I don't know if we have any structure to this,

or we're just gonna, I can do it live.

Hello, welcome to another episode of the Weeds on the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Matthew Iglesias, and joining me today from watching DC, we have Sarah Cliff and Dylan Scott,

who were both, I was asleep last night. I went to bed ready to podcast about the skinny

repeal bill that passed last night, except it turns out that it did not pass last night.

You guys were up all night, contenting, and Dylan, you were up on the hill, right?

Yes, I was.

What was it like? What went down?

Sure. So we were, at about midnight, we were heading into a couple of votes that we thought

was gonna set up the skinny repeal bill that had just been unveiled a couple hours before.

And so, I headed into the Senate chamber about midnight, expecting a, not really expecting any

surprises, and they had gotten 50 votes on Tuesday to start debate, and skinny repeal was kind of

their last option. And I think all of us up there thought, well, if they got 50 votes on Tuesday,

they're gonna get 50 votes for this. There's just, there's just no way they're gonna come up short

at the last moment. And it was, it was surreal. The thing the tell was, I was in there pretty early,

and the tell was, John McCain was in there right from the start. Like it was pretty empty when

this vote series was getting underway. And John McCain went over and talked to Chuck Schumer for a

few minutes, and you could just tell when that conversation was over that Chuck Schumer was elated.

And so, what do you look like? He liked it just a big grin on his face, and you know, just like

suddenly this buzz of energy on the Democratic side of the aisle, and then McCain went over and

talked to John Kornin, the number two Republican in the Senate, and it was sort of the inverse.

...