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You’ve now been in Congress for just over six months. What is your overall impression of how the place functions?
There’s a fixation on a lot of dumb shit. Bad performance art is really what it gets down to. The debt ceiling — there should have been no drama with any of that. The fact that we’re playing with something like that is antithetical to the stability of our democracy. It really is. Everything is turning into a culture war. Not everything has to be a think piece, you know.

Does all of that political posturing make you cynical about Washington?
Everyone here is cynical, of course. But we can fight for things that are meaningful. That we should have no hungry. Hanger. Hangry. Hanger. Hangry. [Chuckles.] Fox News will go crazy if that makes your story.

We’re fighting for women’s reproductive freedom, making sure we have resources and support our unions. I’m going to fight for what’s really important.

You’ve introduced legislation to expand access to contraception, with more than a dozen Democratic co-sponsors. Is there any Republican support for that in the Senate?
It’s going to be very hard. Somebody needs to tell Republicans, like in a memo, ‘You won on abortion. You won. Why not have a serious conversation about birth control? That’s less abortions and unwanted children.’ I wish we could have an honest conversation with conservatives and Republicans that birth control is the answer for both sides. But there wouldn’t be 60 votes in the Senate for that. I still really want to keep pushing it. I want to have that conversation.