Hi, dear listeners, this is Kate Riga. I'm here to make a quick pitch that you consider becoming a

TPM Prime member. TPM has used the member model for over a decade now, and our loyal members are the

only reason we've been able to weather the turbulence of the media landscape and avoid the fate that

has befallen so many other independent outlets. For $70, you get no paywall, fewer ads, access to the Hive member forum,

a member's only newsletter, and more. For $140 a year, you get all of that, plus no ads at all.

Without our members, there is no podcast, not to mention that I'm out of a job. Thank you so much

for listening and supporting us. We couldn't do it without you. Hi. Hi, this is Josh Marshall, and this is the Josh Marshall podcast featuring Kate Riga.

We are recording, we're just starting at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, January 29th, a few hours later than then we normally do the episode, and that is relevant

because if we had done it at the regular time, we would have been having a very different podcast.

Because just in the last few hours, we have learned that the story that had, I guess,

dominated the first half of the week, which was Donald Trump and his various

minions, basically doing a unilateral government shutdown for reasons that are many of which

we can speculate, but as many things with Donald Trump, you know, the exact outlines and aims and so forth still

remain a little murky.

But in the time since around noon, we found out that that's done.

That memo, and here we get into all of these particulars and technicalities about the way that the executive branch of the United

States works. There are executive orders, there are executive actions. There are memoranda

that various agencies put out and they all have these different legal standing and everything.

And as I'm sure you know, where we were for, I don't

know, about 24 hours, give or take, I'm not sort of losing track a bit, was that the Office

of Personnel Management acting, I guess, sort of at the behest of the office of the OMB, put out this thing saying,

all right, we're just stopping all government grants and assistance and kind of everything

...