Hello and welcome to a special episode of USA Today's The Excerpt.

I'm Dana Taylor.

We're nearly at the end of day eight of the government shut down the first time this has happened since

2018 when President Donald Trump was last in office. Hundreds of thousands of employees who'd been deemed

non-essential have been furloughed and there's little movement in Washington toward an agreement that

would get the wheels churning again.

Some would argue that the gridlock in Washington was already a form of government shutdown

with Congress deadlocked and not negotiating on many issues of substance as to how we run the country.

Where are we with the shutdown and what are the key takeaways so far?

Here to help us unpack some of this is USA Today White House reporter Bart Jansen.

Bart, thank you so much for coming on the excerpt.

Thanks for having me.

How have the previous vote shaken out so far?

What are the politics of this moment?

The House approved a temporary extension of federal government funding through November 21st to give them some breathing room to approve the regular appropriations bills that would fund the government for a full year. But the Senate has not yet approved that as we passed the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1st. So that's what

led to the shutdown. The problem in the Senate is that there are 53 Republicans and 47 senators

who caucus with the Democrats, and it takes a 60-vote threshold to move legislation in the Senate.

So Republicans need seven or eight or so Democrats to side with them to be able to reopen

the government.

So far, there have been a handful of votes where three Democratic senators, actually caucusing

with the Democrats, it's Catherine Cortez-Mastow,

a Democrat of Nevada, John Fetterman, a Democrat of Pennsylvania, and Angus King, an independent

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