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This is a GabFest Extra, Day 11 of the 2013 government shutdown.

It's Friday, October 11th.

I am Slate Editor David Plotz.

I'm here in our DC studio.

I'm alone.

But joining me by cell phone

is special celebrity guest Gab Fester, Ezra Klein, the proprietor of Wonk Blog at the Washington Post,

my go-to source for all public policy knowledge and information. So insofar as I get public policy

wrong, it's my fault, but insofar as I get it right, it's usually

because Ezra has told me so. Ezra, thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

Here on this Friday, it's not quite negotiations yet, but it is something the White

House and Congress are talking and it appears to be making some progress in in averting

a default next week and in possibly ending the shutdown.

President Obama hosted Republican senators at the White House today, after which both sides reported movement.

And it sounds like they're moving toward the kind of deal that John Dickerson described for us earlier in the week,

a temporary lifting of both the shutdown and the debt ceiling,

combined with the promise of bipartisan budget negotiations. Aser is going to tell us what

that means in a minute. And at the same time, there's another new poll showing that the GOP

...