Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for March 14th, 2019, the Operation

Varsity Blues edition. I'm David Plotz of Atlas Obscura. I am in New York at the CBS Radio

Studios, specifically because I'm here with John Dickerson of CBS this morning. Howdy, John? Good morning. It's good to be with you. Likewise. I thought this was going to be the one day in history when a plots would be better dressed than a Dickerson, and it turned out even today, because I'm wearing a suit, which I haven't worn a year. But even today, you've got a tie, and I don't even have a tie. Well, that's because normally I'm, by the time I get to the podcast, I've changed back into Mr. Rogers from my TV clothes. But not today. But not today. Not today. That other voice you have not heard yet is Josie Duffy Rice. She's a senior reporter for the appeal, co-host of the podcast Justice in America, joining

us as a guest for the first time from Atlanta, right, Josie? I am. I am in Atlanta. Thank you so much

for having me. It's great to have you, and you're here because I guess Emily is on vacation, but I don't

even know. She's just not here, and we are very happy to have you instead. Thanks. How is Atlanta these days? What's going on there? Is it an awesome place to be?

Yeah, I just moved here about a year ago from Brooklyn, and I can tell you I am enjoying it a lot. I do not live on top of my one-year-old son anymore, so that is a pretty big improvement.

And do you really mean that?

I really mean it.

I'm surprised at how much I don't miss New York.

I thought it was going to be really tough.

But Atlanta, I love it here.

I was talking to somebody recently who had just come back from vacation and said, it's great to be back. And then they said,

it takes me about 24 hours before I really mean it when I say that. And so I wondered, having just

moved myself a year ago, I always wonder whether I'm really telling the truth when I say the same thing you did.

So that's where that question came from. I wasn't just being mindlessly skeptical.

I have to tell you, I have my, I'm from Atlanta and my parents live here, and so I have

free child care, which I would pretty much move anywhere for that. You buried, that's called

varying the lead in general. Yeah, I did. I did bury the lead. That's

true. So that makes it completely worth it. I would live anywhere. On this week's Gab Fest,

the president proposes a budget. Wow. What a budget. What does it tell us about his priorities? Does it have a

chance in hell of passage?

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