Every day and bring questions. But immediately day one, President Biden brought back the briefings and jen psaki is the spokesperson. They started reversing things that were broken by the previous president as they set to restore some of the basic things that had gone by the wayside over the years like daily briefings. As they set taught pass ambitious policies and programs that biden campaigned on, that democrats in congress campaigned on, it is sort of awkward but i think unavoidable to realize that one crucial thing that going to make the lifeordeath difference as to whether or not the new administration and new congress are actually able to get stuff done is a thing that we only have because of Richard Nixon being such a terrible president. And specifically because of something that Richard Nixon did right before he resigned. And it seemed like nothing much at the time. It got not that much attention at the time, but it very well may now determine if the biden presidency and the Democratic Congress under the biden presidency is able to get anything done or not. It was july 1974, july 12, 1974, president Richard Nixons Top White House aide was convicted on multiple felonies. John ehrlichman was domestic policy adviser to nixon, top adviser to nixon in the white house, convicted of multiple felonies, convicted of conspiracy and lying to the fbi and lying to the grand jury. Actually, that day in july 1974, multiple nixon guys were convicted but ehrlichman was a big deal, way up there in the hierarchy. The highest ranking person at that point convicted in the nixon scandals. And president nixon had to be rattled by it. Nixons White House Press secretary at the time told reporters there would be no comment on ehrlichmans conviction but that convention was of course the lead story in the news all over the country. Good evening, John Ehrlichman has been found guilty of three counts of perjury and one count of conspiracy in the ellsberg breakin case. The verdict against ehrlichman, president nixons chief domestic adviser was found guilty. Ehrlichman could receive up to 25 years in prison. Thats tom brokaw on Nbc Nightly News on the night of that verdict. It was the opening story that night. Looking back, it was less than a month later that nixon himself would resign from the presidency in disgrace as the net of all the Nixon Administration scandals, the accountability for watergate just closed around him as well. But that friday in mid july remember, nixon resigned in august. This was mid july, the day that nixons top aide was convicted, while the president was that much on the ropes. If you stayed past the lead story that night, if you watched the whole news that night beyond the lead of ehrlichman facing decades in prison add the president have no comment on that, if you got through the rest of the night live news, you would eventually 17 minutes into that nightly newscast you would get to the thing that is now everything to us, that is the make or break determinant as to whether or not joe biden will be able to do anything substantive in his first term in office. At the white house today president nixon signed a new budget bill into law, the most significant reform of Budget Procedures since congress began. The bill gives Congress Much more authority over the National Budget than it ever has had before. The president , for example, no longer will be able to impound appropriated money without the approval of congress. It was that same day, all right, thats the same day that the president s top adviser gets convicted of multiple felonies. So this story about the other thing that mattered about the president that day, that had to wait until 17 minutes into the newscast that night. In the newspaper the following morning, it only made it on to page 6 of the new york times. But what that was, what nixon signed into law, that asuspicious day or inauspicious day back in july 1974 is something he probably never would have signed had he not been in extremis, fighting to say his political life and resigned in disgrace. Its something he would not have been asked to sign if nixon had not been such a terrible president. We remember nixon because of watergate and the dramatic way his presidency had to be brought to an end. We remember all of that about nixon. Before donald trump theres a reason that nixon is the standard bearer for a scandal ridden, disgraced president. But because of that, because of the way it ended, we sometimes forget that beyond watergate, beyond all of those Marquee Nixon scandals, he was a pretty terrible president in other ways. One of the ways in which nixon showed his sort of radical, powermad side is not just organizing breakins and having that cia try to cover them up for him and all that Cloak And Dagger stuff, its stuff that he did as president in the light of day, including him claiming new power for himself as president that basically turned congress off like a switch. We all know how it works. Congress passes the law, Congress Passes a budget, appropriates money to do stuff. Nixon said forget that. He instead would take control of that process himself. And so he started you heard tom brokaw say in that report from july 1974 about Impounding Money. Thats what nixon was doing. He started doing something called Impounding Money that had been appropriated by congress. This is something he did not just with small stuff but with billions of dollars. Congress would appropriate money, fund a program or an agency. If nixon didnt like that program or agency, he decided he had the power to take all that money and refuse to allow it to be spent. He would impound the funding that had been appropriated by congress, thus delegating to himself what they call the power of the purse. Like our country or dont, thats fundamental to who we are as a republic. Its congress that gets to decide how money is spent in the government, and nixon in his presidency took that power for himself. And congress was very unhappy about it. And so when president nixon was on the ropes, when he was embroiled in scandal and on the precipice of having to resign the presidency in disgrace, Richard Nixon signed a new law that cut himself short, signed a new law that was designed to stop him from being able to do this thing that he had been doing. He signed a new law that would prevent any future president from bogarting the budget, from Beaugarding Money away from congress the way he had been. It Gave Congress a whole bunch of new power when it came to the government, to constrain a government who was sticking his nose where it didnt belong. And that law, which nixon in extremis at the very end signed, that law included one tweak, one little power that Congress Gave itself with this new law. Its a quirky little thing that they could do only once per budget since congress was supposed to do a budget once per year, it meant congress could do this only once per year. It was originally designed in the that bill that brushed back the president , to give congress a small window, a last chance to make afterthefact changes once they had set their budget for the year and they could make those changes with just a Majority Vote in the house and senate. It was intended to be big deal, to be a Fund Al Change in the way the country does its business and the way the various branches of government work together. But it ended up becoming very important over the years. This overall reform that nixon signed in 1974 was to give congress the tools that they needed to set the budget, oversee the allocation of money as they saw fit without being locked out of the process. Nixon signs it in 1974, less than a month before he resigns, signs it on the day his top aide was convicted on multiple felonies. It looks like a footnote to that much bigger news of that scandal at that time. But what nixon signed went into effect in the first time in 1980 over the ensuing 41 years what that little tweak has turned into is something thats a very big deal. What it has turned into is a means by which the senate can pass stuff without needing 60 votes, without needing a supermajority to do it. Its a means by which the senate can pass some stuff as long as it pertains to the budget with just 51 votes and they can do that once per budget because of the reform nixon signed in 1974. And with the craziness and the outgoing president having been impeached twice and with him due to go on trial again in the United States senate next week, even though hes already gone from office with an ongoing and indeed accelerating Global Pandemic having killed more americans in the past year than were killed in the whole length of world war ii, with an economy just squashed by the pandemic, putting more americans on the unemployment rolls every week than we have seen at any time since the great depression, with the country having just voted out the latest republican president who made nixons scandals look quaint and having voted republicans out of control of the house and the senate, too, but narrowly in each case. Now today that, you know, page 6 of the new york times, 17 minutes into the newscast footnote, that tweak in the way the budget gets done in washington is going to make all the difference in the world as to whether or not now the Democratic Party having control of presidency and the house and the senate is going to be enough for this new president to get big, lasting things passed to try to help the country in all of the crises that we are in now. These are the policies, roughly, as shorthanded by me and i take full responsibility for any of these things that dont end up being proposed in exactly this way, but roughly these are the priorities that the Biden Administration and Democraticled Congress have said they want to get done. Its what theyre calling the American Rescue plan, the covid relief. Its funding for the National Vaccination program and a Stimulus Check for americans family and another round of help to suffering Small Businesses and help for cities and states so the economic crunch from the pandemic doesnt force them to start laying off cops and firefighters and paramedics and teachers and all the rest. It extends the ban for evicting people from apartments or closing on their homes during the pandemic. It extends the pause on people repaying federal student loan, puts extra money in unemployment checks and an overdue hike in the federal minimum wage. Thats rescue one. Thats the covid19 relief bill. And theres a jobs and economic bill, it includes a big focus on domestic manufacturing, theres a lot in there about transportation, lots of investments and things that will help the economy and help with climate issues, this is a lot of what biden campaigned on, build back better. They also want Immigration Reform, including an eightyear long path to citizenship for immigrants and reforms and rationalization on Border Security and on applying for asylum and on the treatment of refugees, very, very long overdue Immigration Reform, they want to do that. And theres democracy. Voting rights and Shoring Up Democracy. Theyre calling this with hr1 in the house and s1 in the senate, meaning numerically the first bill in both houses of congress, including it puts a stop to gerrymandering, makes it so every vote has a floor they cant go below in terms of opening up the Voting Process to make it easier for people to vote. It blocks people for messing with voter by mail and makes voting by mail the norm. Its got a whole lot in it but thats some of it. In very rough terms, again, i take responsibility for leaving out some stuff and overstating or understating some other things, but this is basically how i understand it. These are the four things theyre aiming at from the outset. These are not Executive Orders or resolutions or states of intent that can be reversed with the sweep of a Pen By The Next president. This is law. These would be big leaps forward in terms of law, congressionally passed, real, durable legislation that will change and reform things in big ways in the country. Big moves to try to handle these multiple crisis that we have been struggling through and how they can do it. This is all stuff that has to be done through congress. Now, in the House Democrats have a narrow majority but they have a majority and speaker of the house nancy pelosi knows how to get things passed with a democratic majority. The issue is the senate. In the senate, senate rules say that the Minority Party can filibuster almost anything, in effect require 60 votes to pass legislation. There are only 60 Democratic Senators in the senate. On some issue, maybe two or three republican senators or be positive and say four or five or six my cross over with the contracts on some piece of legislation. Maybe. Its just not going to happen on anything big. Even if they could get one, two, three, four, five, six republican senators to cross over on something, its certainly never going to be ten republican senators who cross over to vote with democrats on anything at all, let alone Something Big and substantive. Republicans just dont operate that way anymore. Under their leader, senator mcconnell, you could not get ten republican senators to vote for a resolution that says moms are good and ice cream is cold and tasty. Theres just no way they would do it. And so Richard Nixon and that tweak that he signed in high summer 1974, less than a month before he resigned to basically clip his own wings. That tweak that he signed, which is sort of a miracle that he signed it, he probably never would have had he not been in such trouble, he signed that that Gave Congress new ways to wrangle the budget where the senate can pass stuff once per budget in a way that gets around a filibuster and lets you just pass something with a majority. That is black and white, night and day, up and down. Thats going to be the difference. Put back up that list of stuff that biden and the Democratic Congress wants to do it as we roughly understand it. This is based on my conversations with people who know these things and what weve seen in the white house and the democrats have explained. Four main things. Well, that gift that we got from Richard Nixon, that gift, that tweak that says once per budget you can pass something just with a majority, just with 51 votes, once per budget you can use the Budget Reconciliation Process to pass something with just a majority, which democrats have just on their own, you can only do that once per Budget Resolution. Here is the unusual wrinkle in the democrats favor. Turns out there was no Budget Resolution passed last year. They still didnt do last years Budget Resolution. And of course they havent done this years yet either. So even though that 40yearold gift from Richard Nixon usually means you can use this Reconciliation Process to pass stuff with 50 votes once per year in the senate, this year they get two Budget Resolutions. They actually get to do it twice, which is a windfall. But put back up that list of things they want to do. That is still not enough to pass this stuff that they want to do, right . With just a Majority Vote, with just democratic votes if they need to do it that way. Think about it. Are they going to get ten republican votes for any of these things is this likely not. Right . They can only use that one neat trick to pass things with just a majority of votes twice. Its amazing that they can do it twice. That inheritance from Richard Nixon is enough, we think, to pass two of these two big, ambitious legislative lifts, the two that are highlighted here are the ones we think theyre going to go for. What does that do for Immigration Reform . What does that do for Voting Rights and Shoring Up Democracy . What does that do with Everything Else they want to pass through legislation in congress . The other hurdle here is that anything they want to pass by this process, they have to make the case to the Senate Parliamentarian that everything in that bill is material live related to the budget. If its not budget related, they can do it with just a Majority Vote. But using reconciliation, they can pass two packages of legislation, if the democrats hang together, even if they get zero republican votes. If they want to