The “Pocketing Your Notes” Edition

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On this week’s Slate Political Gabfest, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the continued government shutdown, the counterintelligence investigation of Trump, and the racism of Steve King.

Here are some of the links and references from this week’s show:

• Erica Werner for the Washington Post: “Trump Administration Calling Nearly 50,000 Back to Work, Unpaid, as Shutdown Drags On”
• Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni for the New York Times: “In a West Wing in Transition, Trump Tries to Stand Firm on the Shutdown”
• Steve Vladeck on Twitter with the progression of the executive branch’s defense
• Pew Research Center: “Most Border Wall Opponents, Supporters Say Shutdown Concessions Are Unacceptable”
• Whistlestop podcast: “A ’90s-Style Government Shutdown (Part 1)”
• Greg Miller for the Washington Post: “Trump Has Concealed Details of His Face-to-Face Encounters With Putin From Senior Officials in Administration”
• Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt, and Nicholas Fandos for the New York Times: “F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia”
• Caroline Kelly for CNN: “Rudy Giuliani Says Trump Didn’t Collude With Russia but Can’t Say if Campaign Aides Did”

Here are this week’s cocktail chatters:

• Emily chattered about some less-discussed problems with William Barr’s confirmation testimony, including his hard-line views on immigration, lack of support for criminal justice reform, and willful blindness to the racial inequities in the justice system.
• John chattered about his interview with Dave Matthews, discussing Matthews’ youth in South Africa under apartheid and his efforts to improve public housing in Charlottesville, Virginia.
• David chattered about watching Raiders of the Lost Ark after many years and discovering it is appallingly racist and sexist.
• Listener Kathy Kearns @kkearns11542 recommended the “Leesburg Stockade Girls” episode of the StoryCorps podcast, which tells the story of a group of girls arrested at a 1963 civil rights protest and held in an abandoned stockade for nearly two months.

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, Emily and John talk with professor Nate Persily about the recent court decision blocking the Trump administration’s plan to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census.

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Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank. Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap.