This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics Podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Thursday, October 2nd.

I'm Bridget Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom filling in for Brian today. It's day two of a federal government

shutdown, and there's no sign that the standoff will end any time soon. We've started hearing

reports about confusion among federal workers and the closure of federal programs and facilities.

Some 750,000 federal workers could face furloughs or worse if

the Trump administration makes good on plans for mass layoffs. So for today's show, we're going to

focus on the politics at play here, the recent posture of some key players in this moment,

and what that tells us about when and how the shutdown showdown might end.

For all of that, I'm joined by Politico's Nicholas Wu, a congressional reporter who focuses on the

U.S. House of Representatives. Nick, welcome back to WNYC.

Bridget, thanks so much for having me.

Let's start with how we got here today. I mentioned it's day two of the

shutdown, but we've been hearing talk of shutdowns more times that I can count. This is the first

government shutdown since 2018 when, of course, Trump was last in office. How did we ultimately

reach this current impasse?

Well, we got to remember that the federal government was funded on, in theory, an annual basis by Congress. And, you know, the way it's supposed to work, the way Schoolhouse Rock would have

taught us is that, you know, every single division of the Appropriations Committee in the

House and Senate passes their

own bills to fund each agency, and then both sides come together, talk, and figure out a way

to fund the government for the entire year. That didn't happen this year. Democrats are locked out

of power in the House and Senate, but there's a narrow

...