When was the last time you were in D.C.?

I'm here now.

I mean, I'm sitting here now.

When I talked to Tom Davis, he had just had a diet Coke for breakfast.

I feel like you can hear it in his voice, that jangly energy.

And I was up on the House on opening day.

I went over, a state, over on the Republican on opening day. I went over a state over on the

Republican side for a good chunk of it and then went over the Democratic side just to talk to

people watching the roll call. Tom Davis is an old Washington hand. He was in Congress for over a

decade, a Republican representing Northern Virginia. I still have floor privileges. I'm not lobbying.

And I just decided to go up to the floor. It's an exciting day. You got a lot of new members coming in. And it was just an exciting place to be. I remember my first day in Congress in 1995. And for a lot of these young Democrats, they've taken back the House. There's that excitement. I mean, you can't beat it outside of maybe a World Series game. So it's exciting for you even when the other side wins?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, you can't beat it outside of maybe a World Series game. So it's exciting for you even when the other side wins?

Oh, yeah. I mean, the longer you leave this, you're not a partisan anymore. You're just

interested in good government. You want to make the place work. I am a citizen, first of all.

I know I was campaign chairman for the Republicans. I'm still a Republican,

but you want the country to work too. Of course, the country is not working right now, literally,

because it's shut down. And I wanted to talk to Tom Davis because he was there at what I think of

as the beginning of an era. Good afternoon.

Today, as of noon, almost half of the federal government employees are idle.

I was there for the longest shutdown in history representing a district across the river of 58,000 federal employees.

It is particularly unfortunate that the Republican Congress has brought us to this juncture.

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