Hello listeners I'm Scott Bland, your host and welcome to a special holiday edition of

Politico's Nerdcast. We are going to talk this week with our panel about four defining moments of 2017.

We're going to do a little year and review thing for you. Each person

on the panel picked a political moment this year that they thought defined 2017

in one way or another.

Tim Alberta picked Senator John McCain's dramatic

thumbs down on health care.

I will not vote for this bill as it is today. It's a shell of a bill right now. We all know that.

Eliana Johnson picked a pair of key foreign policy decisions by President Donald

Trump decertifying the Iran deal and

announcing the move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

I've judged this course of action to be in the best interests of the United States of America and the pursuit of peace

between Israel and the Palestinians.

Nancy Cook picked a key personnel change at the White House

with retired General John Kelly taking over

as Chief of Staff.

Rites is a good man.

General Kelly has been a star.

Done an incredible job thus far, respected by everybody, a great, great American.

And I picked the first congressional special election of 2017 way back in April, race in Kansas that in a lot of ways foreshadowed what we saw in politics the rest of the year.

For far too long, Washington hasn't worked for us, and we need to make sure that changes.

Tonight is a symbol of that.

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