Hello listeners. This is Politico's Nurdcast and I'm Dan Diamond sitting in for Scott Bland.

This week on Nurdcast, the government is shut down and everyone seems pretty mellow about it.

Why aren't more people freaking out?

We'll dive into what's going on now that the new Congress

is about to take over. We're taping this a little bit before noon eastern on

Friday, December 28th, so everything is up to date as of then.

And let's get started.

I want to welcome our guests.

Two members of our congressional team are on the line.

We've got Rachel Bade.

Hi Rachel.

Hey there.

And Burgess Everett.

Hello Burgess. Hey, how's it And Burgess Everett, hello Burgess.

Hey, how's it going, Dan?

Let's get started with this.

Our data point, 9.

That's the number of departments that are currently lacking federal funding

and will remain closed until a budget deal is reached.

But let's start with a simple broad question.

Burgess, is the government open right now?

Well, many workers are, I would say it's partially shutdown. Many workers are furloughed or working without guaranteed pay.

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