Lemonada.

Hi, it's Beth. We're working on a weird schedule this week. Both life and the news are coming at us fast.

So we recorded the episode you're about to hear early in the afternoon on Wednesday.

Just hours later, we learned, among other things, that President-elect Trump will appoint

Matt Gates to serve as Attorney General and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.

And I just owe you an apology.

I feel like this is almost my fault because I have been saying that my expectations are so low

that the nominations have exceeded

them. And then here comes Gates and Gabbard. And I feel like, ah, there's the Donald that I know.

We also learned after we recorded that Senator John Thune was elected by his colleagues to serve as

the Senate Majority Leader. And all of this and more, who knows what will have broken by the time you hear these words,

it's just a lot to take in. We are taking it in a little bit behind you because of the way the week broke down for us.

We always say we're processing the news here, so thank you for your patience as we process at a different rate than you are.

We will have more to say about all of this on Substack and back

here next week. In this episode, we're also talking about down-ballot races and what we're learning

about issues like abortion and ranked choice voting. So I hope that you find real value in what we've

made for you. And I appreciate you in so many ways continuing to just put

one foot in front of the other with us. Here's the show.

This is Sarah Stewart Holland. This is Beth Silvers. You're listening to Pantsu Politics,

where we take a different approach to the news.

Thanks for being with us today. We are still processing the election. We're going to talk at the

opening of the show a little bit about the second round of Trump appointments, and we're going to

...