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Hi, y’all. Welcome back to The Opposition. On the rare occasions when Donald Trump swerves leftward—as with the move to cap credit card interest rates—or when his administration makes a show of reaching across the aisle, Democrats face a choice: hold their noses and try to team up with Trump, or risk losing an opportunity to get something done. For today’s newsletter, my colleague Sam Stein and I talk with Democratic lawmakers, aides, and operatives about this catch-22, and how they warily try to turn it to their advantage.
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–Lauren
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A HOST OF PROMINENT POLITICAL LEADERS descended on Onondaga County, New York, last week to mark the official groundbreaking of a $100 billion semiconductor manufacturing facility by Micron Technology.
Among those in attendance were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (New York’s senior senator) and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
It was by all accounts a celebratory affair—befitting the launch of a venture expected to bring around 50,000 jobs to the central New York region. But it was a political event, too. Micron’s expansion was initially made possible by the CHIPS Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law, and which Donald Trump opposed. And so, as the gathered politicians and Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra took questions from the press, Luke Radel, a college reporter from nearby Syracuse, posed a question to Lutnick: Why should Trump get credit for these jobs?
Lutnick geared up to answer. But before a word left his lips, Schumer—a Buffalo Bills beanie tented over his head—jumped in: “We’re not looking for one side or the other,” he said. “We’re working together to make this thing happen in the right way.”
Such a plea for comity may have been reciprocated in normal times. But these aren’t normal times. Later that day, the Commerce Department posted a glossed-up promotional video about the Micron groundbreaking. Schumer was not even in it. Instead, it featured Lutnick mugging triumphantly in a variety of settings: shoveling dirt, striding alongside Mehrotra, photographed with his arms crossed and a vainglorious grin, boasting from a lectern that Biden had secured a measly $75 billion investment from Micron while Trump had negotiated one for $200 billion.
Lutnick’s crowing was a vivid reminder that there is no such thing as sharing when it comes to spotlights and Trump. But it also reignited a question for Democrats: Just how closely, if at all, should they collaborate with this administration, especially in an election year?
It’s a question faced by every party in the minority. Handing a president a bipartisan win is not something casually done when ballots are about to be cast. But it’s a particularly tricky proposition now—not just because it seems downright anathema to work with Trump while he tramples norms, rights, and the rule of law in a host of different areas, but also because Trump has suddenly begun embracing the policy hobbyhorses of some on the left.
In recent weeks, Trump has advocated capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent, announced the purchase of $200 billion in mortgage bonds in an attempt to lower the cost of home loans, and said he would back legislation that would prevent private equity firms from buying up single-family homes. A number of progressive Democrats would love to see these proposals signed into law. And in conversations throughout the past week, party officials confessed to feeling a bit torn. In their hearts, many fancy themselves as wonky do-gooders fundamentally uncomfortable with putting politics ahead of apparent legislative progress.
But none of them are thrilled about the idea of working with the administration. Nor do they want to give the president any cover in a year when so much will hinge on his ability to lower costs.
“We won’t close the door on something. The question is whether it is meaningful,” is how one congressional aide put it to us. “The political risk is not nonexistent but I don’t think it is the biggest factor.”
Few Democrats are feeling that tension quite like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. In a speech last week, Warren went after Trump for “doing not one damn thing” to lower housing costs. After Trump got word of her speech, he called Warren to talk about housing legislation and the cap on credit card rates. In an interview with CNB