Hey, good morning. I'm Playboy co-author Eugene Daniels. It is Wednesday, September 20th. Here's what's driving the day. First things first, it's going to be a fiery day on Capro Hill. But not for the reason you think. Attorney General Merrick Garland is testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee. And first of all, as you

can expect and assume Republicans are going to pepper him with questions from everything from David

Weiss to parents and school boards to Eli Musk. And of course, both Hunter and Joe Biden. That's

going to be a very long day for the attorney general. But Playbook got our hands on

some excerpts from his opening statements. And it is the furthest he's ever gone in defending the

DOJ since he was sworn in. So we might be seeing some fire coming at the members of Congress also

from Merrick Garland. I'm going to read a little bit from some of these excerpts. He says, quote, our job is to uphold the rule of law. That means that we apply the same laws to everyone.

There is not one set of laws for the powerful and another for the powerless, one for the rich, another for the poor, one for Democrats, another for Republicans, or different rules depending upon one's race or ethnicity or religion.

Our job is not to take orders from the president, from Congress, or from anyone else about who

or what to criminally investigate. As the president himself has said, and I reaffirm here today,

I am not the president's lawyer. I will also add that I am not Congress's prosecutor. The Justice Department works for the American people. We will not be intimidated. We will do our jobs free from outside interference. And we will not back down from defending our democracy. I've never heard Mary Garland talk like this. And I know y'all haven't either. So it is going to be a very, very interesting

few hours there on Capitol Hill as he goes back and forth with House judiciary, Republicans,

and Democrats. He's hitting at both parties here just a little bit. And we are 11 days away from a

government shut down and hurling faster and faster and faster, it seems. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

doesn't seem to have a viable plan now to keep the government open after having to punt the

plan to vote on a Republican-only short-term spending plan. And at this point, Democrats are in no

rush to help him. One, both House Democrats and the White House kind of have the view that there's nothing much that they can actually do at this point.

They're waiting for Kevin McCarthy to, in their eyes, get his house in order, get the Republicans on board to do something and basically waiting to see how much pain he's willing to take before he has to come and seek a bipartisan solution.

Joining me now to talk about her and Adam Kankran's new piece out today, kind of looking at how the White House is viewing all of this shutdown.

Chaos is White House reporter Jen Habercorn.

Good morning, Jen. Thank you so much for coming on.

Great to be with you, Eugene. You and our colleague Adam wrote this story that kind of looks at how the White House is approaching, whether they're going to let Kevin McCarthy flail, or they're just going to watch, or are they going to kind of engage here? But there's not much he can do, right?

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