Nominations for the Oscars are announced on Tuesday and “Oppenheimer,” a film about the father of the atomic bomb, is expected to be among the front-runners. 

Catie Edmondson, a congressional correspondent for The Times, explains how the film sent her on a quest to find the secret story of how Congress paid for the bomb, and what it reveals about the inner workings of Washington.  

Guest: Catie Edmondson (https://www.nytimes.com/by/catie-edmondson) , a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Watching “Oppenheimer,” a journalist wondered: How did the president get the $2 billion secret project past Congress? (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/us/politics/atomic-bomb-secret-funding-congress.html)
• What to expect (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/22/movies/oscar-nominations-2024.html) from the Oscar nominations.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily (http://nytimes.com/thedaily?smid=pc-thedaily) . Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.