Dan Pfeiffer

I think it's just what it says about how this administration views the freedom of the press and what it portends for the White House, the State Department,

just for journalists in general who want to cover politics or this administration.

I think it's quite, quite concerning.

Yeah, I just think you can – there's something to be said.

This is the remaining argument for like the White House briefing or the State Department briefing is there is something for an on-camera moment where real journalists could confront a propagandist and ask them a hard question and expose the lie if a lie comes.

And we will lose that.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right, is that neither side feels any political pressure.

I think by the traditional measures of who's winning a shutdown, both in public opinion and tone of press coverage, the Democrats are winning it.

But there are two problems with that.

One, the Republicans no longer consume that press coverage.

So even if they are losing, they think they're winning, which gives them no incentive to get out of the shutdown.

And the other challenge is the shutdown is not dominating politics.

Discussion, right?

It is like we've worked in a shutdown, we've covered shutdowns, we've been in looming shutdowns, we've been on the brink of shutdowns, and we've barreled toward shutdowns.

And every time that's the biggest story in the land, right?

It's the dominant political story.

But it is not the domino focal story this time.

In the very first day or so, it certainly was.

And we talked, I think you and I talked on a podcast about the data that showed that Democrats were really actually kind of winning the messaging wars on this.

And I think they still are.