This week we are joined in the Lobby Shop by Kyle Kondik (@KKondik), Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball out of the UVA Center for Politics. Josh, Liam, and Kyle talk Midterms, key swing states, the current political climate’s impact on voting in 2018, and more.

We’re debuting a new format to The Lobby Shop this week, now featuring your three regular co-hosts Josh Zive, Liam Donovan, and Paul Nathanson. We’ll cover the latest DC news from three angles: diving into legislation and policy, understanding their context and politics, and the success/failure of the involved parties’ communications tactics. Our featured guest interview this week is with PRG’s latest and greatest intern, Taryn Taylor Brown.

Josh and Liam reunite in The Lobby Shop for a look at what Liam has been up to for the last few weeks. We cover the cancellation of Congress’s August recess by Senate Majority Leader McConnell, the outlook of the Midterm elections, DC’s Capitals in the Stanley Cup Final, and more.

Josh, Liam, and Paul react to the tumultuous past 24 hours of on-again-off-again steel and aluminum tariff announcements from the Administration. We break down the context and history of the proposed tariffs and the President’s tweeted claims that trade wars are “easy to win.”

From the passage of the 2018 budget deal to the President’s FY19 budget proposal announcement, there has been a lot of talk in Washington about federal money and where it should go. Josh and Liam sit down with two lobbyists who have significant experience in this complicated area of government, Ed Krenik and John Lee, to discuss the political context for these events, how they differ, and what they mean for policy going forward.