Wolves-Only Roadway Cost Estimate (Roosevelt Room slide — $900M, S01E05)

An oversized projection/handout staged in the Roosevelt Room dominated by a bold "$900 million" headline. High-contrast type, glossed projection sheen, and black-and-white ledger columns present a fiscal breakdown; inset images of Pluie the wolf and map graphics suggest an 1,800-mile wolves-only corridor. Presenters jab at line items while C.J. scoffs, and the slide remains the visual fiscal anchor when Pluie’s death surfaces.

2 appearances

Purpose

To present the cost estimate and fiscal breakdown for the proposed 1,800-mile wolves-only roadway, used to persuade decision-makers by quantifying the project's price tag.

Significance

Functions as the narrative's fiscal anchor: it transforms a moral conservation appeal into a political calculation, provokes C.J.'s immediate budgetary rejection (favoring schools), and visually embodies the collision between advocacy idealism and electoral pragmatism.

Appearances in the Narrative

When this object appears and how it's used

2 moments

S1E5 · The Crackpots and These Women

Pluie Pitch — Wolves-Only Roadway vs. Political Reality

An oversized slide with a bold "$900 million" headline is invoked/projectioned as the financial pivot; the figure provides the leverage for C.J.'s political rebuke and reframing of priorities toward schools.

Before: Prepared as part of the presenters' packet; ready to be shown to justify costs.

After: Shown and instantly weaponized in political terms; verbally rejected by C.J. as an inappropriate taxpayer expense.

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S1E5 · The Crackpots and These Women

Pluie's Death and C.J.'s Political Reframe

A projected cost estimate (the $900 million number) is introduced verbally as the fiscal anchor of the proposal, transforming idealistic talk into a concrete budgetary proposition that C.J. seizes on to reframe the matter politically.

Before: Held as a rhetorical or slide element to justify scale; not yet the focus.

After: Becomes the center of the exchange as C.J. ridicules and reassigns it to alternate spending priorities, deflating the pitch.

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