Welcome to Red Meat, the conservative news update you need from Odyssey stations across the country.

This is the place where we're not afraid to dig in. The government shutdown is over.

But still, air traffic was snarled for all of us. Government workers and air traffic controllers stretched their savings to the limit.

Snap beneficiaries were scared.

And what was accomplished?

Here's more with Mark Cox.

We could have struck this exact deal 45 days ago.

In fact, we met with Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and said,

we will pass this exact deal.

They said no.

They put the American people through a ton of pain and suffering for

nothing. All right. We've got former Missouri Senator Jim Tallinn on the line with us this

morning. Jim, happy Friday. How are you? Hey, I'm fine, Mark. Hope you're doing well. You and Dan.

Absolutely, absolutely. So yesterday, of course, the shutdown was officially over.

They're trying to get air traffic back in order and all that stuff this morning.

But what do you, what's your takeaway on that? J.D. Vance says, listen, we could have done this

40 days ago. Why did your takeaway on that? J.D. Vance says, listen, we could have done this 40 days ago.

Why did it take so long?

Mark, it was entirely a political exercise.

Now, I don't know whether it was a considered one, whether they were looking at numbers, went through options.

But the problem with this kind of thing, when they did it to show

the Democratic base that they were fighting. Okay. Now, I've been through this. I mean, I was watching

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