Brian’s European Vacation continues as Matt is joined by special guest Jane Flegal of the Blue Horizon Foundation to break down the energy provisions of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.

The energy cuts have attracted less attention than the health care provisions in part because they were made much more severe at the last minute. Jane breaks down how the Inflation Reduction Act changed America’s approach to clean energy subsidies — making them more durable, more flexible, and more inclusive of the full range of technologies including nuclear, geothermal, and carbon capture — and how it connects to larger industrial policy questions related to supply chains and battery production. Repealing these measures will leave America worse off than it was pre-Biden in terms of clean energy production, which is going to lead to higher levels of air pollution and higher energy bills as Americans face a generational increase in electricity demand from AI and data centers.

After the break, Matt and Jane analyze the broader philosophy of investment-led climate policy — what’s the right lesson to learn from the failure of Obama-era carbon pricing and what can we do about the flood of extremely dirty Chinese steel on world markets?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* How Republicans turned against energy programs in their Big Beautiful Bill.

* The impact of repealing energy credits on electricity prices.

* Dylan Matthews on the geopolitics and environmental economics of steel.

Brian is on vacation, so special guest McKenzie Wilson joins Matt to talk about Blue Rose Research’s retrospective on the 2024 election and their work on message-testing. McKenzie came to Blue Rose after working in the private sector, working for Jamal Bowman, and working in the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services — she believes in progressive values and she wants to win elections.

In this episode, Matt and McKenzie discuss:

* The central role of the cost of living in the 2024 election.

* The importance of partisan realignment based around engagement with news and politics.

* The deep unpopularity of Joe Biden and the need for Democrats to internalize that as they move forward.

Then, behind the paywall, what are the Trump administration’s biggest points of vulnerability? What are Democrats getting right and wrong about highlighting those issues? Most of all, McKenzie makes the case for a disciplined approach that ties everything back to core values that motivate progressives and also resonate with swing voters.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* The full Blue Rose slide deck.

* Matt’s article on Republicans’ Medicaid cuts.

* A corporate marketing guru’s appreciation and praise of Bernie Sanders’ message discipline.

By the time you listen to this episode, the Republican bill to give rich people trillions in tax cuts, and throw millions of people off of Medicaid will be…somewhere. It could be on the glide path to passage in the House, or on life support, or somewhere in between. But the basic shape of what Republicans want to do, and what Donald Trump wants them to do, is clear.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* How this terrible bill, which many Republicans really do not like, might become law anyhow.

* Should this bill, if it passes, change the way Democrats think about the social compact, where productive, younger, more tolerant Americans underwrite Republican populations and politicians that despise them?

* Will Republicans be committing political suicide by passing a huge, debt-financed tax cuts given inflation pressures and high interest rates?

Then, behind the paywall, the renewed but cursed Joe Biden discourse. Did Biden or his advisers actually perpetrate a coverup of any kind, or is that just hype from reporters and Republicans trying to sell books and hurt Democrats? Do Democrats really need to have any kind of “reckoning” or are the lessons of 2024 and electing extremely old presidents pretty obvious to everyone? And how should they go about engaging in this and other forms of discourse that are frustrating and unhelpful, but impossible to avoid.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Update: Biden says his last PSA was in 2014.

* Greg Schultz on the REAL reason Democrats lost the 2024 election. (The real reason was that Biden was very old.)

* Brian argues Democrats should spend less time staking out positions on controversies, and more time reflecting privately on what their real views are.

* Jonathan Cohn on the highly irregular way Republicans are trying to force their tax and Medicaid cuts through the legislative process.