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What Next - Actually the Government Shut Down Months Ago

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.56K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Donald Trump’s theory of a government shutdown was that it would give him more power to fire federal employees, and cut benefits and healthcare. Of course, if you claim to be an all-powerful executive, aren’t people going to conclude that the shutdown is your fault?

Guest: David Dayen, executive editor of the American Prospect.

Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

In late August 1992, Randy Weaver and his family were refusing to come down from the remote Idaho mountaintop where they lived.

0:09.0

Weaver, a fugitive on a federal firearms charge, has been hold up in a cabin near Naples for more than a year.

0:15.0

The government thought Randy Weaver was a dangerous, possibly violent extremist.

0:20.0

Randy and his wife Vicky thought the government

0:23.0

was an agent of Satan on earth. When it was all over, three people were dead, and the government

0:29.2

had spent millions of dollars to catch one man. We'll find out why the siege at Ruby Ridge

0:34.7

unfolded the way it did, and think about some of the questions it raises.

0:39.4

What should we do about white supremacists? Why has the story of Ruby Ridge become an enduring

0:45.3

myth for the far right? And whose fault was it anyway?

0:51.0

Subscribe to Standoff, what happened at Ruby Ridge, in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

1:00.0

How much do you know about the scandal that got Bill Clinton impeached?

1:03.3

Monica Lewinsky is under the microscope. Bill Clinton is under siege and the White House is trying to contain the damage.

1:10.1

Maybe you know the basics. The Clinton's presidency came to a screeching halt amid a storm

1:14.7

of accusations involving sex, power, and partisan warfare.

1:18.2

If it turns out to be true, it could be the end of Clinton's presidency.

1:21.4

Congress is rushing to overthrow the commander-in-chief.

1:25.5

What determines who we believe and whose side we take in a political fight?

1:29.3

Tripped and secret me, tape Monica Lewinsky.

1:31.6

Go down the radio shack and buy a tape recorder and plug it into your phone.

1:35.8

What does it mean to abuse one's power?

1:37.7

I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

1:41.7

It is absolutely staggering that the fate of the most powerful man on the planet is in the

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