美国国家公共电台 NPR Bipartisan 'Bromance' Blossoms As 2 Texas Congressmen Make D.C. Road Trip

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

A late winter storm has been dumping snow on the Northeast since yesterday. Thousands of flights have been canceled. That will not stop two Texas congressmen from making it back to Washington.

BETO O'ROURKE: We are in a Chevy Impala, stuck just outside of Waco in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

That's Democrat¹ Beto O'Rourke in the car with Republican Will Hurd from neighboring districts along the southern border.

WILL HURD: Beto's driving right now.

MARTIN: In between bathroom breaks and taco stops, they've had plenty of time to thrash out the health care bill. Here's Congressman² O'Rourke.

O'ROURKE: And I think we came to some common ground. We want to see more people be able to afford health care. But I think we have some differences of opinion on expansion of Medicaid. But we have 20 more hours of driving to go. So I'm going to try to bring Will a little bit closer to my point of view. I know he's going to try to do the same.

INSKEEP: So this is either bipartisanship or a buddy³ movie, I'm not sure which. You get a Republican and a Democrat and trap them both in a car.

HURD: There's some pieces of legislation that I'm going to look about helping⁴ with.

O'ROURKE: Like veterans' health care. And then here's a real big one. We're currently in our 16th year of war in Afghanistan. And we started a really good conversation about what victory looks like and what we are willing to do as a country to secure our goals and aims overseas. This might be an area that we come up with something to work on together.

INSKEEP: And there's yet another area where they might be able to work together.

O'ROURKE: It's been a bipartisan effort. We've got some Kenny Chesney on right now. But earlier, we were listening to a great station out of San Antonio, 90.1. It's more independent, alternative rock 'n' roll So we're just going to take turns I think.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WINNEBAGO")

KENNY CHESNEY: (Singing) Why don't we hook up the old Winnebago, baby.

MARTIN: Ah, the unifying⁵ powers of Kenny Chesney. Congressman Beto O'Rourke, Democrat of Texas, we reached him and Will Hurd, Republican congressman, as they drove from Texas to Washington, D.C., after storms caused their flights to be canceled.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WINNEBAGO")

KENNY CHESNEY: (Singing) As soon as we get there.

1 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

2 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

3 buddy   

n.（美口）密友，伙伴

参考例句：

• Calm down,buddy.What's the trouble?压压气，老兄。有什么麻烦吗？
• Get out of my way,buddy!别挡道了，你这家伙！

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

5 unifying   

使联合( unify的现在分词 )； 使相同； 使一致； 统一

参考例句：

• In addition, there were certain religious bonds of a unifying kind. 此外，他们还有某种具有一种统一性质的宗教上的结合。
• There is a unifying theme, and that is the theme of information flow within biological systems. 我们可以用一个总的命题，把生物学系统内的信息流来作为这一研究主题。