Um, I I do want to turn to the the shutdown, the government shutdown, which as of November 5th will be the longest in American history, and tempers are flaring.

President Trump got back to Washington to uh growing anger um over this shutdown.

Here's Senate Majority Leader uh John Thun this week.

People should be getting paid in this country, and we've tried to do that 13 times, and you voted no 13 times.

This isn't a political game.

These are real people's lives that we're talking about.

And you all have just figured out 29 days in that oh, there might be some consequences.

So, in a lengthy Truth Social post early Friday, President Trump laid out to uh the blame on Democrats um and said that Republicans should quote, "Play their trump card and go for what is called the nuclear option to get rid of the filibuster and get rid of it."

Now, Paul, just explain to viewers exactly what he's calling for here when he talks about the nuclear option.

We're all about nuclear.

There seems to be a theme there.

The nuclear option would be ending the filibuster.

The filibuster essentially ensures that vast majority of votes in the Senate require 60 votes.

And if you ended the filibuster, it would go down to 5150.

And that would be a mechanism by which the Republicans would be able to push ahead with their version of what it would take to end.

You know more about this.

I do.

Am I right?

Yeah, that's absolutely correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're doing great.

Uh and so that would be the question, right?

Would be if you end that, but the Republican leadership in the Senate doesn't want to end it.

Neither party likes in the Senate wants to end it.

Joe Biden tried over voting right leg right rights legislation and I think Joe Mansion and Kristen Cinema opposed it.

So there's very little appetite in the Senate for ending this procedure and the procedure is there to so that they're kept in check a bit so that you don't have these huge swings and it's so it's it's I think it it's very caught up in their sense as a sort of civilized deliberative body that they are.

Jeeoff, there's some very real world impacts that are coming in the next few days.

You and I again, we were at the White House yesterday when Vice President Vance was talking about air traffic controllers missing a salary.

What else can we expect in the coming days?

Well, and one thing that he talked about was also the threat to Thanksgiving travel, which is just a few weeks away.

We're just getting into November and the the sort of catastrophic consequences that that could lead to if air traffic controllers are not showing up.

The other realworld consequences involve um nutrition assistance.

Uh there are a couple different programs that are affected.

There's the SNAP program, also known as food stamps, which nearly 42 million people are on.

39% of those are children.

Uh there's the women, infant, and children program, which is also affected.

The White House has said that they're going to use some money from tariffs to help fund that, but hasn't provided details.

And there's also Head Start, which provides uh preschool uh and education services for lower-income children all across the country.

Also, of course, big questions about um afford the affordable care act and the affordable care act, which is what the Democrats have been hanging their hat on throughout this shutdown uh warning about the impact of dramatically increases in premiums and the cost of healthare and that will happen as well if the shutdown if they don't come up with an agreement and the shutdown doesn't end.

I think that the the air traffic control issue and the pressure from two major airlines this week to come up with a solution and end this thing is going to increase pressure a lot on the Democrats.

Um you begin to feel this when you talk to some of the senators that they think they've been winning on this.

Their polling tells them they've been winning that it's popular.

But as these pressures and they become more consumer pressures and they get blamed even yesterday uh there was huge weather interruptions on air travel and it was immediately blamed on the shutdown when it really was a weather interruption on a lot of the cancellations.

I was traveling yesterday and I can just tell you it was a nightmare yesterday but um on Thursday in New York City in particular in the northeast and there's been a lot of weather on the east coast lately but the the pressure I think is going to mount as we get closer to this deadline especially uh the the food assistance they are managing to come up with money for the military billions of dollars to pay the military uh by transferring money from other accounts without congressional appropriators moving with the objection by the way of some of the Republican appropriators in the Senate that they didn't that again the president is doing things with money that is not permitted under the under the law.

Sman, you cover the White House.

You've also covered the Hill for many years.

How much is politics at play?

Obviously, we know politics is at play.

We have elections coming up in a few days time.

How much is that factoring into how both parties want to proceed whether or not they decide to actually negotiate for real?

Well, Virginia is really the state to look at if you're kind of looking in the context of shutdown politics because clearly Northern Virginia has the highest population of federal workers.

Um, but I'm a little less convinced that the shutdowns or that the elections on Tuesday will specifically play in a Democratic strategy here.

I do think that there are signs of some movement towards actually ending a shutdown earlier this week and I saw es especially with small groups of bipartisan senators meeting to actually try to find a way forward.

No, there's no deal yet, there's no official gang yet to end this.

But the fact that there are actual talks and discussion happening is much more of an encouraging sign than we've seen in shutdown.

But as it rel as it um as it pertains to Tuesday, I think Abigail Spamber, who's the Democratic candidate in the governor's race there in Virginia, has made this has made her campaign much more broader um when it comes to the Trump administration's assault on the federal government.

And I think that's going to be the takeaway that Democrats have if uh if she wins on Tuesday, as the polls indicate she will, that his that in part that what the president has done to the federal government and how he's sort of systematically dismantled it is not popular, particularly in Virginia.

We have just over a minute left and I I But how how likely is it that President Trump gets involved?

He's been relatively hands-off, right?

And that's by design.

I think he gets involved when there's a need for him to get involved.

And that need is going to come when Republican leaders tell him that, okay, you need to come and do something about this because Republicans have actually been fairly consistent, you know, from Trump on down.

That all you need to do to end the shutdown is for Democrats to vote for this funding bill that's already passed the House.

And that calculus that uh that line from Republicans hasn't changed as of this point.

We have a little over 30 seconds left.

Andrea, you've covered this town for a little bit.

Is it how how unusual is it for a president to leave the country not once actually but twice including this one this last trip which was the longest um that he's taken so far during a government shutdown.

It is unusual not unprecedented.

Uh other presidents have canceled trips but he clearly thought that the China issue and being on the world stage was more important and he's not playing a role in this.

Also, he's not making deals when he promises or portrays himself as a dealmaker and chief.

He did that in Asia.

He's not doing it at home.

At least not yet.

Very interesting.

Well, we will continue to watch this, of course.

Um, and we're going to have to leave it there.

Thank you so much to our guests for joining me and thank you at home for watching.