Can The Center Hold After Charlie Kirk? Plus: Shutdown Strategy

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Pushkin

welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions.

I'm Maria Kanakova, and I'm Nate Silver.

Today, on the show, it's a politics-focused episode.

We're going to talk about

a story we think we have to talk about, at least a little bit: the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the conservative

influencer, a tragic and scary event.

And we're going to

carefully have a little bit of a heart-to-heart about it.

And then we're going to talk about more pedestrian politics, talk about the potential looming government shutdown in Washington and what both parties might be strategizing about for that.

Yeah, I think this is going to be an interesting episode, a really interesting conversation.

And also

for our listeners, this is going to be the first week where we are going to a twice weekly schedule of risky business.

So we will now be in your feed twice a week.

And yeah, we hope you enjoy that and we'd love to hear your feedback about how you think it's going.

On that note, Nate, let's turn to, you know, what is

I think on the, I mean, on the more serious side of topics, period, but in terms of the types of things we talk about at risky business, it's definitely on the very serious end of that, which is the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

And you had actually met Charlie, right, Nate?

I never met Charlie.

No, I think he

sent me a DM once and invited me on his show when I'd said something that riled up Democrats.

And I ignore most invites, if we're being honest, it was nothing personal.

But yeah, I'm sure.

Look, I wrote a piece at my sub stack about this, which is kind of how you know, you don't have to say anything.

Why don't people just kind of be more restrained?

And maybe we're violating that here.

I'm not sure.

Look, I do think that there is,

I called it like an implicit fraternity.

I guess it's a slightly gendered term, but I'm a Kirk, about like people who comment about politics for a living, right?

And people who are in the public eye.

And obviously, if you go on Twitter or Blue Sky, whatever else, right?

There's a lot of debate about

what type of political citizen Charlie Kirk was, but

still, when somebody is assassinated, I mean, you know, I spoke at

an open public forum in Ames, Iowa at Iowa State University two days after Kirk was killed.

So, I mean, it's not,

not in my head to be looking out at the crowd.

And, you know, when you get the weird questions later after the show, it's like, okay, what's going on here?

And, you know, I mean, I don't know.

I've certainly gotten death threats before, but, but.

I mean, Charlie Kirk is also a little bit hard to characterize, right?

I was struggling with whether to call him an activist or

an organizer or a provocateur or a intellectual or a media personality, right?

Or or what exactly.

I'm not sure there's actually a perfectly comparable figure on the left because the left and right are asymmetric, but like

someone who was very influential, right?

Who kind of like bridged the gap between I mean, he was friends, I think just not friendly, but I think Trump would call him a friend with Trump himself, right?

And had like a quite large audience.

Yeah, I think whatever we call him, Nate, what I would like to stress is he was someone who exercised his First Amendment right

incredibly well, eloquently, and freely, as he should have been able to do.

And I do want to stress a truly important point, which is that we can't conflate speech and violence, right?

Like people love to say that, oh, speech can be violence.

No, violence is violence.

Whether or not you agree with Charlie Kirk or you disagree with him, he was practicing free speech.

He was engaging in debate, and that's something that, you know, we should be doing in a democracy, right?

We should be talking to people we agree with, we should be talking to people we disagree with, we should be having conversations.

That's the backbone of critical thinking.

That's the backbone of progress.

That's the backbone of society.

And the fact that

someone can be assassinated for exercising free speech

is something that should absolutely never happen.

And as you say, Nate, you were doing an event right afterwards.

And it definitely, I think as someone, you know, we both do public events, we both do public speaking.

I think it changes your kind of risk calculus, risk framing when you see, oh my God, have we gotten to the point in a society where people think that this is okay, right?

That this is a legitimate response, that if I disagree with someone, you know, violence is is okay.

Yeah.

And there's also a chilling

challenge to people with what they say and also whether they get invited.

I mean, one case with

some questionable similarities, but Sam and Rushdie was attacked at a book festival in rural New York a couple of years ago.

There was a fatba against him, and I suppose that was eventually partly fulfilled, right?

And he almost died, by the way.

He was incredibly lucky to survive.

People thought he was going to die.

He has lost vision in one eye.

was, you know, it was a very, very close call, but that could have very easily gone the other way.

But, you know, part of the joy, I guess, of doing an event in a community, particularly a smaller community, is that the doors are open, right?

You know, I have, have you been to a political convention, like a Democratic-Republican convention before?

I never have, no.

I mean, the security is

incredible.

Like, it takes an hour to get in there.

It takes 20 minutes to get out of there, right?

There is, it's very cumbersome, and in some ways, it's like not very conducive to

political protests or political speech, right?

And of course, parties that want to suppress political protests often use threats of violence as an excuse to say, Okay, we don't want you people protesting about Gaza or

Bernie Sanders or whatever else in the convention halls, so we can't let you in for security reasons.

Um,

but yeah, I mean, look,

in some ways, there's not

that much to say about, if you don't know him,

about Charlie Kirk,

you know what I mean?

Like, I don't, there's this whole game about like

using this as a positioning exercise for where people fit into the discourse.

And I don't know, it's.

The guy was fucking shot like on a university campus in cold blood, right?

And it's like, you know, I mean, I, you know, no one even has the pretense anymore of, oh, let's quote unquote, not politicize this.

And by definition, although there's a little bit of ambiguity still in like the shooters' motivations, I wouldn't say that much necessarily, but some, right?

By definition, an assassination is a

political act, right?

And, you know, I think this is becoming more common.

Although there's some demeanor about that fact, right?

But like, you know, I don't know.

I mean, it was just last year when

Trump got shot.

And I'm going to be a little jokey about it because he survived.

And that was kind of the mood about it, right?

He had that, that, you know, I had just busted out of a tournament, poker tournament, World Streets poker.

I'm like, Maria,

I won't see you for dinner because I busted out.

And I think somebody just shot Trump.

But immediately it was clear that Trump had

survived and had this triumphant moment.

And so it was almost, you know, I was kind of out wandering around on the strip getting a sad little...

dinner with the other people who busted out and people there were kind of excited right it's like oh that's cool he survived right and and that kind of detracted from the magnitude of what that event had been and how scary that could have been.

And I think

you're seeing now

what happens when you create somebody who can be a martyr, potentially.

And I'll go a step further, Nate.

I think that that was a precursor to another moment that people made light of, which was the December assassination of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, right?

Where people actually made Luigi Majon into

kind of this hero, right?

Folk hero, like, yes, you went after the bad guys.

And we talked about it on the pod back then where like, holy shit, guys, this is a horrible reaction.

Like, this is not what you should be.

I don't care what you think about, you know, healthcare in America or.

what you think about United or all of these things.

This is not the answer, right?

Violence that's like, this is not okay.

This is never something to be celebrated.

And yet people were celebrating it.

So I think that we've seen kind of this progression that in some ways has led us to this moment where you think, oh, you know, first of all, this is the right way to solve it.

And secondly, like, I could even be a hero, right, for killing someone who, you know, people disagreed with or thought they did something bad.

And it's just so profoundly fucked up to think in those terms and to think that this is just something you do, right?

This is why we have society.

This is why we have laws.

This is why we have norms of behavior.

This is why we live, you know, in a civilization and not in the wild west, where the way that you solve things was to duke it out with guns.

Yeah, look, the way I kind of look at civilization, like, again, it's amazing that you're in New York and it's a city of 8 billion people and everyone has different objectives on their mind.

And there is lots of petty crime from day to day and other things.

And yet the kind of center holds, right?

But the center holds, I think, sometimes narrowly, right?

Where you have a lot of, I'm going to confuse centrifugal and centripetal, right?

You have a lot of forces pulling out into chaos and then you have forces holding people together including policing including common decency

including common sense right and kind of everything in between and like it might not take that much for things to fall out of equilibrium and maybe and maybe social media is that and you know i don't think things have

calmed down very much on Twitter, right?

I've I've covered a lot of news stories, and like

five days, no matter what the story is, of things not calming down,

it's a little unusual, right?

You know, you also have people who are getting

fired for saying

thoughtless, or I was going to say unPC, which is, I mean, I think it is kind of like a political correctness issue, right?

You have people fired for saying things that, in some cases, are,

I think, stupid and tone-deaf, but like,

but.

Still a fireable effect?

Yeah, look, and some of them,

you know, Matthew Dowd is my former ABC News colleague, and I think Matthew Dowd's a blowhard and an idiot, but I think he should be fired for being a blowhard and an idiot in general about almost every issue that he weighs in on, and not on a short preparation TV hit when it wasn't clear what had happened.

about saying, okay, well, this guy was kind of encouraging.

I mean, you know, I don't think his comment is correct, but it's also like

it's within the realm of

free speech that I think Charlie Kirk was relatively non-hypocritical about free speech and would have wanted, right, to support.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And this goes back to what you said at the beginning, Nate, which I think we should just stress a little bit more, which is the chilling effect of this, right?

The effect that this has on free speech more broadly, on what people feel like they can and can't say,

and the fact that there are now these like very strong repercussions for rights that you should have, right?

And even going a step further, so there was a piece in the New York Times that pointed out that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had said that the agency was monitoring and tracking any military personnel who celebrated or mocked Kirk's death.

And Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary of state, said that the administration would be stripping visas from any individuals who celebrated Kirk's death.

So, you know, this is like it's going further and further, right?

From, oh, you might be fired to you might have your visa taken away.

And I've, I mean, that's frightening.

Everything about this moment is frightening.

I want to also point out something that you mentioned about New York and like the fact that New York functions.

And sometimes you think, oh, how precarious is it?

There's actually a lot of work in psychology that shows that it is quite precarious, right?

Social norms are precarious, that norms of behavior are precarious, that we are often kind of walking on a razor's edge where it can go in one direction or another, depending on what prominent people say, you know, depending on what people think, that these things do shift and can shift very rapidly.

So, I think we should just remember that, you know, social norms that we take for granted, we shouldn't take for granted.

They do need to be protected, or we might end up devolving, which is what I think we're witnessing right now.

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Not all group chats are the same, just like not all atoms are the same.

Adam Brody, for example, uses WhatsApp to plan his grandma's birthday using video calls, polls to choose a gift, and HD photos to document a family moment to remember, all in one group chat.

Makes grandma's birthday her best one yet.

But Adam Scott group messages with an app that isn't WhatsApp.

And so the photo invite came through so blurry, he never even knew about the party.

Yeah, grandma still won't talk to me.

It's time for WhatsApp.

Message privately with everyone.

Speaking about, you know, the increased political violence, security, I think this is a good moment to shift gears a little bit

and talk about the potential government shutdown and funding, because one of the things that is happening is that the White House has requested $58 million in security funding for both the executive and the judicial branches after Charlie Kirk's

assassination.

And this is basically

they're trying to insert this as part of the stopgap bill to prevent a government shutdown, which is looming on October 1st.

So this is clearly something that

is being used.

I don't know if it's being used as a pretext or if this is actually something that they should be doing, but it's interesting that this is making its way

from something that happened last week to something that is a key provision in a bill that can prevent the shutting down of the government, which, by the way, Nate, I feel like we have an impending government shutdown so frequently these days.

Can I give a quick backgrounder for, I have a story coming out of this this week.

So like in the spring, was it March or whatever?

In the spring,

Republicans had to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open.

People thought that bill might get signed in the House where the GOP has a very narrow majority, and they passed it, party line vote, I think with one exception on each side.

It went to the Senate, where for that type of legislation, the filibuster is still under the rules of the Senate.

So ultimately, Democrats debated a shutdown, public commentators debated a shutdown.

I actually wrote a post, I guess it was after they didn't, after Schumer had conceded or was about to concede saying Democrats should have had a shutdown.

I thought it was a good opportunity.

I thought they could highlight Doge spending cuts and take advantage of Elon Musk's unpopularity.

But Schumer and what was it, you know, seven or so other Democrats voted for cloture to end a filibuster, and so therefore the bill passed however that resolution was for six months and it expires at the end of this month september so i say 31st i think this how many days is september have 30 august 30th 30.

damn september 30th do you remember nate i think i told you about my little uh

the little thing that you can use i know yeah i you know september feels like a 31 though right it's a pretty fucking important month.

September might be the best month.

It is an important month.

It's such a great weather month, back to school month.

I love September, but it's a 30-day month.

Unfortunately, good things never last, nate.

Good things never last.

Okay.

Sorry, I lost.

Okay.

So anyway, this time, though, it's Democrats.

So October 1, October 1 is when the government would shut down.

This time, though, it's Democrats who seem to want to shut down.

So Chuck Schumer indicated...

late last week that

he had canvassed his caucus and they are inclined to- That sounds really inappropriate to me.

Will you canvass my caucus?

Sorry, guys, this is important.

All right, so he'd canvassed his caucus, yes.

And there was appetite in the Democratic caucus to make

demands, I suppose, about health care.

They want to extend Obamacare subsidies and Medicaid and restore Medicaid cuts that were made in the one big, beautiful Bill Act, not my term for it, the official piece, the name of the legislation.

And meanwhile, lots of center and center commentators from

Ezra Klein to Robert Reich to everybody else have been saying, yeah, we need a fight.

Democrats can't concede to this, although they don't really agree on the whys or the what's exactly, right?

But there's agreement that something must be done that Schumer was so much of a pushover last time that this is one of the few points Democrats have leveraged.

And when you want to cash that in for like a big media moment, or for actual concessions, that you have to, it's time to do something.

Yeah, I mean, I think that Schumer learned his lesson a little too well from the last time when he got such horrible coverage, such horrible press

for making the deal, right?

Where he said, Look, I'm just, I'm doing what needs to be done.

And he came off looking terrible.

But I think that the other strategic moment, and I'm not writing a piece about this, Nate, so please, you know, feel free to chime in, is I think that Democrats are seeing this as a moment where they can really

start creating kind of new messaging for midterm elections and for, you know, for presidential elections moving forward to say that, you know, we are the true party that's protecting the people, right?

The reason that we're doing this is we want you to have your health care, your Medicare.

We want it not to be cut.

You know, we want all of these benefits that are being lost with rural communities for the working man of America.

We want to protect this, and that's what we're trying to fight for.

And I think that's also part of the messaging and part of the things that they are trying to make sure get changed in the reconciliation before the bill moves forward.

I mean, there are different theories, right?

I mean, look, part of it is like, are you familiar with like the chess term Zugzwang?

Zugzwang?

I don't know how to say it.

I have read it.

But

let's explain it because

my familiarity is very passing to the point where I, too, Nate, do not know how to pronounce it.

It's a situation where every move you make is worse than no

right?

That you would prefer that it was your opponent's turn.

And like, so like, let's say Democrats

supplied the votes for the continuing resolution, I mean,

you know, and try to

de-escalate this.

I mean, you know, I mean, they would look like pushovers.

Schumer in particular, I mean, first of all, he is up to re-election not next year, but in 2028.

You have a lot of people coming after Schumer, right?

There are lots of,

you know, to state obvious names, AOC.

She doesn't run for president, for example, or Zoran.

Who knows, right?

He can't be president because he was born in Uganda, but he could run for Senate, right?

But a lot of talent, and all the MSNBC-loving

Democrats, right?

But there's going to be a lot of demand for Chuck Schumer's seat, right?

And as well as if he survives electorally, then maybe his role as majority leader.

And so he kind of, I think, has to do

something, right?

And the kind of Ezra Klein argument is that if you supply votes for this continuing resolution, are you not tacitly endorsing

this government that you say is authoritarian and acting in bad faith

and corrupt even before you get to the fact that they are eviscerating a lot of priorities that Democrats hold dear?

And

I kind of buy that.

I kind of buy that as a default in politics, that doing the thing that you believe in and or is consistent with your overall messaging, right?

I think that's worthwhile.

And we've seen, I think, repeatedly that like Democrats sometimes the rhetoric exceeds what they're actually willing to do, right?

I think we've talked about this many times.

Don't have to dwell on it anymore.

I think if they had really regarded

Trump 2.0 as an existential threat, they might have thought more carefully about

how Fit Biden was to run for a second term.

And they might have thought more carefully about whether Kamala Harris was the optimal person to replace him and so to sound whatever might have thought more carefully about we've been through all that on this program before right but like you know so i support the notion that like um

put your money where your mouth is on the other hand there's like not really a good end game for democrats here i don't think and it's not clear what endgame they want right because on the one hand i think the ezra case is more like we just want to have

change the narrative, change the discourse.

And by the way, Trump's approval rating is not really moving very much, right?

So like, it's like not like he's in some slate.

Where is it right now it's about a net negative seven negative eight right so it's like you know whatever 43 percent approved 51 disapproved somewhere in that range right and it has not really moved it has not moved because of jeffrey epstein it has not moved because of of of

whatever scandals there are right we don't have any data yet will be affected by the charlie kirk the first segment right but like um

it did seem to move for tariffs about three months ago or excuse me six months ago during liberation day was a big drop in april and it's been steady since then.

And so like, you know, there is a notion of increasing variance for Democrats, I think,

and kind of changing the discourse, changing the dialogue.

But, you know, here's the issue.

I mean, if you offer a deal on healthcare, the problem is it's kind of a deal that like might be good for the GOP, you know what I mean?

Where like all these swing state representatives

might say, yeah, actually, I'm pretty uncomfortable with these Medicaid cuts, right?

And

okay,

I'll take the deal, right?

You know, I don't know if Trump would sign it, but like.

No, I think some of the biggest losses in medical coverage are happening in states like Arizona, where somewhere around like 300,000 people are set to lose coverage

under the big beautiful bill come October 1st if changes aren't made.

And Arizona is obviously a state that's

very important for

Republicans.

So there are, I think,

this is an issue that could be bipartisan in the sense that it's something that Democrats care about, but it's actually something that can help Republicans.

And I think that if they're thinking about, if the GOP is thinking of midterm elections, right, if they're thinking about, okay, which seats are up,

then they might start realizing, hey, like, if this bill passes as is, right, if these cuts actually pass, if all of my constituents suddenly realize that, oops, like, where's my medical coverage?

Like, what just happened?

Maybe I'm not going to get re-elected.

Like, maybe I'm not going to look as good.

And you wonder why they didn't think about this before when they were passing the big beautiful bill.

But you'd be, I've, I've been shocked at how many people have been like, oh, well, I didn't really read that part of it.

You know, I didn't really, I didn't really realize that that was in here.

And I'm like, wait, I'm sorry.

What?

Like, isn't that your entire job?

Or you have aides to do it and to summarize it for you so that you don't have to read it.

But, like, come on, like, what kind of a

excuse is that?

I don't know if we talked about the tech, the change to the tax treatment of gambling laws, right?

That also was kind of interesting.

No, we actually, we actually haven't talked about that on the show.

So, I think that's something that we filibuster for.

Until gambling deductions are fully restored, I will not provide votes.

This authoritarian menace.

And we'll be back right after this.

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With built-in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients.

And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite-to-mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid.

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Learn more at supermobile.com.

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where you can see the sky.

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Just like not all Adams are the same.

Adam Brody, for instance, uses WhatsApp to pin messages, send events, and settle debates using polls with his friends, all in one group chat.

Makes our guys night easier.

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Message privately with everyone.

You know what I would do if I were Schumer?

What would you do?

I would demand concessions on tariffs.

Little funky.

Interesting.

Say more.

So there are a couple of reasons, right?

One is that, I mean, look,

Republicans, people, congressmen are stupid, right?

So like the fact that like this would be, they're fucking stupid.

Like, why would you go into Congress if you had, like, honestly, like, why would you go into fucking Congress if you had like real talent to contribute?

I know, I guess guess I know some congressmen.

I take that back, but like.

Nate, Nate, Nate.

Okay.

And my co-host has gone on the record as saying that congressmen are fucking sick.

No, but like,

I mean, okay, yeah, just take the deal.

It's a good deal.

It's the Luka Dotch trade.

Like, I mean, just take the deal.

You're going to get something that, like, it will actually soften Trump's image and help you be re-elected, right?

And Democrats can say, oh, we held up, we were so tough, right?

It's like, okay, deal.

It's tough.

But now talk about tariffs.

Why do we think that they should also be pushing for tariffs?

So for one thing, like, again, I do am a buyer of the Ezra argument that like

you might want to pick something that is more abnormal.

And the tariffs are abnormal, both in the sense that we haven't had these tariffs in almost 100 years and the fact that like,

you know, you're abrogating Congress's role to regulate taxes and collection of spending.

In fact, the case will be litigated by the Supreme Court.

So it might become a moot point eventually.

but like, um, but like, you know, I think that is more of a pain point between Trump and the GOP.

I think highlighting, you know, the economic news

is worthwhile.

For Democrats, we've had

bad jobs reports lately.

We also had a revision that covered Biden's last year and Trump's first half year, right?

Where like, actually, we've been overestimating the number of jobs that were created.

Maybe a little bit easier to understand how people were fed up about the economy last year.

But

But like, I think tariffs are a better pain point.

I think they're a harder deal for the GOP to take.

They're the one issue that's been proven to hurt Trump's popularity.

And they get a little bit at the lack of, at the extra, shall we say, constitutionality, right?

Not respecting traditional norms, whereas you could have the healthcare fight with Mitt Romney or Nikki Haley as your as your president, right?

So you're saying that they should pick something that is

that really

seems to be out of the ordinary.

That is like something that we're, it's, I don't know if out of, but like that has surpassed all of the norms and is really

it's hard because like if you laundry, I mean, the thing, you know, a lot of things that are out of the ordinary are

totally non-germane to

budgeting, are obscure or are

unpopular, right?

I mean, like, you know,

but tariffs is something that can be a point around which you can actually coalesce.

And it is something that is more,

I wouldn't say popular, but more in the popular mind because there are these downstream effects that are starting to be felt.

We, by the way, we haven't really talked about, you know, the Fed that much on the show, but this is all tied up, right, with the Fed

rate cuts, you know, what's going to be happening there.

Like, this is a much broader conversation.

Yeah, I mean, look, if you had things like, oh, okay well trump shouldn't fire try to fire lisa cook

one of the chairmen of the board of the federal reserve chairwoman right it seems like this mortgage stuff has been trumped up in her case or he shouldn't have fired the bls commissioner like those things might appeal to someone like me but they're pretty freaking esoteric to like the average person whereas tariffs you have a little bit of everything right you have a message about how the economy is not doing very well you have a message about like trump overstepping his bounds um

and and that still gives you a legible cause to fight.

This is one of the most unpopular things that he's done.

Do you think that they would have a shot?

um if they actually pushed the pair uh the tariff stuff because i think you're absolutely right like this is genuinely unpopular and before it was passed a lot of republicans were like whoa whoa whoa he's not actually going to do this right we know that this is terrible it's terrible economics it's terrible policy terrible for the country terrible for all of this but then everyone just completely fell in line um as with everything basically that trump has done and stood behind him.

So what do we, do you actually think that this is plausible that they could win on this?

Well, I'm not sure you want to win.

You know what I mean?

I mean, look, at some point, the shutdown will end, right?

And by the way, the way it might end, Democrats be prepared for this, right, is Republicans might say, okay,

we are going to get rid of the filibuster for passing budgetary legislation, as they've already gotten rid of it, or Democrats in some cases too, for almost everything else, right?

I mean, just this past week, Republicans planned to change the Senate rules to make it easier to like nominate Trump appointees in batches, right?

And so if you're not going to like have it for that stuff, and who fucking cares about the, not the budget stuff isn't important, but like it's such a thin re that like, okay, look, you have a trifecta, you run the government, pass your fucking bill, right?

You got to change the rules.

Don't respect rules in the first place, right?

Who cares about the fucking filibuster?

And by the way, we're not going to use a filibuster.

We're hoping to win back a trifecta in Congress in 2028.

We're not going to use a fucking filibuster, right?

There's going to be so much damage that you did that we're going to have to have a day one agenda of getting all this stuff undone.

Now I sound like Gavin Newsom or something like that, right?

But like, yeah, the end game is that probably Republicans nuke the filibuster and

then pass their bill.

And Democrats have this, have this confrontational moment.

Maybe it goes well, maybe it goes not so well, right?

But like, it, you know, changes the vibe at a time when the vibe is, I would argue, not going that great for Democrats.

So let me ask a very naive question because I think it's one that people kind of reflexively don't even think to ask.

Why are we always talking about like trying to avoid a government shutdown?

What actually happens if this doesn't happen and the government shuts down?

How does that affect us, right?

Do we, how bad is it?

How bad is it?

So services that are deemed inessential can get shut down.

I mean, examples people point to is national parks can get shut down, that you have less TSA staffing, for example, government facilities of different types are closed, certain types of of checks don't go out.

I mean, now, you also.

So basically the same shit that's already happening.

This is why I like the Doge ping it to Doge, right?

Because then they want to turn a bunch of stuff off and see what happens.

I guess it's kind of the opposite of like throw a bunch of shit at the wall.

It's like turn a bunch of switches off and see what breaks.

And so a lot of stuff started breaking.

Any shutdown effects would have been disguised in that.

You know, here, I mean, look, Trump will have a lot of power to

determine, to both interpret the rules liberally, yen, color outside the lines quite a bit, right?

And I think he will in ways that could be advantageous to him.

I mean, this is kind of one of the, you know, friend of the pud, Matt Glassman, wrote a post about how, actually, this is probably a bad idea to shut down because like when you're not the party in power, you don't have a lot of power, right?

And like the advantage of like, you know, to use the poker term, you're kind of always in position if you're right.

You get to see what, and also this has been telegraphed, right?

You know, Republicans are aware.

They can read the New York Times, too, They can read Ezra's piece and they can read what Chuck Schumer says to the Washington Post.

And I'm sure they prepped messaging and a strategy and

that makes it harder.

But yeah.

Yeah.

No, I think these are all important things to consider.

I think this is an interesting take.

Let's see what ends up happening.

And if we end up using tariffs as well, I do think that...

Even though it's good for Republicans, I'm glad that the Democrats are pushing for health care as well, because that's also pretty damn important.

But let's get tariffs in there.

I think that's a great idea.

And hopefully we can avoid the more serious consequences of a shutdown.

On that note, Nate,

are you going to be playing any poker, doing anything interesting in those lines this week?

Or are we just all politics now for now?

I think I'm coming to the NAPT in Vegas in November.

No, this is going to be like a, if I do play the NAPT, like a four-month break in between poker tournaments.

I play Cash Games once or twice a month.

But yeah,

I'll be fresh for that, Maria.

I'll put it like that.

Yeah, I will also be fresh for the NAPT in November, the poker stars event that I'll be playing.

And we stay tuned, guys.

We might end up doing a risky business meetup at that point.

So we'll...

Let you know if we have plans of that.

And a reminder, there will be a new episode in the feed on Saturday.

We're having two episodes a week now.

And like Saturdays, I feel like Saturday is a good day to listen to podcasts.

No one has fucking episodes on Saturdays, right?

You're jogging, you're doing a little drive out in the Hudson Valley or whatever else.

You're gardening, right?

You got a lot of time on your hands.

No fucking new episodes on Saturday, but we're going to have an episode on Saturday.

It's an interview with Ellie Hoenig about his new book, When You Come at the King, which is all about special counsels and what it takes to prosecute the president.

Yeah, and from here on out, you can expect that double-drop schedule from us every single week.

So now you know what you're going to be doing Saturday morning.

Congratulations, everyone.

I'm so glad to be a part of your routine.

Let us know what you think of the show.

Reach out to us at riskybusiness at pushkin.fm.

Risky Business is hosted by me, Maria Kanakova.

And by me, Nate Silver.

The show is a co-production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.

This episode was produced by Isaac Carter.

Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit.

Lydia Jean Cott and Daphne Chen are our editors.

And our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.

Mixing by Sarah Bruguer.

If you like this show, please rate and review us so other people can find us too.

But once again, only if you like us, we don't want those bad reviews out there.

Thanks for tuning in.

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