Today on the Playbook podcast, The House is back in session after almost two months away

and the government shutdown should end tonight.

But guess what?

Neither party seems very happy at the moment.

Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard.

And I'm Basha Burns. It is Wednesday,

November 12th. How you doing, Dasha? I am hanging in. That's a weary journalist for Wednesday morning.

That's where I'm at today. I'll be real with you guys. I'll tell you who's well rested. It's the

hundreds of members of the House who have done no work for the last two months. I'm sure that's not quite true, but that's how we see it because the house has not been sitting, as you know, because Speaker Miles Johnson put the whole thing on ice while this row about government funding played out, but they're coming back to DC today, Dasher. We've seen pictures of some of them getting on planes and riding motorbikes.

A lot of stuff to make up, man. That inbox is going to be very full.

So the house will be back this afternoon and we're all expecting this to go through.

Before we talk about the shutdown, because we've talked a lot about the shutdown on the podcast

this week, obviously. I just want to talk about something slightly different, although

obviously very related, which I just think is talk about something slightly different, although obviously very related,

which I just think is really interesting thing that is happening right now in American

politics. And this is something that doesn't happen very often in my observation of any

political system, which is that at this minute, as we speak, both parties are really at war with themselves, right, at a very base level.

Now, normally the rule of politics is if one of the parties is having a bad time and it's

divided and the base is all fighting with each other, that normally means the other one is doing

pretty well at the moment and is, you know, feeling unified and happy. And that just tends

to be how it works and the pendulum flips. And at one period, someone's doing great, the other period, someone else is doing great. Right now, that is not the case. And as these members are returning, that's not really happening at a house level, but at a more grassroots level, neither party seems very happy with themselves. And I just thought that is a really interesting moment for American politics and that we can talk a little bit about that and about why that is.

It really is. It's such a striking point because there have been moments of party unity for both,

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