Josh is on the phone in his office, saying that he's on his way to a meeting, and that someone's going to call whomever he's talking to every half hour. Donna appears at the door, aghast at the news: "Mexico collapsed?" Josh is casual: "Yeah, can you believe it?" Donna: "Mexico collapsed over the weekend?" Josh says that it was actually just this morning. Donna wonders how a country collapses on a Monday morning. Josh explains, "By not slowly devaluing the peso the way I told them to." Well, actually it was the Treasury Secretary who said that, but Josh was in the room. Josh tells Donna how serious it is, citing several financial indicators of disaster. Donna asks Josh to put it in U.S. terms; he says it would be like a two-thousand-point drop in the Dow. Just then, Toby comes marching in, pissed about something. Waving a newspaper, he asks Josh, "You saw this?" Josh says he saw it two hours ago, and asks Toby where he's been. Toby hustles past Josh and Donna saying he just got there. Josh says they could be screwed on vouchers. Toby hollers, "We are screwed on vouchers!" Toby wants to know who did whatever it is he's upset about, and Josh tells him to talk to C.J. As he disappears, Toby threatens that "somebody's going to eat this quote!" Josh tells Donna he can't worry about Toby right now, and goes back to the immediate problem, which is that Mexico has thirty billion dollars of foreign loans due this week and they don't have thirty billion dollars. Donna asks what happens now, and Josh starts singing, "Oh, the Wells Fargo wagon is a-coming down the street..." as he enters the Roosevelt Room, which is full of people already. He greets them cheerfully, "Buenos dias, señores y señoras. Let's find some money."
C.J.'s doing a press briefing; she's being peppered with questions regarding the quotation that is upsetting Toby. Apparently a "senior White House official" claimed that the President might be willing to compromise on school vouchers, but C.J. insists to the reporters that the President hasn't turned around on the issue. She moves right along to pass on an announcement from the Coast Guard Marine Safety and Environmental Protection Division. Three hours earlier, a tanker carrying four million gallons of crude oil ran up on a shoal three miles south of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Those who have been paying attention all season will suspect this ship of being one of those in a deal Sam brokered when he was a corporate law drone. All the reporters start clamouring at once, but C.J. says she doesn't have much information. She tells them what she knows, which is that the hull is punctured, it's leaking oil, and has lost 200,000 gallons so far. We switch to Sam in his office, mostly ignoring C.J. on a monitor as he goes about his work. When she mentions that the ship belongs to Kensington oil, and that its name is Indio, suddenly she has Sam's full attention. He doesn't look happy. C.J. continues, explaining that containment booms have been deployed, as Sam calls out to Bonnie to ask what she knows about the oil tanker. She's just hearing about it now. As Ginger breezes through, Sam asks her what she knows; she says it hit Delaware. Sam says, "I'm amazed it found Delaware."













Comments