Jonathan Kearsley: US correspondent on the congressional deadlock impacting US Government

A congressional deadlock's shut down the US Government. 

Congress failed to pass last-ditch attempts to extend federal funding failed, with Democrats and Republicans refusing to vote through each other's bills.

The deadline's now passed - meaning the Government must strip back to essential services, and most federal workers won't be paid.

President Trump's threatened major cuts.

US correspondent Jonathan Kearsley says it's a monstrous situation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jonathan Kursley, US correspondenters with us ALO Jonathan Hea.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
They're always good to talk to you and the listeners
on the other side of the Pacific.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
And you, mate, So what's going to shut down at five?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Well, mate, you're going to see parks and services shut down.
You're going to see a whole range of government services
shut down. We are, as you said, less than half
an hour away, twenty three minutes away from a shutdown
coming into effect, and unless something drastic can be done
within the course of the next little while while, then yes,
will be a historic shutdown for the United States of America.
When it comes to things like airports, well they won't

(00:33):
completely grind to a halt, because what they are going
to do is airport workers and air traffic controllers they're
going to be deemed essential workers, so they will be
allowed to operate. But essentially every other federal service you're
looking at the military there, You're looking at issues around
museum staff and park staff.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
This is going to be monstrous.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Bureaucrats right across the board are going to go without pay.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
And this happens in America almost every six months.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
We seem to get to this point of government shut
down talks looming, but this time around it has not
going to be averted at the eleventh hour, and we
are going to be going into a shutdown. Both sides
of politics essentially blaming each other. But at the end
of the day, what is going to happen is people
are going to wind up not having their paychecks. That's
going to tend the economy. We already heard the American
President essentially say today that if they do go down

(01:25):
this path, then he will be allowed to do things
that are irreversible. Now that could well mean shutting down
elements of government departments. It could mean down departments altogether
and laying off what he views as an overstocked bureaucracy.
It is going to be a fundamental next twenty four
hours to see how this furlough process, how this process

(01:48):
goes for those heavily involved in the federal workforce.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Was that one of the weirdest speeches ever given to
US military leaders?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
If you're talking about the one earlier today, that was
perhaps the most eyebrow raising speech to military leaders I
think I have heard in my entire journalistic career, which
is almost some twenty years. Pete Hegseth had called military
leaders generals from around the world to gather in Virginia,
and none of them seemed to really know what was

(02:19):
actually going to transpire. What did transpire was in a sense,
a Donald Trump megapolitical rally, but in front of generals
who didn't exactly have the same sense of humor that
perhaps he had. We heard Pete Hegseth, the now Secretary
of War saying that he did not want to have
beard os. Yes you heard that, correct, beard os not

(02:40):
weirdos in.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
The military, and he did not want to have.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Fat people roaming the halls of the Pentagon. He's trying
to strike an image here. And then the speech from
the Commander in chief himself, well, it was extraordinary, ranged
from talking about military issues and war issues to domestic
issues and Joe Biden and his predecessor. There were little
laughs from the audience, and you would not have expected.

(03:04):
Many military generals are stifled at the best of times.
Perhaps the only sniggers that did come may well have
been from the President and the Secretary.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Of War Zone staff. It was just it was an
extraordinary speech. Yeah, it really was.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Now, Nicole Cadman, what's going on?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Here.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Has he been having an affair.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Well, it doesn't seem as though there's been something nefarious
going on, but it certainly seems as though from the
divorce papers that have been filed, in the reports that
are out through entertainment website TMC in the United States,
that he may well have found somebody else to be
romantically involved with, or at least somebody else to be
involved with. Round about thirty six hours ago we heard
these rumblings that there was a separation, and now you

(03:48):
know that time period on.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Well, it is Nicole who has filed for divorce in Nashville.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
They're already talking about how they're going to divide up
their time as co parents. Nicole will get the children
three hundred and six days a year, and it seems
as though Keith will.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Get them for the remainder.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
So read between the lines on this, and I think
you can see that Nicole very clearly is not very
happy with the situation as it is as it stands now.
Yesterday the reports that she was trying to save the marriage.
She wanted to salvage it. Today though it is they
are headed for divorce after some nineteen years or so
of marriage.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
It is it stunned Hollywood?

Speaker 2 (04:26):
To be honest, Heather, I mean they were seen as
somewhat of the Golden Couple here. It was said when
it came to love that there was nothing like Nicole
and Keith.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
And now they are headed their separate ways.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
I mean, the divorce sadly happens to so many couples
right across the world, and now it's happening to one
of the biggest entertainment names in America.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah too, right, Jonathan, Thanks very much, Jonathan Kursley, US correspondent.
I guess, I guess brace for the Daily Mail to
reveal within the next I don't know, God knows how
long it'll take them. I'm sure they're going to dig
out who is new Bees it isn't, and then reveal
the name.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
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