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Brigid Bergin: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. We made it to Friday. Coming up on today's show, the Comptroller-elect, Mark Levine, will join us. The comptroller traditionally operates as a check on the mayor, though Levine and Mayor Elect Mamdani endorsed each other. We'll talk to him about how he sees his new role as the city's fiscal watchdog, especially as Mayor Elect Mamdani tries to make good on his expensive campaign promises. Plus, Molly Fischer from the New Yorker will talk about her reporting on Costco, the members-only warehouse store that has somewhat improbably become a beloved shopping experience for so many Americans.

There are some rumblings beneath the surface that suggest the good times at Costco and the good vibes won't last forever. Plus, after this big election week, we're going to take a deep breath and let WNYC and Gothamist Arts and Culture reporter Hannah Frischberg recommend some non-political fun for us all to enjoy this weekend. But first, it is day 38 of a government shutdown. As you've been hearing this morning, the FAA is reducing flights at airports across the country and in this region. This week was the first week millions of Americans who rely on food assistance benefits went without them.

For the first time in more than six decades, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, has stopped issuing payments, meaning more and more Americans are going hungry. My next guest suggests this devastating moment for millions of Americans may, in fact, be what forces the hand of lawmakers. The article in the Atlantic is headlined This Could Be How the Shutdown Ends. It's by my guest, Toluse Olorunnipa. Toluse, welcome back to WNYC.

Toluse Olorunnipa: Thanks so much for having me.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, are you someone who has lost your food benefits? How are you getting by? Do you work at a food pantry? What are you seeing there? If you're not someone who is directly affected, but you're seeing the impacts in your community, tell us what's happening on the ground. Do you have a community refrigerator in your neighborhood that maybe people are stepping up to visit or donate to? Are you donating to local food drives? Or maybe you have a comment on what the Democrats' win on Election Day means for what voters are signaling to the federal government? Call with your stories, comments, or questions for my guest, the Atlantics, Toluse Olorunnipa, the number 212433 WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can call or text at that number. Toluse, let's give some context to these SNAP cuts. How many Americans rely on food assistance?

Toluse Olorunnipa: About 42 million Americans, it's about one in every eight Americans rely on this program. It's the largest anti-hunger program in the country. It's something that really helps people make ends meet. Even people who work who just don't have enough from their jobs to be able to pay for their family's food, they rely on SNAP. This is a major program. The fact that it was shut down and basically went dark for the first time in its 61-year history really put a lot of people into dire straits.

It's been a week since people have not gotten their benefits, which were supposed to go out on November 1st. We are starting to see the ramifications of what that means for families, for children, for seniors, and it's a pretty significant impact. I've talked to a lot of people who are fearful that unless they go to a food bank or unless they get some help from the kindness of strangers, that they could be going hungry in a matter of weeks as we get closer to Thanksgiving.

Brigid Bergin: Toluse, just so we're clear, November 1st was a key deadline for when these benefits would turn off. But does everyone lose their benefits on that same day? Or is this something that phases in, and so we see an escalating impact on people who rely on these benefits as the days tick by?

Toluse Olorunnipa: Well, all 42 million Americans were supposed to get additional benefits on November 1st. Those benefits did not go out at all. Now, some people did continue to have some leftover benefits from October that they can continue to use on these EBT cards, which are basically like credit cards that are loaded with these funds. Some people were able to save a little bit and are continuing to be able to use their funds, but no new funds went out on November 1st. Now there are court battles going on, and the administration has now agreed to release some of the funding because a judge said that they had to. That money is still sort of tied up in the bureaucratic process, and the government said it could take days, weeks, or even months before that partial payment goes out. For the vast majority of those 42 million people, they didn't get their funds on November 1st. Seven days later, they still have not received anything for the month of November.

Brigid Bergin: You mentioned that statistic. One in eight Americans rely on these benefits. Can you talk about where these beneficiaries live? Some of these folks are obviously here in New York, but some are also in red states, right?

Toluse Olorunnipa: That's absolutely right. They live all over the country. When you talk about one in eight Americans, you're really cutting across a broad segment of the American public. You have a lot of people that live in urban centers, a lot of people that live in big cities. A lot of them are working. But because of the high cost of living, especially in cities, they need a little help to put food on the table, especially if they have children. A lot of people in rural America also rely on SNAP benefits. Jobs have gone away from a lot of those places. The kind of blue-collar work that you could get with a high school degree or even if you hadn't graduated from high school. A lot of those jobs don't exist anymore.

You have a lot of people that voted for President Trump who rely on food assistance to make ends meet with the high cost of living that we've experienced. Red states, blue states, Democrats, Republicans, independents, this is something that's impacting people across the political spectrum, across the country, in communities that are very heavily populated as well as communities that are more rural. That's part of the reason why I wrote in my piece, this is one of the few things that seems to be pushing lawmakers to try to cut an agreement because they realize that this is impacting their constituents in such a significant way.

Brigid Bergin: What are the indications that those lawmakers are hearing from their constituents about that impact? I know that these lawmakers, some of them have not been in D.C. for weeks. Are they hearing from those folks in town halls, at their offices? How could you gauge that these constituents were sharing their experience with their lawmakers?

Toluse Olorunnipa: Yes, first, it's important to say that this government shutdown started on October 1st. For the first two to three weeks, it seemed like it wasn't really visible. It wasn't at the top of the news cycle. People were talking about what the president was doing, and with the peace deal in the Middle East, and then knocking down the ballroom and all the other things that were happening. It seemed like this was going further and further down the list of priorities for Washington, in part because Trump wasn't talking about it. He was saying it was this great opportunity to slash the federal workforce. He seemed very unbothered by it.

He also tried to limit the impacts on certain people by making sure that the troops, for example, were paid, moving money around to make sure that things like the WIC program, that help women and babies have nutrition, that program was not defunded. It felt like this shutdown was not really impacting lawmakers, and they felt comfortable with the way things were. Once the SNAP benefits ran out, pretty abruptly, by the way, because originally the government was saying that they were going to make these payments, and every past shutdown, they have made these payments, but this time around, they said that they wouldn't.

It was this abrupt change where people who thought they were going to be getting their benefits suddenly realized November 1st, there was not going to be any money in their accounts. They did really start making a fuss about it. They really started talking to their lawmakers. Food banks were starting to get overwhelmed, and the people who run those food banks were starting to reach out to their lawmakers and representatives and saying, "We are being overwhelmed. There are long lines of people, not only federal workers, but also people who were expecting SNAP benefits who now are not getting them and now have to turn to food banks, and we don't have enough supply to be able to pay or to be able to take care of all of these people. You have to open the government very, very quickly."

This was something that really started to make this shutdown feel real for a lot of people who maybe hadn't been paying attention to it. It became very real for the lawmakers who are responsible funding the government. A number of them have been hearing from their constituents, and I've heard from both the lawmakers and the constituents and the nonprofits that are trying to fill this gap. One food bank executive told me, for every one meal that they're able to provide, the SNAP program typically provides nine meals. They are just unable to meet that and fill that gap and meet that need that's out there.

A number of them are reaching out to their lawmakers, going to Washington physically, in some cases, to say, "We have to restart this program, we have to reopen the government. There's too much pain that's going out there, and we're getting close to Thanksgiving, and things are only going to get worse if we don't open the government soon." I think that message is being heard. There is a question about whether or not the lawmakers are ready to make a deal and reopen the government, especially after what happened on Tuesday with the election. It is very clear that a number of lawmakers now realize that this is not sustainable, that the pain is going to increase significantly as we get closer to the holidays.

Brigid Bergin: Well, we're going to dig into those election results in just a moment. For those of you who are just joining us, this is the Brian Lehrer Show in WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. It's been a long week. My guest is Toluse Olorunnipa, a staff writer at The Atlantic. We're talking about the longest government shutdown in history and specifically how it's impacting SNAP benefits. Toluse, we were just talking about some of the backup options people are turning to is contingency, given that those food benefits stopped going out as of Saturday. What are you hearing from people who work at places like food banks or other contingency options? Are those places getting the supplies they need to help people in this emergency?

Toluse Olorunnipa: A lot of those food banks are pleading for help from the public. They're asking for donations. They're asking for support. They're basically saying there's a tsunami coming their way that they do not have the capacity to take care of. There are going to be so many people who are relying on food banks now that these SNAP benefits have run out that the food banks are going to be overwhelmed. I talked to one food bank official in central Tennessee, a small town called Hohenwald, and they had to cancel their biweekly distribution last week because there was no supply. The food had run out because so many people had been in need. The food bank that normally supplies this nonprofit organization had run out of food.

That's happening. That's beginning to happen more frequently across the country. A lot of these food banks are really struggling. They were already suffering from this broader affordability crisis that we've seen, especially in the years after the pandemic. A number of them are doing twice or three times as much food distribution as they were prior to the pandemic. This is even before the government shut down, even before the SNAP benefits ran out. They were already pretty stressed. People generally are dealing with this affordability crisis. The price of everything has gone up. As a result, people have been turning to food banks more frequently. You throw into the mix SNAP benefits running out abruptly, and it just really overwhelms the system.

A number of these executives and leaders of these nonprofit organizations are just overwhelmed. They are hoping that the government will reopen soon. They are worried that if that doesn't happen, that their systems will break down, that there will be lines that they're not able to sustain. People at the end of the line will not be able to get food. They're worried about what might happen after that, whether there'll be disruption or chaos or just the consequences of people going hungry. It's an intensely personal thing to not have money to be able to feed your family. People are really concerned about what might happen if this drags on much longer.

Brigid Bergin: Well, let's go to some of our callers. Let's start with Kylie in Northern Virginia. Kylie, you're on WNYC.

Kylie: I want to see the Democratic response be. I think that we all know that the level of pettiness has just escalated. In the same way that Donald Trump has that count-up clock on the federal government on the White House website which is showing like how long it's been since the government's been shut down, I don't know why Democrats aren't blasting, "Here are the solutions we're proposing." It's been this many days since the Republican congresspeople and senators have not even been in D.C. to even talk about or pass these bills. I wish that they were doing more of that.

I did have a question. I don't know if your guests can help me with this, but I know that oftentimes people who are on SNAP benefits often have compounding other issues, maybe their housing insecure or with like all these holidays and the schools being closed. If you could just talk a little bit about the way that this might be playing out in real life for people. It's not like people if you're housing insecure, you have a cupboard where you can stockpile canned food. A lot of times if you can't get food in real time, it's a real challenge. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that as well.

Brigid Bergin: Kylie, thanks so much for that call and question. Our apologies there, Toluse, that we had a little technical difficulty when Kylie started speaking. But I'll let you pick it up with responding to her question.

Toluse Olorunnipa: First to Kylie's comment. I do think Democrats feel after the election results that they have a little bit of political mojo and that they want a message on the shutdown in a more aggressive way and they're hearing that from their voters, that they need to be out there, they need to be talking about what they're supporting, and they need to take a hard line, because this is really the first time they've been able to push back in a significant way against Donald Trump. The election results on Tuesday in which Democrats won across the country, has given them a little bit of confidence to try to message in a stronger way on the shutdown and to take a stronger stance about what they're going to demand in order to vote to fund the government.

To the question, the very good question, about the compounding nature of this, there is, in addition to the ongoing affordability crisis that people are dealing with, with incredibly high cost of housing and energy, and food, people have really been struggling just to make ends meet in the modern economy. A number of people who are on SNAP also are dealing with other issues, whether it's, as Kylie said, housing insecurity, mental health challenges, problems with their children, or a number of these people are senior citizens and they have health issues of their own.

A lot of this does really pile up for people. The SNAP benefit was for a lot of people, that one lifeline, that one thing they can rely on consistently on the 1st of every month, that they'd get this money and they'd be able to go to the grocery store and put some food on the table and not have to worry about that, at least for a few days or a couple of weeks. In many cases, those SNAP benefits do not last the whole month. I talked to a number of people who try to stretch out what it might be, $100 or $150, go to the grocery store on the 1st, and try to get enough food to last for their family for the whole month. A lot of times by week three, they're instead going to a food bank, because that's the only way they can make it to the first of the month again.

Now a lot of those people who are dealing with those broader challenges, they have to use whatever savings they might have or whatever money they might have in cash to pay for food. That means that the other issues that they're dealing with, whether it's housing or health care, they don't have the money to deal with those things. A number of people are in really dire straits, from the most extreme people who are dealing with homelessness and not having a roof over their head to-- As one woman told me that I spoke to the mundane things of life, like toilet paper, not being able to afford that, or having to decide between buying basic toiletries or buying food. That's a dilemma that a number of people are facing across the country.

Brigid Bergin: Toluse, we're getting lots of calls, lots of texts. One question that we're getting variations on is something that a listener writes. How can there be no money? Aren't federal taxes being withheld during the shutdown? On top of that, several folks saying that SNAP benefits haven't run out, that SNAP benefits are being withheld. Can you speak to those points, this idea that is there not money to pay for these benefits? What's actually going on here?

Toluse Olorunnipa: Yes, those are really good questions. I alluded to the court battle that has played out over this, which is ongoing as we speak. But to the first question, yes, people are still paying taxes. Taxes are still going into the federal treasury over the course of this shutdown, which started on October 1st. I'm sure anyone who's gotten a paycheck has seen taxes going to the federal government out of that paycheck since October 1st.

The issue is that Congress has to decide how to spend American tax dollars. If they don't pass a bill saying this tax money should go to program X, Y, and Z, the way our government works is that those programs shut down because Congress has not passed the bill, and because Democrats and Republicans are fighting over how to structure those bills and haven't been able to pass any of those bills. Things that are not mandatory in terms of mandatory programs like Social Security, and other things that are on a little bit more of an auto clock kind of system. Everything else that's described as discretionary in our budget parlance, those things have to be funded by appropriations bills passed by Congress. Even though tax dollars are being brought into the treasury, they can't go out in certain programs that are seen as discretionary because a law has not been passed.

Now, the SNAP program is unique because in the past, there has always been a contingency fund that Congress has set aside for emergencies or situations where SNAP money runs out or there's a hurricane or there's an issue, that SNAP program needs more money. That money had been set aside. In the past, in previous shutdowns, that money has always been used to pay people SNAP benefits because the government shutting down is seen as an emergency for most people. In this year, in this case, the Trump administration said that they were not going to use that contingency money. They did not want to view this as an emergency because they viewed it as a self-inflicted emergency. Congress not passing a bill is not the same as a hurricane in their minds.

Tere were lawsuits that were filed, and judges just last week basically said that-- actually, at the beginning of this week, the judges said that the Trump administration had to use its contingency money to pay those SNAP benefits. That is a battle that's going on in the courts. The Trump administration has appealed that ruling. That's part of the reason why SNAP benefits have not gone out. The questioners make a good point. That is not necessarily that all the money has run out. It's that the Trump administration in this case has decided not to use its contingency fund for SNAP, even though that is an option that has been used regularly in the past.

Brigid Bergin: Well, we need to take a short break. When we come back, we're going to play the response from the Trump administration to that decision and an explanation of why they say they are appealing that judge's ruling. We'll have more with my guest, the Atlantic's Toluse Olorunnipa, and your calls and texts just after this. Stick around.

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It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, filling in for Brian. Today, my guest is the Atlantic's Toluse Olorunnipa. We're talking about the ongoing government shutdown and specifically the impact on food benefits and food benefit assistance. Toluse, we were talking about the ongoing legal battles between the Trump administration and their decision to withhold these benefits. As you said, a federal judge has ordered the administration to pay full benefits. Already, the administration, just an hour after that decision came down, I believe, said that they would appeal.

Last night at a dinner at the White House with Central Asian countries, the president was asked about why the administration was appealing and punted that question to Vice President J.D. Vance. Here's about a minute and a half of his answer about why the government is appealing.

J.D. Vance: Look, Jackie, it's an absurd ruling because you have a federal judge effectively telling us what we have to do in the midst of a Democrat government shutdown, which what we'd like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government. Of course, then we can fund SNAP, and we can also do a lot of other good things for the American people. But in the midst of a shutdown, we can't have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation. We're trying to keep as much turned on. We're trying to keep as much going as possible. The president and the entire administration are working on that. But we're not going to do it under the orders of a federal judge. We're going to do it according to what we think we have to do to comply with the law, of course, but also to actually make the government work for people in the midst of the Democratic government shutdown.

If they would like to end this, we would welcome working with them to end this government shutdown, and then we wouldn't have to triage what we're going to fund and what we're not going to fund. The last thing that I'll say is the American people are unfortunately about to start suffering some very real consequences because of the shutdown. In the past, when you had a government shutdown, under the Obama administration, they would lean into all of the problems it was going to cause for the American people. At the beginning of the shutdown, the president has told us to keep as much going as humanly possible. After 30 days of this thing, 40 days of this thing, you're going to start seeing very real travel delays. That's because the Democratic government shut down. You're going to start seeing SNAP benefits run out. That's because the Democratic government shut down. They should stop the charade and open up the government. That's what we want them to do. We've been asking them to do it for 40 days. It's time.

Brigid Bergin: Okay, Toluse, a lot to unpack there. Can you help parse some of that response for us?

Toluse Olorunnipa: Yes. The vice president is doing what Trump and the Republicans have been trying to do for the past 38 odd dates, which is to blame this predicament on Democrats, basically say that they are trying to do all that they can to help people. But the government shutdown is the reason why things are running out, and programs are running out. Now, some of that is true, but some of that I take a little bit of issue with, because every past government shutdown, SNAP benefits have been paid out. There is this contingency fund that's sitting there that the administration could have tapped at the very beginning. They did. When the last government shut down under Trump in 2018 and 2019, without much fanfare, this time around, they decided not to use that contingency fund.

They are not pulling out all the stops to make sure that people's benefits go out. They made the distinct choice not to use the emergency money for SNAP, and a judge has now ordered them to do that. They are appealing that ruling basically saying that they don't want to do that. Part of this is a strategy to try to assign blame to the Democrats and try to make them feel some pressure over this government shutdown. There's a lot of messaging and a lot of political brinkmanship going on. I don't exclude the vice president and the White House from that process. They are clearly trying to position themselves for political victory here. It is important to note, as I did in my story, and as a number of people who are on SNAP benefits have noted, this is really impacting real people, and the political fighting is leaving a lot of collateral damage across the country for people who are are really being impacted by this.

Brigid Bergin: We have a whole board full of callers helping us report this story. I want to start with Tisha in Westchester County. Tisha, welcome to WNYC.

Tisha: Hi. Thank you. Forgive me, I'm a bit nervous talking on air.

Brigid Bergin: No need to be nervous. How can you help us understand what you're seeing?

Tisha: I just wanted to make a note as happy as I am to hear conversations around food that need to be addressed with or without this SNAP [unintelligible 00:26:59], that's the kind way of putting it. If people can try to remember when they go to food banks or their synagogues, churches, wherever, or their local areas, if they can also include both senior incontinence diapers and menstrual products like tampons and things like that, because a lot of people will put those aside in order to provide food. As necessary as food is for children and adults, sometimes senior incontinence items like baby wipes and adult-sized diapers who are also for postpartum women and things like that.

If they can remember, not just these are actually shelf-stable items that are needed. To a previous caller who was wondering what to do, because food can be perishable for people who don't have, say, cupboards or refrigerators with them, I don't know if it's possible, but if you can bring gift certificates to CVS or local grocery store to the food banks, sometimes those can be distributed. They can buy things like diapers and pads, and tampons. Not to be too graphic, but if you can get them in different sizes and different absorbencies, both teens and adults need those types of products.

I Don't know if you want to talk about the seniors and things like Meals on Wheels, and like, who's affected. Not just our children and school children, but the other side of our population age spectrum, which is ever expanding. I'm a caregiver for two parents and an elder sister. The caregivers are being squeezed pretty heavily with trying to figure out how to distribute the pennies and dimes that we have.

Brigid Bergin: Tisha, thank you so much. Really an important reminder there, Toluse, of the extent to which we're not just talking about hunger, we're talking about dignity and people's ability to function in society in a way that many of us take for granted. Toiletries are so expensive. I think just another part of this conversation that perhaps gets left out.

Toluse Olorunnipa: Yes, that's exactly right. In my story, I spoke to a 76-year-old great-grandmother who relies on SNAP to put food on the table every month. She gets $171 on the first of every month, and she tries to go to the grocery store and make that work for 30 days. A lot of times she ends up at food banks because $171, especially if you're trying to buy healthy food, it can be difficult to make it last that long.

She did say that she's going to have to choose between using her savings for food versus toiletries and things that she would need. That's a very difficult situation to be in. It is a situation that brings up the question of people's personal dignity. It's one of the reasons why food insecurity is such an intensely personal thing for people. Having to decide between the basic necessities of life, where to put one's limited funds, is a really difficult place to be. It's a really tough situation for a lot of people. I think that is starting to hit home for a lot of the lawmakers in Washington that have the ability to solve this problem. Whether or not it's hit home directly enough for them to come up with a solution in the near future. That remains to be seen.

I do think that this is something that, especially for the seniors, especially for people who are dealing with not only having to put food on the table, but having to deal with their own health and their own personal safety and personal security, those are the kinds of questions that make it very difficult to know that this is a problem that can be solved by politicians who so far have refused to come up with a solution that can work.

Brigid Bergin: I want to just shout out some other texts from listeners offering some local solutions as we wait for lawmakers to act. A listener writes, "Hi, my name is Ciara Reed and I'm part of a mutual aid group, Upper East Side Collective Action Network, to help folks with food. I've been privately fundraising on my social channels to purchase food for our local community fridge at 92nd and 1st Avenue. I've raised $280 and was able to take food to the fridge earlier this week with members from my mutual aid group. I have currently raised another $60 and will continue to raise money to put food in the fridge as often as possible. Everyone deserves to eat." I want to go to another caller. Let's go to Christopher in Brooklyn. Christopher, you're on WNYC.

Christopher: Hi, Brigid and Toluse, thank you so much. I think speaking to the last caller and Toluse, the point you're bringing up about really difficult decisions people are having to make during this time. We at the AKC Museum of the Dog are doing a dog food drive because we don't want people to have to make an additional really challenging choice if they have a pet in their life. People are welcome to donate unopened cans or bags of food, and similarly, to come to the museum at 40th and Park Avenue, just east of park on 40th street, and help themselves to a large box of dog food that's going to be in our vestibule during open hours, which are Wednesday through Sunday from 11:00 to 5:00. We're hoping that this just takes one question away for some.

Brigid Bergin: Christopher, thank you so much for that information. I'm sure there are people out there who will benefit from that. Toluse, I want to come back to the politics of this. I read the headline of the story you wrote earlier this week when I introduced the segment. Of course, I must note that last night you and Jon Lemire published an update of the situation, a new article with a less optimistic headline. It said just when it looked like the shutdown might end. Let's start with, you mentioned there appeared to be some optimistic signals earlier this week. Then we had an Election Day that changed the calculation, I think, likely for both parties. But maybe if you would first start with how it changed the calculation for Democrats.

Toluse Olorunnipa: Earlier in this week, it sounded like a number of Democrats were starting to open up to the idea of ending the shutdown, not getting what they originally bargained for or demanded at the beginning of this process, which is a guarantee that the healthcare subsidies that are expiring would be extended. Something, well, short of that, which is basically an opportunity to vote on those healthcare subsidies and hope that that vote would pass. That was something that a number of Democrats were open to at the beginning of the week. Then Tuesday happened, in which Democrats excelled across the political map and won races in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and won by pretty significant margins.

The message that a number of Democrats got from that was that their voters were supporting them on a number of different things, but supporting them in their fight against the president in the shutdown battle. They wanted someone to stand up to the president. A number of these voters, this was their first opportunity to stand up to Trump since he was elected a year ago. They sent a pretty resounding message that they wanted to repudiate his approach to governing. They also wanted their lawmakers, their representatives to stand up to the president in a significant way.

That really bolstered the spine of a number of Democrats, including some that were prepared to, for lack of a better term, cave on the shutdown and walk away with something much less than what they originally demanded. There was a little bit of a split in the party in the aftermath of the election. Some Democrats were saying, "We need to fight harder, we need to demand these health care subsidies and nothing less." Some were saying the shutdown is really hurting people, people on SNAP benefits and people at airports, and federal workers who have gone without a paycheck for a month. We got to find an off ramp to this.

They had a big meeting yesterday, and they came out of that meeting saying that they were unified and basically that they were not going to vote to fund the government at the next opportunity that Republicans presented, because that next opportunity would not include any support for the health care subsidies that people are relying on and that are going to expire at the end of the year. If those subsidies do expire, people's health care premiums for the people who are on Obamacare could go up by 200% or more.

[00:36:00] Brigid Bergin: That vote was scheduled to happen today. Correct?

Toluse Olorunnipa: Can you say again?

Brigid Bergin: That vote was expected to happen today in the Senate?

Toluse Olorunnipa: Yes, and I believe it's still going to go forward, but it's going to be the 15th time that that vote has failed, in part because Republicans are not shifting from their stance that these health care subsidies should not be a part of any funding package. Democrats are not shifting from their stance that the only way to fund the government is to include these health care subsidies as part of that package. We are at a stalemate. Earlier in the week, it looked like that stalemate was beginning to thaw. After the election, it sounds like voters are blaming Republicans for the predicament. Democrats are saying our voters want us to stand strong and not cave. For that reason, the government shutdown is going to continue at least into next week, likely beyond, because Congress is supposed to go for a week-long recess next week. We're getting closer and closer to Thanksgiving without a resolution. This shutdown could be something that lasts even longer.

Brigid Bergin: Toluse, I we could keep talking about how the politics is playing out here probably for the rest of the hour, but just in our final minute or so here, I have to ask, where are the House Republicans on this? Is Speaker Johnson part of these negotiations at all? I know we're talking about this vote in the Senate that's going to fail, but if it did pass, is there any indication that the House would advance it as well?

Toluse Olorunnipa: The House has taken a pretty maximalist position of no negotiations at all. They passed a bill to fund the government back in September, and they have largely been out of session for the last seven weeks. They are saying that Democrats and Republicans in the Senate should just pass their bill, and that should be the end of it. they are not really open to the idea of negotiating or even allowing a guarantee that there would be a vote on these healthcare subsidies. House Republicans so far have not been willing to come to the table. That's part of the reason Senate Democrats feel that there's not really a reason to sign on to a bill because they have no guarantee that the House Republicans would support it.

That's part of the reason why we are at the stalemate. House Republican, Senate Democrats are as far apart as they were at the beginning of this shutdown. there are no negotiations or talks taking place in a significant way among the leadership. Now there are some House Republicans that are supportive of extending these subsidies, and they are starting to splinter and say healthcare is a major problem and we need to solve it. Maybe that will be what ends up breaking up this shutdown once they speak up with a louder voice. But until then, we're gonna be shut down, and it looks like that status is going to be continuing and extending at least until the middle of this month, if not longer.

Brigid Bergin: Well, I'm gonna share another text from a listener for those who are trying to figure out how to navigate this shutdown without those SNAP benefits. As we originally started this conversation, this listener writes, "There's an LGBTQ+ and immigrant-run and served food pantry in Queens and elsewhere through the Love Wins food pantry. For anyone in need and seeking a safe, affirming place, call Love Wins. You can find it at lovewinsnyc.org, and a food based mutual aid org for Black trans folks called Okra Project that can be found at okra project.org.

Some contingency plans as people try to make their way through this very muddled situation. I know you're going to be busy, Toluse, from now until this ends, but we will leave it for there for today. Thank you so much for joining me. My guest has been Toluse Olorunnipa, staff writer at the Atlantic.

Toluse Olorunnipa: Thank you so much.

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