Let's go.

Welcome to Citizen.

We had a very special guest today.

I guess representative Adam Smith.

I say congressman as well.

I guess both are technically appropriate. They are both

correct, yes. Well, can we just get down to one? I don't like the confusion. You can just call me

Adam as far. I can't do that. I'm institutionalized by the military. I meet like my, we had a babysitter come over the other day, and she's 23, and I was like, I kept calling her ma'am, and she was looking at me weird. I'm like, sorry, I just can't help myself. It's just the way it is. You're just going to have to deal with it. Thank you for coming today. I appreciate your time. You said you're in Bellevue today. Yeah, my diamond, I'm on the West Coast. I flew home Tuesday, I guess.

Uh, where you said you're in Bellevue today yeah yeah my diamond i'm on the west coast i flew home

tuesday i guess uh going back to dc on tuesday uh as well unpredictable schedule right now

uh with the shutdown and uh speaker johnson has kept us out of session as we're waiting for that

uh to resolve itself but i'll be i got meetings and other stuff back in D.C. next week.

So I'll be going back no matter what's going on. Yeah. What's your, I mean, this isn't going to go out until, I think, Wednesday next week. So maybe it's resolved by then. But what's your, what's your take on that right now? I know a lot of people are concerned, upset, and then a lot more people don't care because

it doesn't really affect them. But, you know, how, what's the tone in Washington right now?

Well, I mean, first of all, you're right. The majority of people in this country aren't paying any attention to it because the overwhelming majority of people don't pay that close of attention to politics and it doesn't directly impact their daily lives.

You know, within the bubble of Washington, D.C., it is the obsession right now.

Look, we're trying to find a resolution.

It's that rare situation where because of the filibuster, you need both Democrat and Republican

votes in the Senate to pass this.

So we're trying to negotiate something that has something for Republicans, something for Democrats, and people can vote for it.

I just think we need to negotiate, sit down and have that conversation.

Right now, Speaker Johnson has said, no, we passed our bill.

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