out for them. I describe the ’24 election as not about obscure policies, but as a gut check vote. Voters asked themselves: Who is going to protect, or project, my personal view of the American way of life? I’m going to vote for that person. That’s why I think Trump won. The people who are protesting right now and yelling are in the safe districts and the safe states. The new leadership of the D.N.C., the vice chair [David Hogg], called for abolishing ICE and defunding the police. I’m concerned we haven’t paid attention to what happened. Have we looked up at the scoreboard and been like, By the way, we lost? How do Democrats win back the white male vote? I don’t know, and truthfully, I’m not sure if that’s possible. That’s been seriously eroding for a while. In some cases, and in conversations I’ve had, a lot of people don’t want to say it publicly, but they feel like, for the other side, men are the problem. Your masculinity is seen as toxic unless you’re able to conform to our very strict kind of definition of what we think is appropriate. We’ve kind of turned our back on that demographic; it’s going to be difficult to rebuild. You were the only Democrat to go to Mar-a-Lago and meet with Trump during the transition, after which you told everyone, “Pack a lunch, chill out, let the guy get into office and try to work with him,” which sounds consistent with what you’re saying now. We’re three weeks into his administration and he’s basically trying to neuter Congress through executive order. Congress hasn’t been neutered. Our party, the Democratic Party, was limited by democracy and the election—that’s what actually happened. The vast majority of these executive orders were just silly, or they weren’t ever going to go anywhere. You can’t retract [birthright] American citizenship—you have to change the Constitution, and that’s never going to happen. And if you want to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, those silly things, that’s not going to go anywhere. But to your point about those executive orders and trying to neuter Congress, you know what has limited our power as Democrats? In the Senate, I am one of 47, and they have 53. They effectively don’t need my vote, or any Democratic vote. They’re able, right there, to run the table. And they have the majority in the House, and they have the president. It’s perfectly aligned. When I campaigned, I warned people: You can get 777 on the slot machine, but the jackpot is the Supreme Court, because it’s got a 6-3 majority. So from my standpoint, that’s where it’s at. Then there’s Trump’s freeze on grants and funds. The American people don’t really know where that stands, and he wants to shut down the Department of Education and USAID. That’s where there’s going to be pushback. That’s bad politics, cutting the Department of Education. The real losers are kids, and you’re going to pay for that. I saw that in Pennsylvania, when I was lieutenant governor, and the then-governor, Republican Tom Corbett, cut the education budget and he thought that was smart. If you try to destroy the education system and the department, that’s going to activate me to push back, and you are going to pay a political price on that, because Republican children have to learn to read in blue states and red states.

What do you think about Elon Musk’s expansive role? No one elected him and yet he seems to have more power than you, a sitting senator. I know the Democrats are suing DOGE, but it just feels a little too late. It’s not clear. There’s an agenda there, and I don’t agree with it, and I think a lot of it’s strange. Who knows what’s happening right now? But Musk was empowered by a president who was empowered by the American people, who said, “We want things shaken up.” At least half the population agrees with what’s happening. We lost, I think, in part because we were perceived as the party of chaos. The second the Republican side becomes the chaos party, things will shift and people will realize, “I voted against this kind of chaos. I want more stability.” There will be a moment when a critical mass of people decide the Republicans are becoming the party of chaos. For now, we knew that it was going to be a storm, but there’s a lot more snow on the ground than anyone would have predicted. But you have to keep your shovel and figure out where you’re going to respond, and push back. But if you keep yelling, people are going to stop paying attention. Democrats have already used the most severe kinds of language and condemnation. It’s going to lose its value and no one’s going to pay attention to it. You seem to be saying that Americans only have a chance to rebuke Trump at the ballot box in 2026.  I’m worried about 2026, but actually I’m concerned about the next crazy thing that comes out of the chute. If they really affect the people, like going after the Department of Education, I will weigh in on things, the things that really matter. Could you make it through a Democratic primary for president? For anyone on the Democratic side who’s angry at me for having dinner with Trump, or trying to fight for wins, I’d like to remind you that I’m the senior senator in Pennsylvania, and I am in the same party as you. I am never rejecting my party. I haven’t changed my values. I’ve just chosen to have a different approach. And I’d like to remind everyone that our next president won’t be determined by the votes in Oregon or California or in Connecticut or these deep blue states. It will be determined in states like mine. We’re on the top of that list, and everyone has to remember how we almost lost our seats in Michigan and in Wisconsin and Nevada. We easily could have been 56-44 in the Senate. So if you’re angry with me for talking with the Republicans, I think you have to remember the way the race worked out, and that the states that really determine who’s going to be the next president are going to be those six or seven states. And remember that the things we say, or that we’re forced to defend, are going to get weaponized, with unlimited money. And that’s exactly what happened to the vice president in 2024.

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