Your flights will be canceled

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Your flights will be canceled"

Podcast: Today, Explained (Vox)
Date: November 6, 2025
Hosts: Sean Rameswaram & Noel King
Guest Experts: Darrell Campbell (Aviation Safety Writer, The Verge) & Burgess Everett (Congressional Bureau Chief, Semaphore)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the unfolding chaos at America’s airports due to the prolonged government shutdown. Focusing on the acute shortage of air traffic controllers and TSA agents, the episode explores how unpaid essential workers are upending flight schedules, the safety and operational risks now facing U.S. aviation, and how political brinkmanship in Washington echoes the infamous 2019 shutdown. The hosts unpack immediate flight delays, cancellations, and wider political ramifications shaping public pressure and Congressional negotiations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Airport Chaos: Operational Breakdown

[00:00-04:45]

• Mass Disruptions: The government will imminently cut flight capacity at key airports due to severe staffing issues.

  • Quote: "You will see mass chaos, you will see mass flight delays, you'll see mass cancellations..."
    — Sean Duffy, Transportation Secretary [00:32]

• TSA Agents: Many haven't been paid since mid-October, leading to severe hardship and increased absenteeism.

  • Agents are struggling to afford basics like food, medication, and gas for their commute.
  • Airport security checkpoints are closing or experiencing hours-long waits.
  • Quote: “I am a mother of five, I'm a grandmother of two. I run a single parent household. So it's hard.” [03:30]

• Air Traffic Controllers: Facing identical pay disruptions, many are calling in sick or unable to come to work, causing dangerous staffing shortages at towers and control centers.

  • Incident: Airports such as Orlando and Burbank nearly unable to receive flights, and some control towers left unmanned.
  • Near-miss in Boston: Delta flight nearly collides with a commuter plane on intersecting runway [05:04]

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2. Air Traffic Controllers: The Hidden Fractures

[05:19-09:04]

• Sick-Outs & Burnout: Massive call-outs (e.g., 80% out in New York) strain the system; each absent controller vastly reduces how much traffic can safely be managed.

  • “A single air traffic controller can only handle so many simultaneous flights... When one person calls out, that's a third of your capacity that you just can't handle.” [06:00]

• Pre-Existing Issues: Chronic underfunding left the FAA and air traffic control infrastructure fragile even before the shutdown—aged facilities, unreliable radar, and loss of communications.

  • Quote: "Controllers there lost both radio communications and a picture on their radar scopes. Our scopes just went black again." [07:54]

• Stress Compounds: Uncertainty about pay adds high stress to an already taxing job, with some workers using leave as protest.

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3. TSA Agents: Low Pay, High Consequences

[09:13-12:19]

• Many TSA workers are at the lowest pay grades in government, often needing second jobs to survive.
• Absenteeism is high, particularly in cities with a high cost of living.
• Security Risks: The episode argues much TSA work is "security theater"—no imminent 9/11-style threat, but risks like unintentional weapons or batteries on board do increase.
  • Private security models (like in San Francisco) may be a patch but would still bring disruption.

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4. The Unprecedented Flight Cut and Its Impact

[12:19-14:13]

• Historic: The FAA's plan to cut 10% of flight operations across the country is described as the most sweeping measure since September 11, 2001.
  • Expectation: ~4,000 cancellations per day (versus a usual 300–800).
  • Major airlines will likely protect large, lucrative routes and cut flights from smaller regional airports.
  • “I can't think of another time…since what, 2001.” — Darrell Campbell [12:48]

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5. Political Fallout and Public Pressure

[17:31-26:37]

• Shutdowns Past & Present:

  • In 2019, public outrage over airport chaos broke political deadlock.
  • Quote: "This is how members of Congress get around... if you're a senator... this is one of the places that you're going to notice the effects." — Burgess Everett [18:35]
  • Federal workers' missed pay and airport hassles often hit politicians directly, hastening compromise.

• What’s Different This Time?

  • Trump administration has minimized pain in some areas, e.g., creatively finding ways to pay military workers.
  • Quote: “I'm using my authority as commander in chief… to get our troops paid” — President Trump [20:37]
  • Negotiations now hinge on expiring Obamacare premium subsidies and a potential short-term funding bill.

• Evolving Pressure Points:

  • Some signs of thawing; Democrats leverage public anger over health care costs while Republicans remain divided on “propping up Obamacare.”
  • Quote: “There's a decent group of Republicans… to revive these subsidies. But there's a whole other sector…that hates them.” — Burgess Everett [24:14]
  • With elections behind, fatigue with the shutdown grows, and the risk of long-term political fallout is debated.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You always think flying can't get worse and you are always wrong.”
  — Host [00:00]
• “A Delta flight with 300 passengers was 125ft from landing in Boston just as a commuter plane was taking off from an intersecting Runway.”
  — Darrell Campbell [05:04]
• “If you eliminate TSA, if anyone tried to do another 9/11 style attack, they just wouldn't be able to because of the policy and the security barriers that airlines have enacted.”
  — Darrell Campbell [11:15]
• “The FAA took such unilateral action across the whole of U.S. airspace since September 11th.”
  — Darrell Campbell [12:48]
• “If voters are still talking about this a year from now, that's probably bad for Democrats. They've made the bet that that's not what voters are going to be talking about. They're going to forget it pretty quickly.”
  — Burgess Everett [26:24]

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Timestamps: Important Segments

• 00:00 – Opening banter, context-setting on airport chaos
• 00:32 – Transportation Secretary's dire warning
• 02:28 – Darrell Campbell explains immediate airport realities
• 03:30 – TSA agents’ personal struggles voiced
• 05:04 – Near collision due to control tower staffing lapses
• 06:00 – Air traffic controllers’ mass absences explained
• 07:54 – Pre-existing FAA technology & staffing deterioration
• 12:19 – Unprecedented national flight cuts; major-vs-minor routes
• 17:31 – Spotlight on shutdown history and public pressure
• 18:35 – Congressional travel disruptions as a pressure point
• 20:37 – The president’s military pay workaround
• 24:14 – Republican divides on health care and shutdown resolution

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Conclusion

Through first-hand accounts, expert analysis, and political reporting, this episode provides an urgent, grounded look at the human, operational, and political costs of the government shutdown’s impact on airport operations. Delays, cancellations, and systemic strain are already cascading—and echo fights from past shutdowns. But with new tactics from the administration and a different political backdrop, the question remains whether public rage over canceled flights will again prove powerful enough to break the deadlock in Washington.

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Transcript

[A]

You always think flying can't get worse and you are always wrong. You have traveled out of Houston's Bush.

[B]

Airport within the last week. Please tell me what is actually going on.

[A]

Who's stuck at the airports in three hour lines just to get through tsa child? This is crazy.

[B]

This is insane.

[A]

Always, always wrong. Tomorrow the government is going to cut flight capacity at some of the country's busiest airports. Here's the Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy and his prediction.

[C]

You will see mass chaos, you will see mass flight delays, you'll see mass cancellations and you may may see us close certain parts of the airspace because we just cannot manage it because we don't have the air traffic controllers.

[A]

And that was a Because no one coming to work because no one getting paid because shutdown Coming up on Today explained your flight's been canceled.

[C]

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[B]

Is the Justice Department still just ultimately Donald Trump.

[C]

Is the person who began the weakening of the Justice Department in his first presidency.

[B]

I'm Preet Bharara and this week investigative reporters Carol Lening and Aaron Davis join me to discuss their new book, How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department. The episode is out now. Search and follow Stay tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard Today Explained. We hope you enjoy your flight. Please prepare for takeoff. My name is Darrell Campbell. I'm an aviation safety writer for the VER and I also wrote the book Fatal Abstraction.

[A]

Tell us broadly what is going on in American airports right now.

[B]

Well, the government shutdown has really affected a lot of the operational behind the scenes that you may not know what's going on if you're on an airplane, but it's absolutely critical to just the normal functioning of aviation. The two things that most people will probably experience is number one at the security line, a lot of Transportation Security Agency or TSA officers haven't been paid since at the very least the middle of October, if not more. Oh, they want you there and they don't care what you have to sacrifice to get there. Do I pay for medication?

[C]

Could I pay for my food?

[B]

Gotta pay for gas to go to.

[A]

Work but have nothing to eat that day.

[B]

It's one thing to say like, you know, people's mortgages and rents are due, which they are. People have already missed other payments. So this is just the biggest one. And that's a huge impact because a lot of these TSO's are, you know, coming in, they have to pay for gas, they have to pay for childcare.

[A]

I am a mother of five, I'm a grandmother of two. I run a single parent household. So it's hard.

[B]

It's hard enough just going to work.

[A]

Now when you add in not getting.

[B]

Paid, that's when you just like multiply the level of pressure and they just can't afford to go into a job that's not paying them. So you'll see things like the number of lanes being shut down or teens TSA PreCheck not being available. At Bush Airport, only TSA checkpoints at terminals A and E are open. At Hobby Airport, fewer screening lanes are open with wait times exceeding over an hour. I've been here for four hours. My feet hurt, my legs hurt, my back hurts. I'm very tired. The other thing is that the air traffic controllers, so the people who tell airplanes where to go and when to land and really just try to avoid any possibility of a collision or, or violent maneuvering because people have to take evasive action or anything like that, those people also aren't getting paid. And that means that there are fewer people coming in. And you're seeing these huge delays where either airports can't handle the planned volume of traffic or in some cases some airports are operating their control towers or their air traffic control facilities with not enough people at all. In Orlando last night, the FAA warned.

[A]

That the airport was close to turning.

[B]

Away arriving flight altogether due to staffing issues. At 4:15 Western Time, the control tower.

[C]

Here at Hollywood Burbank Airport will be unmanned. There are no controllers who will be on the job starting in less than 15 minutes. Due to that government shutdown, there's already been a brush with disaster.

[B]

A Delta flight with 300 passengers was 125ft from landing in Boston just as a commuter plane was taking off from an intersecting Runway. So it's really starting to have a huge impact in just delays and cancellations.

[A]

Okay, this is what you've just told me is terrifying. It is also understandable if people have not been paid since October for doing a job like air traffic controller which is a very, very important job. So let's start with the air traffic controllers. How are they responding to this? What have they been doing?

[B]

So what we're seeing is just a lot of air traffic controllers calling in sick or being unable to come into work. We are continuing to see spotty staffing issues at Air Traffic Control FAC across the country.

[C]

The three New York City airports have been especially hard hit, and the FAA says on Friday those facilities saw nearly 80% of controllers call out.

[B]

And that usually impacts the level of traffic that can come in. So a single air traffic controller can only handle so many simultaneous flights. And in places like New York or Dallas or Atlanta, where there's just this huge amount of traffic, you need three, four, five people at a time, even during your lowest periods of volume. So when one person calls out that, that's a third of your capacity that you just can't handle. And so that tends to compound.

[C]

And this past weekend was the worst for controller staffing since the shutdown began. Ground stops all over the country, because if you don't have these controllers, you have to slow down the air traffic to keep the skies safe.

[B]

It's not just one airplane that gets delayed. It's also the people who are supposed to be on the next flight because the airplane was supposed to be in another city and another one. Some of these smaller airplanes, like a 737 like you might fly on Southwest, do five or six trips in a day. And so when the first one gets disrupted, that means all five or six are also disrupted. And it just kind of cascades throughout the system.

[A]

Okay, so calling in sick is very effective in terms of the air traffic controllers saying, hey, guys, without us, you're kind of screwed. We talked to you earlier this year about there already being a ton of discontent among air traffic controllers. What has been happening with them?

[B]

Essentially, the FAA as a government agency is always trying to fight for scraps on the budget, and it just does not have the amount of money available to hire enough people and to maintain a lot of these facilities that are in some cases 30 or 40 years old. So there's already this background of limited staffing and budget that's causing radar systems to go out and satellite tracking to be unavailable for long periods of time. We were talking about what was happening at Newark.

[C]

Controllers there lost both radio communications and a picture on their radar scopes. Our scopes just went black again. If you care about this, contact your.

[B]

Airline and try to get some pressure.

[C]

For them to fix this stuff.

[B]

You're Literally in the middle of the day and your systems go out and you cannot see an airplane that's coming in. So you just basically lose track of it. And so that's just what's happening before any of the shutdown stuff. Now, if you think about the stress normally at air traffic control and just sort of the amount of concentration that it takes to do that job, well, when you layer on top of that, gosh, I haven't been paid in three or four weeks.

[C]

Today was payday and we collected a $0 paycheck. Do I put food on the table?

[B]

Do I pay gas?

[C]

Do I pay my electric bill? Something has to give somewhere.

[B]

That just creates an even higher level of stress. So consequently, people are totally justified in taking leave to deal with the stress of the job. And then I think on top of that, people are also using their bank's PTO as kind of a protest to say, hey, this is really not fair, and if I'm not getting paid, then I shouldn't really be expected to do this. So I think we're also seeing a little bit of that.

[A]

Okay, so that's the air traffic controllers. There's also, as you said, TSA agents. They are also calling in sick. Is it the same story?

[B]

It's pretty different. A lot of them make the lowest rung on the salary ladder in the government. So an average annual salary of 30 to 40,000 doll. And if you're living in a high cost of living area like LA or New York or Washington, D.C. i mean, you really don't have a lot of margins. I was talking with one TSA officer named Johnny Jones. He's here in Dallas, where I live. And he was saying that, you know, put yourself in the mind of these TSOs. They got less than two weeks notice that this government shutdown was even happening. They're still scheduled out, and it costs them, you know, $10 to between gas tolls just to get to their job. If they've worry about childcare or figuring out if their kid's sick or something like that, maybe they have to go and drive for Uber. Or a lot of them have second jobs, and so maybe they have to prioritize that one. And I think that's happening in a much larger scale than it is for air traffic controllers because again, there's less sort of margin of safety in terms of finances and the fact that just a lot of them have this second job backup. So they just kind of switch between the two. But it's really. I mean, I was talking with some people who said there were hundreds of TSA agents who are calling out sick. And that's why we're seeing like Houston had, I think a two or three hour security line. Seeing the same thing at new work places like that.

[A]

All right, so TSA agents calling in sick leads to longer lines. That's a pain in the butt for everybody. What are the risks if they are not there?

[B]

There's a big portion of the TSA experience, let's call it, that's a lot of security theater. Yeah. You know, people are not smuggling bombs on the airports. Nobody's going to try and do a 911 style attack. And in fact, airlines themselves have done a really good job of just developing tactics to stop the next 9 11. So if you eliminate a TSA, if anyone tried to do another 911 style attack, they just wouldn't be able to because of the policy and the security barriers that airlines have enacted. So I think that's one big thing. Now, there are probably other things like scanning for people accidentally taking loaded weapons on an airplane, which I live in Texas. It happens a lot more than you might think, but that's a potential risk. Or, you know, people accidentally taking a lithium battery. Or there's one guy at the airport last time was trying to take a power drill on. So a lot of sort of inconvenience slash minor security things. But I really doubt that, you know, getting rid of the TSA would cause the next 9 11. Now, that being said, I think there's also a level of sort of deterrence that happens, but that's just a hard thing to quantify in terms of the operational impacts, though. I mean, there, there are still going to be supervisors and plainclothes cops who could step in and do some of this in San Francisco. It's actually not run by the tsa. It's a private security organization. So you could see something like that happen, but it would still be pretty disruptive.

[A]

All right, so after all of this, the shutdown is continuing and the Trump administration says we're going to cut flights at some of the biggest airports in the country. Darryl, how unprecedented is this? And what does this actually mean for travelers in the next couple of days?

[B]

I can't think of another time that the FAA took such unilateral action across the whole of U.S. airspace since September 11th.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

Usually they're focused on a specific area or a specific airport, but for them to say a 10% cut on all flights across the board, I literally, you know, can't think of anything that's been like that since what, 2001. And for context, they're expecting about 4,000 cancellations. In a typical day, you'd probably get three to 500. And since the shutdown has started, they've been kind of ticking up to about 7 or 800. So this is a huge expansion of the disruption that travelers might face. So a couple of airlines have already kind of tipped their hand as to what's going to happen. United, American, Delta have all said international long haul flights won't be affected. And really what they're probably going to do is cancel the flights that are the little tiny airports. So not, you know, JFK to LAX or Atlanta to Seattle. But think about things like, you know, South Bend to Detroit or El Paso to Love Field. Because if you think about it from an air traffic controller's perspective, an airplane is an airplane. But the airlines have this huge incentive to keep the kind of cash cow routes, the ones that have a lot of passengers and they sort of invest a lot of money in going. So you'll probably see disruption on these smaller regional ones. But it's TBD right now.

[A]

Darrell Campbell of the Verge Coming up, believe it or not, once upon a time, American rage over flight chaos was enough to shut down a shutdown. Are we looking at a repeat? Support for Today Explained comes from Select Quote Perhaps you've been putting off life insurance. Select Quote says you can only something off for so long before it really matters. Select Quote says they take the guesswork out of finding the right term life insurance policy. For over 40 years, select quote has been one of the most trusted brokers in the insurance business, according to Select Quote. They say they've helped more than 2 million Americans secure over $700 billion in coverage. You don't have to sort through dozens of confusing options One of their licensed agents will sort through dozens of confusing options to find the right policy at the right price for you. They compare plans and from trusted top rated insurance companies, Selectquote works with providers who offer same day coverage up to $2 million worth. Selectquote says life insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than [e-mail] explain save more than 50% on term life [e-mail] explained today to get started. What's that? That's slickquote.com explained support for today Explained comes from Kachava. If you're looking for a healthy boost during, you could try Cachava versus say the vending machine cachava is what it's a whole meal shape. Cachava says it has 25 grams of 100% plant based protein and five flavors chocolate, vanilla, Chai matcha and coconut acai. No artificial flavors, colors or sweeteners. Non gmo, no soy, none of those animal products, no gluten, no preservatives. Here's Claire White. I'm oftentimes looking to incorporate more protein.

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[B]

To me, it's now funny to dress in a more kind of kinky way because I think I'm more associated with like dungarees and smock tops and a slightly more sexless, tomboyish vibe.

[A]

Find fashion neurosis on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

[C]

You'Re listening to Today Explained what happens is if you're not paying folks, eventually they don't come to work.

[A]

Too true. Burgess Burgess Everett is the Congressional Bureau Chief for Semaphore, and he's here to remind us that there was a government shutdown, the longest in history, back in 2019 that ended because of outrage over airports.

[C]

I mean, it's what happened back then and it's what's happening now as we're seeing some of these frontline TSA employees not coming to work or air traffic controllers, and that makes it more difficult to get people quickly on to their flights. And that can mess up the whole intricate dance of our nation's flight system. The 2019 shutdown was a partial shutdown, but that piece of the government DHS was not funded and that's where TSA gets paid from. Right now we're in a full government shutdown, so we have that element as well. In addition to all the sort of more well known widespread things like SNAP benefits, military pay, federal worker pay.

[A]

Was it in 2019? Was it Americans saying to the Government, hey, we don't feel safe flying. Was there a plane crash? Like, what exactly did happen?

[C]

Well, I think anecdotally, this is how members of Congress get around. And so they start to notice this. And this is one of the, you know, if you're a senator who's, who's busy and going across the country, this is one of the places that you're going to notice the effects of the government shutdown. I'm very concerned about security.

[B]

Many TSA agents are calling off sick.

[C]

In order to go work other jobs.

[A]

Because they have to put food on.

[C]

The table, they have to meet rent, all of that. There was also, I would say, another piece of that was Republicans were kind of at odds with President Trump over funding the border wall back then. They didn't. It was a realistic ask from him, and they were surprised when he said, I'm not going to sign a funding bill that doesn't fund the border wall.

[B]

We're in a shutdown because Democrats refuse to fund the border security. They try and make it like it's just about the wall, and it is about the wall.

[C]

So there was a little bit more disarray, I would say, on the Republican side back during that shutdown. And so as soon as the president was ready to end it, everybody else in the Republican Party was ready to end it, too.

[B]

Shutdown in American history will finally end today, which is great news for 800,000 federal workers and millions of Americans who depend on government services, which is a.

[C]

Little different than today.

[A]

It is. It is a little different than today. Today is a little different. There has been this question throughout this shutdown. Why do the Republicans and President Trump seem less bothered by the shutdown and by all the compounding effects than one might think is this strategy? What's going on?

[C]

Well, I would say the president has been really creative in lessening the pain in certain areas, like finding ways to pay military workers during the shutdown, which I had heard multiple smart people tell me this was the moment that the government would reopen is because people cannot stomach the military not getting paid. And Trump has made it a little bit less painful by paying them.

[A]

Truth Social.

[C]

I'm using my authority as commander in chief to direct our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our troops paid on October 15. I will not allow the Democrats to hold our military and our entire security of our nation hostage with their dangerous government shutdown. Now, I think the president's sounding a little bit different right now. He's saying the shutdown is hurting Republicans.

[B]

I think if you read the pulses, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans, and that was a big factor. And they say that I wasn't on the ballot was the biggest factor.

[C]

And so I do feel like he's acknowledging that it's not good for him politically. I mean, you don't have to be a genius to look at these polls and see that it's hurt, it's hurting both parties. But voters are not inordinately blaming the Democrats, as I think Republicans believed they would.

[A]

What do we know about the state of negotiations? What is in play at this point?

[C]

Point there's been a big thaw over the past seven to 10 days. I think a lot of Democrats are pretty much ready to end it, particularly with the elections behind them, with the November 1st ACA premiums now public for everyone to see. They think they've pinned that on the Republicans. And, and there's a lot more bipartisan talk.

[B]

The Republicans need to hear what the people are saying because it's clear they.

[A]

Are saying enough is enough.

[B]

There is nothing left for the Republicans to do but get back to work. The Republicans got to sit down and talk to us about it. And I agree with Bernie Sanders. The way to solve this is for Trump to sit down with Jeffries and I.

[C]

It's interesting, though, what is on the table is sort of what's always been on the table, which is a vote on extending these expiring enhanced premium tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. Democrats can kind of pick what they want to have a vote on and get a guarantee from Senate Majority Leader John Thune and then a new continuing resolution, which is sort of a stopgap bill that would keep the government funded while negotiations on these full year funding bills, which Congress really struggles to pass most of the time, would continue. So that's kind of what's been on the table for weeks now. I think what has changed is that everybody's sick of the shutdown. The Senate's been in session for seven weeks. These folks want to go home. And now a lot of these key dates are in the rearview mirror and there's a sense that, okay, it's time to end this thing.

[A]

So as you said and as we've covered on the show, the Democrats made this about health care. They said the Republicans are going to raise your premiums and that's why we're standing our ground. Open enrollment has started. People are seeing those price increases. What do we know about whether or not the public and their thoughts about healthcare are actually putting pressure on the Republicans to move on this.

[C]

Well, I think the Republicans are pretty darn divided on propping up or anything seen as propping up Obamacare. And that's how they view these enhanced subsidies. The COVID era Obamacare subsidy that they're all talking about is supposedly the issue of the day.

[B]

It was supposed to be related to.

[C]

Covid and it's become a boondoggle. It's a subsidy for insurance companies when you. But the reality is they've lowered people's premiums. And so when you get a sticker shock type price increase, which we're seeing all across the country, and it's blamed on congressional inaction, like that's not great.

[B]

For Republicans yet the Republicans have never.

[A]

Done anything to correct the problems that exist with it. And I don't think it's an easy thing to fix. However, it's something that we should have a plan for. And Mike Johnson, for a month now.

[B]

Cannot give me a single policy idea.

[C]

And I'm so there's a, there's a decent group of Republicans in the Senate and probably a group, you know, we've seen about a dozen or so in the House. So certainly enough to pass the House and maybe to pass the Senate to revive these subsidies. But there's a whole other sector of the Republican Party that hates them. They think it's bad policy and they think it props up Obamacare. And anything that they do do to bring down these premiums could be seen as sort of like helping a failed system that the Affordable Care act put in place. So there's a big division in the Republican Party that's kind of simmering behind the scenes that we're going to see really come out publicly over the next two months as negotiations on whether to extend these things really, really heat up because the drop dead is coming up. It's really at the end of the year. I know that the markets are open now, but. But Republicans have always said there's some time. It's a December 31st problem. So I expect this to be kind of a dominant issue over the next 6ish weeks.

[A]

We started by talking about how this shutdown is different. Back in the day, there were pressure points that applied. This time, it seems like the pressure points are for a long time they were nowhere to be found. What do you think is the legacy of the longest shutdown in history?

[C]

Well, I think it's really gonna depend on the midterms. And the reason I say that is the other big F government shutdown of this sort of modern era of politics happened in 2013. It was the opposite. On Obamacare, Ted Cruz was trying to defund Obamacare alongside a bunch of conservatives. And the House and Senate Republicans kind of got the crud kicked out of them in the polls during that. It looked really bad. They eventually cried uncle. Fast forward a year later. They didn't pay a price for that at all. In fact, they had an amazing election in 2014. So Democrats have this in the back of their head. They're saying, yeah, we don't like shutting down the government. It inordinately affects our constituents. A lot of them are federal workers in places like Northern Virginia or Maryland or across the country. They have in the back of their mind that Republicans didn't pay the price for that. Trump hasn't seemed to pay the price for a lot of his controversies. So they don't think they're going to pay the price in the midterms for this. So I would give this about a year fuse because I think if voters are still talking about this a year from now, that's probably bad for Democrats. They've made the bet that that's not what voters are going to be talking about. They're going to forget it pretty quickly.

[A]

Semaphore's Burgess Everett Hadi Muagdi produced today's show. Amina Elsadi edited. Laura Bullard is best director and Patrick Boyd is our engineer. Vox is on sale. Vox.com members to sign up. I'm Noel King. It's Today Explained It.