Hey, everybody. Welcome. This is Next Up, whether you're a regular Nexter or this is your first time here.

Very happy to have you. Welcome in. I am Mark Halperin, the editor-in-chief of the live interactive video platform Two-Way and the host here of Next Up, where we try to tell you what's going to happen next up in around the United States and the world.

Many thanks to all of you for tuning in.

Very happy to have you here. And again, if you're here for the first time, welcome. Glad to have you. Great show for us today. Joining us will be Tom Emmer. He's the Republican whip in the U.S. House. He's a great guest. We've had him here before. Happy to have him back to update us on what's happening next after the ending of the government shutdown.

Then our great conversation about everything in the news. He's a great guest. We've had him here before. Happy to have him back to update us on what's happening next after the ending of the government shutdown.

Then our great conversation about everything in the news, including Jeffrey Epstein, and whether J.D.

Vance is a phony or not.

This is a debate that's percolated up in my life based on some reporting I've done over the last two weeks.

Rich Lowry will be here, and Yemisi, Egawala, will be here as well for a great conversation.

Looking forward to seeing all three of them.

But first, I want to talk to you all on my reported monologue about what is happening in this country.

Big topic, of course.

You know, a lot of what I do is minute to minute covering the news. And this week, there was a lot of it. There has been for the last couple weeks with the election and then with the government shut down and now the release of these Epstein documents and tons of other stories. And I have to report on that day to day. And a lot of you are interested in the day to day. The other reporting I'm doing all the time, and I'll tell you in a

second how I do it for the most part, is about the larger things going on in this country. The context,

going back decades, of how we got to where we are, how all these things kind of fit together.

And we talk a lot about polarization. We talk a lot about Trump, Donald Trump, who dominates everything.

But I get emails and calls all the time from really thoughtful people, people in politics, elective office, consultants and strategists.

Also, people in the business world, people who are universities, and then just regular people who I know who are deeply

thoughtful. And they'll send me essays, just long discussions about what is going on, why is the

state of the country the way it is? And of course, undergirding all that is the wrong track number

when pollsters ask people, is the country going in the right direction

or the wrong direction? And wrong track has been at the top for a long time, sometimes decisively.

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