From WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Thursday, October 9th.

Now we turn to national and some international politics. One intractable problem is finally showing some signs of progress.

There's a peace deal between Israel and Hamas, and I know there's some dispute over whether

to call it a peace agreement or just a ceasefire, but it's showing promise that the release of all

the remaining hostages might take place, maybe even as early as this weekend.

And then there would be a ceasefire as step one. As you were just hearing in Michael's newscast,

there are still things that have not been agreed to. And I wonder if either side is going to go through with it.

We'll see what our guest thinks. But here in this country, the standoff continues between the Republicans and the White House and Congress and

Democrats. And that is, of course, over another unchanged item, and that's the Senate vote on

funding the government. Federal employees furloughed are still working, with no pay and the House not in session.

I don't know if you've heard yet a clip of Congressman Mike Lawler from north of New York City,

Republican and the House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries from Brooklyn screaming at each other

yesterday, but to talk about both of these issues

and maybe a little bit about his new article in the Atlantic that links the threat by President

Trump to put the governor of Illinois and the mayor of Chicago in jail, links that to the prosecution

of Jim Comey. We have Jonathan Lemire, co-host of

Morning Joe on MSNBC, contributing writer at the Atlantic, and author of The Big Lie,

Election, Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics after 2020. Jonathan,

always good of you to make some time for us after your

morning show. Welcome back to WNYC. Always happy to be here. Good morning. And you know, it was very

interesting to me watching a little bit of Morning Joe today that hear all these people who are

usually so critical of Trump, Joe Scarborough himself, the Democrat, former Democratic

...