About this episode
Congress avoided a government shutdown after Senate conservatives dropped their demands to nix President Joe Biden's vaccine mandates in the funding bill — and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave them a way out. Conservatives will argue they got something out of this drama: a vote on their issue. In reality, it was a face-saving measure. The far-right started out demanding that Congress effectively scuttle the mandates, then reduced their ask to a mere vote they knew would fail, ensuring smooth passage of a continuing resolution a full 30 hours before the shutdown deadline. Listen and subscribe to Playbook Deep Dive Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook. Jenny Ament is the senior producer for POLITICO Audio. Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.