Jim, are you ready to surge one more time?

Yeah, I kind of have to be.

Because I have to...

You're like, I got on this room, woman.

For the last few months, Slate's Jim Newell and I have been doing this thing.

We call it The Surge. It's based on his newsletter, also called The Surge. It was special content

for Slate Plus members. Every week, we would talk about who is up and who is down in the world of

politics.

Now that the year is about to come to a close, it felt like it was time for a reunion.

And we wanted to invite all of you.

I think it's important that people on New Year's Eve don't go out and party, but listen to our political podcast.

I think they need to do that.

Politics right now is chaotic, to say the least. Just before the holiday, President-elect Trump and his unelected bestie, Elon Musk, threatened to tip the government into a Christmas shutdown without even setting foot inside the White House.

It all started with Elon going on X to demand the GOP back away from a government spending deal.

He used a mixture of lies and bravado to make his case.

Then Trump himself got involved, demanding Speaker of the House Mike Johnson raised the debt

limit while he was at it.

The cherry on top here was when some Congresspeople started saying, maybe Elon should take

over as Speaker of the House.

After all, the Speaker doesn't have to be a member of Congress.

All this nonsense, it's surge behavior. And it's an example

of how even when Republicans are winning, Trump likes flipping over the board. You know, after having

...