"I think Republicans have miscalculated all the way through," Podesta said. "On Friday, Boehner said he didn't want the country to default, and then by Sunday he was threatening default."
President Obama may be winning the political battle over the budget standoff–at least for now–but will he win in the end?
That’s the question Alex Wagner asked former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta who joined the show to discuss Democratic strategy on the debt fight.
“I think Republicans have miscalculated all the way through,” Podesta said. “On Friday, [House Speaker John] Boehner said he didn’t want the country to default, and then by Sunday he was threatening default.”
In a visit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters on Monday, the president once again called upon House Republicans to pass a clean CR to fund the government and raise the nation’s $16.7 trillion debt limit.
Alex used a Washington Post Wonkblog chart to show that despite polls showing that Obama has the upper hand politically, Democrats’ demand for a clean CR essentially enshrines another victory for Republicans. Since winning the House in 2010, the House GOP has consistently succeeded in getting Democratic concessions on federal spending over the past few budget fights.
“It seems like a real failure of the Speaker,” Wagner said. “The fact that you have this sense of disenfranchisement [on the right] when in reality massive concessions have been made towards Republicans in terms of spending and their budget priorities.”
TheGrio.com’s Joy Reid noted that this was part of the bigger problem–the GOP thinks it’s losing, even when it’s winning.
“You have to understand the psychology of the base Republicans,” Reid said. “We tend to look at it as they keep winning, they keep reducing spending levels, they keep reducing the budget. But to those people, they keep losing.”
Still, Podesta sounded optimistic that Republicans would eventually realize they have a losing hand. “I think at the end of the day they will relent because the consequences will be devastating,” he said.
